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> Yahoo has zero value as a web property What!? Surely you're being flippant. Alexa currently ranks Yahoo.com as #5 worldwide and in the United States. NUMBER

> Yahoo has zero value as a web property What!? Surely you're being flippant. Alexa currently ranks Yahoo.com as #5 worldwide and in the United States. NUMBER 5! How anyone could think that has zero value makes no sense to me.

pcurve 10y ago
Yeah I keep hearing the same thing, but obviously it's at least worth around what Verizon paid for it. I think it's actually worth more, but there is so much hate for the company and its management team.
- ixtli 10y ago
  While the thing you're responding to is obviously idiotic it occurs to me that the sanity of the valuation of Yahoo! is not "obvious" at all. It's a result of the application of partially visible heuristics to determine the worth of things like users, views, "talent," and etc, all passed through back-room dealing at the executive level and bargaining behind closed doors. The reason I bother coming here to say this is that I think the idea that 4.8 billion dollars "makes sense" to an outsider is endemic of thinking that leads to a dangerous lack of regulation. In other words, I'd be careful not to assume that the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing in companies at this scale.
kolbe 10y ago
Your statement doesn't imply value at all. If I created a web site that gave every visitor $1, it would amass an amazing number of visitors, but would be a worthless business.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Yahoo are giving away money? No, of course not. So how does your logic apply. People are visiting Yahoo because they want to use Yahoo services ... even if they're not then they're still visiting, that is valuable to online businesses where a lot of marketing goes in to just getting visitors. > it would amass an amazing number of visitors, but would be a worthless business. // You'd get in serious debt. But the website would still be worth something afterwards, not what you paid, but it would have a significant value. Good marketing could convert some of those repeat visitors looking for free money. Indeed, it actually sounds like not a half bad idea! Give away money via paypal/bitcoin or some such up to a limit for a few days, network effect is going to amplify that, then stop and lay out your stall .. if your stall was using bitcoin/paypal for micro payments then double+plus+good! You'd have stories in press around the world, everyone would be sharing your site ("Hey I got free money 2 days in a row at example.com"). Want to cause a riot? Release $100k in $1 notes in public in a busy, large, public space (Central Park?). Say you'll be back next week ... how many millions of people do you think you could attract, how many the 3rd week!!? How much would the press coverage and whatever brand association you could muster be worth? Anyway, I digress.

pcurve 10y ago

Yeah I keep hearing the same thing, but obviously it's at least worth around what Verizon paid for it. I think it's actually worth more, but there is so much hate for the company and its management team.

ixtli 10y ago
While the thing you're responding to is obviously idiotic it occurs to me that the sanity of the valuation of Yahoo! is not "obvious" at all. It's a result of the application of partially visible heuristics to determine the worth of things like users, views, "talent," and etc, all passed through back-room dealing at the executive level and bargaining behind closed doors. The reason I bother coming here to say this is that I think the idea that 4.8 billion dollars "makes sense" to an outsider is endemic of thinking that leads to a dangerous lack of regulation. In other words, I'd be careful not to assume that the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing in companies at this scale.

kolbe 10y ago

Your statement doesn't imply value at all. If I created a web site that gave every visitor $1, it would amass an amazing number of visitors, but would be a worthless business.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Yahoo are giving away money? No, of course not. So how does your logic apply. People are visiting Yahoo because they want to use Yahoo services ... even if they're not then they're still visiting, that is valuable to online businesses where a lot of marketing goes in to just getting visitors. > it would amass an amazing number of visitors, but would be a worthless business. // You'd get in serious debt. But the website would still be worth something afterwards, not what you paid, but it would have a significant value. Good marketing could convert some of those repeat visitors looking for free money. Indeed, it actually sounds like not a half bad idea! Give away money via paypal/bitcoin or some such up to a limit for a few days, network effect is going to amplify that, then stop and lay out your stall .. if your stall was using bitcoin/paypal for micro payments then double+plus+good! You'd have stories in press around the world, everyone would be sharing your site ("Hey I got free money 2 days in a row at example.com"). Want to cause a riot? Release $100k in $1 notes in public in a busy, large, public space (Central Park?). Say you'll be back next week ... how many millions of people do you think you could attract, how many the 3rd week!!? How much would the press coverage and whatever brand association you could muster be worth? Anyway, I digress.