The New Yahoo: A Logo and Pressure on an Executive

September 5, 2013

Yahooooo. I read two stories about the grandma of Web sites. The first was “Introducing Our New Logo!.” I like the exclamation point. The logo is okay, but it seems to be cosmetic. When I was in Portugal in August, Yahoo would not render 70 percent of the time. Why? I am no rocket scientist, so I suppose I could blame it on the hapless Portuguese connectivity providers. But Gmail worked about 90 percent of the time, so maybe the problem is Yahoo’s. Will a new logo address the time outs? One hopes.

Then I read “Pressure Mounts on Yahoo’s De Castro.” No exclamation point after Yahoo, however. The main point of the write up in my opinion was:

Sources close to Yahoo say that De Castro is feeling increasing pressure to deliver better ad results, as the blustery exec has found himself on the outs with CEO Marissa Mayer. There even has been talk that De Castro could be gone by the end of the year, according to numerous sources. The big knock against De Castro is, despite Mayer’s string of mobile acquisitions, lots of positive press and the massive Tumblr deal, the company ’s ad business has languished in a marketplace that is enjoying robust growth. Particularly alarming is that Yahoo’s display business is getting hit on both the branding front and programmatic, which would theoretically be a De Castro strength, given his Google background.

My thought is that a new logo and creating discomfort for senior managers adds a different octave to the Yahoo yodel. Do I hear a screech? No, no. The sound is what I hear when one of the goslings tries to:

Figure out which page will display when accessing Yahoo.com
Looking at search results which have modest relevance to the query
Scanning a shopping search result.

I hope that the new logo and excellent management will make the Yahoo yodel more melodious for the fellow in Big Bear, California.

Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2013

Sponsored by Xenky. Oh, wait. I am Xenky.

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Search, Yahoo

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.