Yahoo: The Value of Being a Parasite
December 29, 2015
I read a number of articles about Yahoo each day. Most of these are rehashes. Xoogler flops. Yahoo tanks. A fresh angle rare.
“Why Yahoo Needs a Monopoly to Survive” is different. The approach takes a tough stance:
Yahoo is in trouble. Despite nearly $5 billion in annual revenue, investors value Yahoo’s business at next to nothing. Most of its value comes from its investment in Alibaba–to the point where Yahoo has largely become a tracking stock for Alibaba shares.
Direct and to the point.
The write up continues:
Google has the content platform in search. Facebook has the social networking platform. Amazon has the product marketplace (in the U.S.). Similarly, in China, Alibaba has the top product marketplace, Tencent has the top messaging platform and Baidu has the leading search platform. All leading platforms have a core monopoly that is the lifeblood of their business. Why? Once a platform has a monopoly, it can use its core network to expand into other markets Every subsequent platform can leverage the platform monopoly’s network to its advantage.
There you go. A monopoly is just darned good. Quite a generalization, but I like the frankness of the insight.
How does this relate to Yahoo?
Yahoo is not a monopoly. Yahoo must be a monopoly. The logic of the article is that Yahoo is a goner unless, like a pilot fish, it attaches itself to the shark Alibaba.
What will the Xoogler do? Do the parasite move or stick with a symbiotic relationship? Yahoooo!
Stephen E Arnold, December 29, 2015
Getting Smart About Cutting the Cable Cord
December 21, 2015
A few years ago, I read an article about someone who was fed up with streaming content because he wanted new shows and access to all the channels so they resubscribed to cable. I have to admit the easiest thing to do would be to pay a monthly cable bill and shell out additional fees for the premiere channels. The only problem is that cable and extra channels are quite expensive. It has since become easier to cut the cord.
One of the biggest problems viewers face is finding specific and new content. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon Prime are limited with licenses and their individual content and having to search each one is time consuming. Even worse is trying to type out a series name using a remote control instead of a keyboard. Technology to the rescue!
The Verge talks about “Yahoo’s New App Is A TV Guide For Cord Cutters” called Yahoo Video Guide that allows viewers to search by a name and instantly watch it.
“Whenever users find what they want to watch, they can click a button to “Stream Now,” and the app will automatically launch a subscription service that hosts the film. If the program isn’t available online, users can buy it, instead.”
The coolest feature is that if viewers want to channel surf all they do so with GIFs. The viewer picks a GIF that fits their mood and the app will sort out content from there.
Finally, all those moving images have a different function than entertaining reddit users.
Whitney Grace, December 21, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
New Patent for a Google PageRank Methodology
December 18, 2015
Google recently acquired a patent for a different approach to page ranking, we learn from “Recalculating PageRank” at SEO by the Sea. Though the patent was just granted, the application was submitted back in 2006. Writer Bill Slawski informs us:
“Under this new patent, Google adds a diversified set of trusted pages to act as seed sites. When calculating rankings for pages. Google would calculate a distance from the seed pages to the pages being ranked. A use of a trusted set of seed sites may sound a little like the TrustRank approach developed by Stanford and Yahoo a few years ago as described in Combating Web Spam with TrustRank (pdf). I don’t know what role, if any, the Yahoo paper had on the development of the approach in this patent application, but there seems to be some similarities. The new patent is: Producing a ranking for pages using distances in a Web-link graph.”
The theory behind trusted pages is that “good pages seldom point to bad ones.” The patent’s inventor, Nissan Hajaj, has been a Google senior engineer since 2004. See the write-up for the text of the patent, or navigate straight to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s entry on the subject.
Cynthia Murrell, December 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Yahoo: The Old Purple Ship Appears to Be Sinking
December 12, 2015
I read “Yahoo Will Spin Off Its Web Business, Including Search and Email.” The write up said:
… company officials said they were exploring a “reverse spin-off” of Yahoo’s substantial Web properties, which include search, email, media and advertising units. By creating a separate company, the value of those businesses would be more apparent to investors — and easier to sell.
Search means traffic. Email means some customers, some of whom pay the Yahooligans. But what is Yahoo search? I have to be forthright. I no longer know.
What’s left? Perhaps Yahoo will become a holding company of questionable acquisitions?
Too bad. I liked the yodel, and I enjoyed the tales of acquisitions gone off the rails. I liked hearing about the warfare among Yahoo silos.
Best of all, I loved the phone call with a New York analyst which asserted that Yahoo had better semantic technology than Google. Guess where that wild and crazy Yahooligan works? If you answered Google, you are correct. Even smart folks with silly notions want to work for a successful company.
