

Ask HN: If you were in charge of yahoo, what would you do? - niccolop

Curious to hear what people would do, everyone is doubting Carol Bartz, probably rightly. What about an acquisition? Or change of CEO?
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gasull
Focus on a few successful products. And focus on adding value.

A long time ago Yahoo was what now is Yahoo Directory: <http://dir.yahoo.com/>
It rocked. Now it seems to be unmaintained and there's nothing today like
that. Resurrecting it with quality links (no content farms, About.com, Experts
Exchange, etc.) would be an alternative to SEO-pwned search engines.

~~~
basugasubaku
There is the Open Directory Project (<http://www.dmoz.org/>). I haven't used
it much, but it feels a lot like the original Yahoo.

~~~
gasull
I know. Dmoz is better than Yahoo Directory, but they are both far worse than
Yahoo Directory in its heyday.

~~~
mahmud
Because YD in its "heyday" existed in a much smaller world with little SEO
knowledge.

------
devmonk
Sell it and buy an island.

I'm sure there are good people working there. Have an independent firm hire
some top notch developers and efficiency experts to come in, identify them,
then split off a company with those people in it and call it something else
like "Good Yahoo". ;) Then, sell the rest off in pieces.

Seriously though, it is a tough nut. They are still mostly known for an
outdated search index. They have no winning product in the public mindshare.
They are old. Marketing could fix that, if they had a super product/service to
sell. But don't base that product/service's success on ad revenue. They can't
compete with the big boys on that, nor can they make much money handing it off
to them.

------
lacker
Buy Twitter, Zynga, Foursquare, Quora, and Groupon. Let them be independent
for a long while. Yahoo does have a market cap of $19 billion - might as well
use it.

~~~
ma2rten
They actually tried to buy Foursquare.

------
hkuo
I actually just commented on this on a recent Kara Swisher article
[http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100929/exclusive-major-
meltdown...](http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100929/exclusive-major-meltdown-at-
yahoo-as-more-top-execs-to-depart-including-u-s-head-hilary-
schneider/#disqus_thread)

The basic idea started with the idea of completely changing the company name
to a name that can play well with their sub-brands, because of the poor
connotation or generic feel that the name "Yahoo" brings to some people's
mind.

I went on to cite Kraft as an example. They have a jillion products that have
their own brands. Oreo Cookies. A1 Steak Sauce. Crystal Light. Cool Whip. Each
of those have very different audiences to speak to. Kids, steak-eaters,
weight-watchers, sweet-tooths. So each has their own brand that speaks
uniquely to those audiences. Kraft has a brand on its own, but it stands in
the background, allowing each of their products to act on their own for each
product's best interest.

I believe this system could greatly benefit Yahoo. Instead of trying to brand
their properties Yahoo so-and-so, allow those properties to break free from
the Yahoo brand, so they can serve each of the unique audiences properly.
Sports, finance, news, gossip, music etc.

I believe the Kraft example matches them very well. Humongously large company
with a huge number of products that serve a wide-range of differing audiences.
Kraft doesn't try to sell "Kraft" with each of their products, because that
would confuse those products brands. You wouldn't have a commercial that sells
"Kraft A1 Steak Sauce." Likewise, I think it's wrong for Yahoo to try to sell
"Yahoo" with each of their products.

Flickr is an example of a successful Yahoo property that has no hindrances of
the Yahoo brand. They were acquired of course, but Yahoo made the smart
decision not to mess with it. But if had grown within Yahoo, then they would
have called it something like "Yahoo Photos". How lame would that have been?
It's like "Yahoo Music", or "Yahoo Movies." Those names just don't inspire.

So basically, I think it should be an excerside of allowing their properties
to diversify, grow, and focus on each of their unique audiences from a
branding and marketing perspective, rather than trying to unify the Yahoo
brand among them all.

