Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Kills Flipboard Competitor Six Months After Debut
redletterdave writes "It seemed like a step in the right direction for Yahoo back in November, when the company announced a family of new mobile products that would enrich the way users experience and understand their news and entertainment content. But just shy of seven months after that outburst of mobile and social apps and tools, Yahoo has decided to call it quits on arguably the biggest piece of that mobile package: the personalized magazine app for iPad, Livestand. This was the first major business decision made by Ross Levinsohn, the interim CEO who took over for Scott Thompson on May 13 after the SEC discovered Thompson lied on his resume."
This looks just like a "Hey! Imma doing something! Yay Me!" type move from Ross Levinsohn. I often find within the company that I work for, that when a project changes hands, the new Project Manager feels that he/she needs to stamp in some sort of "territory" so that they seem to be doing something. Sadly though, it also seems that many of these decisions are made without a full understanding of impacts and result in poor implementation. Given that these apps seemed to be at least getting Yahoo looking in the right direction, it seems a shame to see them canned. Given that Yahoo is in such a poor position at the moment, I don't think that a conservative approach is a good strategy for them at the moment - they need to be rolling the dice on long odds while they still have the money to be able to afford to do so. Give them a few more years of stagnation and their customers moving onto other products and they simply won't have the capital or time to find that "new big thing" that will ressurect them.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Wouldn't this be redundant with this whole new browser thing they started working on recently?
The new browser thing (still not sure what to even refer to it as) is essentially this idea but expanded even more. (at least, I think so...)
You mean the browser with their private key included? Yeah it seems like Yahoo! has no idea what they are doing at any level within the company..
I like Livestand. It's a richer interface than the one-dimensional approach of the classic browser news portal. I wonder if it was costing them too much money to maintain, or not enough ad revenue, or no revenue at all. That part was never clear to me; paging through the app, I don't see much in the way of ads.
I wonder what's happening to Yahoo these days; they seem not to have a clue since about 2003 or so. They were a great portal back in the '90s and I still have them bookmarked for news and weather, and my wife uses their email. They have so much potential; something isn't adding up.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
At its peak in late 1999, Yahoo's market cap was over $100B. You don't just kill a hundred billion dollar company all at once; they have been doing a solid job of strangling it slowly for the last twelve years though. Shouldn't be too much longer.
Another cool-looking yahoo project that I never heard about until they decided to cancel it. If only yahoo spent as much energy talking about the things they are starting as much as the things they are ending.
Be careful friend. You are inadvertently smearing one of the finest beverages on God's Earth.
6 ounces of YooHoo, a jigger of Slivovitza, 1 oz of the juice of one boiled Ayahuasca vine and a cocktail onion over cracked (not crushed) ice is a great summer refresher. Miniature japanese umbrellas decorate the top of the glass to create a festive atmosphere for a party you'll never forget.
You are welcome on my lawn.
At its peak in late 1999, Yahoo's market cap was over $100B. You don't just kill a hundred billion dollar company all at once; they have been doing a solid job of strangling it slowly for the last twelve years though. Shouldn't be too much longer.
For a moment there I thought you were talking about Facebook.
Be careful friend. You are inadvertently smearing one of the finest beverages on God's Earth.
6 ounces of YooHoo, a jigger of Slivovitza, 1 oz of the juice of one boiled Ayahuasca vine and a cocktail onion over cracked (not crushed) ice is a great summer refresher. Miniature japanese umbrellas decorate the top of the glass to create a festive atmosphere for a party you'll never forget.
Do you attain shaman status afterwards?
and kill two birds with one stone
if successful it could make his tenure less secure. That is, from the CEO's perspective it is better to jettison a potentially successful project for which he will garner no credit and could potentially make his efforts seem weak in comparison. Too bad corporate ethics are never enforced, where only the top dog's needs are now met.
I think that's part of a Steely Dan song:
"The YooHoo drink. The fine European Nutella...make tonight a wonderful thing.
Sing it again.
The YooHoo drink. The fine European Nutella...make tonight a wonderful thing."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Brother, shamans try to attain PopeRatzo status.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah, and that was in the days when $100B was serious money!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Monetization strategy?
The most common monetization strategy these days starts with "be the most popular ___ on the planet, and attract hundreds of millions of users".
Then think of something, anything, that will bring in a dollar or two from the exploitation of knowledge about those peoples' habits and predilections.
After Google, Facebook is the recent master of this game, and recognized a competitor that might steal some facetime (read: content pattern analysis time)
of users if they didn't buy it.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Why do I picture Yahoo as the Wile E. Coyote of tech companies?