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Verizon Says Yahoo Name Isn't Going Away (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the keeping-it dept.

Verizon is treading carefully with Yahoo, but still wants to seal the deal. From a CNET report: "The deal makes strategic sense," said Marni Walden, the executive vice president of business innovation for Verizon and the person who pushed for the acquisition. "We won't jump off of a cliff blindly." She continues to believe there's value in the Yahoo name, noting that it won't go away if Verizon completes its acquisition. Brands like Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Finance still draw plenty of eyeballs, and offer the kind of audience that Verizon and AOL lack, she said during a keynote session at The Wall Street Journal Digital conference on Wednesday. Her comments come just weeks after Yahoo disclosed a 2014 breach exposed at least 500 million accounts, making it the worst hack in history. Shortly after, reports found that Yahoo had participated in a government program to sniff user emails, further eroding trust. Verizon said this all had the potential to cause a "material impact" to the deal, which could mean Yahoo takes a reduced price or the deal falls through altogether.

27 comments

  1. email/im by dejitaru · · Score: 2

    IF this merger happens I really want to see what they do with their email and IM portions of AOL and Yahoo. If they merge it under one of the names or keep it separate. Yay finally interoperability between yahoo and aim! (not like I use them or know anyone who still does)

  2. Yum by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    Take a nice big bite of that turd sandwich and smile like you love it!

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  3. The few Web 1.0 Sites. by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    While myself like a lot of people had moved away from Yahoo, it wasn't from disgust like I had with other site, but more to the fact that other sites just did the job better for me.
    The Yahoo Name isn't unredeemable however it will take a while to get the users back. And they have to be more than on-par with their competitors they will need to be superior.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by nine-times · · Score: 2

      I agree with your sentiment, but not your conclusion. That is, Yahoo doesn't inspire disgust or outrage for me. I don't hate Yahoo the way I hate some companies. The feeling that Yahoo inspires in me is something more like, "meh." It's the site that was part of the early web, and then became one of those lame portals, along with such stellar inspirations of "meh" as AOL and MSN, that you might find some piece of semi-malware switched your homepage to.

      However, I don't think that means the brand is worth salvaging, specifically because the brand inspires a sense of "meh". If I hear Google or Apple is about to introduce a brand new product, my expectation is that it's probably going to be something interesting. Even if Twitter announced that they'd be introducing a big change, I'd be curious and want to find out what it is. If Yahoo announces big changes coming, I expect that they're going to be shuffling around their existing semi-competent me-too products-- like maybe they're going to have a new theme for their portal, or their webmail will introduce "labels", or something similarly uninspired.

      Maybe I'm wrong. I know people have a good association with Yahoo Finance. Do people still use Yahoo webmail or Yahoo Messenger? Is Yahoo Answers used for purposes other than trolling? Are there other services that are popular that I've just lost track of?

      Also, and admittedly I'm just basing this on my own perceptions, but I don't think "Yahoo!" is a very good name for what they're trying to be. Sure, it's kind of fun, but it would be more appropriate branding for a Flash game website or something of that kind. If you'd never heard of the company and it were just being introduced today, I don't think "Yahoo!" would be considered a good choice for a web portal, news site, or a tech conglomerate. It's too playful and not serious enough. Verizon already owns AOL, and I think the name and branding for "AOL" is going to play better in this day and age, and I'm not sure it makes sense to maintain both brands.

      On the other hand, it's not clear to me what Verizon wants from these purchases. It might be less about what companies like AOL and Yahoo can provide, and more about trying funnel the people using them as an ISP to content they own and control.

    2. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Yahoo Name isn't unredeemable however it will take a while to get the users back.

      The name "Yahoo!" was the worst thing about the company until it became too difficult to decide which part of the company was truly the worst.

      I suspect that it has no cache among millennials at all. Its just a vaguely recognizable name from the past.

      The brand has no future, IMO. The users have already been fumbled away. If they are sitting on some valuable IP, that is where the worth lies.

      The name is primarily valuable to people spending other people's money to do something "big" and "impressive" (looking at you, Marni).

      I wouldn't mind owning that nifty neon "A nice place to stay on the internet" sign they had over the freeway in SF just for nostalgia's sake.

    3. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      To add to this I think there is a valid question of demographics as well. Advertisers want young people with disposable income for the most part. What is the average age of Yahoo!'s audience? I bet it skews older now. I mean who created yahoo mail accounts after Gmail was available without an invite?

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    4. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Maybe I'm wrong. I know people have a good association with Yahoo Finance. Do people still use Yahoo webmail or Yahoo Messenger? Is Yahoo Answers used for purposes other than trolling? Are there other services that are popular that I've just lost track of?

      I use some of the Yahoo groups. After Usenet collapsed the Yahoo groups filled in and added some file storage ability. It also offered the ability to moderate people who were assholes or got hacked for having lame passwords. That is actually a rather nice service.

      Yahoo Sports is actually a professional and nice alternative to the Walt Disney version of sports, ESPN.

      Now that being said, on all of the news type pages, fully half of the news links are of the Taboola clickbait variety. Completely worthless and a waste of time, and since they are placed as if they are a legit news story, you can accidentally click on them. So I don't even check the sports stories that much any more. Yahoo as it is isn't worth much.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    5. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      To add to this I think there is a valid question of demographics as well. Advertisers want young people with disposable income for the most part. What is the average age of Yahoo!'s audience? I bet it skews older now. I mean who created yahoo mail accounts after Gmail was available without an invite?

