Yahoo!'s Interim CEO Doing the Right Things

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Yesterday I tweeted that I think Ross Levinsohn is doing a great job as interim CEO at Yahoo! (YHOO) .

I quickly got a response from tech blogger Om Malik wondering whether Ross had really done that much: "And what exactly is he doing except got the Asian equity selloff. Let's judge him in a year, not in days."

When I responded I thought that was a fair point but the leaked strategy to Business Insider looked like the best I'd seen from Yahoo! since 2006, Om countered: "Leaked strategy is a plan to appease angry investors. Now let's see how well it is executed. Talk is cheap, inaction expensive."

Now, I'll be the first to agree with Om that being a Yahoo! shareholder over about three of those last six years has been extremely frustrating for me. So, I'm very sympathetic to the notion that we'll only be able to truly judge Ross at least after a few quarters are under his belt.

However, I stand by my assertion that I haven't been this excited about the direction Yahoo! is taking in -- well -- never.

So, first let's review the things that have happened since Ross took over that he likely had nothing to do with:

The Alibaba deal. There's no way that Ross could be hired on a Sunday, get himself involved in negotiating the deal and have it agreed to a week later. Kara Swisher of AllThingsD has already reported that Ross wasn't really in the discussions. I've also talked to someone familiar with the talks who said the deal agreed to by both sides was essentially the deal that Tim Morse and Mike Callahan had been working on for Yahoo! when Scott Thompson was still in the picture. Ross credited them on the conference call announcing the deal.

Yahoo! Axis. It's Yahoo!'s new iOS browser released last week -- and it looks good. But it's been in the works for a while.

Cutting Livestand. Yahoo! quietly announced it was killing its competitor for Flipboard after six months. This was probably on the schedule to be cut, but Ross might have had the final say.

Yet, what has Ross accomplished in his short tenure in charge of Yahoo!?

There's clearly improved morale at the company. Partly this is because Thompson and his resume-cloud are gone. But it's also unquestionably because people like Ross. Ross is someone who is great at schmoozing without making you feel like he's insincere. He's great at connecting with people. He's likeable and trustworthy.