Friday, December 17, 2010

Yahoo Doldrums

Image representing Carol Bartz as depicted in ...Image via CrunchBaseMike Arrington has relentlessly gone after Carol Bartz from day one. Some of that I have attributed to sexism. Some I have attributed to the media's need for conflict and drama: that is partly how they generate page hits. Some I have attributed to Mike angling to get bought by Yahoo's rival AOL: that happened. But Yahoo does have serious problems.

Yahoo's problem is not that it is not number one, or that it is not going to get back the crown. Yahoo's problem has been that it has messed up being number two. Yahoo bought Flickr, and look at Facebook: photo sharing is the number one thing that happens on Facebook.

I was aghast when Yahoo shut down Geocities. Now talk is they are either shutting down or selling Delicious. Geocities was the original community on the web. You could argue Friendster did not survive either.

Microsoft Doldrums

Yahoo's problems are very real, but the implosion does not have to be so dramatic.
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