

Maybe Yahoo Shouldn't Have Bought All This Sh*t - twampss
http://uncov.com/maybe-yahoo-shouldnt-have-bought-all-this-shit

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Sam_Odio
This is class uncov flamebait. The author sets up several straw men, and then
proceeds to valiantly strike them down. Yahoo, like all companies, has made a
number of investments in startups. Some of them work out (viaweb, anyone?),
some don't. Unfortunately, this article lacks a concrete analysis of all the
investments yahoo has made. Instead, the author makes the argument that yahoo
shouldn't have made $2.5bn in investments because three (totaling $0.248BN)
haven't turned out well.

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Sam_Odio
The author also fails to provide data that backs up the implied argument that
the capital expenditures would've yielded a better return if applied towards
the salaries of existing employees.

He's making classic "sunk cost" conceptual gaffe: Future decisions should be
made independent of past ones. Even if yahoo had that extra $2.5BN, that
doesn't mean the company should hold onto underperforming employees.

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huhtenberg
> _In the typical American fashion, Yahoo bought a bunch of shit it didn't
> need with money it didn't have._

This is priceless ... even if it's not exactly accurate :)

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raganwald
Hey, I wonder if I know anyone that built something and sold it to Yahoo!?

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netcan
does it still make money?

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fallentimes
Yahoo Stores does.

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chollida1
Cool, where did you get your source for this?

I've been trying to find a breakdown of which services make money, as far as I
can tell they don't even track it internally at Yahoo for every service, which
is why I couldn't find any data for yahoo store.

~~~
fallentimes
Sorry I interpreted his question/comment "make money" as "still exists and has
revenue" not "has profits" since many companies that are acquired become
defunct surprisingly quick (see: Broadcast.com & many of Google's
acquisitions).

I was only speaking in terms of my own knowledge. The baseball team I used to
work for (Toledo Mud Hens) used Yahoo Stores to power our online store.

~~~
netcan
Still gets mentioned whenever someone posts a 'how to start an online shop'
post.

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charaz
Wait, did they buy pressflip?

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drawkbox
A few of their sites are about the only value there, delicious, flickr,
finance is about all I use there. They lost my on tv long long ago and I can't
remember the last time I searched with Yahoo.

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jamongkad
In fairness to Yahoo Search I have been hearing some commenters in HN actually
saying that it gives better search results than Google. Of course there's this
thing called brand awareness...

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gamble
I'm coming around on Yahoo. They've always seemed a bit ghetto since Google
came around, but their results are pretty good these days. If you just avoid
going to yahoo.com, the experience isn't any worse than Google.

I'd guess, though, that the problem for Yahoo is that their results aren't
_dramatically_ better than Google. The bulk of searches are for proper nouns,
company names, etc. that both of them serve up perfectly well.

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comatose_kid
I for one was surprised to learn the author of this post was 23. Based on the
writing style, I would have figured 13.

