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Whenever I see a struggling company like this I ask myself the simple question. If the company didn't exist, would there be a need to create it? In the case of

Whenever I see a struggling company like this I ask myself the simple question. If the company didn't exist, would there be a need to create it? In the case of Yahoo I think the answer is no. If they disappeared tomorrow there would be no compelling reason for others to try and fill the gap it left behind. Hell, I doubt most people would even noticed they had gone. So they need to build a new business from the dying ashes of the current revenue. At the moment it does not look like the CEO has any good ideas on how to do that.

DannoHung 11y ago
I object only on the grounds that Flickr is the only good photo site for people who really care about their photos. Having tried to use 500px for a few months, they cannot even manage to do album privacy correctly.
- zanny 11y ago
  I just use imgur. Am I doing something wrong?
  - ghaff 11y ago
    I don't think you're doing something wrong but I think you're doing something differently from a Flickr Pro subscriber who is using the site to store curated high quality photos online.
  - EdiX 11y ago
    Imgur will aggressively recompress any image above 5MB. A few years ago it used to be even worse.
- crucifiction 11y ago
  SmugMug
- jinst8gmi 11y ago
  That, and I'd be disappointed that my email account would vanish, along with years worth of mail.
  - kev6168 11y ago
    I lost 4 years' emails (1998-2002) because my account was inactive for a mere 6 months! Contacted Yahoo in 2002 but couldn't get my emails back.
    - jinst8gmi 11y ago
      Ouch! Do they have any facility that I can use to back-up/archive my email externally?
      - kev6168 11y ago
        You can guess I haven't used their services since then, not sure if they let you do that easily now.
        jinst8gmi 11y ago
        Yes, good point :)
      - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
        I also have a Yahoo account, but i haven't tried to back it up externally. Previously their paid product was called Mail Plus, and that was the only way you could get mail out in bulk. But a while ago they made a change. From an article I just found: What Yahoo does not mention is that Pop3 access is now available as well. While I cannot say if it was enabled previously for free users, I know for a fact that it was limited in the past to paying Yahoo Mail users. That doesn't say anything about IMAP, but I know that is also possible nowadays. I think they had to add that feature. E.g. my wife accesses her Yahoo Mail from her iPhone. Without IMAP, how could she get her messages? (Rhetorical question. Rhetorical answer: she couldn't!). http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/08/yahoo-mail-plus-turns-yahoo-ad-free-mail-relevant-changes-explained/ http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/08/yahoo-mail-plus-turns-yahoo...
- test1235 11y ago
  I had such high hopes for 500px when I tried to switch over a year (I even paid upfront before fully testing it). The features just didn't compare to Flickr. On the other hand, Flickr's admin UI starting to fill up with crap I don't about, like creating mugs and books and shit. Fair enough, they're trying to make money, but that stuff has no place on the main interface. It's still the easiest place for me to store and share photos, however.
akg_67 11y ago
> If the company didn't exist, would there be a need to create it? Should I guess that you were not adult yet when Yahoo! started? When Yahoo! was founded, there was a need for WWW site directory, and Yahoo! filled that vacuum. It was the go to place for finding the sites in your area of interest. Some of the sections of Yahoo! for example: Finance and Sports are still go to places for me and I am sure countless others. I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to those two sections on Yahoo!. Even today, there is no single directory site with curated list of relevant sites, news and information from such sites. So, I will say there is still a need for a Yahoo! like portal with curated information. What Google spits out in search and associated sites is SEO crap. Google has inability to differentiate among 14,777 news articles on a topic and which one is the most relevant and comprehensive. IMO, Yahoo! need to go back to their roots which was portal of curated information. If they wait too long and the direction FB is heading, they will fill the void left by Yahoo!.
- copperx 11y ago
  15 years after using Yahoo! For the first time I realize that it is still a directory...
- pbreit 11y ago
