Yahoo and Google: It's All Up to Yang

As Yahoo and Google prepare for a new search-ad deal, it’s all up to CEO Jerry Yang, writes Charles Cooper for CNET. Will Yang be the next Steve Jobs, pulling a struggling company back to the spotlight—or will he fade like his Yahoo predecessors? The afreement "may turn out to be a clever move if it fosters the two companies' respective strength in search and display advertising," Cooper writes.

Can Yang do it? “He's super-smart and knows the company backwards and forwards,” writes Cooper. “But he is not a charismatic leader.” Yang can probably get a Washington go-ahead after antitrust issues are sorted out. And "at least Yahoo has chosen a direction, moving beyond the endless muddling of the last five months." (More Yahoo stories.)