By Jarah Euston, Sr. Director of Marketing & Analytics, Flurry from Yahoo
With more than a million apps in the world, U.S. smartphone users spending 88 percent of their time in apps, the unique combination of apps a person has on their phone is like their digital DNA. Understanding app preferences can unlock critical insights to help marketers reach a target audience. Now advertisers can use valuable data on mobile users based on app activity to enhance campaigns on Yahoo Gemini, Yahoo’s mobile search and native marketplace.
Today I’m excited to announce that in addition to Yahoo data, first-party CRM data, and third-party data, advertisers can now use more than 40 Flurry Personas, such as “Business Travelers” and “Social Influencers,” to reach the right mobile audiences through Yahoo Gemini. Flurry Personas are behavioral audience groups based on real app use based on aggregate data from Flurry Analytics. Flurry from Yahoo builds Personas based on users who are particularly heavy users of particular apps.
Today, we’re launching a new login history page to ensure that our
users have full control and transparency into their accounts. The new page
gives users visibility into where their accounts are being accessed from and
provides them the tools to take action when needed.
Visit the new login history page and
sign in with your Yahoo account. Explore the page and see the different devices
and browsers you’ve used to sign into your account.
We hope that our new login history page will help
you have the simplest, safest Yahoo experience.
By Susan Kittenplan, VP & Executive Editor, New Media Initiatives
Spring is here, although it doesn’t quite feel like it in New York yet, but that means we’re getting close to top down car season. With that new car smell, Yahoo Autos is our 13th digital magazine and guides gearheads, first-time car buyers, and everyone in between to the latest information, research, and in-depth videos for all their car needs.
Yahoo Autos puts readers in the driver’s seat with special access to unreleased cars, a redesigned new-car research tool, exclusive interviews, breaking news and more. You can also find Yahoo Autos content within the recently refreshed Yahoo app on iOS and Android, great for on-the-go news and information, especially during auto show season.
Building off our already rich video franchises on other digital magazines, Yahoo Autos plans a healthy slate of weekly Yahoo-exclusive original programming focusing on cars and car culture. To kick things off, we are featuring Michael Conti, a 17-year-old high-school student living with his mom in a New Jersey apartment, who is a NASCAR world champion. He once raced (and beat) Dale Earnhardt Jr. — and yet the fastest car he has ever driven is his dad’s old Chevy Impala. However, Conti’s racing successes are entirely virtual.
Yahoo Autos has a very talented team in place, including Managing Editor Justin Hyde, Editor at Large Alex Lloyd and Road Test Editor Aki Sugawara. The Autos magazine features regular original videos, photography and stories from a host of automotive experts.
We recently gave the Yahoo app on iPhone a new look and we’ve heard great
feedback from our community. Today,
we’re bringing that same refined and vibrant experience to Android users in the
U.S. We’ve added interactive features, such as photo slideshows, community polls,
and an image slider that allows you to see photos transform before your eyes,
to make our 12 digital magazines even more engaging. For example:
Swipe
through a slideshow on Yahoo Politics featuring compelling images from Iowa as
America’s heartland approaches
election year.
Discover Jennifer
Lawrence’s transformation from beautiful actress to blue-skinned mutant for her
character Mystique in X-Men on Yahoo
Movies by swiping the image slider from right to left.
Vote
for your favorite social media platform on Yahoo Tech. Which is it - Periscope
or Meerkat?
In addition to these engaging features,
we have brought our award-winning Yahoo Weather and Yahoo News Digest content
to the top of the All Stories and News streams, respectively. Want to keep an
eye on the stocks you follow? Swipe to the finance stream and you’ll find them
at the top if you’re signed in. If you’re not, the Market Movers will be
displayed at the top.
Android users in the U.S. should update
the Yahoo app today to enjoy our new look and interactive experience! It’s also
available to download for free in Google Play.
We’re focused on bringing Yahoo back to greatness and a critical part of that mission rests on our ability to attract and retain the best talent. In the last two and a half years, we’ve worked hard to make Yahoo a desirable place to work and I’m immensely proud of how far we’ve come. I’m excited to announce that Bryan Power is joining Yahoo as our new SVP of Human Resources (HR). Bryan will focus on our culture and continuing to drive excellence and innovation inside Yahoo.
