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Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang has been hammering the interview circuit in a campaign to convince the world of Yahoo's new focus and vision.
He played down the rivalries with Google in a Telegraph interview, saying that on its own terms, you can't dismiss a company with revenues over $5bn and cash flow of at least $1.9bn. That's a good point, but Yang's problem is that's exactly what people do do, because Yahoo's figures are dwarfed by the success of Google.
""People probably overplayed Yahoo's position to be able to do something about that and underplayed how truly good Google is at taking a technology and building a business around it," said Yang.
"Obviously, we feel we have not been able to capture all of what is going on in the internet marketplace. In search, we find ourselves doing OK, we are not thrilled with it but we are not out of it. One of our determinations has been, 'How do we get Yahoo back on the growth track?' Consumers are starting to be more open in the way they choose their internet experience, whether it is through social networks or more user-driven activities and we want to be more exposed to that. We can be growing a lot faster than we currently are and do a lot better than we currently are."
The new strategy - the one that took 100 days to summon - is to make Yahoo the starting point for web users, for advertisers and for developers. That might only be a three-pronged strategy but it's still a tall order, given the intensity of the competition.
That said, if you talk to anyone that has worked with Yahoo and Google their experience at Yahoo is usually far better: more open, more discursive, more friendly and more human.
I guess there's no algorithm for personality.
Source: Telegraph