Xooglers, by the way, no longer work for the Google. The analysis of Yahoo under the control of Xoogler will make an excellent case study.
Stephen E Arnold, December 11, 2015
Verizon: Interest in Yahoo?
December 9, 2015
I read “Verizon Willing to Kick Yahoo’s tires, Consider a Buy.” Verizon already has AOL and a Xoogler. Will Verizon, one of the Baby Bell progeny, buy the Yahooligans and one more Xoogler?
The article stated:
Verizon might consider purchasing struggling Web portal Yahoo, a top Verizon executive said during a media conference in New York on Monday.
Here’s the passage I highlighted in Yahoo purple:
“We look at everything across this spectrum,” Shammo [a Verizon top dog] said at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, according to Bloomberg. “If we see there is a strategic fit, and it makes sense for our shareholders and we can return value, I mean we’ll look at it. But at this point, it’s way too premature to talk about that one.”
Ah, ha. A clue about Verizon’s online strategy!
After reading this gem of a semi-fluid statement, the goslings and I made a list of the top 10 things Verizon can do with Yahoo:
- Use the Yahoo yodel in Verizon audio and video ads
- Introduce a matched set of Xooglers at the next shareholder meeting
- Resurrect Geocities and sell Web pages as part of a small business bundle
- Create and executive office for Internet business strategy headed by Xooglers Armstrong and Mayer
- Add Yahoo purple to the Verizon red signage compete with T Mobiles pink
- Create a single list of Yahoo products and services after buying Yahoo to find out what Yahoo actually owns
- Recreate the Yahoo directory as a next generation Yellow Pages
- Use the Yahoo search system to locate a replacement for the Yahoo search system
- Alphabetize the list of services listed on the Yahoo splash page
- Add “You’ve got mail” to Yahoo mail, when it works, that is.
Veri-hoooo.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2015
Yahoo: A Partial Catalog of Errors
December 8, 2015
I read “7 of Yahoo’s Biggest **** Ups.” Just seven? With the smell of blood in the air on Wall Street, the jibes on talking head TV, and the endless write ups about the Yahoo Board’s dithering, a catalog of Yahoo’s seven biggest failures seems timely.
What are the mistakes? Here you go:
- Not buying Google
- Not buying Facebook
- Not selling itself to Microsoft
- The Flickr flop
- Not thinking as a technology outfit
- The Tumblr tumble
- Disorganization in the reorganizations.
I have prepared several analyses of the Yahooligans over the years. I once had an illustration for a PowerPoint presentation which showed the Titanic and Terry Semel as the captain. I wish I could find that deck.
There are a couple of points in my list of purple vulnerabilities; for example, the settlement with the Google for the alleged, possible missteps regarding the GoTo, Overture, Yahoo advertising systems was an important milestone. I think that error in judgment was the action that turned on the flashing yellow lights for Yahoo. Yahoo settled a legal matter and took some money. Google then pranced toward its $60 plus billion in revenue dervived mostly from online advertising.
I also noted in my analyses the technical hubris at Yahoo. The company talked a good game and some of the Yahooligans published articles explaining whizzy technology type things. But the company fumbled not one or two technical opportunities. The company has been for a long time essentially a marketing yodler. Yodels are interesting, but yodels do not turn half baked ideas into revenue. The technology matters, not the wild notions.
Poor Yahoo. Its trajectory presages what will happen to a number of other outfits who take their eye off the technology-that-matters ball as it whizzes towards the batter’s head.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2015
Yahoo: Me Too Becomes You Too in Fantasy Matter
November 18, 2015
I read “Yahoo a New Target in NY Daily Fantasy Sports Probe: Source.” The main idea is that Yahoo rolled out a fantasy sports service. Yahoo needed revenues and someone at Yahoo thought this me too play was a no brainer.
In the write up, I learned:
A probe by New York State’s attorney general into the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar daily fantasy sports industry has been expanded to include online media giant Yahoo Inc, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The move coincides with a court filing by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday seeking a temporary injunction that would shut down DraftKings and FanDuel, leaders among online companies offering paid-for daily fantasy sports contests.