Bryan has just the right blend of experience, vision and passion for people to evolve Yahoo’s cultural transformation. He brings with him over 15 years of HR experience leading organizational change with a focus on recruiting, employee programs and operations. Bryan comes to us from Square where he was responsible for its People operations and scaling the company as it grew its presence globally. Prior to Square, Bryan spent many years at Google where he led and managed teams around the world and earned himself a reputation as a trusted partner and thought leader.
I’d like to thank Jackie Reses for leading our HR efforts in the last two and a half years - her contributions have been immensely valuable in our continuing pursuit to make Yahoo the absolute best place to work. Going forward, Jackie will focus her full attention in continuing to lead Yahoo’s corporate development and partnership efforts, both of which are critical areas as we accelerate our transformation and the growth of our growth businesses - mobile, social, native and video (“Mavens” for short).
We are extremely proud of the business and cultural renaissance that we have been able to achieve so far and look forward to continuing our commitment to investing in the most important assets that we have - our employees.
Today we’re issuing our fourth transparency report, continuing our efforts to provide as much information as we can about government requests for our users’ data and government requests to remove content.
This latest transparency report contains information covering the last six months of 2014 (July 1 - December 31, 2014). This includes National Security Letters (NSLs) and criminal data requests (such as search warrants, court orders, and subpoenas issued in criminal investigations). FISA requests included are from January 1 - June 30, 2014, as they are subject to a six-month delay imposed by the U.S. Government.
At Yahoo, users always come first. We evaluate each government request with a focus on minimizing disclosure of user data and we publish a transparency report to promote accountability and transparency.
As we note in our transparency report, we’ve encrypted many of our most important products and services to protect against unauthorized access by governments or other actors. We recently rolled out an end-to-end (e2e) encryption extension for Yahoo Mail, now available on GitHub.
Our goal is to provide an intuitive e2e encryption email solution for all of our users by the end of 2015. We will continue our efforts to protect your information from unclear, improper, overbroad or unlawful government requests.
We’re in the middle of an anomaly. It’s March Madness and that means that we’re seeing an abnormally large amount of traffic to Yahoo Fantasy Sports. We anticipated this anomaly (and you probably could have guessed it too)–but…
By Alex Stamos, Chief Information Security Officer
At Yahoo, we’re committed to creating a safe and secure platform our users can trust. That’s why I’m excited to share that we’ll be hosting the “Yahoo Trust UnConference” at our San Francisco office on Saturday, April 25, 2015 from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM PT.
The Yahoo Trust UnConference will feature engaging talks from industry experts and academics with the goal of strengthening the community dedicated to building products that are safe and trustworthy for every user. We’ll bring together people with an interest or expertise in cryptography, web standards for security, anonymity protocols, browser security, and product security. And of course we welcome anyone who is generally interested in technical solutions that enhance user privacy.
So come join us! RSVP here. The full cost of every ticket will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world.
Similar to what we saw in the 90s, with telcos getting into the credit card business, today we’re seeing messaging apps get into the retail banking business. In the past few months, SnapChat and Facebook Messenger have announced payments, the…
It’s an exciting day at Yahoo! Today we are launching Yahoo Politics, our 12th digital magazine, and it arrives at the perfect time, just as the 2016 campaign is getting underway.
Garance Franke-Ruta will serve as the magazine’s editor-in-chief, with guidance from me and Yahoo News Deputy Editor Dan Klaidman.
Yahoo Politics will feature regular bylines from Yahoo News’ world-class editorial team including National Political Columnist Matt Bai, Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff, Chief Washington Correspondent Olivier Knox, Senior Political Reporter Jon Ward and Congressional Correspondent Meredith Shiner. National Correspondent Lisa Belkin, West Coast Correspondent Andrew Romano, national correspondents Holly Bailey and Alyssa Bereznak, and Senior National Affairs Writer Liz Goodwin will also be regular contributors.
Yahoo Politics will also feature regular video franchises and newsmaker interviews from Global News Anchor Katie Couric, produced by Tony Maciulis and the great Yahoo Studios team.
At Yahoo Politics, we plan to make news, break news and start conversations. And, in an era when so many people feel disconnected from the political process, we will offer readers context and perspective on the political world and what it means to them.
