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Were I to take on Yahoo, I'd turn it into a content powerhouse, with supporting tools. Yahoo! Finance should have the best articles -- very technical yet explan

Were I to take on Yahoo, I'd turn it into a content powerhouse, with supporting tools. Yahoo! Finance should have the best articles -- very technical yet explanatory -- all supported by their stock tools. A billion ways to monetize that. I would use Yahoo! Sports to seriously go after ESPN, which is turning into a turdpile of garbage that's worse than TMZ. I'd literally troll them and get some extremely technical content as well as the fun stuff. Monetize with fantasy, tickets, live stream, schwag, etc. Rinse and repeat with other news sectors. I'd find about a dozen niches and build out some aggregators with trending stuff - basically DrudgeReport style aggregators for each niche - awesome headlines and all. Eventually, steer some content towards consumer facing products, and build out a shopping engine for the ones that are consumer-related. Would this be the next Facebook or Google? No. But it'd be profitable as hell and with the right no-holds-barred content team in each niche, it'd once again become intertwined with American culture. It would "never" die, and it'd be a true fighter for the first amendment. I don't deal with apps so I'd hire one of you guys to be my #2 for that side of the game. Buffett and Gilbert you know who to call when you want this company to become relevant again.

adventured 10y ago
It would cost billions of dollars to even attempt to go after ESPN. The primary value ESPN offers today is ownership of broadcast rights. Yahoo can't afford to outbid Disney on those rights and shareholders would never support risking that much capital on such. What you're describing would never make money. Aggregator sites are among the worst things you could ever attempt if your goal is to make money, which is why so many of them fail and or produce mediocre business outcomes. Drudge is a unique outcome that is nearly impossible to repeat - which is why nobody has been able to replicate it after all of these years. Its popularity occurred solely due to the Clinton impeachment scandal and two decades of brand / trust building when it comes to editing. Having a juggernaut of articles and content in business / finance is worth very little. You could combine TheStreet.com, Marketwatch.com, Quartz, Seeking Alpha, Fool.com and Business Insider all under one umbrella and it would be worth less than a billion dollars and barely make any money. It would be a complete waste of time and wouldn't move the needle on Yahoo's business.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  > It would cost billions of dollars to even attempt to go after ESPN. The primary value ESPN offers today is ownership of broadcast rights. Yahoo can't afford to outbid Disney on those rights and shareholders would never support risking that much capital on such. I'm talking about web-based content first. Anyone who follows sports knows that there is a wide open gap ready for someone to take a swing on actual sports coverage. ESPN has turned into a steaming pile of trash. You want more articles on Johnny Manziel, have at it ESPN. We're gonna cover real sports on my Yahoo. The better broadcasting play is to get into streaming / broadcasting for new sports. Be it eSports, rugby, lacrosse, and any scrap of basketball you can get your hands on -- NFL is going to collapse in the next generation or so (ask any Gen-X parents if their kids are allowed to play football and you'll understand why) -- so just give up on getting rights to the current powerhouse sports for the time being. > What you're describing would never make money. Killer content always makes money when you know your demographic and don't sell your soul too much. I wouldn't emphasize the aggregators, those would be portals. The trick is that much of it would be re-written on the actual Yahoo site by real journalists once something gets hot. Then you no longer give the traffic away. > It would be a complete waste of time and wouldn't move the needle on Yahoo's business. This is because you don't know how to monetize. Content isn't the end game, it's the easy advertising. Yahoo! Finance is an under-utilized tool. The content on a powerful domain like that would be used to inexpensively gather new users into the profitable toolset - the end game could be to build out a trading platform, for instance. LOL at Yahoo's needle, BTW.
anamoulous 10y ago
You would invest time and effort and money in overtaking much larger or smaller, leaner properties that are all experiencing negative growth in an industry that has seen a bottoming out of it's primary revenue source and a race to the bottom in quality?
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  > a race to the bottom in quality? There's your issue.
  - anamoulous 10y ago
    But it's not an issue where quality is _rewarded_. That is not a competitive edge.

adventured 10y ago

It would cost billions of dollars to even attempt to go after ESPN. The primary value ESPN offers today is ownership of broadcast rights. Yahoo can't afford to outbid Disney on those rights and shareholders would never support risking that much capital on such. What you're describing would never make money. Aggregator sites are among the worst things you could ever attempt if your goal is to make money, which is why so many of them fail and or produce mediocre business outcomes. Drudge is a unique outcome that is nearly impossible to repeat - which is why nobody has been able to replicate it after all of these years. Its popularity occurred solely due to the Clinton impeachment scandal and two decades of brand / trust building when it comes to editing. Having a juggernaut of articles and content in business / finance is worth very little. You could combine TheStreet.com, Marketwatch.com, Quartz, Seeking Alpha, Fool.com and Business Insider all under one umbrella and it would be worth less than a billion dollars and barely make any money. It would be a complete waste of time and wouldn't move the needle on Yahoo's business.

MicroBerto 10y ago
> It would cost billions of dollars to even attempt to go after ESPN. The primary value ESPN offers today is ownership of broadcast rights. Yahoo can't afford to outbid Disney on those rights and shareholders would never support risking that much capital on such. I'm talking about web-based content first. Anyone who follows sports knows that there is a wide open gap ready for someone to take a swing on actual sports coverage. ESPN has turned into a steaming pile of trash. You want more articles on Johnny Manziel, have at it ESPN. We're gonna cover real sports on my Yahoo. The better broadcasting play is to get into streaming / broadcasting for new sports. Be it eSports, rugby, lacrosse, and any scrap of basketball you can get your hands on -- NFL is going to collapse in the next generation or so (ask any Gen-X parents if their kids are allowed to play football and you'll understand why) -- so just give up on getting rights to the current powerhouse sports for the time being. > What you're describing would never make money. Killer content always makes money when you know your demographic and don't sell your soul too much. I wouldn't emphasize the aggregators, those would be portals. The trick is that much of it would be re-written on the actual Yahoo site by real journalists once something gets hot. Then you no longer give the traffic away. > It would be a complete waste of time and wouldn't move the needle on Yahoo's business. This is because you don't know how to monetize. Content isn't the end game, it's the easy advertising. Yahoo! Finance is an under-utilized tool. The content on a powerful domain like that would be used to inexpensively gather new users into the profitable toolset - the end game could be to build out a trading platform, for instance. LOL at Yahoo's needle, BTW.

anamoulous 10y ago

You would invest time and effort and money in overtaking much larger or smaller, leaner properties that are all experiencing negative growth in an industry that has seen a bottoming out of it's primary revenue source and a race to the bottom in quality?

MicroBerto 10y ago
> a race to the bottom in quality? There's your issue.
- anamoulous 10y ago
  But it's not an issue where quality is _rewarded_. That is not a competitive edge.