  Neither are very good and I think there would be a rush to fill the gap with superior offerings.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  > I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to [sports and finance] on Yahoo! You haven't been able to find any other sites focusing on finance or sports on the internet? To be clear, yahoo does a decent job curating finance and sports sections, but it is extremely trivial to find sites similar to Yahoo. Here are a few, I found: Finance: ======== Marketwatch[0], is very similar to yahoo finance. Owned by WSJ and Dow Jones. Google Finance[1] is like Yahoo! finance, only done by google. MSN Money[2] almost the exact same thing as Yahoo. Then you have your more niche honorable mentions like motley fool, seekingalpha, zerohedge, etc. SPORTS: ======= Without repeating Google and Microsoft offerings, there is of course: ESPN which is the second largest sports news provider, also they have a tv network about sports. They sports fairly hard.[3] Bleecher Report is not to be out sportsed, sort of a hipster pitchfork media type sports player.[4] CBS Sports[5] NBC SPorts[6] This, and the preceding offering are large entrenched media rent collectors, which is similar to yahoo, except that they are profitable. So, in finality, I find that statement absurd, but I am glad you enjoy yahoo. I am rooting for it as it is an under dog for sure. [0]http://www.marketwatch.com http://www.marketwatch.com [1]http://www.google.com/finance http://www.google.com/finance [2]http://www.msn.com/en-us/money http://www.msn.com/en-us/money [3]http://espn.go.com http://espn.go.com [4]BleacherReport.com [5]CBSSports.com [6]http://www.nbcsports.com http://www.nbcsports.com
jsnathan 11y ago
I think a good idea would be to host an innovation challenge. They are already bringing in outside consultants from McKinsey, but in this day and age, how about turning to the crowd for help? If they posted significant cash prices (say $1m total) and let their users vote on the best ideas, I bet they could find some fresh directions. Also bet it would cost a fraction of what they pay McKinsey. Edit: In fact, why stop there. How about making it a quarterly challenge. With follow-ups on what ideas they decided to work on and progress reports. Make Yahoo the People's company. Just my 2 cents.
- simonebrunozzi 11y ago
  Even the best idea will face the hostility of a management that brought the company to where it is today. It never works.
  - jsnathan 11y ago
    Well I can't speak to their internal culture, but if it's either take advice from outside, or go under, maybe management over there needs to re-evaluate its priorities.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    Definitely. Everyone who is there now and especially rose through the ranks at some point stood behind and toed the line that brought them to that point ("Cheered for more desktop ads, agreed and liked the 'Mavens' metric"). Now they'd face a significant cognitive dissonance if they did an about face and said "Yap that was stupid, what were we thinking!?". It just doesn't happen. It can only happen with new people, so a lot of existing ones have to be pushed out of the door. But new ones take a while to on-board, they are outsiders and so on, they'll face internal resistance in the changes they propose. It's the downward spiral of doom. They'll start laying off people to save money. The more people they lay off, the less likely good people would want to go work there. The less progress they'll make, so they'll have to lay off more people etc.
    - meric 11y ago
christinecha 11y ago
I think that this is definitely the ideal move under different circumstances. But that wouldn't be a viable solution for Yahoo. Currently, even at its 'dying' state, Yahoo has huge traffic from extremely loyal users who are mostly in the higher income (30+) age range. To dump that out the window would be an incredibly irresponsible business move. It's easy for a small, young company to pivot, but an old giant like Yahoo has to move slowly. That being said, I think it would be a great move to really accept the growing age and therefore unique needs of this internet company rather than trying to follow new trends. That's truly their strongest leverage material at this point. Can they reinvent how the Internet is used by people over 40?
- emcrazyone 11y ago
  "Yahoo has huge traffic from extremely loyal users who are mostly in the higher income (30+) age range." Is that statement a fact? If so, care to substantiate it. I work for one of the largest companies in the world and we no longer use Yahoo; we use too. Every year in the US, the Superbowl pulls in HUGE dollars in advertisements. I have to plan for this every year and have been doing this for the past 10 years. Around Superbowl time, we increase our public facing web server presence due to the increase load. It use to be that Yahoo represented more than 50% of the clicks but that is less than 10% as of last year. I work for a fortune-5 company. We use Akami to help distribute the load. I wish I could publish more info like the data and the company but unfortunately I'm not legally permitted. I will say this: I doubt Yahoo Ad revenue will return at least from my perspective and what I've seen over the past 7-10 years. More and more of our Ad refs come from youtube.
  - toephu2 11y ago
    why not just say what company that is?
    - jrockway 11y ago
      The OP says "Fortune 5". The candidates are Walmart, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple. Which one of those has super bowl ads and uses Akamai? There's your answer.
profeta 11y ago
Their clients are paying them still. They are the advertisers, which I take you are not. Doesn't the talk about "when you are not the consumer yada yada" does not apply for the convenience of your argument?
meric 11y ago
I think yes, though a lot smaller. Yahoo is used by millions in Asia because of how well it caters to the local languages, as opposed to google which is a distinctly foreign product with some translations skinned on top. http://www.scmp.com/article/1007460/yahoo-still-hks-top-search-engine http://www.scmp.com/article/1007460/yahoo-still-hks-top-sear...

