Since Re/code revealed in weeks ago that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was making a big push to return the company to the search business — rolling back the Silicon Valley Internet giant's departure from technology side with a 10-year search partnership struck with Microsoft in 2009 — sources inside the company have been sending me more details about her plans.
As I previously reported, Mayer is trying to move Yahoo squarely into competition with both Google and Microsoft, in an attempt to regain control over one of its key revenue streams. To do so, she has ordered up two under-the-radar initiatives that could potentially move the company into algorithmic search, as well as search advertising, again.
The internal code names for her not-insignificant efforts — which are not actually being done together, although they are in tandem — are borrowed from sports. In this case, basketball and baseball: Projects Fast Break and Curveball, respectively. Said one source, the projects are being worked in tandem on the organic and monetization sides.
According to people with more detailed knowledge of the plans, Mayer is trying to consolidate it all internally in a plan that is being called the "three S's" — Stream, Shopping and Search. But rather than focusing on the Web and keywords, which Yahoo is contractually bound to allow Microsoft to serve under a 10-year search and advertising partnership deal, Mayer is aiming all this toward mobile and contextual search.
—By Kara Swisher, Re/code.net.
CNBC's parent NBC Universal is an investor in Re/code's parent Revere Digital, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.
