Yahoo Never Was A Search Engine

Last Updated on December 1, 2011 by Dan Nedelko

Well Ive never been a fan of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and she continues to stupify me with her ridiculous statements which she holds to so dearly

As covered over at Search Engine Land Bartz was interviewed in the New York Times She is stunningly moronic in some of her claims

Yahoo according to Ms Bartz simply feeds search results for people who have grown curious while reading one of its news stories or watching a video It doesnt generally pop into peoples minds as the first place to go look for answers during the course of their day to day activities

How is that possibly the case On so many levels I would argue the validity of this claim

1. Yahoo was initially a search directory then a search engine then added portals
2. If Yahoo doesnt pop into mind as answering questions for users then uh what about Yahoo Answers Whats the point of that then
3. Bartz is singlehandedly dismantling Yahoo as a company with unique software technology and turning it into a portal and content company Granted for many years they have had a content focus but Yahoo Search Marketing and Yahoo Search were always major components of their company

The biggest thing for Yahoo is increasing the number of pages people consume and slapping as many display ads as possible across those pages My fortunes are tied to my pages Ms Bartz said

This is nonsenscial I have an ad network We are interested in content pages to serve advertising Yahoo is a software technology companyerit WAS a software technology company How sad for Yahoo to have a such a short sighted myopic CEO

According to Ms Bartz the majority of Yahoos sites will go the way of Sports In particular Yahoo will throw investments behind its entertainment finance and news operations Ms Bartz noted that there are plenty of unemployed journalists out there to pick up

Well Carol Hey Carol Umm Carolthose journalists are unemployed because the notion of traditional journalism and simply serving up that content and selling ads is not the same as it used to be They are unemployed because many companies in this space are unprofitable

Excuse me while I go bang my head against a brick wall

In addition Ms Bartz will remember that Terry Semel a longtime Warner Brothers executive was brought in before to turn Yahoo into more of a media company Mr Semels tenure was perhaps characterized more for losing to Google than anything else

Clearly Carol doesnt believe the notion that if we are not aware of our history we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past I think we can revise this though at this point Yahoo isnt in the losing position any longer It has lost Full Stop

Ms Bartz has decided to correct past mistakes by getting all of the employees on the same page and presenting a more consistent look across Yahoos sites In addition shes trying to boost morale and get the energy of the company up again a task hurt by the hit Yahoos shares took after the Microsoft deal was announced

I felt bad for the employees because they think its a report card Ms Bartz said

Honestly this woman is a CEO Of any company Your share price is a report card of sorts its the market responding to the strategic decisions being made Clearly this is perceived as being a bad decision Which it is Its a horrible decision

In fact its a series of horrible decisions capped off by myopic thinking and topped off with a healthy dose of delusion

Way to go Carol

Update Just ran into a fantastic quote from the New York Times Bits Blog

Ive got to wonder how much running a sales force that peddles expensive software to engineers and designers has to do with running a free Web site that attracts users through branding and products and makes money through advertising

Dan Nedelko

Dan Nedelko is human being spinning around on this big blue marble with the rest of you, interested in Media // Music // Art // Family // Business // Founder of Honeypot Marketinghttp://hny.pt, Jacohmi, and Genuine Media & Development.

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