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Why Yahoo Couldn’t Adapt to the Smartphone Era
- frankmeehan 11y agoYahoo had brilliant mobile talent 2004-2008 - smart engineering and product talent that I remember meeting and they knew what was going on. But Yahoo management from 2007-2011 was terrible - ad execs overpaid with little clue about the tech world or what was happening outside their high castle. The second problem from which Yahoo never recovered was going HTML5. FB went HTML5 and the mobile product was a disaster. But FB quickly recognised that and went native - Yahoo took too long to fix issues like that. And the article is of course spot on about Tumblr - when they needed messaging they bought a blog platform.
- hliyan 11y agoCould you point me to some material about the problems Yahoo and FB had with HTML5 on mobile? I'm currently in this space and would rather avoid this fate!
- franze 11y ago>its engineers were using HTML5, a programming language that ...
- booop 11y agoFurther evidence that the new yorker is where one goes to find finely written bullshit.
- Grazester 11y agoAn esoteric audience isn't going to pay their bills and the non-esoteric one can figure out what they mean just fine.
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoIn context that seemed a reasonable attempt to get the point across to a lay audience.
- gonvaled 11y agoHTML + CSS is Turing complete
- swiley 11y agoThat depends, the user still has to click the mouse to make it do stuff.
- stepanhruda 11y agoMagic the Gathering is Turing complete. That doesn't mean you should refer to it as a programming language.
- _Codemonkeyism 11y agoAny link on how Magic the Gathering is Turing complete? The only thing I could find is how to represent a Turing machine with Magic cards.
- sika_grr 11y agohttp://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html
- Retric 11y agoThat's not a valid game state. It's like saying chess is Touring complete when played on an infinite board.
- palunon 11y agoBy this argument, x84_64 assembly isn't Turing complete because it needs finite memory... Which is technically correct, just not very useful.
- DonHopkins 11y ago
- morgante 11y agoYou can't expect a mass audience to understand what a "markup" language is.
- slashink 11y agoIt's interesting how fast the narrative shifted, about one year ago i was reading a long in depth article here on HN on how Marissa Mayer was out to transform Yahoo into a company fit for 2015 and how she was succeeding. Fast forward 1 year later and the articles are mainly about how Yahoo is failing. What does this tell me? I don't know really, is it hard to transform a company like Yahoo? Probably. Is the media surrounding tech and startup culture way to fast to draw conclusions, for sure.
- dexterdog 11y agoWell it is 2016 now and boards get fickle.
- dhimes 11y agoIt honestly means that nobody really knows what they are talking about. Every time somebody comes up with a "rule" or a pithy slogan, somebody else comes along and falsifies it.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoIt's more likely to tell you that journalism is a dead art.
- hanniabu 11y agoIf I remember correctly, a lot of comments on those articles were claiming that those changes wouldn't fix the sinking ship and that it seemed like they were flailing actions with no thought really put into it.
- slashink 11y agoActually you are right. I remeber this also, people seem to have catched on. Although my question is probably more aimed against the media endlessly throwing articles of this cycle out.
- gozur88 11y agoI don't remember too many articles saying she was succeeding. I do remember a handful that said something along the lines of "She has a really tough job ahead of her," along with "Nobody knows what Yahoo does any more," and "Even people at Yahoo don't know what Yahoo does." I do remember articles congratulating her for ending telecommuting, but I think that was more a symptom of management failure than anything else.
- harryf 11y agoThe reason why Yahoo! has failed so far with their mobile apps is very simple - they try to force users to login. For example the new (supposedly awesome) Flickr app http://i.imgur.com/i6mjzHZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/i6mjzHZ.jpg or Tumblr http://i.imgur.com/QpbDE4r.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QpbDE4r.jpg - there's no way to "dip your toe in" without creating a login. Luke Wroblewski nailed this long ago - "Mobile Signup Forms must Die" http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1678 http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1678 - it's not rocket science but if you allow your old school web thinking to define your app UX, you will fail. If you have any clue about mobile audiences you use gradual engagement to allow them to get on board incrementally. The average mobile user probably has about 30 seconds to give you until the next push notification from WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter or whatever distracts them and their gone. If you waste that time on forcing them through a signup process, don't expect to see uptake. And failing by login isn't a new thing for Yahoo! For many happy Flickr users (myself included) they killed it for us by forcing Yahoo login onto the site. From http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-... > Yahoo's RegID solution turned out to be a nightmare for the existing community. You could no longer use your existing Flickr login to get to your photos, you had to use a Yahoo one. If you did not already have a Yahoo account, you had to create one. And you did not even log in on Flickr's home page, upon arriving, you were immediately kicked over to a Yahoo login screen. ...but that's another story. I'm still bitter
- Grue3 11y agoWhat social mobile apps don't require you to login? Twitter does, Facebook does, Google+ does, I can't name a single one that doesn't.
- ansible 11y agoI think the point is that you should be allowed to browse without a login. Then, when you want to use any of the social features, you will be asked to create an account. I've looked at photos on Flickr without having an account on the web, why not with a mobile app too?
- reacweb 11y agoI think Mayer has done a fantastic job in improving the reputation of yahoo. I still have a yahoo mail (that I give when I am affraid of spam). Since she is CEO, the experience has improved a lot. The yahoo news are not too bad, ... Transforming reputation in good money takes a lot of time. IMHO, the investors should give trust and time to Mayer before expected results. If they fire Mayer, yahoo will be dead and they will lose everything. For me, the main handicap of yahoo is their cupid investors.
