Yahoo’s Re-Org and Metacafe Rumors
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | December 8, 2006 | Share This
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Is Yahoo is finally cleaning up their internal “peanut butter” problem? On Tuesday, Yahoo announced their plans to merge media assets and reshuffle upper management (including the departure of COO Dan Rosensweig) by mashing everything into three overhead groups - Audience, Advertisers & Publishers, and Technology. ‘Audience’ will focus on search, social media, and communications, Advertisers & Publishers will focus on business strategy/monetizing assets, and Technology, fairly self explanatory, will power the two other groups. In a press release Yahoo states, “We’re moving aggressively to deliver the most possible value to our key customers — audiences, advertisers and publishers — and seize the major new opportunities we see ahead for the Internet.” Charlene Li says that this indicates a strategic shift away from merely productizing search (Y! Food, etc) towards incorporating social media into existing products. She writes, “Note that this is not about content creation, but instead…about audience building.”
Indeed the entire search industry is beginning to favor integration and usability over new content development. Both Google’s custom homepage, and IAC’s AskCity, for example, are tools that enhance usability by integrating existing services. Charlene Li confesses, “I still use Yahoo! Maps for local searches, but am finding my loyalty shifting there as well to Google Maps simply because of the availability of the Google search box in my browser.” As the search market matures, the engines will not compete over quality of results or breadth of service, but over accessibility and cross-media integration. Thus, if Yahoo expects to compete with Google, they’ll need to hold off on new acquisitions, and find a way to integrate what they already have.
In a post on Yodel Anecdotal, Terry Semel (CEO of Yahoo) writes, “We’re creating three operating groups … to increase our strategic focus and accountability, speed decision-making, emphasize scalable platforms and improve resource allocation.” Yet, InfoWorld reports, “According to an unconfirmed report on Ynews, Yahoo Inc. may be in discussions to buy Israeli based Video sharing site MetaCafe for a reported $200 to $300 million.” Though this rumored acquisition would directly contrast with Semel’s post and the ‘peanut butter’ mantra, i guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. As Semel says in his post, “Change is never easy…”
Topics: Yahoo! |