Microsoft Acquires Yammer

Story first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to buy corporate social-network operator Yammer Inc. for $1.2 billion in cash to help it woo businesses with Facebook-like tools that help employees collaborate in the workplace.

San Francisco's Yammer will become part of Microsoft's Office division, and the team will continue to report to the Yammer Chief Executive Officer the companies said Monday, confirming earlier reports of the sale. Yammer was founded in 2008 by the former chief operating officer at PayPal Inc.

Yammer provides features - similar to those found on Facebook - to more than 200,000 companies such as Ford Motor Co. and eBay Inc. The purchase will help Microsoft compete with corporate social features like Salesforce.com Inc.'s Chatter product, as well as startups such as Jive Software Inc. and Asana Inc., run by a Facebook co-founder.

The Yammer deal follows other recent enterprise software purchases centered on social media. San Francisco's Salesforce.com gained social-marketing tools through its $745 million purchase of Buddy Media Inc. earlier this month, and Redwood City's Oracle Corp. recently bought two companies that analyze data on social-media sites. Those are Vitrue Inc. and Collective Intellect Inc.

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Facebook Adds Woman to Board

Story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

The No. 2 executive at Facebook Inc. has made it a mission to tell women that they can have it all. Now she has added one more résumé item to help her lead by example: a board seat at the social network.

On Monday, Facebook named her as the eighth member of its board. In doing so, the Menlo Park, Calif., company answered criticism by diversifying its all-male board with a high-profile female executive.

Her appointment comes amid intensified efforts to increase the number of women on American corporate boards. Their ranks have grown fairly slowly for years. Women accounted for about 16% of directorships at Fortune 500 companies last year, according to Catalyst, a New York group that researches women's issues. On the other hand, big businesses rarely put more than one insider on their boards.

Facebook's move gives her—who is frequently on the wish list of companies seeking to name a new chief executive—a voice at the highest echelons of the social network.

In a statement, the Facebook CEO Mark played up her importance to the company. He called her his "partner" and said she has been essential to Facebook's "growth and success."

She joined Facebook as its chief operating officer from Google Inc. in 2008, and was deeply involved in the social network's recent initial public offering and has helped build the company's online ad business.

In February, a California State Teacher's Retirement System's director of corporate governance, wrote a letter to the Facebook CEO saying that they are disappointed that Facebook's board will not have any women. The letter said evidence has shown that boards perform better when they are more diverse.

The board appointment on Monday alleviates that image but didn't quell all the critics. An author of several governance books, said since the CEO currently holds about 57% of Facebook's voting power, the company needs to go the extra mile to demonstrate its (board's) independence. In making this new appointment, Facebook is reaffirming its commitment to clubbiness with this choice because she's an insider.

Still, the appointment is likely to have the effect of keeping the executive—who is worth $1.4 billion from her 44 million shares of Facebook restricted shares and options—deeply vested in the social network. She has been wooed for CEO jobs in the tech and media worlds, say recruiters.

She appeared on a wishlist for the New York Times Co. chief executive position, according to a person familiar with the matter, which the company has been trying to fill since its former CEO retired in December. But "she was never approached" by the Times, another person familiar with the matter said.

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Nothing Seriously Wrong with Google CEO

Story first appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek.

The Google Inc. Chief Executive Officer, who is avoiding speaking in public, told employees that there is nothing seriously wrong with him in an e-mail, according to a person familiar with the matter.

He made the comment to employees June 21, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

The Executive Chairman said the same day at a meeting with shareholders that the CEO had lost his voice and wouldn’t speak at the gathering or two more public events, including the call with analysts next month to review second- quarter results.

The CEO can’t do any public speaking for the time being, but will continue to run the company.

The announcement may raise some questions among investors, given the time that he won’t be speaking. While Google hasn’t announced the day for the next call with analysts, the company held the conference call last year on July 14 for its second-quarter results.

There is no specific reason to think there is anything more to his condition, but investors find it odd that the company would already rule him out of the 2Q call which is likely still a few weeks away.

Shares Rise
The Mountain View, California-based company’s shares rose 1.1 percent yesterday to close at $571.48. The stock is down 12 percent for the year.

In addition to the shareholders’ meeting and the call with analysts, the CEO won’t be able to speak at next week’s annual developers conference in San Francisco.

Health issues for the CEO are always a delicate balance between privacy issues for Page versus providing information to shareholders. At some point, the shareholders need to be satisfied that the board of directors has a good grasp on this issue and are taking the necessary steps to make sure Google is being adequately managed.

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Facebook Settles Likeness Suit

Story first appeared in Reuters.

Facebook Inc has agreed to pay $10 million to charity to settle a lawsuit that accused the site of violating users' rights to control the use of their own names, photographs and likenesses, according to court documents made public over the weekend.

The lawsuit, brought by five Facebook members, alleged the social networking site violated California law by publicizing users' "likes" of certain advertisers on its "Sponsored Stories" feature without paying them or giving them a way to opt out, the documents said.

A "Sponsored Story" is an advertisement that appears on a member's Facebook page and generally consists of another friend's name, profile picture and an assertion that the person "likes" the advertiser.

The settlement was reached last month but made public this weekend. Facebook declined to comment on Saturday.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, California, could have included nearly one of every three Americans, with billions of dollars in damages, according to previous court documents.

In the lawsuit, the Facebook Chief Executive was quoted as saying that a trusted referral was the "Holy Grail" of advertising.

In addition, the lawsuit cited comments from the Facebook chief operating officer, saying that the value of a "Sponsored Story" advertisement was at least twice and up to three times the value of a standard Facebook.com ad without a friend endorsement.

The U.S. District Judge said the plaintiffs had shown economic injury could occur through Facebook's use of their names, photographs and likenesses.

California has long recognized a right to protect one's name and likeness against appropriation by others for their advantage.

The settlement arrangement is known as a cy-pres settlement, meaning the settlement funds can go to charity.

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Companies Vie for Popular Domain Suffixes

Story first appeared in USA Today.

The Internet is a step closer to unleashing way more words — sought by the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft — to serve as endings to website addresses.

On Wednesday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) unveiled a list of names and applicants eager to stake a claim on a piece of the Internet, known as a domain.

The new domains would vastly expand the pool of suffixes beyond ".com" and ".net" and perhaps add such new Web address endings as ".baby," ".apple," ".google" or ".sex." Companies anted up $185,000 per domain to apply for naming rights.

If approved, it would be the first time companies can grab a moniker or product-related name in the Web address slot. ICANN, which oversees the process, plans to approve applications for these new domains within a year or so.

Apple has applied only for ".apple," while Google, Amazon and Microsoft have gone after multiple product names. Among many names, Amazon is going after ".book," ".circle," ".news," ".author" and the name of its popular Kindle Fire tablet with ".fire." Microsoft is seeking to acquire its search engine Web address suffix with ".bing" and its e-mail service ".hotmail," along with other products.

Of course, competition means there are some companies that will get into fisticuffs over words.

Some domain names have more than one applicant. For example, software giant Microsoft is going after ".docs" in a move that pits it against Google, which wants to protect Google Docs, its free online documents, spreadsheets and presentation software that challenges Microsoft's Office.

Google has been particularly aggressive in seeking new domains, applying for ".android," ".app," ".blog," ".buy," ".corp" and more than 100 more.

There's a wider digital land grab at stake. There are multiple applicants for popular words ".app," ".blog," ".buy" and ".corp."

ICANN, which has received 1,930 applicants, will have to sort out whose claims are strongest. A 60-day period for anyone to submit comments and objections began Wednesday. Those who object to applications have seven months to file complaints.

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