After Microsoft left Yahoo! at the altar, its got me thinking is Yahoo! ever going to get back to what it was. Most of all the scorched earth policy that Yahoo! used against Microsoft has done them more harm than good.

Its apparent to anybody with any common sense, that Yahoo! has too many fingers in too many pies. Even down to having competing products within the same company, they have some stellar internet properties but mis-manage them or let them go cold and the talent leave.

Yahoo! needs to focus and innovate not play catch up (more) also they need a clear brand stratergy are they a search, advertising or community company. They cannot be everything to everybody in the short-term they just need a stellar product that works and can propel them to where they should be. Yahoo! Live is a good product but not enough time was invested at launch and it failed, del.icio.us and Flickr are also good but they haven’t really seen any development since their acquisition. Pipes is also another great idea (and powers some of the backend systems of this site) but is difficult to get into and under promoted.

Yahoos’ best bet is to pick one of its web properties such as del.icio.us and develop and innovate that platform and put some fire back into the thing, then move on to the next product. Build fantastic products in social areas such as Bookmarking, Photo, & Video and they could be in with a chance of re-gaining some market clout that they once enjoyed.

Links
Yahoo’s Tumbling House Of Cards - TechCrunch
del.icio.us - Social Bookmarking
Flickr - Photo Sharing
Pipes - Rewire the Web