IGNORE JERRY: Yahoo's Board Is Open To "Dramatic Changes"

  x You have successfully emailed the post. The Yahoo board is open to "dramatic changes," including breaking up the company, selling off pieces, and selling the whole thing, sources tell The Wall Street Journal's M&A reporter Anupreeta Das.

During a company-wide meeting with employees yesterday, Yahoo cofounder, former CEO, and current board member Jerry Yang said that Yahoo is not for sale.

Meanwhile the Yahoo board is close to retaining M&A bank Allen & Co.

Sources think Jerry said this for two reasons:

Yahoo management wants to keep panic out of the herd. The top feels the rank and file will flee if it has to go through another Carol Bartz-like reset.Jerry himself is very resistant to change, and would probably prefer to keep Yahoo indepedent. Remember, he's the one who turned down Microsoft's $40 billion a couple years ago.

As we noted last night, Yahoo's future will likely follow one of three paths.

A top flight technology or media figure like former News Corp boss Peter Chernin or Marc Andreessen could join with a private equity firm like KKR and buy Yahoo and run it or hire someone else to.Yahoo could stay with its current "premier digital media company" strategy and let interim CEO Tim Morse run the thing until it is sold – perhaps to News Corporation. (Yes we're hearing that one again).The board could decide the current strategy won't work, and that Yahoo needs another "turnaround" CEO and it hire someone like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, ex-OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan, or News Corp digital boss Jon Miller. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
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Bank Of America Just Became A Totally Different Beast. Check Out All The Changes (BAC)

Up to 600 branches could close in Bank of America's split into two separate consumer and commercial units, according to CNN.

But that's not the only change apparent at the bank. The restructuring could also cut 30,000 jobs, 10.5% of the bank's employees.

Reports of possible closings and layoffs come on the tail of a major management shakeup that was necessary in order to divide Merrill in half.

Merrill's wealth management division (brokers) will now be part of Bank of America's gigantic consumer division and report to David Darnell. Merrill's institutional investment banking and trading division will now report to Tom Montag. This seems tantamount to cutting the firm in half.

The re-org also saw the departure of Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price, two top officials and the creation of two COO positions where there was none.

The two new COO's will be Tom Montag and David Darnell. 

David Darnell will be overseeing the bank's retail brokerage and consumer units. He started as a credit analyst for the company in 1979. Since then, he's served as executive VP and Commercial Division executive for the bank in Florida, headed consumer and commercial operations in the central U.S., led the bank's Middle Market Banking Group (for four years), and headed a team that took care of all bank services in one in three mid-sized business across the country.

According to Forbes, it's Merrill's old brokers who could be feeling the most sore about Darnell's appointment. Sallie Krawcheck was their advocate at the top, and now they're afraid Darnell will continue to try to change their culture or compensation. To the former he has said little to assuage their fears. To the latter, according to the NYPost, he has already made moves to ensure bankers that their compensation structure would remain untouched.

Tom Montag is responsible for all of the businesses that serve companies and institutional investors. Before that, he was president of Global Banking and Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He joined Merrill in 2008, before its merger with Bank of America.

And before that he was at Goldman Sachs for 22 years, where he held a number of executive positions, including co-head of Asian FICC and Equities and the bank's global securities business. All of that boils down to one e-mail, though -- an e-mail read during a Senate committee hearing where he discussed  "one shitty deal" the bank made on CDO Timberwolf.

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George Lucas Infuriates Fans By Making Even More Changes To Star Wars On Blu-Ray

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With breaking news that an updated version of the original Star Wars trilogy will be released on Blu-ray for the first time September 16th, fans of the series can expect more of the same -- which is to say -- something different.

Once again, Star Wars creator George Lucas is taking advantage of the change in medium to alter the content of his films. This time, the adjustments to the movie include giving puppet Yoda a CGI makeover, CGI Ewok eyes, and the climactic scene in the series' finale -- which now features a few added "No!" exclamations by Darth Vadar, to mirror his outbursts in the more recent prequel, Revenge of the Sith.

Though profits from the release should be huge, hardcore fans are boycotting the new version, citing Lucas' ability to "squeeze more cash out of a film franchise... and he’s at it again." Also, they really hate that he changes the movies they like.

The scene with Darth Vader that rang the fan boy alarm can be seen below [Spoiler alert, we suppose].

Again, this isn't the first time Lucas added and subtracted from his own beloved work, in an attempt to either complete his vision or to put out something else the public will undoubtedly buy. All this is put into even more startling relief by this excerpt, now used by upset fans as an example of great hypocrisy, from a 1988 Congressional testimony by Lucas, where he stated his views on artistic alteration of his favorite films -- which admittedly sounds an awful lot like an indictment of his 2011 self:

“These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with ‘fresher faces,’ or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new ‘original’ negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires….

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be ‘replaced’ by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten…. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.” (via Save Star Wars)

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European Social Media Powerhouse Wikio Changes Name And Focus, Raises Big Round

  x You have successfully emailed the post. Wikio Group, the European social media powerhouse, has a big announcement this morning. It's changing its name and focus and is raising almost $25 million. 

Wikio is a rollup of social media properties by Pierre Chappaz, who previously sold price comparison engine Kelkoo to Yahoo for over $400 million.

The company started out as a Digg-like aggregator but it seems that, as in the US, the aggregator model never broke past a niche appeal to bloggers and tech early adopters. Wikio also acquired Overblog, a popular free blogging service, and announced a plan to start a Demand Media-like product.

Now Wikio is changing its name to Ebuzzing, the social media marketing company it bought and which brought in the lion's share of its business. Ebuzzing brings together brands and bloggers for advertising and promotions. It seems that Wikio (now Ebuzzing) is turning itself into a social media advertising network. 

The pivot was probably at least partially brought on by Google's search algorithm revamp, which cut Wikio's traffic in half.

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