4 ms·

You need to own and exploit a monopoly in order to grow into a true tech heavyweight. Facebook has social (and all the traffic and user data that comes with it

by nugget 11y ago

You need to own and exploit a monopoly in order to grow into a true tech heavyweight. Facebook has social (and all the traffic and user data that comes with it), Microsoft has the OS and utilities, Apple has the OS, hardware, and apps, and Google has search and (tbd) Android apps. Unless you monopolize something of extreme value (user data or a platform), you should focus on just making money, although unfortunately Wall Street doesn't value this very highly (see IAC). Yahoo has a bunch of great second and third place properties (search, news, weather, email) but no monopolies, and for this reason even the transition to mobile under MM was unlikely to move the needle for them. If they slimmed down and brought in the right kind of management the core properties could be extremely profitable.

bad_user 11y ago
I think you're missing the forest from the trees. Monopolies in software are created through excellence. If Facebook "has social" that's because they were and still are the best social network. Of course, now that they are big, they've got a huge lock-in effect, but that's besides the point. Microsoft "has the OS" (and I might add Office) because Windows really has been the best general purpose, generally available OS. Other attempts had potential, but they either keep failing to be as polished or stable for end-users (desktop Linux), or have not been available for all PCs (Mac OS, OS X), or they didn't survive for long enough (OS/2, BeOS). Not sure what monopoly Apple has, but it's no point in arguing that most of what Apple does is technically excellent and beautifully executed. Google "has search" because they had and still have the best search engine and their search engine is indispensable for most people. People talking about DuckDuckGo never tried doing searches from outside the US. Google also has Android, Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Maps, all of which are excellent.
- nugget 11y ago
  No doubt you need to be excellent to create a monopoly (maintenance mode is much easier). But you also need the ingredients for it to exist in the first place (network effect, high value/exclusive/monetize-able data, high competitive barriers). Did Yahoo ever have a market like that, except with search early on? (They might have been able to do something interesting with messaging or mail early on to lock in those users, but they didn't.) They had a lot of eyeballs, a lot of ad salespeople, a lot of ad dollars, (later) a lot of ad network tech, a lot of great content, a lot of great niche sites (flickr). But nothing that competitors couldn't enter and replicate fairly quickly. If you were Yahoo today, and you could execute flawlessly on a single area of your current business or something closely adjacent to one of your current businesses (excluding search, which they continue to exit), what would you pick?
  - bad_user 11y ago
    I think Yahoo has had multiple interesting projects of enormous potential. Yahoo.com, the homepage itself, has been and still is amongst the most trafficked websites on the Internet. Even now it's in top 5, coming before Amazon, Wikipedia or Twitter. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites Yahoo Mail existed before Gmail and I don't know what happens in other countries, but in my country Yahoo Mail is still the most popular web mail. But they've been bleeding marketshare, because frankly, Yahoo Mail sucks due to poor UI, poor spam filters and stupid restrictions (like they wouldn't allow POP unless you had a paid subscription). Compare with Gmail and the rise of Google Apps. Gmail with btw keeps people locked in Google's ecosystem, along with Android, insuring that Google's search engine also dominates mobile, because that's how complementaries work. Yahoo Messenger was a natural extension of Yahoo Mail. In my country everybody was on Yahoo Messenger. It had enormous potential for building a social network and they even made a half assed attempt. Nowadays that's been replaced by Facebook and Skype. Even Hangouts is more popular amongst my acquaintances, because Yahoo Messenger also sucks and it's basically dead. Flickr has been and is still is the best service for amateur and even professional photographers to share their stuff. Photo sharing is a really big market. Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, Imgur, Reddit all of them have a place in photo sharing, plus I feel there's still enormous untapped potential in this place. But ALAS they let it stagnate, though I appreciate that in 2015 we finally have mobile apps. But then the Pro subscriptions are now more expensive and make absolutely no sense, as you're paying for something you can get with an ad-blocker - a fatal combination IMHO. I was a Pro subscriber in the past, but not anymore. Their Search could still be a credible competitor. They just made a deal with Mozilla for distributing Firefox with Yahoo's search by default. But on one hand they ditched their own technology, now relying on Bing for their own results. And also they bring nothing new, while being inferior. They could at least take a stance on privacy, I mean if you can't compete by being superior, at least compete by being the ethical choice. But no. And I'm pretty sure many Firefox users simply switch back to Google, just like myself. Delicious, just like Google Reader, had enormous potential for a specialized social network of things. They couldn't see value in it and sold it. Oh well.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > If Facebook "has social" that's because they were and still are the best social network. > Microsoft "has the OS" Do network effects count as excellence? > Not sure what monopoly Apple has Does vertical integration count as excellence? What about lock-in contracts (i.e., from AT&T). > Google "has search" Of all these, everyone could quit google.com tomorrow if they wanted to. I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, but just saying they make the best product is missing a huge part of the picture. Maybe saying they have the best business plan makes more sense, assuming you're fine with businesses driven by leverage instead of technical excellence.

