

Yahoo Says Delicious For Sale, Blames Press for Confusion - Mithrandir
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/12/yahoo-blames-press/

======
acangiano
The way they handled the leak was idiotic and short sighted. They should blame
themselves, not the press.

Their first reply should have clarified that Delicious was not going to be
shut down. Furthermore, they should have clearly stated that other prominent
properties (like Flickr) were safe and weren't going to be shut down either.

Their initial response ("[we] plan to shut down some products in the coming
months") was self-inflicted FUD, which basically stated that they were going
to shut down whatever they saw fit. Not the best way to instill confidence in
your products.

I suspect they panicked, saw the huge backlash from the community, and quickly
came up with the plan of selling delicious and claiming that they were
misunderstood from the get go.

~~~
enjo
The really interesting thing is how long they let this play without any kind
of clarification at all. This ran for 24 hours before Yahoo jumped on this. I
think you're probably right, surely if they meant to sell this then the
response would have been far quicker? Letting this sit out there as a dead
service for 24 hours doesn't do a lot for valuations.

Which does raise an interesting question: why the hell would you just shut the
thing down and not even attempt to sell it?

~~~
billswift
Because they didn't think they could get enough for it to be worth the hassle
of selling it. Why do people throw things away that they _could_ sell at a
yard sale?

~~~
gscott
And if they were planning on selling it they might have used another term
other then "Sunset"... possibly "Greener Pastures"

------
candeira
If Yahoo were really planning to sell Delicious all along, why would they sack
everyone? <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/12/16/delicious>

------
omouse
Whoever here wants to start an alternative to TechCrunch that doesn't
dengenerate into crap, say _aye_. Hell, even a well-researched blog would kill
techcrunch, mashable and all those shameless corporate/startup whores who pose
as journalist.

Although...Yahoo should have came out and dispelled the rumours as soon as
they circulated or released their own press release as soon as the
presentation was finished.

I think both parties here are to blame; journalists (or supposed journalistst)
should hold themselves to a higher standard and actually investigate instead
of merely reporting rumours, and corporations should make sure they control
their marketing/media message.

~~~
Isofarro
"Whoever here wants to start an alternative to TechCrunch that doesn't
dengenerate into crap, say aye."

* given a leaked slide that came from a Yahoo product all-hands meeting

* given that it was leaked by a yahoo employee who wasn't laid off two days before

* given the Product Executive threatened on Twitter to get rid of the employee who leaked the slide

* given that two people who received the leaked slide were former Yahoo employees acquired through their own startup (delicious and upcoming)

What would you have done differently?

------
meadhikari
Its all he said. www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html

------
alexqgb
There's spin, and then there's spinning out of control while the last of your
credibility evaporates forever.

------
andrewljohnson
Bah, this story is as bad as the TC article.

Just more blog spam with no added insight. You can get everything you need
from the blogpost, and the HN comments.

------
Kilimanjaro
Carol Bartz should step down as CEO, she doesn't have the balls to run a
company like yahoo. She was appointed to bring yahoo down and is doing a great
job at that.

~~~
jacquesm
> she doesn't have the balls to run a company like yahoo

Right. She doesn't.

I disagree with plenty of her moves but I always wonder how much that is
because I'm standing on the sidelines and she's in the midst of it.

That said, saying one of the most powerful women in tech 'has no balls' is
really dumb, for one she is a woman, second she's achieved more than 99.9% of
the visitors here including you.

You weren't on the short-list to be picked as CEO of Yahoo! were you?

She's facing nothing but tough decisions, and even if - again - I disagree
with some of them it is interesting to try to figure out what it is that you
would do instead and to say that rather than criticize someone for 'lack of
balls' when they make one ruthless decision after another.

~~~
sp4rki
Whatever she has achieved doesn't make the opinions of anyone, including
yours, null by default because of some random metric of success. According to
you, we should not criticize Ballmer, because he's the head honcho at
Microsoft, even though he's obviously a mental case. According to you we
should not criticize Jobs because he's the Apple god, even though it's obvious
that the amount of control over the app store is a curse in disguise (and
don't try to spin that the wrong way, I'm writing this on a mac and own an
iPad... I'm as much a fan of most of Apple's products as the next guy).

Not every capable person becomes a multimillionaire and manages a big company,
the same way not every dumb fucker ends up in the slums asking for cash on
traffic lights. A lot of really smart people end up in the gutter for a
variety of reasons, the same way a lot of imbeciles end up being millionaires
through good luck or the fact that they where born into money or society.
Kilimanjaro may have not been in the Yahoo CEO list, but his opinion is one
shared with a great amount of people, and it's insulting not only towards him,
but towards anyone who has an 'opinion' to say something that implies that
their thoughts are not important because they're not the CEO of a big company.
What can't I voice my opinion that someone is doing a lousy job without
someone chastising me because "you're not on the CEO to be list". Bartz may be
a tech superstar and all (and hell she deserves the respect that she deserves)
and has achieved more than 99.9% of us have achieved, but she's also bringing
down Yahoo in a torrent of fire.

That being said, I agree with you. I don't think she lacks 'balls'. Quite the
contrary, I think she has lot's of 'balls' and the decisions she's making are
sure as hell not easy to make. I also think they're the wrong decisions, and I
think I'm entitled to say so... even though I'm not in the "Next Yahoo CEO"
list.