Poor Yahoo. At least the issue generated an easy rhyme: Yahoo, you, too. More woes for the Xoogler’s outfit. Quite a gamble.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2015
Yahoo and Management: Hollywood and Nemi Ships
November 16, 2015
On a trip to Italy, I learned about Caligula’s ships for Lake Nemi. Somehow, despite a crackerjack education at a college in a corn field, I did not know that Benito Mussolini drained the lake and began work to recover the ships. As luck would have it, the fine leader pulled off the salvage operation. One of the interesting discoveries was that Caligula’s architect covered the hull with lead. The idea was that water annoyances would not consume the wood. Not necessary. The lake was did not have shipworms. What happened to the ships? In the World War II spat, the ships burned. Poof. The Nemi ships can be a management inspiration: Grandiose, expensive, useless.
I think about the Roman emperor’s ships when I learn about the antics of Google management meet ups like the one reported in “Google’s Elite Camp Conference Returns to Sicily.” The idea seems to be that an off site training event is conducive to Googley innovation, learning, and management. With training sometimes deductible, depending on the country in which the tax authority resides, these Nemi-esque meets up can also deliver some down time.
I read “Marissa Mayer’s Convoluted Yahoo Strategy: There’s No Place Like Home” this morning (November 16, 2015). The article reports:
Last fall, in one of the stranger and more expensive efforts to boost company morale, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided that all her executive staff needed to play dress-up. In an elaborate photo shoot that took place at an offsite at the Cavallo Point Lodge in Marin County, north of San Francisco, she cast all the top staffers as characters from “The Wizard of Oz” and made them pose for a poster in full costume, since it was to be the theme of the upcoming employee holiday party.
When comparing this Wizard of Oz approach, the make believe of over the rainbow struck me as almost prudent. No Italy. No Nemi-style meet up in Sicily.
The write up adds:
One thing is clear: Yahoo’s not in Kansas anymore.
My thought is that fancy parties like those for which the Nemi boats were ideal, meet ups crafted with Google DNA, and play acting are Silicon Valley at its most decisive. As Dorothy said:
“If we walk far enough we shall sometime come to someplace.”
Hopefully that place includes revenue with a side order of healthy profits. Xooglers may think like Google, but Xooglers have to deliver the goods for stakeholders. Should Yahoo be a media company, a search company, or something else entirely. Right now Yahoo may have jumbled the costumes for its Oz thing.
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2015
Yahoo 2015: A Xoogler in the Drink, Calls in the MBAs for a Rescue
November 10, 2015
Years ago, when Google was a foundling, the myth of the brilliance of the Googler was fresh, new. Xooglers have had a good run. Work at the 24×7, wild and wonderful outfit for a few years. Then cash in and become an investment banker, an entrepreneur, or a senior manager.
Yahoo did the Xoogler thing. There was chatter years ago that the Yahoo was going to be a big deal in the exciting Internet world with mobile, smart software, semantics, apps, and original content.
How is that working out?
I read “Yahoo Hires McKinsey to Mull Reorg, as Mayer Demands Exec Pledge to Stay” to find out. Interesting analysis from a person in a good position to observe and gather information. Among the tidbits I jotted down were:
- The new swing for the fences initiative is Project Index. Index? That’s an exciting concept.
- Yahoo does not want to lose key staff. Who does?
- The top Xoogler hired the bluest of the blue chip consulting firms to help put some revenues on the books.
Okay, another big plan. Just like those at Google except and this is a classic “but for” construction—ad revenue. Google has it. Yahoo has less. A home run is unlikely to win the game in which Yahoo finds itself.
Losing staff? The fix is not to lock a professional down in my opinion. Working with a company is a choice. When folks decide not to work with an outfit, no contract will fix the free agent mentality of certain folks. The effort may cause people to bail out.
And the McKinsey thing? Blue chip consulting is a darned exciting type of work. Who is the client? The Xoogler? The Board of Directors? The stakeholders? Consider the answer, gentle reader. Blue chip consulting firms may not have all the answers, but the blue chip firms know how to set their agenda and then follow up.
What will McKinsey do? Preserve McKinsey. Yahoo may be in for some surprises because not even the smartest Xooglers in the world see opportunity quite the same way blue chip consulting firms do.
McKinsey did not hire Yahoo. Yahoo allegedly hired McKinsey. Who has the power now?
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2015
Yahoo and Spin
October 1, 2015
Quote to note: You may have to pay to read “Yahoo’s Got Spin, Not Substance.” The article appears in my dead tree copy of the Wall Street Journal on September 30, 2015, on page c-16 which features a touch of money green ink. The write up is basic: The IRS has not yet granted Yahoo a no tax pass on its sale of its stake in Alibaba. What caught my attention was this quote to note:
Once Alibaba is out of the picture, Yahoo investors have little to look forward to.
Yikes. Does this mean that Yahoo’s semantic search strategy is not working?
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2015
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