Ahh, I see Yahoo has reorged while I flew home. It’s all over TechMeme. My analysis? Yahoo’s struggling to figure out how to monetize its users. I feel for them. Google disrupted Yahoo by going with text-ads and turning down the billions in banner advertising that was out there. Yahoo, like Microsoft, is struggling to deal with that disruption.
Trick is, I’m willing to click on blue-underlined content. Steve Broback noted this way back in 2000 when I still worked at Fawcette. The world hasn’t changed since then. I filter banner ads out. I don’t even see them. I certainly don’t take action based on them. Little blue underlined text? Much better cause it gets you to click. To take action. And they are easier to put next to content that makes sense.
Yahoo has two things going for it. 1) Audience. I watch how people use computers and they still go to Yahoo. A lot. 2) Brand. They have new hot brands like Flickr and Del.icio.us along with big old brands like Yahoo itself.
I wonder, though, if it’s too late to give up banners and go text-ads ala Google style? It probably is for Yahoo. And the hottest advertising market in 2007 are going to be in video and mapping. Both places that Yahoo isn’t really known for.
Translation: they might be reorging the chairs on the deck, but fundamentally Yahoo isn’t making the kinds of Google-stopping moves it needs to make.
Scobleizer 
Is stopping Google the only way Yahoo! can survive?
LikeLike
Is stopping Google the only way Yahoo! can survive?
LikeLike
Yahoo! is known for the rich media content ads. You saying that Yahoo! isn’t really known for video/mapping ads is not true. If you see the front page or for that matter any other Yahoo! property, you will see many rich media content ads flashing everywhere. Yahoo! local is integrated with Yahoo! Maps, so it flickr etc. Google has not won the war in the text ad. They are the leaders now because they came in first and took the market share. Too sad that Yahoo! did not looked at the text ad opportunities early enough. But since Yahoo! and Microsoft both are looking at this field, Google is feeling the pressure . Google know that they need to do something else to be in the business.
They have tried many things for now. But not yet successful in it. For example, take Google Mail, Google Finance, Google News etc. According to me, Google Maps is the only thing which is able to hold its position. But they do not have personalization in the Google Maps. That is going to show the effect sooner or later. People want to save address instead of typing over and over again. It is true for Google Finance too. G! Finance is far below the chart.
All the products google released just created the hype and went down the drain. Google base, Google pages are few of them too. UI wise they seem good with AJAX and what not. But are they useful. No.. Not for me.. And I believe not for many others too…
LikeLike
Yahoo! is known for the rich media content ads. You saying that Yahoo! isn’t really known for video/mapping ads is not true. If you see the front page or for that matter any other Yahoo! property, you will see many rich media content ads flashing everywhere. Yahoo! local is integrated with Yahoo! Maps, so it flickr etc. Google has not won the war in the text ad. They are the leaders now because they came in first and took the market share. Too sad that Yahoo! did not looked at the text ad opportunities early enough. But since Yahoo! and Microsoft both are looking at this field, Google is feeling the pressure . Google know that they need to do something else to be in the business.
They have tried many things for now. But not yet successful in it. For example, take Google Mail, Google Finance, Google News etc. According to me, Google Maps is the only thing which is able to hold its position. But they do not have personalization in the Google Maps. That is going to show the effect sooner or later. People want to save address instead of typing over and over again. It is true for Google Finance too. G! Finance is far below the chart.
All the products google released just created the hype and went down the drain. Google base, Google pages are few of them too. UI wise they seem good with AJAX and what not. But are they useful. No.. Not for me.. And I believe not for many others too…
LikeLike
J.D.: we’re not talking about survival here. We’re talking about whether they’ll grow and their stock will go up and whether their executive team will stay in place (if your stock doesn’t go up eventually investors get restless and kick you out).
LikeLike
J.D.: we’re not talking about survival here. We’re talking about whether they’ll grow and their stock will go up and whether their executive team will stay in place (if your stock doesn’t go up eventually investors get restless and kick you out).
LikeLike
agree with your final comment – this is simply a reshuffling, and in my opinion largely political. yahoo has been reorged more times than yugoslavia. this particular instance is the inevitable fallout of a matrix-managed organization dealing with loss. matrices encourage this type of political activity because you can never serve N bosses equally, it devolves into personality wars. yahoo has become **intensely** poltical, almost soap-opera like. google must be loving this – yahoo will spend 2007 sorting out its deep internal politics while they keep moving forward and raking in cash.
LikeLike
agree with your final comment – this is simply a reshuffling, and in my opinion largely political. yahoo has been reorged more times than yugoslavia. this particular instance is the inevitable fallout of a matrix-managed organization dealing with loss. matrices encourage this type of political activity because you can never serve N bosses equally, it devolves into personality wars. yahoo has become **intensely** poltical, almost soap-opera like. google must be loving this – yahoo will spend 2007 sorting out its deep internal politics while they keep moving forward and raking in cash.
LikeLike
I personally don’t think Yahoo! needs to beat Google in search, or necessarily in the text/banner ad game (at least Google’s version of it).
IMHO, they are in an excellent position to own the personalization and “socialization” (if that’s a word) of content. What I mean by socialization is anytime I want to use the web to **do something with another person(s)** – share a picture, share a bookmark, collaborate with a book club, organize an event, send an email, plan a trip, IM a friend, etc – Yahoo! should provide a mechanism for me to do so. They seem to have the talent and properties to accomplish this. The personalization piece is overlaps here a bit, and they already do a pretty good job with things like My Yahoo, etc.
PS – Robert, I’m heading down to SF Mon/Tues of next week… if you’re around perhaps we can catch up over coffee or drinks?
LikeLike
I personally don’t think Yahoo! needs to beat Google in search, or necessarily in the text/banner ad game (at least Google’s version of it).
IMHO, they are in an excellent position to own the personalization and “socialization” (if that’s a word) of content. What I mean by socialization is anytime I want to use the web to **do something with another person(s)** – share a picture, share a bookmark, collaborate with a book club, organize an event, send an email, plan a trip, IM a friend, etc – Yahoo! should provide a mechanism for me to do so. They seem to have the talent and properties to accomplish this. The personalization piece is overlaps here a bit, and they already do a pretty good job with things like My Yahoo, etc.
PS – Robert, I’m heading down to SF Mon/Tues of next week… if you’re around perhaps we can catch up over coffee or drinks?
LikeLike
Suggest Yahoo to fix their credit card billing process. I was thinking to pay them 20 USD for Yahoo! MailPlus after using them for about 9 years for free – their processing failed to take my money. Authorized – but not processed. Have to wait 30 days for them to be returned back to my bank.
LikeLike
Suggest Yahoo to fix their credit card billing process. I was thinking to pay them 20 USD for Yahoo! MailPlus after using them for about 9 years for free – their processing failed to take my money. Authorized – but not processed. Have to wait 30 days for them to be returned back to my bank.
LikeLike