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What is Yahoo!s’ Business?

The dust is still settling from Jerry Yang’s announcement that he is to step down as Yahoos’ CEO. I wonder if Yahoo! has any idea what it wants to be. Search, Advertising or Neither.

There is still talk of Microsoft buying Yahoo! Search, which is fair enough take the least toxic bit of Yahoo! But what are you then left with. Yahoo! Mail, Delicious & Flickr they are the only remaining big properties that Yahoo have on the books.

Delicious & Flickr have yet to be monetized and the user base on both platforms would kill the person responsible for upsetting the status quo. That leaves Yahoo! Mail, which has some ads but the willingness of Yahoo! to go with the Google advertising deal means they are likely making no money on that either.

So how is Yahoo making money?

Sure its got deals with BT in the UK providing the homepage and mail service to all BT Broadband customers, and it has some News properties which are well trafficed. User growth is going to be negligible anybody who would want to sign up for a Yahoo! Account probably have, its a problem many big companies face and sure there have been attempts to get the workforce re-invigorated but so far nothing new and astounding has made it through the door, and what has been something a bit different had to be bought in.

I have said many times before that Yahoo! doesn’t have a clear sense of what it wants to be; Search, Advertising, Content or Video, it just doesn’t sit nicely anywhere and it can’t be the agregator for all because Google has sewn that one up however, thats not to say Yahoo! couldn’t compete – they could if they become a strong leader in the tech sector again.

If I where Yahoo! I would invest heavily in cloud computing services, rather than following try and jump ahead. Just like Apple did in 1997.

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The Problem with Making Apps for a closed market.

Take a look at any Facebook Profile or iPhone Home Screen and you can see how lucrative the closed market is. But with one click your benovolent provider can remove the need for your application by implementing the same application as a native feature. That is to say Apple denying applications to the app store because they are developing the same feature or adding a feature which negates a £4.99 app.

Facebook has done the dirty on the Birthday Reminders Applications, by implementing birthday notifcation into Facebook by default.

Continue reading “The Problem with Making Apps for a closed market.”

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“Hello Dave, You Look Nice Today” – One step closer to HAL 9000

Today, the machines became a little smarter, as a computer named Elbot managed to achieve a 25% success rate when convincing a human being that they were talking to another human. via Gizmodo & The Telegraph 

Should the law of exponential growth hold, it isn’t going to long until we can create programs that can ace the turing test. Its taken 58 years [1] from its inception to this point, I don’t think it will take us many more years before the test is passed.

Ray Kurzweil has previously stated in his books (Age of Spiritual Machines & The Singularity is Near) that we would be able to create a system that accurately simulates human interaction to pass the turing test [2] I think I am going to go out on a limb and say it will be much sooner.

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Lets Spread the FUD – Web 2.0 Style.

A deluge of European startups descended on London’s ExCel Centre for the Future of Web Apps 2008 conference this week, and while the economic crisis has already reached Europe, the fear clearly hasn’t reached its startup community.Via GigaOm

OK so its hard to deny that everything in the world is in melt down, but it seems like we aren’t happy talking ourselves into economic crisis, i.e. Panic and Fear. Lets stifle startups and companies who want to make it big.

There is lots of talk of recession the fact remains we are still technically not in a recession:

Recession: 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth.

While it makes sense to make your business ‘recession proof’ there is no reason to stifle creativity and laugh in the face of the entrepreneurs who want to succeed even in these difficult times. Sequoia Capitial is telling everybody to bunker down and take not that the good times are well and truly over, but how does this become recession [1]. There are still great people out there with great products and with or without recession great products sell. Its just the latter makes harder but no the less rewarding. Continue reading “Lets Spread the FUD – Web 2.0 Style.”

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The Problem with Open – Android vs iPhone.

There has been lots of talk about Apple is doomed to fail with the iPhone as a software Platform and the Android platform is going to be so much better, simple because its open.

Firstly, take a look at the iPhone. Its a fantastically designed device, and the attention to detail is insane – that’s not to say the Android platform isn’t. But it is a sensible justification that the platform needs to slightly closed to allow a continuity of quality to be maintained. Secondly, the iTunes to iPhone facility has yet to face any real competition, its far from perfect but there is a seamless connection from buying to using. You click buy and the app or music is downloaded and synced to your phone, without having to drag and drop, move or do anything manually. However there is growing concern that the closed nature of the platform will be its undoing see Pull My Finger [1] Continue reading “The Problem with Open – Android vs iPhone.”