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Yahoo CEO Speaks Up about Shake Up
cvos writes "Yahoo has been under fire recently. The common wisdom is that they are losing marketshare to Google, and now MSN. Many executives have departed in the last few weeks, and Yahoo has received a lot of unfavorable press. Their CEO let out a (unintentional) personal and heated response to media critics." From the article: "At the next all-hands. Just as a reminder. I'm sorry I didn't do it today. I'm gonna put up there all of the press reports on how Yahoo! was going out of business 5 years ago. And of how we were gonna be swallowed up by AOL, owned by Time-Warner, and by Microsoft, and by everybody else. And Yahoo! looked like it had a dim future. Well those headlines, of course, were used to wrap a lot of fish in a lot of people's houses, as the expression goes. And they were all full of [expletive deleted], and they had no idea what we had planned for them. And they do not now as well!"
"Well those headlines, of course, were used to wrap a lot of fish in a lot of people's houses, as the expression goes." I'm sorry. I'm not at ALL familiar with that expression. Maybe that's why they didn't do so well (they were too worried about fish in people's houses)?
it's OK, dude, don't overreact, we don't want any chairs to become airborne.
Personally I think he is right though, Yahoo has enough revenue sources to stay with us for quite some time and with all that money that can afford to at least try and build new interesting stuff.
You can't handle the truth.
He's talking about the practice of calling shoddy newspapers (like the National Enquirer, The Weekly World News, etc) "fish wrappers", because they are good for nothing but wrapping fish in.
If you didn't know because you don't frequent a market - when you buy fish at a live market, it's common practice to give it to the customer wrapped in newspaper. I don't know why exactly, maybe it absorbs the smell or something.
the re'design' of tv.yahoo.com shows how out of touch yahoo? has become.
Sounds like he didn't get the memo yet that he's been canned.
CEOs always beat their chests and yell the loudest when they're on their way out. Yahoo's newest "strategy" is junk, and they need some fresh leadership at the top, rather than just getting rid of all his subordinates who have worked their tails off to follow an ill-thought prior strategy.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Give the guy a break. Sure he is being a little brash, but don't we all get the chance to do that every now and then? Instead, why not find a news worthy subject to report on instead of someone's comment from an internal meeting?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
That memo exemplifies everything I see wrong at Yahoo form my external vantage point. It's substanceless internal boosterism. "We're great! We're really great! I can't say exactly why we're great, but this is a fantastic company and all the rumors of our imminent death are premature because we're great!"
So, what exactly does Yahoo do, precisely, that's so great? Anything? I certainly haven't seen anything mentioned that they do at all well aside from possibly their financial stuff.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
'nuff said.
Glad to see that reality is starting to sink in.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
One might wonder why for example, Yahoo will not support Firefox on any platform despite the fact that it's now captured more than 20% of the European browser market. Whenever on tries their Launchast service with Firefox, he's met with an "Error code: 24"!
This happens even when the so called ActiveX plugin is installed on Windows. One wonders whether there is nothing like testing before products are launched.
The other thing that really makes me "mad", is the fact that Yahoo seem to think that every internet user used IE or even likes it. I for one, hate it and will not touch Microsoft's latest release.
I will give Yahoo some credit: They seem to be changing for the better. You see, their commercials are being served in Adobe's flash format which runs on most systems. This means that commercials will likely be seen or watched by most people.
The problem on this particular issue is that the news or commentary videos are in some proprietary format that does not run to completion if one is using Firefox. That is after seeing the commercials. Ironic indeed.
On one hand, I actually think it's too bad that this was apparently unintentionally leaked. This is the sort of response I would want to see from the leader of my company. Taking an interest in the future, and what others think, that is far better in my opinion than sitting at the top and not showing any interest. Throwing in the expletives and keeping it terse just serves to make him seem more human as well.
At the same time, I agree with others that I have seen many execs yelling their loudest right on their way out. Trying to correct for past non-caring at a time when it is too little, too late.
I think Yahoo has more than enough potential still to stay around. At the same time, I think Google came in and essentially yanked their market away, and MSN is now scrounging the crumbs. What is really left for Yahoo?
what yahoo actually does that isn't done better by someone else or just totally redundant?
To me they seem to be a sort of second AOL.
"Yeah they're all right, Yahoo is screwed. Sell your shares now". I don't know the details about this but never take the word of the CEO on anything.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I don't mean this as a troll. I'm not a yahoo-hater by any means. I actually used them pretty frequently back in '97, when the web was young =).
My point is this: can anyone explain to me what precisely yahoo contributes to the internet nowadays? Microsoft (love them or hate them) just said hey, here's a new operating system. Google says hey, here's a new approach to email. Youtube says hey, here's a new way to share video. Even if you're a rabid fan or a hater of any of those companies, you have to admit that they have a clear product.
Yahoo, on the other hand, doesn't have any clear product. Sure, everyone knows them as a search company, but there are a billion search sites out there, and yahoo seems to be going in twenty different directions on its home page. Why should I use them instead of google, or craigslist, or cnn, or google news, or msnbc?