      We're told that young people don't have disposible income. While old, I have quite a bit.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by youngone · · Score: 1
      nine-times makes some excellent points.

      My first thought was that Marni Walden, the executive vice president of business innovation for Verizon has no business innovation left, so is resorting to spending boatloads of money on buying stuff in a bid to gain "market share" or whatever.

      This is what C level idiots do when they have no idea. Also just because Marni thinks the brand has some value (or is at least saying that in public) does not make it true, or even believable.

    7. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 1

      I ditched Yahoo in general because I was pretty unhappy with their support. The site had lots of circular links that seemed focussed on preventing you from actual contacting them for an issue not described on the site.

      Yahoo Finance is the sole remaining Yahoo product I use.

      --
      -- Using the preview button since 2005
    8. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Advertisers want young people with disposable income for the most part.

      They do?

      Young people tend to either be flat broke, or rather savvy to attempts to rip them off, especially internet advertising. Young people are far more likely to use ad-blockers. Old people are not; they're more trusting and easily taken advantage of. That's why they even have laws designed to protect against "elder abuse". Advertisers would do much better targeting the old folks who use Yahoo Mail.

    9. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      While I mostly agree with you, your points about not having any cache among millennials and being a vaguely recognizable name from the past can also be said about Cadillac, which everyone has long been predicting demise for because it's an "old person's car". They were saying this 2 decades ago about Cadillac and Lincoln. Yet those brands are still there, somehow. Cadillac even survived the whole GM collapse, while Pontiac and Saturn did not. Now, how Cadillac manages to stay afloat, I have no idea, but they do. It's just like AOL and Yahoo; I have no idea how they survive, but they do. There must be someone out there still giving them money. And if Yahoo is anything like Cadillac, they could still be hanging around 20 years from now, though people will still be wondering how.

    10. Re:The few Web 1.0 Sites. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least in Yahoo's email, I can open an email in a Tab. I right click on Gmail and it's a horrible sub-menu of anything but.
      I like yahoo email literally because of that one feature.

  4. Is the Marissa Mayer name going away? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's all we really want.

  5. ATT customers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All of us AT&T Customers have our email hosted and serviced by Yahoo!. I just can't wait for that bullshit. And of course, the FTC and FCC won't do jack shit for us because they are a bunch of overpaid numbnutses.

    BTW, The Yahoo! Customer support people that handle the AT&T email are total assholes. I hope Verizon cans every single one of them and I hope they end up begging for jobs at Starbucks.

  6. Oh man.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...we just can't catch a break, can we...

  7. Shocking by SeaFox · · Score: 1

    Can't imagine why they wouldn't want to retire the Yahoo brand when they can use a name like Verizon that's associated with stellar customer service and value.

  8. AOL AND Yahoo!!!? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    So Verizon now has both AOL and Yahoo! ??? Why do they want/need both?

    1. Re:AOL AND Yahoo!!!? by xlsior · · Score: 2

      So Verizon now has both AOL and Yahoo! ??? Why do they want/need both?

      They live 20 years in the past, as proven by their broadband offerings as well. What's the most delusional about this takeover is that Verizon's main goal of the takeover is to leverage yahoo and almost double their customer base to 2 billion in the next 4 years. Neither Verizon nor Yahoo has a good track record attracting or retaining customers any time there is even a glimmer of choice involved, and they don't exactly have a captive audience here.

    2. Re:AOL AND Yahoo!!!? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      So Verizon now has both AOL and Yahoo! ??? Why do they want/need both?

      It's like how some people want herpes and gonorrhea, kind of a pick-your-symptoms thing.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    3. Re:AOL AND Yahoo!!!? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      I don't know about where you live, but where I live (a more rural area about an hour from DC), Verizon is king, as it is in most rural areas I know of. Verizon has, hands-down, the best cellular coverage in rural areas. Of course, they also have the very worst service, and the most astronomical prices. But people in rural areas happily pay it because they're unwilling to put up with less-than-stellar coverage from the other telcos.

      Personally, I have a Sprint phone with Ting and it works well enough. I'm not willing to pay $150/month more just for better coverage. Sprint's service is "good enough", and doesn't cause me any problems.

  9. to be fair, that is true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She continues to believe there's value in the Yahoo name,

    To be fair, that is actually true. There is value in the Yahoo name.

    Nobody ever said it was positive value, though.

  10. YIM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about getting them to bring back their original chat client? The replacement is pure crap-- not a single thing about it is better than the old one.

  11. Women helping women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The deal makes strategic sense," said Marni Walden, the executive vice president of business innovation for Verizon and the person who pushed for the acquisition.

    What a shock that when Marissa Mayer fails to stop Yahoo's death spiral another woman executive decides that Yahoo needs to be saved.

  12. It isn't? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pity. I thought Yahoo's name was mud.

  13. "We won't jump off of a cliff blindly." by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    "We won't jump off of a cliff blindly."

    Full quote:

    "We won't jump off of a cliff blindly, we'll do it with our eyes wide open, as has been the tradition at Yahoo for some time."

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  14. Best laugh of the morning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The deal makes strategic sense."
    So did:
    HP's acquisition of Compaq.
    HP's acquisition of Palm.
    TimeWarner's acquisition of AOL.
    Google's purchase of Motorola.
    Yahoo's acquisition of Geocities.
    Yahoo's acquisition of Broadcast.com.
    Cisco's acquisition of Flip.

    Yeah. Just because a deal might make strategic sense *today* does not in any way, shape, or form make it a "good acquisition." As Verizon is about to learn.

    captcha:discard