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The profit figure is an improvemen on the £200m loss in the same period in 2008, but revenue fell 4% to £1 bn.

Yahoo struggled during the global downturn as advertisers trimmed their budgets. The firm cut more than 2,000 jobs to try to reduce costs.

Shares in Yahoo rose 1% in after-hours trading in New York to $16.17.

“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to 2009, which was a transformative year for Yahoo,” said chief executive Carol Bartz.

“Our business has positive momentum and we feel good as we head into 2010.”

For the whole of 2009, Yahoo made a £598m profit, up 43% on the previous year.

According to the filing:

Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.

At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.

There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.

One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”

With the closing price tonight at $542 (£338) if the full 10 million shares were sold today they would generate around £3.40 billion in cash. However they would still have stock holdings worth approximately another £30 billion.

Its survey suggests that three out of four people have switched at least one product or service in the last two years due to poor service. 

Lifestyle firm WhiteConcierge, which commissioned the study, said the findings suggested that more than 30 consumers were signing up with different companies every minute of the day.

The report found that the worst affected sectors for losing customers over the past two years were motor insurance, electricity and home insurance.

Organisations have to work harder than ever to keep their best customers. Consumers have become increasingly demanding and discerning, and with the rise of price comparison websites for example, it is now much easier to compare and switch products.

The findings have come as no surprise to the CRM community. In the recent tough economic times, service may have been one of the many cutbacks made across the breadth of the organisation. However, service is precisely what will keep current customers and continue to attract new ones.

Much has been made of the birth of ‘Generation Y’-ers – those who multi-task throughout life and communicate with organisations via a multitude of channels. This should strongly underline the need for businesses to reassess their service provision. 

1. Plan your social media strategy for 2010.
Set your 2010 social media goals. Then map out the projects that you’ll need to undertake to achieve your goals. Throughout this process, you will need to start listening to determine which online communities are most important to your business. Your observations will help guide your decisions on how to engage each community most effectively.

2. Offer exceptional products and services.
Social media is simply another tool. If your products and services aren’t great, it’ll be an uphill battle to win. You’ll find yourself firefighting against a tide of negative comments. In social media, you can’t buy reach. You can’t buy market share. You can’t buy advocacy and customer evangelists.

If you want to win, create exceptional products and services that add value and delight customers. That is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get people talking positively about your brand!

3. Focus.
Prioritize to focus your time and energy on the social networks that really matter. Don’t try to be everywhere, do everything and respond to every single discussion – instead, focus on the discussions that will influence other conversations for maximum impact.

4. Create synergy to amplify your marketing messages.
Social media participants are getting savvier by the second. Treat consumers with respect and add value to the communities that you play in. When you add value, your messages will be shared. Take stock of how relevant communities are interconnected, and build your strategy to amplify communication and marketing efforts.

As you contribute content and participate in conversations, link all the disparate sites together to optimize your results.

5. Build your brand using location based social networks.
In 2010, expect to see location based social networks take off, as more customers access the mobile web through their smartphones. This will present a major opportunity for retailers to make their mark on the ‘local’ social web to promote and engage conversations about their brands online.

Smart businesses will get on the bandwagon first with innovative promotions which will not only capture the attention of community members but also the media.

6. Allocate a budget for social media.
Take a step back and rethink how participating in social media will be funded in your organisation. Look at your total mix of marketing spend within traditional activities such as advertising, PR and lead generation. Is social media currently an integrated part of your existing campaigns? Or does it make more sense to bypass the ‘traditional’ marketing outlets and create a separate social media programme? Will you be creating content internally or using external resources and agencies to produce high-quality, engaging content?

7. Reach within your organisation for social networking talent.
As tempting as it is to hire new social marketing specialists to drive and influence online conversations about your brand, don’t overlook the talent that already exists within your company – people who are already in your organisation who are passionate about your product, services and culture. 

According to a survey undertaken by Greenfield Online among 514 consumers, 73% had terminated a relationship in the past because of bad experiences, with the average value of lost sales being £248 per year.

But the report entitled ‘The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience’ also found that younger customers aged between 27 and 43 were 60% more likely to go elsewhere than older ones if dissatisfied with the level of service they received.

It is becoming increasingly crucial for organisations, particularly in service industries such as finance, to ensure they retained customers by providing “exceptional” customer service.

As to what poor customer service actually meant to respondents, the study found that problems could be broken down into several categories: customers having to repeat information; feeling trapped in automated self service systems and being forced to wait too long to receive a service.

Other bugbears included speaking to company representatives who were unaware of their service history and not being able to switch easily between communications channels. Some 41% of those questioned said they were most unhappy with having to use voice-based self-service systems, while 39% said they felt it critical to integrate such systems more intelligently with human interaction.

A huge 83% also said they would welcome proactive help when they became stuck trying to undertake a web transaction or some other form of self-service activity.