DannoHung 11y ago

I object only on the grounds that Flickr is the only good photo site for people who really care about their photos. Having tried to use 500px for a few months, they cannot even manage to do album privacy correctly.

zanny 11y ago
I just use imgur. Am I doing something wrong?
- ghaff 11y ago
  I don't think you're doing something wrong but I think you're doing something differently from a Flickr Pro subscriber who is using the site to store curated high quality photos online.
- EdiX 11y ago
  Imgur will aggressively recompress any image above 5MB. A few years ago it used to be even worse.
crucifiction 11y ago
SmugMug
jinst8gmi 11y ago
That, and I'd be disappointed that my email account would vanish, along with years worth of mail.
- kev6168 11y ago
  I lost 4 years' emails (1998-2002) because my account was inactive for a mere 6 months! Contacted Yahoo in 2002 but couldn't get my emails back.
  - jinst8gmi 11y ago
    Ouch! Do they have any facility that I can use to back-up/archive my email externally?
    - kev6168 11y ago
      You can guess I haven't used their services since then, not sure if they let you do that easily now.
      - jinst8gmi 11y ago
        Yes, good point :)
    - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
      I also have a Yahoo account, but i haven't tried to back it up externally. Previously their paid product was called Mail Plus, and that was the only way you could get mail out in bulk. But a while ago they made a change. From an article I just found: What Yahoo does not mention is that Pop3 access is now available as well. While I cannot say if it was enabled previously for free users, I know for a fact that it was limited in the past to paying Yahoo Mail users. That doesn't say anything about IMAP, but I know that is also possible nowadays. I think they had to add that feature. E.g. my wife accesses her Yahoo Mail from her iPhone. Without IMAP, how could she get her messages? (Rhetorical question. Rhetorical answer: she couldn't!). http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/08/yahoo-mail-plus-turns-yahoo-ad-free-mail-relevant-changes-explained/ http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/08/yahoo-mail-plus-turns-yahoo...
test1235 11y ago
I had such high hopes for 500px when I tried to switch over a year (I even paid upfront before fully testing it). The features just didn't compare to Flickr. On the other hand, Flickr's admin UI starting to fill up with crap I don't about, like creating mugs and books and shit. Fair enough, they're trying to make money, but that stuff has no place on the main interface. It's still the easiest place for me to store and share photos, however.

akg_67 11y ago

> If the company didn't exist, would there be a need to create it? Should I guess that you were not adult yet when Yahoo! started? When Yahoo! was founded, there was a need for WWW site directory, and Yahoo! filled that vacuum. It was the go to place for finding the sites in your area of interest. Some of the sections of Yahoo! for example: Finance and Sports are still go to places for me and I am sure countless others. I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to those two sections on Yahoo!. Even today, there is no single directory site with curated list of relevant sites, news and information from such sites. So, I will say there is still a need for a Yahoo! like portal with curated information. What Google spits out in search and associated sites is SEO crap. Google has inability to differentiate among 14,777 news articles on a topic and which one is the most relevant and comprehensive. IMO, Yahoo! need to go back to their roots which was portal of curated information. If they wait too long and the direction FB is heading, they will fill the void left by Yahoo!.

copperx 11y ago
15 years after using Yahoo! For the first time I realize that it is still a directory...
pbreit 11y ago
Neither are very good and I think there would be a rush to fill the gap with superior offerings.
vonklaus 11y ago
> I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to [sports and finance] on Yahoo! You haven't been able to find any other sites focusing on finance or sports on the internet? To be clear, yahoo does a decent job curating finance and sports sections, but it is extremely trivial to find sites similar to Yahoo. Here are a few, I found: Finance: ======== Marketwatch[0], is very similar to yahoo finance. Owned by WSJ and Dow Jones. Google Finance[1] is like Yahoo! finance, only done by google. MSN Money[2] almost the exact same thing as Yahoo. Then you have your more niche honorable mentions like motley fool, seekingalpha, zerohedge, etc. SPORTS: ======= Without repeating Google and Microsoft offerings, there is of course: ESPN which is the second largest sports news provider, also they have a tv network about sports. They sports fairly hard.[3] Bleecher Report is not to be out sportsed, sort of a hipster pitchfork media type sports player.[4] CBS Sports[5] NBC SPorts[6] This, and the preceding offering are large entrenched media rent collectors, which is similar to yahoo, except that they are profitable. So, in finality, I find that statement absurd, but I am glad you enjoy yahoo. I am rooting for it as it is an under dog for sure. [0]http://www.marketwatch.com http://www.marketwatch.com [1]http://www.google.com/finance http://www.google.com/finance [2]http://www.msn.com/en-us/money http://www.msn.com/en-us/money [3]http://espn.go.com http://espn.go.com [4]BleacherReport.com [5]CBSSports.com [6]http://www.nbcsports.com http://www.nbcsports.com