It seems like yahoo met with a lot of success with its search back in the day, and they're still puttering along like it's '97. Sure, back then, they were working hard to categorize a lot of the internet and make it easy to find things, but now, I honestly can't tell you what all of the people who work at yahoo are trying to do.
Geez, Yahoo! must really be in a perilous state if they let themselves be run by a CEO who sounds like a 12 year old boy on a sugar rush.
He seriously needs better English writing skills.
I think Y!'s latest re-design has emphasized form over function. It looks like the original founder's vision has been lost, to PHBs who think pages should look pretty.
I don't understand why anyone would think that this new, more busy, interface is better, given Google's success with their sparse layout.
I know that I have changed my home page from Yahoo to Google as a result of the re-design. I also know that many people reading the financial boards have moved to other venues.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What has Yahoo done for the past 5 years to stay alive? Certainly nothing to justify the vast money it raised in the stock market to date, defining the 1990s dotcom Bubble.
--
make install -not war
It's not easy to face the looming demise of your company and your job with candor, intelligence and restraint. So please be nice to this guy as his company goes down the tubes.
My blog
Just because yahoo didn't die years ago it means it's impossible for them to die?
I don't think yahoo is inmmortal, specially at this precise moment
Know how to. Write in complete. Sentences if you. Are a CE. O of a big. Company?
The slow unravelling of Yahoo is a warning. If you want to make money in "growth" companies, there are three ways to do it.
1) Buy on the way up, hold on until after the point of fear until complacency arrives, then sell.
2) After the first crash, buy at the bottom and hold until the second crest. It will then crash again.
3) Wait then until it sells for 10 times last year's earnings and pays a dividend and is out of fashion.
Who knows whether Yahoo will make it to stage three. But if it does, and only then, will it deserve to be considered an possible investment. Until then, its a wild speculation. You can make and lose fortunes on wild speculations. Its not investment.
What has yahoo done for me lately?
Their index is larger than Google's and I find that their results are not much worse than Google's most of the time. When I can't find something through Google, I go to Yahoo and it usually finds it. Their index of images seems larger as well. What keeps me with Google right now is Gmail, super fast personalized homepage, Groups and the habit.
Apparently, some people who knew how to "do it right", did so, and called their work "Google".
I began losing respect for Yahoo when they ganged up with SBC to force me to use some proprietary software in my machine, which I perceived as a lock-in to the Yahoo portal, as well as a likely data-mining opportunity to snoop my machine.
Of all the Yahoo offerings, I like Finance.yahoo.com the best.
Here's an example report of some mutual funds I have been tracking. I like it because it gives me a clean display of what I want.
They have not yet implemented technologies which require me to enable Javascript, then use that technology to hound the living daylights out of me. When they do, I will no longer use their site.
I used to find Groups.yahoo.com extremely valuable, but slowly but surely they have been requiring javascript more and more to access mundane functions... but if I enable javascript I am going to be pelted with God-knows-what that I didn't order, and have no idea what the window is programmed to do should I click on it.
Its really hard to tell a big organization what really irks me off. Its much better is someone like Google actually shows them how its done.
I have NEVER had any problems accessing Google from ANYTHING, because Google adheres to WEB STANDARDS. Trying to communicate to many businesses is a royal pain when they adopt weird extensions which screw up my end.
It wasn't easy trying to find a decent internet stockbroker! All the "big guys" adopt untenable crap on their end which forces me to be vulnerable to all sorts of mischief.
Scottrade is the best I have found so far, and even they require Javascript enabled if I wanna BUY anything. All the "big boys" ( Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Lynch, etc. ) REQUIRED IE, rendering them useless to me. With all those Javascript phishing tools floating around out there, one would think a FINANCIAL INSTITUTION would be leery of using such pornsite-like programming on their site.
Lengthy letters to them regarding my concerns of my vulnerabilities to phishing attacks when I have scripting enabled have had no effect.
I can't force them to use standard HTML protocols.
I hope they won't be surprised that if Google opens a web brokerage that uses pure HTML protocols, where I know my URL bar is not being overwritten, and know exactly where a link is going to send me, I will go to them.
Google is succeeding for a reason. They are doing things RIGHT.
And they are big enough now that Microsoft cannot buy them and force them to use "Microsoft proprietary" protocols - like we discussed in another forum on Slashdot - where things have grown so big and cantankerous that trying to make them secure is damn near impossible.
Its the same old thing. Businesses get so big their leaders determine that they "make the market" instead of "meet the needs of the market", then flounder around while the smaller businesses which are not big enough to "make the market" absorb the big business's customer base.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I'm not sure why this is news. People in the software business say this kind of thing about the press all the time. After all, do you trust the software and internet industry rags to get things right? If they don't have a story to report they'll report rumors. Sometimes it seems like if they don't have rumors they'll just make something up, though I hope they're not quite that bad.
What credibility does the press maintain? 0 That is if you're talking about 'traditional media'.