by nugget 11y ago

bad_user 11y ago

I think you're missing the forest from the trees. Monopolies in software are created through excellence. If Facebook "has social" that's because they were and still are the best social network. Of course, now that they are big, they've got a huge lock-in effect, but that's besides the point. Microsoft "has the OS" (and I might add Office) because Windows really has been the best general purpose, generally available OS. Other attempts had potential, but they either keep failing to be as polished or stable for end-users (desktop Linux), or have not been available for all PCs (Mac OS, OS X), or they didn't survive for long enough (OS/2, BeOS). Not sure what monopoly Apple has, but it's no point in arguing that most of what Apple does is technically excellent and beautifully executed. Google "has search" because they had and still have the best search engine and their search engine is indispensable for most people. People talking about DuckDuckGo never tried doing searches from outside the US. Google also has Android, Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Maps, all of which are excellent.

nugget 11y ago
No doubt you need to be excellent to create a monopoly (maintenance mode is much easier). But you also need the ingredients for it to exist in the first place (network effect, high value/exclusive/monetize-able data, high competitive barriers). Did Yahoo ever have a market like that, except with search early on? (They might have been able to do something interesting with messaging or mail early on to lock in those users, but they didn't.) They had a lot of eyeballs, a lot of ad salespeople, a lot of ad dollars, (later) a lot of ad network tech, a lot of great content, a lot of great niche sites (flickr). But nothing that competitors couldn't enter and replicate fairly quickly. If you were Yahoo today, and you could execute flawlessly on a single area of your current business or something closely adjacent to one of your current businesses (excluding search, which they continue to exit), what would you pick?
- bad_user 11y ago
  I think Yahoo has had multiple interesting projects of enormous potential. Yahoo.com, the homepage itself, has been and still is amongst the most trafficked websites on the Internet. Even now it's in top 5, coming before Amazon, Wikipedia or Twitter. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites Yahoo Mail existed before Gmail and I don't know what happens in other countries, but in my country Yahoo Mail is still the most popular web mail. But they've been bleeding marketshare, because frankly, Yahoo Mail sucks due to poor UI, poor spam filters and stupid restrictions (like they wouldn't allow POP unless you had a paid subscription). Compare with Gmail and the rise of Google Apps. Gmail with btw keeps people locked in Google's ecosystem, along with Android, insuring that Google's search engine also dominates mobile, because that's how complementaries work. Yahoo Messenger was a natural extension of Yahoo Mail. In my country everybody was on Yahoo Messenger. It had enormous potential for building a social network and they even made a half assed attempt. Nowadays that's been replaced by Facebook and Skype. Even Hangouts is more popular amongst my acquaintances, because Yahoo Messenger also sucks and it's basically dead. Flickr has been and is still is the best service for amateur and even professional photographers to share their stuff. Photo sharing is a really big market. Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, Imgur, Reddit all of them have a place in photo sharing, plus I feel there's still enormous untapped potential in this place. But ALAS they let it stagnate, though I appreciate that in 2015 we finally have mobile apps. But then the Pro subscriptions are now more expensive and make absolutely no sense, as you're paying for something you can get with an ad-blocker - a fatal combination IMHO. I was a Pro subscriber in the past, but not anymore. Their Search could still be a credible competitor. They just made a deal with Mozilla for distributing Firefox with Yahoo's search by default. But on one hand they ditched their own technology, now relying on Bing for their own results. And also they bring nothing new, while being inferior. They could at least take a stance on privacy, I mean if you can't compete by being superior, at least compete by being the ethical choice. But no. And I'm pretty sure many Firefox users simply switch back to Google, just like myself. Delicious, just like Google Reader, had enormous potential for a specialized social network of things. They couldn't see value in it and sold it. Oh well.
humanrebar 11y ago
> If Facebook "has social" that's because they were and still are the best social network. > Microsoft "has the OS" Do network effects count as excellence? > Not sure what monopoly Apple has Does vertical integration count as excellence? What about lock-in contracts (i.e., from AT&T). > Google "has search" Of all these, everyone could quit google.com tomorrow if they wanted to. I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, but just saying they make the best product is missing a huge part of the picture. Maybe saying they have the best business plan makes more sense, assuming you're fine with businesses driven by leverage instead of technical excellence.