

Marissa Mayer's Boring Plans for Yahoo - applecore
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/yahoos-dynamic-ceo-boring-plan

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VLM
Maybe boring is the wrong word. "Indistinct" might be better. I don't know the
identity of yahoo. I've got a feel for many trademarks and companies, but
yahoo doesn't give off much other than "they're still in business?" with
emphasis on the word "still".

Lack of identity does not mean dead man walking. Say "Johns Manville" and
99.9% of you will go "who?" "what do they do?" but commodity license plate
stamping shoveling can make a lot of money, even if it isn't interesting or
cool.

Yahoo will either get an identify or end up the Johns Manville of the
internet.

~~~
qbrass
Johns Manville has a problem with name recognition, not branding. They can
define what they do, the public just haven't heard of them.

Yahoo is the opposite. They have no problem with people knowing who they are,
but beyond "Internet stuff," can't define what they do. Actually trying to
find out what they do eventually takes you to
[https://everything.yahoo.com/](https://everything.yahoo.com/) where you see
most of their sites are clickbait next to a search box.

It's probably not the brand identity they want to advertise.

