Technology August 1, 2008, 8:42PM EST

The annual gathering featured familiar themes, from hopeful strategies to unhappy shareholders, amid little Microsoft fallout

by Robert D. Hof

It’s almost as if the past six months never happened.

Yahoo’s (YHOO) much anticipated annual meeting on Aug. 1 left its current board and co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang intact, in control, and still insisting they can return to contention with runaway rival Google (GOOG). Despite rampant shareholder anger that the Internet icon couldn’t close any of a series of deals with Microsoft (MSFT) since the software giant’s unsolicited $45 billion buyout bid Feb. 1, the long-delayed annual meeting was remarkable mostly for how little happened.

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Henry Blodget | August 1, 2008 10:06 AM

The Yahoo shareholder meeting is likely to be one hell of an anti-climax, but for those who want to watch, here’s the link. It’s starts at 10AM PT.

Yes, shareholders will vent and, yes, Yahoo will elect a few new board members. But the only real drama is who will fill Carl Icahn’s third board seat. The leading candidates, apparently, are Frank Biondi (Ran Viacom a hundred years ago before Sumner Redstone canned him) and John Chapple, the ex head of Nextel.

UPDATE: So it might be a bit more interesting: Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who was supposed to come aboard with Icahn and a candidate to be named later, may be wavering. And it turns out that two of Icahn’s three slots (he’ll get one) don’t have to get filled for up to two weeks following the meeting. So this may drag on a while longer.

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BUSINESSWEEK - Posted by: Rob Hof on August 01

Yahoo’s long-awaited (or long-dreaded) annual shareholders meeting is about to begin, and wireless gods willing, I’ll be liveblogging the proceedings—even if they aren’t expected to be very exciting. You can also watch the Webcast here. Among others, Kara Swisher at Boomtown and Steve Shankland at News.com are liveblogging as well.

There are about 600 chairs in this cavernous ballroom at the San Jose Fairmont. It doesn’t look like they’re going to come even close to getting filled. No doubt Yahoo was thinking a few weeks ago that there might be more drama here.

And we’re underway, with Chairman Roy Bostock at the podium. He introducing other board members who are here: Eric Hippeau, Vyomesh Yoshi, Arthur Kern, Maggie Wilderotter, and of course cofounder and CEO Jerry Yang.

Much more after the jump…

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Michael Learmonth | July 31, 2008 4:05 PM

He’s about to become a Yahoo (YHOO) board member. He owns 5% of the company. Yet Carl Icahn, who led a proxy fight to replace Yahoo board and management, won’t be attending the annual shareholder meeting tomorrow. Why? In a blog post, he says “it will not do shareholders or Yahoo any good to have the annual meeting turn into a media event for no purpose.”

Please. Since when has Carl shied away from media events?

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Dan Frommer | July 28, 2008 2:11 PM

Now that Yahoo has settled with Carl Icahn, there’s no proxy battle drama left for Friday’s annual meeting. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s back to being friends again: Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Management — Yahoo’s second-largest shareholder — is still angry at Yahoo (YHOO) Chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang — and might not vote for them Friday, the New York Post reports: Read the rest of this entry »

International Herald Tribune - Published: July 25, 2008

Steven Ballmer, chief of Microsoft, which has a deal with Facebook. (Gil Cohen Magen/Reuters)

By Brad Stone and Miguel Helft

Microsoft has tried various tactics to expand its share of the lucrative online search business.

It recently failed in its pursuit of Yahoo. It is paying people to use its search engine. Now Microsoft thinks it has found a promising source of users for its foundering search service: Facebook, the social networking site.

Microsoft said Thursday at a meeting with financial analysts at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, that it would soon begin providing Web search services and associated advertisements by the end of the year on the American portion of the popular social network.

The agreement augments an existing advertising deal that the companies struck in 2006 and later expanded globally. Microsoft already sells and manages display advertisements on Facebook. Last October, the companies inched even closer together when Microsoft invested $240 millionfor a 5 percent ownership stake in Facebook.

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FORTUNE - Last Updated: July 24, 2008: 4:58 PM EDT

Steve Ballmer pledges to redouble efforts to go after Google and the online ad market.

By Yi-Wyn Yen, reporter

(FORTUNE) — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put on his game face Thursday and told investors it was imperative for the company to “ante up” in its struggling online business.

During a 1 1/2-hour presentation with Wall Street analysts at the software giant’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Ballmer said the opportunities to make money from the Internet are too big for Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) to ignore. The company has already spent billions in an effort to catch up with Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and he said the company will continue to invest heavily in the search market because it is “the starting point” of the web.

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