Yahoo Inc will form a partnership with reviews provider Yelp Inc to bolster search results and draw users, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.
The US’ biggest Web portal will offer Yelp’s ratings of local merchants, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The companies plan to offer the service within weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing an unnamed person who attended a Yahoo employee meeting.
Yahoo chief executive officer Marissa Mayer is seeking content and features to attract and keep users as it tries to close the gap with Microsoft Corp and Google Inc. The Sunnyvale, California-based company’s share of the search market has dropped by about a half since 2008 to less than 11 percent in December last year, compared with 18 percent for Microsoft and 67 percent for Google, according to ComScore Inc.
Both Sara Gorman, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, and Yelp spokesman Vince Sollitto declined to comment.
While Yahoo gets its main search technology through a multiyear agreement with Microsoft, it provides its own features and interface to tailor services for visitors. Yelp supplies consumer-generated data in the US, Europe and Asia on businesses including restaurants.
Yahoo’s first-quarter sales, excluding revenue passed to partner sites, will be US$1.06 billion to US$1.1 billion, the company said last month. The middle of that range would represent growth of less than 1 percent from US$1.07 billion a year earlier.
Yelp is forecasting full-year net revenue of US$353 million to US$358 million, or about 53 percent growth. It has also made deals with Microsoft and Apple Inc to display information on their services.
While Yahoo’s shares have declined 7.9 percent this year, San Francisco-based Yelp has climbed about 30 percent.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”