In brief: Yahoo predicts rosy future

NEWS Yahoo said it expects operating margins to rise to between 30 and 36 per cent by the third quarter of next year, from its current level of 22 per cent. Chief executive, Tim Koogle, said he plans to use the strength of the Yahoo brand to turn the portal site - which attracts over 40 million unique viewers a month - into a Mecca for ecommerce users. Meanwhile, US reports claim that Yahoo is in talks with Compaq - which has recently acquired the AltaVista Internet search engine - with a view to exchanging Yahoo content for equity in AltaVista.