Wenda Harris Millard, president of media for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, slammed her former employer, Yahoo, during a Q&A with search guru John Battelle at a recent industry event, saying that the Web giant has long suffered from a bad case of Google envy. "It's a classic case of forgetting what you're really good at," she said, adding that Yahoo decided to chase Google in the search and contextual ad markets instead of focusing on its dominant position in brand advertising. During her time at Yahoo, where she assumed the role of Chief Sales Officer, Millard helped boost the …

Apple's new 3G model will stem the flow of unlocked iPhones, The Associated Press says, citing the handset's eventual availability in more than 70 countries (the first iPhone was only available in five), as well as the new arrangement under which it will be sold. Indeed, gone are the days when consumers could go to their local Apple Store, buy an iPhone and have it unlocked in a matter of minutes. Now, because AT&T is subsidizing the cost of the phone, consumers will be forced to buy the reduced-price device with a two-year contract and have it activated inside the …

Apple's switch to a subsidy versus a percentage of sales in its partnership with AT&T is an admission that the iPhone has failed to change the mobile wireless industry's business model, according to a Financial Times editorial, which adds that it's also a sensible move. For one thing, the iPhone has not sold particularly well in Europe. That's because European competitors were able to match and then exceed iPhone 1.0's technology while selling their devices at lower, subsidized prices. This is the normal tactic of mobile operators: they offer to subsidize the cost of handsets for consumers in exchange …

Silicon Alley Insider points to a very good reason why Carl Icahn is railing against Yahoo's expensive severance package: If the billionaire investor wins the proxy contest, that would trigger the plan. That means that whatever management moves Icahn makes would cost shareholders more money, placing greater pressure on Yahoo's stock. And since firing "Yahoos" is the first thing Icahn wants to do after assuming control, he now finds himself in a prickly situation. Indeed, SAI's Henry Blodget thinks that Icahn is going to lose this proxy fight because the vulture-billionaire has no real plan for Yahoo other …

Google has taken a big step into the world of market research by allowing users to see the numbers behind the popularity of any given search term in the company's vast database. Users can see the numbers and how they compare to other search terms at Google Trends, and then export the data into a spreadsheet to compare with other data. It used to be that Google Trends users could type in any search term and get a graph showing how frequently that term showed up relative to other terms, but the numbers were missing. Google has remedied that with …