| January 18, 2005 | "Your little yellow smiley face needs some gray time." |
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"Your little yellow smiley face needs some gray time." This is what Donald Trump told Yahoo's COO Dan Rosensweig via a pre-recorded video segment shown on a large screen during our company All-Hands meeting today. The Donald was razzing DanR (as he is called) for being online all the time and "annoying your employees by pinging them at all hours." The quote -- "your little yellow smiley face needs some gray time" -- refers to the little smiley face icon that appears in someone's Yahoo! Messenger buddy list to indicate whether or not the person is online and "available." Your Yahoo! Messenger smiley face "goes gray" when you go offline and sign-off (or when you're being stealthy and hiding from someone). This is my favorite new catch-phrase, and honestly I think I love it so much because my freakin smiley face needs to get some gray time. Raj Bhakta, the overly exhuberant Cassanova from last season of "The Apprentice" (who memorably tried to ask out Anna Kournikova on the tennis court during one episode) also spoke at our All-Hands and hit on our CFO Sue Decker. "I've heard you're the 48th Most Powerful Woman in business," he told her on stage. "And, you know, power is a strong aphrodesiac." "She's married!" yelled several folks from the audience. Egads. "Why the heck did you have all this "Apprentice" stuff at your company meeting?" you might ask. Well, Yahoo! has this deal with "The Apprentice" that was made last season: we host the official web-destination where you can go to find all of the extra behind-the-scenes video clips. And so, our company All-Hands became sort of like a commercial for the new season of "The Apprentice." They showed us a teaser/preview of the second episode in which the task is for the two teams of contestants to re-model a Jersey Shore motel and then guests stay there and use Yahoo! Local to rate the hotel experiences. I used to feel like I was living inside a cartoon; lately I feel like I'm living inside a commercial. At least it's one of those expensive, attention-grabbing Super Bowl commercials, but still. Labels: apprentice, quotes, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 7:16 PM 
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