Revamped Yahoo Turning To Users

[engine]

Following on from Yahoo reorganizing [webmasterworld.com] news...

Yahoo users will likely see less entertainment programming and more consumer-created content as part of a broad reorganization that funnels more than a dozen product groups into two operational units, experts said on Wednesday.

The company announced late on Tuesday that it was eschewing its product-aligned structure in favor of one focused on users and on advertising customers and partners. As a result, seven product groups are being merged into one group called Audience, and another seven into a group called Advertisers & Publishers. The Technology Group will provide the infrastructure to support the operational groups.

Revamped Yahoo Turning To Users [news.com.com]

[crobb305]

Will Yahoo address webmaster issues such as permanent site penalties, etc? Some of these issues have alienated the webmaster community from Yahoo. Part of their reorganization should take this into consideration.

[trinorthlighting]

Yahoo,

Talk is cheap, actions are meaningful.

By the time they figure out "restructuring" another few months will have passed with no changes.

This is a PR stunt to make wall street happy. Too bad yahoo is a dollar short and a day late.

Face it, yahoo is a thing of the past, what products are they going to offer where people flock to yahoo that google and msn do not already have.

[panic]

Will Yahoo address webmaster issues such as permanent site penalties, etc?

Good luck with it. We've been asking for that since the old Inktomi days.

[weeks]

Y has a good product, but they are not the best in any category. (Or not seen that way--their news pages are first rate, for example. And their email is good.) That's the problem with this web biz--the competitor is just a click away, so second place is a cold place with all of the expenses of the guy in first place.

[phranque]

Yahoo users will likely see less entertainment programming and more consumer-created content as part of a broad reorganization that funnels more than a dozen product groups into two operational units, experts said on Wednesday.

ironically, i saw a live concert by beck last night that was produced by or for y!music.

[mcavic]

yahoo is a thing of the past, what products are they going to offer where people flock to yahoo

The only reason I care about Yahoo is Yahoo Finance. It's the best one-stop site for investment research that I know of. It could still use some work, and I hope they keep it up, as well as other products that are useful and important.

[weeks]

Yahoo and Google are the two top brands of the web. There are no another that even approach it. But, what is that worth today. The "web" is difficult to brand. Apple has taken over music, for example, but just music. There are doubts they will be able to move that success to video/movies. More likely, it will be Netflex or someone we haven't heard of yet.

It SHOULD be Google or Yahoo. But, it is not happening and for reasons I find difficult to put into words, I doubt it will, even with Google's purchase of UTube (but, maybe that's enough).

Why did Google, that had its own strong brand and video technology/network in place, buy UTube? Answer that, and you'll understand the challenge in front of Yahoo. Good luck to them.

[xalex]

I hate the crap, Yahoo put out lately. First the home page, over bloated with advertisement. Now all the web 2.0 stuff everywhere, slow messy and useless. Too bad there isn't any alternative. Yahoo will sink fast when the next big thing comes up.

[magicdan]

so basically no longer a search engine, more a publisher for benefit of ads. There are names for that :)

[weeks]

I don't think that's quite right MagicDan. Search is it. But even if so, there is nothing wrong with publishing and selling ads, and Y has the scale to make it work, if being a channel has any real value in the internet age. On the web, everyone can be a channel easily. So, where is the value.

Users creating content really does not need Yahoo or Google. They are handy, but after a while, they are their own channel. (see rocketboom, for example, or utube, even.)

[handsome rob]

When your cash cow is advertising, it's a bad idea to alienate those who sign the checks. Forcing them to pay for garbage traffic driven by typosquatters and spyware with your hidden "domain match" program when your service offering promises valuable targeted traffic is also unwise. All the new advertising platforms in the world aren't going to fix the issue of your core customers feeling they're being taken advantage of and given a new story every time they call your support reps.

[crobb305]

so basically no longer a search engine, more a publisher for benefit of ads. There are names for that :)

Yeah, and funny how they blindly and ignorantly "ban" sites with affiliate links irrespective of content (at least in the financial sector). How hypocritical. I guess those sites compete with their business model. But, as many of us predicted, their poor business philosophy and treatment of webmasters just might be their downfall. The trends point to that.