Areas that Yahoo works for me:
* Start Page. My Yahoo isn't bad, but I actually use their main page - although I only see it once or twice a day, it's a surprisingly good design.
* Yahoo News is my favorite news page on the internet. Google News isn't bad, but it's just an aggregator - Yahoo at has quality feeds (Associated Press, Reuters) - and they actually host their own content.
* The new webmail (that they purchased Oddpost to get, and is a full-function email client in your browser) is absolutely fantastic. It's good enough that I pay for it ($19 per year gets you no advertising on the site or in your outgoing email plus more space than I'll ever use). Server-side mailbox rules are fantastic - and I never have to configure another email client, or worry about backing up my mail when I change computers.
* Address book. It's super-complete (has fields for every IM service, for example) and it integrates with email and Yahoo Maps.
* Yahoo Maps is still better than Google Maps. They did a recent update that surpasses Google for the flash, but Yahoo still has Google beaten in a very important area for me - printability. Have you ever tried *printing* a Google map? It doesn't! Yahoo's map directions print very nicely!
Their acquired properties:
* Bookmarks. I wouldn't be able to manage my bookmarks without them.
* Photos. It's a photographer's paradise - for both hosting and browsing photos.
I also have the Yahoo Toolbar installed in Firefox, configured with icons set pointing to most of the above. The areas that Yahoo does *not* work for me are:
* RSS reader. Google Reader is far superior to any of the RSS solutions offered by Yahoo.
* Finance. They've lost me to MorningStar. I still occasionally check Yahoo Finance for their news feeds, but MorningStar has better portfolio tools (and I have a subscription to them anyway).
* Search. Google is still better. For popular things, Yahoo is just as competent, but Google is better for those hard-to-find and obscure searches.
Put it this way: losing Google would be a minor inconvenience, but losing Yahoo would break the internet for me. Although bear in mind that I've been using the internet (and Yahoo) since around '94 - long before Google was around.
Who the hell follows up "all full of shit" with something like "And they do not now as well!"? Usually, when someone uses "full of shit" they are pissed of, and when they are pissed of they use contractions and shorter more clipped speech, like "And they don't now either!". Unless they are drunk.
About a year ago, I noticed that some of the Groups navigation text had changed to a pale blue. WTF? I'm having a hard time reading it. Then I noticed that the navigation is split between the left and right sides of the screen. I navigate within a group on the left and between my groups on the right. The Admin interface needs work too. For spammers, how about a button that drops the spammer AND all their posts? A few hundred thousand Admins would thank you for implementing this.
Then I began seeing more and more animations. Yes, I realize that these are ads and ads pay the bit-freight but while I can recall the woman with the dread-locks dancing in silhouette, I can't recall the product. Would have been better to put up "Coca-Cola" or "Scotch-Tape" in large letters, with a lot of whitespace around it. If you add movement or color changes, make it VERY slow and VERY subtle. Load up the page with content and sneak the ad in.
I use Groups a lot (for Freecycle, check it out) the user and admin interfaces are awkward. I see occasional changes so it looks like someone it trying.
About 3 weeks ago, www.Yahoo.com was down for days. It still fails occasionally. This is amazing for a web-portal.
What's the matter? Too many managers? Too many PMP'ers? Too many meetings? "We need a meeting next month to discuss this."
-khome If you want to get the work done, hire more people who work; if you want more meetings, hire more managers. Your choice.
For me, what makes this more than just another re-org is the depature of Lloyd Braun, a guy who green-lit Lost and was hired by Yahoo a couple of years ago to create the "Yahoo Media Group", which was going to create video content.
I was really interested in the idea of a webco serious propduicing video for online, rather than just (like youtube) harvesting user-generated content, most of which is obviously content made for TV and Cinema.
However, Lloyd Braun never really came up with anything, it appears: a recent story says "Yahoo launched Yahoo Tech, the Media Group's first major content offering". As you see at http://tech.yahoo.com/, it's a just a very normal, video-free tech-realted website. You don't need the producer of Lost to make a site like that.
He also launched "the 9" -- http://9.yahoo.com/ -- which is just a sort of user-generated content top ten. (Or nine). Again, Hollywood producers not required.
Apparently since May 06 there is now something called "Yahoo Studios", headed by another TV guy, David Katz, appointed by Lloyd Braun "to create original programs for Yahoo websites and strike content deals with entertainment companies and talent agencies". Maybe Katz will be able to come up with something.
However, by constantly hiring TV people to do this work, it strikes me they are dooming themselves to failure: the web is not TV, and Braun's departuer reflects that. But IMHO it should be possible to create good original video content for the web. Will Katz be the guy to do it?
I would like to recommend Y(aho)o!Sucker, to those of you who also think that Yahoo! mail sucks big time, but can't change to Gmail because of the lock-in Yahoo! is shamelessly practicing (no free email forwarding or POP access).
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Seems like its straight out of Jay and Silent Bob Strike back:
"I quote 'We're going to make you eat our expletive deleted and then expletive deleted out the expletive deleted and eat the expletive deleted that you expletive deleted after eating our expletive deleted"