Portal | featured news

Internet giant Yahoo posts a $153m profit in the fourth quarter, but says sales are continuing to fall.

AOL is currently in talks to acquire Mashable, the world's largest technology blog. A sale to the content-obsessed internet company would mean Mashable's 24-year-old founder Pete Cashmore really would have everything.

5 years to the month after it was founded, cross-blog social networking widget MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January, we're hearing from sources close to the project. MyBlogLog is a service that shows blog writers and readers the faces and profile information of other MyBlogLog users that visit their sites.

Yahoo is shutting down its offices, except for "essential functions," from Dec. 25 through Jan. 1, as the Internet company searches for new ways to cut costs during the recession.

Just last week, Aol celebrated its re-emergence as an independently-traded company. But it's one main advantage is that it still commands a large audience, and in fact was the fourth largest Website in the U.S.—until last month. ComScore data for November, 2009 shows that Facebook surpassed Aol with 102.9 million unique visitors in the U.S., versus 99.7 million for Aol.

AOL is in talks to sell its ICQ instant-messaging service to Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, according to people familiar with the matter.

Today, AOL comes back on the NYSE following its spinoff from Time Warner (TMX) — and the one-time Web titan is marking the transition with a rebrand.
Gone is the blue AOL of old, replaced with goldfish, monsters, butterflies and the partially lower case “Aol” branding we previewed previously. These symbols represent themes on the site; pick one to change the color scheme and background.

AOL won't officially become an independently traded company again until December 10 when CEO Tim Armstrong is scheduled to ring the bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Yahoo continues their strategic defeat from the front lines of innovation. Earlier today they announced that they'd be "deeply integrating" with Facebook Connect, allowing Yahoo users "to see your Facebook friends’ activities on Yahoo! and share Yahoo!

Yahoo Inc. is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon in its latest attempt to get people to use its Internet search engine more frequently. Beginning Thursday, Yahoo will mine the short messages posted on Twitter to find fresher information about hot topics. Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. had earlier announced plans to incorporate Twitter messages into search results, but Yahoo said it will be the first among them to include such "tweets" on its main search results.