6 ms·

I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was the second most visited property on the web. When Thompson stepped down the board w

by nikcub 10y ago

I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was the second most visited property on the web. When Thompson stepped down the board were given two proposals. The first, revive Yahoo as a premium tech firm lead by someone like Mayer, or 2. admit that Yahoo is now a media co and double down on the verticals where Yahoo is winning - especially those where you can sell premium ads (Finance, Sport) The board had delusions of grandeur and saw Yahoo's as still being on the same level as Google rather than taking the safer bet and building out the media company. Being a media company isn't as interesting - but there are a lot of public, medium sized tech media co's out there who get along just fine (and some even have an innovative breakthrough every now and then - like IAC) - and Yahoo, with the later plan, would have been the best of this bunch.

nashashmi 10y ago
I agree with you, and would like to add that Yahoo was in denial of who it was and what strengths it had. Still however, comparing it to a company like IAC is quite insulting. Yahoo was something more, it was a chance for a media company to rule the internet once again. It was how tech did media.
sperglord 10y ago
I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.
  - gloverkcn 10y ago
    I know you are being glib, but I'd rather survive and live to fight another day. A company with resources can invest, grow, and contribute.
- gnicholas 10y ago
  AOL was acquired by Verizon, so in a sense they still exist, but in another sense not. They did own/operate HuffPo, Engadget, and other properties for some time prior to the Verizon acquisition.
  - empath75 10y ago
    Yahoo is more or less going to be folded into aol, actually.
    - bastardoperator 10y ago
      I also heard the recent AOL layoffs had much to do with duplicate positions at Yahoo and that Yahoo will fall under the AOL umbrella.
- baybal2 10y ago
  and all blogs they own turned into turdballs
- jannes 10y ago
  They even own Techcrunch, which appears regularly on here
- basch 10y ago
  AOL also chased local media with Patch.com and failed miserably.
dpark 10y ago
The problem is that Yahoo was never a media company, either. They never had a lot of success in media, at least not past their early properties like Finance and Autos. They failed to do anything meaningful with video, or mobile, or flickr, or much of anything past their early success. Yahoo tried to be a media company for years. They called themselves "the premier media company". They had two different CEOs pulled from the media world, Terry Semel and Ross Levinsohn. Levinsohn didn't really have much time, but Semel did. If Yahoo was a media company, they were unsuccessful at it. I always wanted Yahoo to rebound. I worked there for a few years and my team seemed quite good. But there was always the problem that the company didn't quite seem to know what it was trying to do. It didn't have a real plan for winning back search nor for winning in media, and it didn't have deep enough pockets to dig indefinitely. What it had were initiatives like Livestand that failed to compete with apps like Flipboard and an ad network that never competed with AdSense despite Yahoo actually buying Overture.
- tonyplee 10y ago
  "Jack of all trades, master of none" is probably not a good way to increase share holder value.
  - jrfarina 10y ago
    Full quote: "...but often times better than a master of one"
    - bjxrn 10y ago
      That's a modern addition.
- basch 10y ago
  how is Yahoo News not considered successful? Sure its a lot of AP aggregation, but most importantly, people were clicking it.
  - chris_va 10y ago
ousta 10y ago
this is sad tho in some fields yahoo contributions where huge even as of today just look the research they published and contributed to in the machine learning field. this is definitely premium tech firm level
basch 10y ago
there is a middle ground too. Two of the verticals Yahoo doesnt experience a lot of competition in are Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy Sports. (edit: rereading your comment, I see you mentioned the exact same thing and I skimmed over it.) And then there is a squandered userbase of Yahoo Messengers that were left to dry. If I were Yahoo CEO, and the company had chosen the media empire route, I would have explored a Yahoo Finance 2.0 as a social network. Step one, acquire or clone OpenFolio and Robinhood and maybe buy something like SumZero for its social graph slash userbase. Create a Free and Pro tier. Other companies I have mentioned before as a good fit in this idea are Forcerank and Sparkfin. Motif is another company trying to make stock picking more social. Having a unified messaging layer across the bottom of ALL its properties (like Facebook) would have benefited here too. Yahoo should have made a push to be THE fantasy company, instead of covering its product in daily fantasy ads, trying to squeeze out the last of the value. Sports is a huge vertical other tech giants like Google and Microsoft and Apple dont play much in. Being cash rich, they could have bought one of the major Daily Fantasy empires, which basically print money. I cant think of many better easy ways to return shareholder value. Again, a messenger bar at the bottom of the screen would have really tied the place together. Now if I want to talk with my group of friends about my fantasy picks or my stock picks (or my fantasy stock picks in the case of Forcerank) my group conversations carry over between properties. The thing about Finance and Fantasy is they both involve an element of competitive "I know more than you and can make better predictive decisions." Stock Picking and Fantasy Drafting slash Lineup Setting are more closely related mental tasks than they are given credit for. Both are pleasurable when you are right. I think its odd to say Yahoo went the tech route, because outside her acquisitions, it does seem they doubled down on the editorial media vertical side (tv shows, news anchors, major tech journalists) without creating any sort of modern cms, without actually introducing ANY tech innovation in house. They also scrapped Yahoo Voices, right as Medium and Kinja and Chorus and Wordpress forged a new era of blogging. Ive said before, Atavist would have been a great fit in their tech/media empire niche. After buying the tech, they should have acquired some really popular high quality independent blogs/bloggers.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I'm reminded of Second Life, where a vital arts colony turned into a gambling and pornography den. Its kind of like how depressed town centers turn into just antique shops and hair stylists - its the lowest form of life, turned to when everything else is gone. So yeah, Yahoo could have given up and become a gambling site only.

