Yahoo: Gone Wrong
April 29, 2009
TechRadar published an interesting article with the magnetic question, “Where Did It All Go Wrong for Yahoo?” The writer was (I surmised) was Gary Marshall. If you track Yahoo, you will want to read this article and add it to your collection. For me the most interesting comment in the write up came from one of TechRadar’s sources:
There was a culture a couple of years ago of highly competitive bidding, and nobody really knew what services were going to be necessary or strategic. These companies were essentially trying to outmaneuver their competitors and grab the asset, the hot new company or the feature or tool that might turn into something meaningful for users or advertisers. “I do think Yahoo and some of its competitors were being short-sighted and irrational, and weren’t doing acquisitions with a coherent strategy. It was very like real estate speculation, with people bidding irrationally because there was so much competition.”
The conclusion of the write up offers some light at the end of the tunnel. I am not confident that the light will be sufficiently bright to allow Yahoo to lead Yahoo to financial security and its former technical prominence. Yahoo no longer has the breathing room it enjoyed from 1998 to 2004 when Google was organizing its phalanges. True, the market is bigger and Yahoo has a solid brand and solid traffic. But there are new competitors with more focused services. Yahoo has to act and act fast, then show bottom-line results. Time may be running out.
Stephen Arnold, April 29, 2009
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