Terry Semel took his glasses off, then he put them on again. Then he took them off. On again. Off. On, off. On.

He paced the stage. He paused to regard the crowd. About 150 people were out there, taking their seats. They looked pretty glum.

The colors didn't help. At Yahoo, which Semel runs as chairman and chief executive officer, the corporate color is purple. Here in this small banquet hall in Santa Clara, California, the bunting was purple, the draperies were purple, and the table skirts were purple too. The signs were purple, as were the balloons and the mood lighting. The thick, pleated curtain hanging behind Semel, however, was inky black, a kind of theatrical frame for the C.E.O., whose performance at this, the company's 2007 annual meeting, would later be webcast.

Perhaps a video would lighten the room's unfortunate funereal look. The one that Semel started up showed edgy but squeaky-clean young people performing odd but well-timed body movements to a sanitary, unthreatening hip-hop beat. At regular intervals, the video promoted Yahoo's many services. In one segment, close-ups of the 64-year-old Semel showed him being a good sport, attempting the Yahoo yodel.

The real Semel grinned, amused at his televised image. The older members of the company's board of directors, men in dark suits, sat squeezed shoulder to shoulder in a tight row of chairs, stone-faced. The attendees—shareholders, executives, members of the press—remained expressionless.

Well, that didn't work. And what could? These are dark days for Yahoo. Once one of the internet's highest flyers, the company has fallen so far behind Google, and social networks such as MySpace and Facebook are coming up so fast from behind, that shareholders and industry analysts are already talking about Semel's replacement.

Semel's expression soured when Eric Jackson, owner of 96 shares, approached the microphone. Jackson had used a blog and YouTube video to unite 100 investors, holding 2 million shares, in a pledge to vote against reappointing Semel and seven other directors to the board.