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Honest question: what has been Yahoo's core business for the last 15 years?

by wiremine 11y ago

jrcii 11y ago
Their answer is "media" but I'm not sure what that means and apparently they aren't either.
- tootie 11y ago
  My tech company has a media department. I've been in meetings with them. I still have no idea what they do.
AznHisoka 11y ago
Eyeballs.
carrier_lost 11y ago
Their latest quarterly report summary offers plenty of details: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/151105/yhoo10-q.html http://biz.yahoo.com/e/151105/yhoo10-q.html
- alanning 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. Here's the description from their Overview (cleaned up a bit): "Yahoo! Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries is a guide focused on informing, connecting, and entertaining our users. By creating highly personalized experiences for our users, we keep people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the world. In turn, we create value for advertisers by connecting them with the audiences that build their businesses. For advertisers, the opportunity to be a part of users' digital habits across products and platforms is a powerful tool to engage audiences and build brand loyalty. Advertisers can build their businesses through advertising to targeted audiences on our online properties and services or through a distribution network of third party entities who integrate our advertising offerings into their websites or other offerings. Our revenue is generated principally from search and display advertising." Reading that was a bit strange to me as it doesn't fit with my image of Yahoo. From that description, it seems they think of themselves as a social network + ad platform. I'm finding it a bit hard to clarify what my image of Yahoo exactly is but its not that.
robotcookies 11y ago
I would say "portal" which is to connect content creators with content consumers (and charging for space on the portal). Unfortunately for yahoo, this model lost out to social networks. People seem to prefer seeing content from friends over content curated from yahoo. Or they prefer going to sources directly.
- deeringc 11y ago
  I also think that sites like reddit and hackernews have taken a part of the role that a portal once provided. Content that is crowd-sourced seems to be better received than what a single company can push in a curated list.
jayvanguard 11y ago
Keeping sticky eyeballs from the first internet generation around.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  That wasn't the question. The question was what Yahoo's business has been for the last 15 years, not what it was when the company was founded. The actual answer is that Yahoo sells ads. That's their business model, just like it's Google's and Facebook's and hundreds of other companies', some very old and some founded yesterday.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- scott_s 11y ago
  That was Yahoo's core business pre-2000. The posted asked about post-2000.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

Honest question: what has been Yahoo's core business for the last 15 years?

jrcii 11y ago

Their answer is "media" but I'm not sure what that means and apparently they aren't either.

tootie 11y ago
My tech company has a media department. I've been in meetings with them. I still have no idea what they do.

AznHisoka 11y ago

Eyeballs.

carrier_lost 11y ago

Their latest quarterly report summary offers plenty of details: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/151105/yhoo10-q.html http://biz.yahoo.com/e/151105/yhoo10-q.html

alanning 11y ago
Thanks for the link. Here's the description from their Overview (cleaned up a bit): "Yahoo! Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries is a guide focused on informing, connecting, and entertaining our users. By creating highly personalized experiences for our users, we keep people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the world. In turn, we create value for advertisers by connecting them with the audiences that build their businesses. For advertisers, the opportunity to be a part of users' digital habits across products and platforms is a powerful tool to engage audiences and build brand loyalty. Advertisers can build their businesses through advertising to targeted audiences on our online properties and services or through a distribution network of third party entities who integrate our advertising offerings into their websites or other offerings. Our revenue is generated principally from search and display advertising." Reading that was a bit strange to me as it doesn't fit with my image of Yahoo. From that description, it seems they think of themselves as a social network + ad platform. I'm finding it a bit hard to clarify what my image of Yahoo exactly is but its not that.

robotcookies 11y ago

I would say "portal" which is to connect content creators with content consumers (and charging for space on the portal). Unfortunately for yahoo, this model lost out to social networks. People seem to prefer seeing content from friends over content curated from yahoo. Or they prefer going to sources directly.

deeringc 11y ago
I also think that sites like reddit and hackernews have taken a part of the role that a portal once provided. Content that is crowd-sourced seems to be better received than what a single company can push in a curated list.

jayvanguard 11y ago

Keeping sticky eyeballs from the first internet generation around.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

fredkbloggs 11y ago
That wasn't the question. The question was what Yahoo's business has been for the last 15 years, not what it was when the company was founded. The actual answer is that Yahoo sells ads. That's their business model, just like it's Google's and Facebook's and hundreds of other companies', some very old and some founded yesterday.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
scott_s 11y ago
That was Yahoo's core business pre-2000. The posted asked about post-2000.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]