I recently finished writing a 2,000-word feature for PC Plus magazine about the future of Yahoo! To say that the one-time web colossus is facing challenging times is putting it mildly:
With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Yahoo! should have agreed to that Microsoft buyout. Since the venerable web company rejected a $33 per share ($47.5 billion) offer to evolve into ‘Microhoo’, advertising revenues have slowed, jobs have been ruthlessly cut and Yahoo!’s share price has plummeted south of $12.
The company is battered and bruised; some say it lacks vision and direction. You wouldn’t want CEO Jerry Yang’s job right now.
Yet Yahoo! still hopes to innovate its way out of trouble. It’s got a ‘Plan B’ that starts with a revamp its portal page and continues with a raft of other improvements as part of a new ‘Open Strategy’. But is it enough?
The feature looks at Yahoo!’s perceived lack of focus, how CEO Jerry Yang plans to turn the company around (clue: social networking) and why it desperately needs a clearly-defined mission.
And no, it’s not all doom and gloom. Yahoo! has recently acknowledged that its one-size-fits-all ‘portal’ approach isn’t the way forward. Its new Open Strategy could well be the escape route that its embattled management is looking for.
The feature appears in issue 276 of PC Plus magazine, on sale 18th November at all financially solvent newsagents.
