Don’t count Yahoo out. They have tons of engaged users/readers/audience members, and a Valley ethos. From a report on their generally well recieved earnings, which came out today:
“Our goal is to create a motivated community of developers all building uniquely compelling applications that reach hundreds of millions of Yahoo users by plugging into the most popular properties or services,” Yang told analysts. Sounds familiar? Yahoo hopes to use its own big brand to create an ecosystem, a term tech companies love to use meaning a whole world unto itself, like Facebook.
I knew this whole Web as platform thing wasn’t a fad…
give us a break. yahoo finally made their *revised* numbers — once, and now we’re supposed to believe that they’re still in the game? C’mon.
Jerry’s 100 days are over. Jerry, save us from Google and Microsoft! Only you can do it.
http://yodel.yahoo.com/2007/10/16/where-does-yahoo-head-next/
Most never looked upon web platforms as the fad. They looked at these SocNet’s as fads. Freindster, MySpace, Facebook.
A platform on Yahoo (or Google) would certainly be far more powerful if implemented in the proper context as these two companies are more utilitarian in their uses by consumers as opposed to the SocNets that tend to be more about friends, music, etc.
It’s interesting how the “web as a platform” mantra seems to have morphed to “a” platform into a competition for “my” platform. Inevitable, I guess. Perhaps there’s a game changing scenario still to emerge in the open network model.
The expansion of user behavior from search-centric to social and entertainment centric is driving this – in the absence of an open environment, a series of plays for “owning the marketplace of social interaction” seems to be upon us.
I agree, Yahoo is a serious competitor on this trend, well positioned with the best damn PowerPoint position of the crowd.
History still looms darkly, and momentum is so critical to the bandwagon happy development community.
Yahoo does have potential. But they do continue to look like very weak in comparison with Google (based on financial results). While I do still believe Yahoo has potential they really do need to deliver. The growth in revenue and earning just have not been very good for years. They are fine for some average company but if they want to be seen as a leading company they need to preform better.
Google certainly gives a difficult comparison (seemingly almost impossible if Google were not actually doing it).
The E-consultancy/Convera “Vertical Search Survey 2008” has just been released and reveals some very interesting information.
CPM will be fastest-growing revenue stream for publishers in 2008
Online revenue set to increase while print income flattens or decreases
Content owners must ensure visibility within fragmenting digital landscape by embracing RSS, widgets and toolbars.
Publishers see vertical search as opportunity to ‘reclaim the online community from Google’.
The fastest-growing revenue streams for publishers in 2008 will be internet display advertising and online sponsorship.
Some 72% of publishers are expecting an increase in income from CPM advertising next year and 67% are predicting a rise in digital sponsorship, while print revenues are more likely to flatten or decrease. Just under two thirds (64%) are expecting a rise in paid search (PPC) revenue.
The findings come from a survey which was circulated to members of the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), American Business Media (ABM), Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) and E-consultancy’s early-adopter community of internet marketers.
The research also highlights the need for specialist publishers to react quickly to major changes in the digital environment in order to maintain and increase their market share and visibility.
Publishers need to adapt to maximize their digital revenues at a time of shifting advertising budgets. Trends in digital marketing are leading towards a fragmentation of the online landscape and ‘atomization’ of content. Content owners have a great opportunity to increase visibility for their content through the effective use of vertical search, feeds, widgets and toolbars.
The level of uptake for feeds and customized homepages is very high among this early-adopter audience surveyed but this kind of online behavior will soon become more widespread among knowledge workers across a wider range of industries.”
Some 93% of more than 500 media and internet professionals said that they would be ‘very likely’ or ‘quite likely’ to use a search engine that focused on serving their specific business or work needs.
More than 70% of publishers perceived ‘reclaiming the online community from Google’ to be either a major benefit or a minor benefit from vertical search.
To download a free online copy of the full report, click here http://www.convera.com/survey/