Yahoo results show mixed picture forCEO Marissa Mayer

Yahoo said Tuesday its second-quarter profit rose sharply from a year ago, but revenues lagged, offering a mixed picture for chief executive Marissa Mayer's turnaround efforts. 

Net profit rose 46 percent from a year ago to $331 million, slightly better than expected, but revenues excluding payments to partners fell one percent to $1.07 billion, the Internet giant said. 

"I'm encouraged by Yahoo's performance in the second quarter. Our business saw continued stability, and we launched more products than ever before, introducing a significant new product almost every week," said Mayer. 

Mayer cited the company's new Yahoo News, the new Yahoo Sports app , the redesigned Yahoo search , the new Flickr , the new Yahoo Mail for tablet, the Yahoo Weather app , and the company's new Yahoo app with Summly . "This quarter drove tremendous improvements in our product line and our users responded with increased usage and engagement," she said. 

She said the quarter was "one of the most productive in the history of Yahoo" The company's strategy is based on "people and products, then traffic and revenue," she said, and that traffic is now growing again. 

Mayer was hired from Google a year ago to help turn around the Internet pioneer, which had seen its fortunes fade. Since then, Yahoo has been on a buying spree, and has also sold shares in China's Alibaba to boost its cash. Its most publicized deal was a billion- dollar acquisition

Yahoo buys social Web browser-maker Rockmelt

Yahoo has acquired Rockmelt, a Silicon
Valley startup that built a Web browser
tied to Facebook's social network.
Terms of the deal announced Friday
weren't disclosed. It's the 20th
acquisition that Yahoo Inc. has
completed since Marissa Mayer became
the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's CEO
nearly 13 months ago.
Rockmelt has raised about $40 million
from venture capitalists and other
investors since its inception. That makes
it likely Yahoo had to be above that
amount to buy Rockmelt.
Most of Yahoo's purchases have been
for relatively small amounts of money.
There has been one notable exception
so far: Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition
of Internet blogging service Tumblr
.
Rockmelt unveiled its Facebook-focused
Web browser in late 2010, but it never
gained traction. The Mountain View,
Calif., startup later introduced a
version designed for smartphones and
tablets.
Some of that technology could help
Yahoo in its effort to bring in more
traffic and revenue from mobile
devices, one of Mayer's top priorities.
Most of the other startups snapped up
by Mayer also have been focused on
mobile computing.
Although small, Rockmelt attracted a
fair amount of attention because of
its pedigree. The company's financial
backer include Web browser Marc
Andreessen, who has established
himself as one of Silicon Valley's top
venture capitalists since first making
his mark as a co-founder of Netscape
Communications.
Two of Rockmelt's top executives, Tim
Howes and Eric Vishria, formerly
worked with Andreessen. Both of them
are joining Yahoo.