------
joshu
I'd cut everything that isn't profitable. Cut the employee base to the very,
very minimum. Return as much as possible to the shareholders. Start paying a
dividend.

~~~
Terretta
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the
shareholders." -- Michael Dell on Apple, 1997

[http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-
shop/2100-1001_...](http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-
shop/2100-1001_3-203937.html)

~~~
pstuart
In all fairness, without the return of Jobs that probably would have been ok.

------
aspir
That's a tough job. I'd start by pumping all brand promotion efforts away from
Yahoo itself, into the various Yahoo Sites (finance, games, etc.) and away
from search. Yahoo is so established in search, that it isn't necessary to
promote that aspect of the company. Plus, it would be easier to establish that
Yahoo is the leader in financial analysis and shopping results than trying to
convince users that Yahoo can still hang with Google in search- it's an uphill
battle not worth fighting.

After a bit of time passed, when it became visible what segments have
potential, and what does not. It's time to cut. Surgically and decisively. The
only way for Yahoo to compete in user-based web services is, in my opinion, to
follow the Jack Welch method for cleaning up GE- cut everything that cannot
make a reasonably stab at being the market leader. It saved GE from near
certain doom. Under that same policy, GE has cut consumer electronics, their
bread and butter for the first 50 years, but they are powerful and dominating
in the spaces they do play in. Yahoo may have to ultimately drop search- it
seems absurt to say it though. But as a company Yahoo has to trim the fat and
cut the underperforming sectors. It's make or break time.

edit:Typos

~~~
znmeb
Yeah - Yahoo! could certainly use some Welchian / Michael Porter strategic
sense. The problem is that Google needs to do that too. That's why I think
they should sell Flickr to Google - it's a much better fit for Google than
Yahoo!

Delicious is a dog - I don't use it any more. To be fair, I don't use Digg,
Reddit or StumbleUpon either. I get my traffic from Twitter, DZone, Reddit
_Programming_ and here.

Upcoming is an interesting situation. We use it here in PDX for some things,
but we have our own local event calendar, Calagator.org. There's also
Meetup.com and Eventbrite and Facebook calendars. I'm not sure anyone really
owns that space, but at least Meetup has a revenue model.

------
maxklein
Yahoo is still the 3rd most popular site in the world. It's not failing by
far. So I would not go in there thinking the company is failing:
<http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/>

~~~
niccolop
I agree with your sentiment, I suppose the real question is how can they not
only hold their position, but grow, and encourage great hackers to get excited
about their platforms, and be more innovative with them.

------
znmeb
I would open source Pipes and YQL. I would shut down Delicious, sell Flickr to
Google and try to find a buyer for Upcoming. Really, I think the best thing
that's left in Yahoo! is Finance - I'd build that up.

~~~
zdw
Shut down Delicious? Why? It's a goldmine of crowdsourced links valued by
someone (assuming bots haven't taken over...)

------
sabj
Firewall the media-play from any technology that hasn't yet been murdered in
the cradle, and make sure than each has the resources and direction needed to
survive effectively; different strategies for each.

------
scumola
Bring back Geocities (yea it sucked, but it's part of the history of the
internet)

Bring back their own branded search (kill the Bing contract)

Bring back Yahoo Shopping APIs

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ashitvora
Kill Yahoo Messenger (there are more bots than users there).

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johannchiang
The valuation of Yahoo assets in Asia is about the same to the current market
cap. The bold move is to focus on emerging markets and move headquarter there.

------
gord
a) Look to buy innovative startups. b) Solve the no-appstore-for-web-apps
problem, win over developers by making this a nice rollout platform with
simple cloud JSON data storage, search integration, social integration etc.

------
kapauldo
Double down on BOSS, open up monetization and let 1,000 niche search engines
bloom (yahoo monetization is a nightmare right now). Double down on YUI,
support niche deal sites. Start a venture fund and make seed 100 $1M seed
investments in Yahoo platform companies. Yahoo's best assets are their dev
platforms and their developers.

