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When a company is stretched that thin, can they really do anything well or do anything profitably? Each of these endeavors YAHOO! undertakes would seem to make it much harder to do anything well. In virtually any one of those 44 businesses, a specialist will kick their butt. Sure, they will generate some revenue streams maybe inch up earnings a little with job cuts and new revenue streams, but in the end where is YAHOO! going? Where will they be in a year?
Unless there is a tremendous rebound in the online ad market YAHOO! will stagnate at best and might become a cheap takeover target but they swallowed some kind of poison pill [cfo.com] to prevent a hostile takeover a while ago so they may not be an attractive one.
Netscape was once far and away the most well known brand on the web, and even they have become a 2and tier "portal". YAHOO! arguably has the number one online brand position now. Will it or anything else enable them to thrive?
More YAHOO! news [cbs.marketwatch.com] here.
Netscape was once far and away the most well known brand on the web, and even they have become a 2and tier "portal". YAHOO! arguably has the number one online brand position now. Will it or anything else enable them to thrive?
in europe i don't think they carry much rate as a brand,
the future for yahoo is milk as much money as possible with increasingly large fees for directory inclusion increasingly relying on a perception that its the place to be listed... when actually large bloated directories are old fashioned. ... users are going to drop off because more sophisticated users will find their services lacking and less sophisticated users are not going to be drawn in due to ...
i know many people who don't realise that they can change the default home page so they forever use freeserve search/portal, yahoo doesn't even get a look in with these people.
also as the desktop gets more integrated with the internet, m$n will become even more important wether anyone likes it or not.
i predict a decline in users, followed more slowly by a decline in take up rate of paid listings... and death!!!
they do say "the star that burns brightest burns shortest"
This is getting pretty interesting.
Sequoia Capital &/or Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers
may have something to say.
Google Board members Michael Moritz and John Doerr are a surprising combination, since the two don’t tend to go for the same projects. For example, Moritz backed Excite@Home and Doerr backed Yahoo! when the two sites started out. source [careers.yahoo.com]
First Google Press Release [google.com]
"We must be more diversified going forward by focusing our efforts, leveraging our core strengths to provide deeper and more valuable solutions for our customers and business partners...It's an evolution, not a night-and-day change."
That sounds like presidential rhetoric....we're going to diversify and focus(???) Though they are going from 44 business units to 6.
Then "Going forward, he said he expects Yahoo to own more content that carries a price tag"
Like what? Save a few, most paid content sites aren't exactly flourishing.
"Semel said his goal is to reduce advertising to 50 percent of the company's overall revenue by 2004"
That should be a breeze, and will carry a positive spin no matter what happens.
"It's (revenue from paid search results) a large business we left on the table for all these years," Semel said. "But it's something we can do ourselves."
Here comes YAHOVERTURE!
Selected Quotes taken from CNET [news.cnet.com]
Ever wonder what Yang and Filo think about all this?
After a time of testing with Overture, Yahoo will try to do a PPC enterprise of their own.
Yahoo will next move to a suscription model, charging for previously free services such as messenger, mailbox, voicechat, etc., emulating AOL. I suspect a cafeteria menu plan, versus the complete bundle.
Next, the $299 "review" fee will become ANNUAL, and since they've laid off so many, editors will be crunched into looking less closely at submissions, yeilding more influence to submitters.
Failing to generate a necessary influx of cash, and alienating both subscribers and webmasters, Yahoo will become a very ripe target for takeover and disassembly by Bill's Gang of hoodlums. </pure speculation></crystal ball>
....Web searches are still the core reason that people log on.Until now, the company has resisted selling search keywords to companies that want their links to come up first when certain terms are entered in the search box. Selling results gives off a whiff of hucksterism, of selling out objectivity for a quick buck. Now, however, sponsored matches are listed first at Yahoo, and they may or may not have anything to do with what you're looking for. Type in "Osama bin Laden," for instance, and if a sponsored match comes up, it is a link to "Topps Enduring Freedom Cards." That's not exactly what most people have in mind.
Yahoo Is Soooo Over [business2.com]
Significant point: Yahoo is sitting on a $1.7 billion cash stockpile
Good article bolstering the 'rock vs hard spot' problems facing Yahoo, but I felt a full disclosure of who owns Business2.0 should have been there. Hint: DNS-03.NS.AOL.COM
It's kind of like watching a pair of grizzlies fighting over salmon at the creek. Or watching plans unfold for the piping of oil from the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean.
As ever, my money's on the PATRIOTs from Redmond. They're East Coast boys at heart and that always goes down well with the hawks running the oil, gun, and drugs club.
They'll let Business2.0 and their sponsors dish the dirt on the target but, as ever, they'll take the prize.
We'd do well to remember that a lot of innocent people got bombed in the Blitz. Pity about Yahoo! though.
To paraphrase Dylan, "They were famous long ago..."
Also, concerning the comment regarding editors looking less closely at submissions. Has anyone had any evidence of this?
I ask, as it is "funny". Recently, a number of friends have had problems getting second sites submitted, or rather admitted. Yet then I came accross a spam / link pop circle of around 30 sites, all in Yahoo, all quite obviously belonging to the same person (not so clever with the whois addresses, nor using different hosters / registras).
Fortunately for me, I am in contact with one of the lawyers in Yahoo. And of course, I brought this to their attention in no uncertain terms. This only happened a few days ago. And although I am still waiting to hear back from them as to whether they are prepared to drop and blacklist the (substantially wealthy and influential) group involved. They certainly appear to have downgraded (to say the very least) the main / culprit sites.
When I spoke to Yahoo Legal on the phone, they were very clear (this was my analogy) they did not want to become the directory model in terms of direction, as AV has become for SE's (remember always swearing AV was the best?). And I think they fully realize the huge implications of becoming the "Spammers Alley" of the directory world (poor old AV, may it rest in pieces).
Once I get a full conclusion on this (yes, I will be asking for an effective designated point of contact for future notifications, if not their own team), if anyone would like a head's up - please let me know.
Slide show [webevents.broadcast.com]
resistence is futile!
We are in BIG trouble if M$ gets involved in national security issues. They can't <or won't> even address server security issues.
As much as I admire Dubya's recent actions, I don't think he even understands the M$ / competition issues, nor does he care.