jsnathan 11y ago

I think a good idea would be to host an innovation challenge. They are already bringing in outside consultants from McKinsey, but in this day and age, how about turning to the crowd for help? If they posted significant cash prices (say $1m total) and let their users vote on the best ideas, I bet they could find some fresh directions. Also bet it would cost a fraction of what they pay McKinsey. Edit: In fact, why stop there. How about making it a quarterly challenge. With follow-ups on what ideas they decided to work on and progress reports. Make Yahoo the People's company. Just my 2 cents.

simonebrunozzi 11y ago
Even the best idea will face the hostility of a management that brought the company to where it is today. It never works.
- jsnathan 11y ago
  Well I can't speak to their internal culture, but if it's either take advice from outside, or go under, maybe management over there needs to re-evaluate its priorities.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  Definitely. Everyone who is there now and especially rose through the ranks at some point stood behind and toed the line that brought them to that point ("Cheered for more desktop ads, agreed and liked the 'Mavens' metric"). Now they'd face a significant cognitive dissonance if they did an about face and said "Yap that was stupid, what were we thinking!?". It just doesn't happen. It can only happen with new people, so a lot of existing ones have to be pushed out of the door. But new ones take a while to on-board, they are outsiders and so on, they'll face internal resistance in the changes they propose. It's the downward spiral of doom. They'll start laying off people to save money. The more people they lay off, the less likely good people would want to go work there. The less progress they'll make, so they'll have to lay off more people etc.
  - meric 11y ago

christinecha 11y ago

I think that this is definitely the ideal move under different circumstances. But that wouldn't be a viable solution for Yahoo. Currently, even at its 'dying' state, Yahoo has huge traffic from extremely loyal users who are mostly in the higher income (30+) age range. To dump that out the window would be an incredibly irresponsible business move. It's easy for a small, young company to pivot, but an old giant like Yahoo has to move slowly. That being said, I think it would be a great move to really accept the growing age and therefore unique needs of this internet company rather than trying to follow new trends. That's truly their strongest leverage material at this point. Can they reinvent how the Internet is used by people over 40?

emcrazyone 11y ago
"Yahoo has huge traffic from extremely loyal users who are mostly in the higher income (30+) age range." Is that statement a fact? If so, care to substantiate it. I work for one of the largest companies in the world and we no longer use Yahoo; we use too. Every year in the US, the Superbowl pulls in HUGE dollars in advertisements. I have to plan for this every year and have been doing this for the past 10 years. Around Superbowl time, we increase our public facing web server presence due to the increase load. It use to be that Yahoo represented more than 50% of the clicks but that is less than 10% as of last year. I work for a fortune-5 company. We use Akami to help distribute the load. I wish I could publish more info like the data and the company but unfortunately I'm not legally permitted. I will say this: I doubt Yahoo Ad revenue will return at least from my perspective and what I've seen over the past 7-10 years. More and more of our Ad refs come from youtube.
- toephu2 11y ago
  why not just say what company that is?
  - jrockway 11y ago
    The OP says "Fortune 5". The candidates are Walmart, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple. Which one of those has super bowl ads and uses Akamai? There's your answer.

profeta 11y ago

Their clients are paying them still. They are the advertisers, which I take you are not. Doesn't the talk about "when you are not the consumer yada yada" does not apply for the convenience of your argument?

meric 11y ago

I think yes, though a lot smaller. Yahoo is used by millions in Asia because of how well it caters to the local languages, as opposed to google which is a distinctly foreign product with some translations skinned on top. http://www.scmp.com/article/1007460/yahoo-still-hks-top-search-engine http://www.scmp.com/article/1007460/yahoo-still-hks-top-sear...