How to fix Yahoo
Om Malik has some brash advice for Yahoo. Too bad no one will find it: Three different publications' logos clog the top of his article's page. The lead paragraph is disrupted with another promo link, a broken stock ticker link, and a blogroll for Kara Swisher, whose name really ought to link to Google Finance to disclose her wife's current worth in GOOG shares. Second paragraph: "Yang's decision isn't a surprise ... In June 2008, I wrote about ..." Om, I know you love it when we pick on each other, so here you go: Start your friggin' article already. I went deep-sea diving in Om's prose to fish out his admirably brazen suggestions to fix Yahoo without Yang:
Here is what Yahoo shouldn’t do: * Not hire from within, for the current senior management has proven to ineffectual and share the blame for Yahoo’s current misfortunes. * Sell out to Microsoft at today’s prices. ($20-a-share would be something the company should seriously consider.) * Merge with AOL, for that would be like tying too bricks with spider web, hoping that it would float. What it should do: * Look outside for someone with spark. * Replace the current senior team with executives. * Refocus Yahoo on the very qualities that made it great – building technology products for the common people. * Focus its energies on Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Flickr, Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Search as well as Yahoo’s e-commerce platform. * Keep building on its Mobile offerings, for this is one area where its independence can help it win friends amongst operators who are worried about Google, Microsoft, and Apple. * Yahoo’s ad-serving platform needs to become more real-time with a drastic improvement in customer service.