by nikcub 10y ago

nashashmi 10y ago

I agree with you, and would like to add that Yahoo was in denial of who it was and what strengths it had. Still however, comparing it to a company like IAC is quite insulting. Yahoo was something more, it was a chance for a media company to rule the internet once again. It was how tech did media.

sperglord 10y ago

I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.

dingo_bat 10y ago
I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.
- gloverkcn 10y ago
  I know you are being glib, but I'd rather survive and live to fight another day. A company with resources can invest, grow, and contribute.
gnicholas 10y ago
AOL was acquired by Verizon, so in a sense they still exist, but in another sense not. They did own/operate HuffPo, Engadget, and other properties for some time prior to the Verizon acquisition.
- empath75 10y ago
  Yahoo is more or less going to be folded into aol, actually.
  - bastardoperator 10y ago
    I also heard the recent AOL layoffs had much to do with duplicate positions at Yahoo and that Yahoo will fall under the AOL umbrella.
baybal2 10y ago
and all blogs they own turned into turdballs
jannes 10y ago
They even own Techcrunch, which appears regularly on here
basch 10y ago
AOL also chased local media with Patch.com and failed miserably.

dpark 10y ago

The problem is that Yahoo was never a media company, either. They never had a lot of success in media, at least not past their early properties like Finance and Autos. They failed to do anything meaningful with video, or mobile, or flickr, or much of anything past their early success. Yahoo tried to be a media company for years. They called themselves "the premier media company". They had two different CEOs pulled from the media world, Terry Semel and Ross Levinsohn. Levinsohn didn't really have much time, but Semel did. If Yahoo was a media company, they were unsuccessful at it. I always wanted Yahoo to rebound. I worked there for a few years and my team seemed quite good. But there was always the problem that the company didn't quite seem to know what it was trying to do. It didn't have a real plan for winning back search nor for winning in media, and it didn't have deep enough pockets to dig indefinitely. What it had were initiatives like Livestand that failed to compete with apps like Flipboard and an ad network that never competed with AdSense despite Yahoo actually buying Overture.

tonyplee 10y ago
"Jack of all trades, master of none" is probably not a good way to increase share holder value.
- jrfarina 10y ago
  Full quote: "...but often times better than a master of one"
  - bjxrn 10y ago
    That's a modern addition.
basch 10y ago
how is Yahoo News not considered successful? Sure its a lot of AP aggregation, but most importantly, people were clicking it.
- chris_va 10y ago

ousta 10y ago

this is sad tho in some fields yahoo contributions where huge even as of today just look the research they published and contributed to in the machine learning field. this is definitely premium tech firm level

basch 10y ago

there is a middle ground too. Two of the verticals Yahoo doesnt experience a lot of competition in are Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy Sports. (edit: rereading your comment, I see you mentioned the exact same thing and I skimmed over it.) And then there is a squandered userbase of Yahoo Messengers that were left to dry. If I were Yahoo CEO, and the company had chosen the media empire route, I would have explored a Yahoo Finance 2.0 as a social network. Step one, acquire or clone OpenFolio and Robinhood and maybe buy something like SumZero for its social graph slash userbase. Create a Free and Pro tier. Other companies I have mentioned before as a good fit in this idea are Forcerank and Sparkfin. Motif is another company trying to make stock picking more social. Having a unified messaging layer across the bottom of ALL its properties (like Facebook) would have benefited here too. Yahoo should have made a push to be THE fantasy company, instead of covering its product in daily fantasy ads, trying to squeeze out the last of the value. Sports is a huge vertical other tech giants like Google and Microsoft and Apple dont play much in. Being cash rich, they could have bought one of the major Daily Fantasy empires, which basically print money. I cant think of many better easy ways to return shareholder value. Again, a messenger bar at the bottom of the screen would have really tied the place together. Now if I want to talk with my group of friends about my fantasy picks or my stock picks (or my fantasy stock picks in the case of Forcerank) my group conversations carry over between properties. The thing about Finance and Fantasy is they both involve an element of competitive "I know more than you and can make better predictive decisions." Stock Picking and Fantasy Drafting slash Lineup Setting are more closely related mental tasks than they are given credit for. Both are pleasurable when you are right. I think its odd to say Yahoo went the tech route, because outside her acquisitions, it does seem they doubled down on the editorial media vertical side (tv shows, news anchors, major tech journalists) without creating any sort of modern cms, without actually introducing ANY tech innovation in house. They also scrapped Yahoo Voices, right as Medium and Kinja and Chorus and Wordpress forged a new era of blogging. Ive said before, Atavist would have been a great fit in their tech/media empire niche. After buying the tech, they should have acquired some really popular high quality independent blogs/bloggers.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
I'm reminded of Second Life, where a vital arts colony turned into a gambling and pornography den. Its kind of like how depressed town centers turn into just antique shops and hair stylists - its the lowest form of life, turned to when everything else is gone. So yeah, Yahoo could have given up and become a gambling site only.