- douche 11y agoI wouldn't say that Yahoo's reputation has improved over the last few years... In my mind, they have gone from a completely forgotten also-ran of an earlier era of the internet, to an example of Keystone Cops-level bumbling.
- dhimes 11y agoI'm a paying customer of Yahoo, and I'm honestly stressing whether or not I'm going to be SOL. They've changed their store/web merchant stuff, and I don't know if they off-loaded it or not (they call it a re-brand). But I had to make a new login. And for the love of God it's been 6 years and I still can't put a link to "Small business" on my "personal" page's sidebar. I mean, what the fuck? I have to have a personal bookmark, and now the link has changed to something I'll never remember if I'm at a computer other than this one. Ugh. Yes, I am losing confidence.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoIf they fire Mayer, Yahoo will probably be sold and they'll get something back before the value tanks. Mayer doesn't need more time. She's a competent middle manager and an excellent researcher promoted beyond the scope of her talents, and she made the classic mistake of misunderstanding the difference between a popular platform and a range of products that users really want. Now she's out of time and out of ideas.
- Artistry121 11y agoAnother view is that Yahoo! began facing stiff competition from a few of the greatest minds in the world before she was brought on and playing catchup is nearly impossible unless missteps are made by those in the market lead. It's possible that the situation at Yahoo has been too tough to remedy for years and no matter how competent she was she couldn't turn it around.
- hodder 11y agoThe problem with Yahoo in my opinion is that is the tail being wagged by the dog (baba), and that Marissa Mayer's hobby is to set cash on fire. Once BABA is separated, and Mayer is 'remixed, a creative CEO may very well be able to turn it around.In my opinion the business is ripe to follow a Berkshire model of using cash flow from the dying business (search engine) to buy a few free cash generating, growing businesses.
- dhimes 11y agoIn my opinion, they need to focus. Cut a bunch of stuff, find a niche they can dominate, and rebuild. Either be a bad-ass server platform, amazing social app, or perhaps apply themselves towards a select group of people (aging seniors or something)-- whatever they think they can do-- but focus. It will be painful. But it's their best path forward I think.
- hodder 11y agoMakes sense, but the problem is, those niches described are filled by entrenched competitors, or don't really justify the market cap. I feel the best for the company is juicing rev, earnings, and FCF, and they can't do that by trying to get a foothold in saturated markets as the cost is too huge or ramp up time too long. I am also not proposing they take a VC approach like they have where they pay huge multiples hoping to somehow have the success at selecting winners like yc. I am proposing they buy companies that are generating growing free cash flow at sub 25x levels.
- dhimes 11y agoMy niches were not meant to be a knowledgeable insight, just examples. And you have a good point about buying cash-generating companies (companies that are winning the niche battles). But they really need to focus- and only buy companies that are in that focus. If they are a media company then they are competing with Condé Nast, Youtube, and bloggers everywhere. But if they are, for example, an educational media company, then the scope is clearer and they can muster some leverage.
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- protomyth 11y agoI really want to know why Yahoo did not turn Flickr into the premier website for social media pictures? I think that will tell the whole Yahoo / Smartphone Era story.
- endemic 11y agoYeah, seems obvious, especially since they had published data about how the iPhone was the most-used camera on the site years ago (e.g. http://www.pcworld.com/article/230864/iPhone_4_is_Tops_with_Flickr_Shutterbugs.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/230864/iPhone_4_is_Tops_with_...).
- neilk 11y agoThis article details some of the issues we encountered with Yahoo. http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-... I would add though, that Flickr Mobile (which I worked on a little) was considered one of the best mobile websites ever made. However, because a certain executive had managed to get control of all of Yahoo's mobile experiences, we weren't allowed to innovate with mobile too much. When a native Flickr app was finally released, I was no longer at Flickr. But I heard that it had been developed by a different team at Yahoo, and was a complete surprise to Flickr upon launch. The new app hit the "random" API so hard for their login screen, to the Flickr staff, it looked like a DDOS. But I think we all missed on the opportunity mobile offered because we were trying to shrink Flickr into a mobile site. Flickr was designed for serendipity and rich experiences. If you were a creative person, looking to participate in a planetary social-cultural conversation, it was incredible. Meanwhile, Facebook made photos into an accessory for the average person's social life. For creative people and dabblers, Instagram offered the best mobile experience; it worked with the constraints of the platform and even turned those into features. Something of this dichotomy is still playing out with Twitter and Facebook taking opposite poles. Although it looks like Twitter has finally given up and decided that it's a Kardashian photo delivery system or something.
- protomyth 11y agoI think that pretty much sums up why Yahoo went to hell and cannot adapt. My sympathies on having to deal with that. I wonder how many business have gone under because of need to "scale and act professionally"?
- gcb0 11y agothe article proves the author has zero knowledge and is just dozing on the subject when it doesn't contest that yahoo having no mobile effort was not bad product managers/execs decision, but instead goes on agreeing with the point-haired boss idea that it lacked mobile engineers. as of some engineers were born to work exclusively on mobile. what a load of bs.
- perseusprime11 11y agoI think the fundamental issue is culture. They were always organized like a media company, not a tech company. Marissa tried few different tricks like new logo, better UX, yahoo weather app, hired news show hosts, but none of them worked. In the end, they ran out of time proving you can't acquire your way or pivot your way to success.
- known 11y agoWhy Microsoft Couldn't Adapt Internet/Smartphone Era?