By Ian Moffitt, Senior Director of Programming, Strategy & Acquisition, Yahoo Screen
March isn’t just about Cinderellas and bracket busters this year, it’s also about Sin City Saints, a new scripted comedy series about the triumphs, travails and transgressions of a Las Vegas pro basketball team. Launching during one of the most exciting times of basketball every year, the full series premieres today exclusively on Yahoo Screen, with eight episodes starring Malin Akerman, Tom Arnold, Andrew Santino, Rick Fox, and Baron Davis.
Sin City Saints is from executive producer Mike Tollin (One Tree Hill, Smallville, Varsity Blues), executive producer and director Bryan Gordon (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Party Down) and executive producer and writer Chris Case (Legit, Retired at 35, Titus).
Yahoo Screen is available for free through the Yahoo Screen App for iOS and Android, on connected devices including Apple TV, Roku, XBox, Tivo and at http://screen.yahoo.com. Sin City Saints is available on Yahoo Screen in the U.S. starting today and will be available Internationally later in the year. For more information, http://originals.yahoo.net
The recent acquisition of BrightRoll has
dramatically strengthened Yahoo’s video advertising stack. As BrightRoll closes
in on its first 100 days as part of the Yahoo family this month, we’re excited
to share a major milestone.
Today we announced the availability of Yahoo Audience Ads data on
the BrightRoll Demand Side Platform (DSP). Advertisers and agencies running
programmatic video campaigns with BrightRoll can now access exclusive Yahoo
audience data to target consumers across all addressable video supply, on and
off Yahoo owned and operated (O&O) sites. This is unique to the industry,
as no other company of Yahoo’s scale makes their data available for audience
targeting outside their walled garden of O&O properties.
Check out the press release for more information on this
announcement.
Community is here! We are so proud to bring season six to Community fans and introduce the series to new fans across Yahoo. The first two episodes are now exclusively on Yahoo Screen for your viewing pleasure. Check back each Tuesday for a new episode.
Yahoo Screen is available for free through the Yahoo Screen App for iOS and Android, on connected devices including Apple TV, Roku, and XBox. For more information check out Yahoo Originals.
We’ve all been there…you’re logging into your email and you panic because you’ve forgotten your password. After racking your brain for what feels like hours, it finally comes to you. Phew!
Today, we’re hoping to make that process lessanxiety-inducing by introducing on-demand passwords, which are texted to yourmobile phone when you need them. You no longer have to memorize a difficult
password to sign in to your account - what a relief!
We’ve made the steps easy to follow - check them
out below.
1)
Sign in to your Yahoo.com account.
2)
Click on your name at the top right corner to go
to your account information page.
3)
Select “Account Security” in the left bar.
4)
Click on the slider for “On-demand passwords” to
opt-in.
5)
Enter your phone number and Yahoo will send you a
verification code.
6)
Enter the code and voila!
And the next time you sign-in, we’ll send a
password to your phone when you need it to log in. On-demand passwords is now
available for U.S. users. Try it out today!
By Alex Stamos, Chief Information Security Officer
At Yahoo, we’re committed to protecting our users’ security. That’s why I’m so proud to share some updates on our latest security innovation: an end-to-end (e2e) encryption extension for Yahoo Mail.
Just a few years ago, e2e encryption was not widely discussed, nor widely understood. Today, our users are much more conscious of the need to stay secure online. There is a wide spectrum of use for e2e encryption, ranging from the straightforward (sharing tax forms with an accountant), to the potentially life-threatening (emailing in a country that does not respect freedom of expression). Wherever you land on the spectrum, we’ve heard you loud and clear: We’re building the best products to ensure a more secure user experience and overall digital ecosystem.
While at this stage we’re rolling out the source code for feedback from the wider security industry, our goal is to provide an intuitive e2e encryption solution for all users by the end of the year. Below is a video we demo’d at SXSW that shows what our common sense solution to encryption will look like in Yahoo Mail:
We constantly iterate on our products to provide the best possible experience for our users – and our security features are no exception. To that end, we’ve released the first Yahoo specific e2e encryption extension source code onGitHub. We encourage other mail providers to build compatible solutions, and for security researchers to take a look and report any potential vulnerabilities they find via our Bug Bounty program.
We’d like to thank our partners at Google for their invaluable contribution and we look forward to our continued collaboration.
