A Chopping List For Yahoo
Here’s a fun game to play with colleagues: It’s called “What Should Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Cut Next?” The internet company has been nipping and tucking the past few months, getting rid of its FareChase travel engine and Yahoo Briefcase. Just this week came the news that Yahoo might be shopping around HotJobs and that it’s also shutting down its Jumpcut.com video site effective June 15 as part of its “ongoing prioritization efforts.”
CEO Carol Bartz has said her company isn’t one “that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens,” but that doesn’t mean she’s happy with its hodge-podge of services. There are 18 different products in the company’s audience group alone, from Yahoo Finance to Yahoo Food, on top of offerings like Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Answers. In a memo to employees earlier this year, Bartz said she was “assembling a list of products that we are embarrassed about for various reasons so we can make the important decision as to whether we fix them or discontinue them.
Interesting aritcle, but I think you may want to check your facts about Yahoo Small Business. Its a major revenue generator for Yahoo and it will be very difficult to cut ties with the unit. It does more than just web hosting and business email as it also allows customers to setup online stores as well which generate millions in revenue.
here comes yet another 'i can fix yahoo' -list
(yawn)
Chop all of them! Hot jobs first! I spent many hours to post a resume with each and every position. I put the experience that the employer wanted into the forefront of the resume. This produced zero responses and I followed the hot jobs tips on getting recognized. With 40 yrs experience in electronic engineering I found hot jobs to be cold as ice jobs.
(burrrrrrrr)
i like Y! finance, i hope they don't fix (break) it. Y! travel is ok too, though i usually have to check other sites to find the best deal. Y! shopping is a mess, not sure who's in charge of that but they need to get donald trump to fire them. problem with shopping is they badger you with so many unrelated ads that you can't find what you're looking for. this is probably the main reason amazon is doing so well!
Agree with @Larry re: Yahoo Small Business. It's a significant source of revenue, as small business owners buy a high volume of search advertising.
they will never cut Y! Health. It generates loads of ad rev. The pharma space always has $$ to spend on display for consumer brands. Plus Y! Health and WebMD work together.
I see your point w/r/t food and health but:
1. The categories are obviously worth dominating – the endemic advertising $ are huge.
2. The audience for these verticals are already yhoo users.
3. The problem has been a lack of focus on these areas, largely due to too much focus on search – if search goes away and the focus again shifts to branded/display yhoo's of offerings in these categories will be serious drags on growth. Wouldn't be surprised if yhoo were to make acquisitions here someday down the road.
As for kids, I think it's a one-man operation within movies – easy to sell the inventory to existing entertainment/retail/food advertisers, probably a 70 -80% margin…
They should kill Jerry Yang and then skin him and eat him for blowing the Microsoft deal. But first, why don't you step up and be a man Jerry?
Buy my 3,000 shares at $33 and anybody else that wanted to sell and maybe we'll call it even and let you live…
Where did you get 12th in it's category for Y! Travel? It's #1 in UUs according to ComScore in travel research and outranks TripAdvisor in traffic.
As a small business owner I do not see this as a major issue. Yes, it is true that Yahoo is going through troubled times but who isn't? They need to get a leader and stick to him, or the leader may need to really lead.
Either way, these are the type of problems all of us small business owners dream about.
Sincerely,
Ilya Bodner
Small Business Owner
Initial Underwriting Group