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Lookout Below! Yahoo In A Sickening Slide

Any of the three people that read one of my personal blogs knows that I am not having a good time with Yahoo right now. A couple of years ago I signed up with them as my ISP for Make It Big In Games because I am not a web guy and they had a decent plan with one click install of WordPress. I have regretted it ever since. The service is incredibly SLOOOOW, they wrap in a bunch of Yahoo crap selling their services on a site that I am paying for, they spam my email accounts, and a bunch of other grievances that I don’t want to bore you with.

Since Jerry Yang took over a year ago, Yahoo seems rudderless. What do they stand for? Like I said, I use them as an ISP, but not for long. I have not bought anything from a Yahoo store for years. I only use their email as my SPAM account. Their Finance service is good, but I people don’t buy stocks much due to greedy CEO’s and an uncertain economy. Yahoo Messenger got SO BLOATED and wanted to control so much of my computer that I quit using it years ago and finally, as the family’s default IT guy, insisted that everybody in my family use Meebo instead. I have not performed an Internet search on Yahoo since 1999. Have any of you? It goes on and on. They have lost it.

Three years ago Yahoo almost got cool. They bought delicious, Flickr, and Yahoo Games was selling a lot of games. Now I am concerned for these three services. I have used Delicious as an online bookmarking service since it first started, and would hate to change, but without a significant update since 2005, I am beginning to look elsewhere. I LOVE Flickr, and have turned on everybody I know to the service. Between us all we have thousands of photos uploaded to the site, and my daughter even has a pro account. I am looking for a replacement service.

That leaves Yahoo Games. The only thing they really bring to the party here is audience. They sell the same games as anybody else. Early in the history of GarageGames, Yahoo Games was a major force to be reckoned with in the down loadable games space. Now they are just one of the herd, a simple distribution outlet, and there are more innovative services out there.

To see the magnitude of the problem Yahoo is facing, look at this Tech Crunch list of high level executives that have left Yahoo in the past couple of months. . The only interesting services they had just had their founders jump ship to “other opportunities”. Yang continues to write fluffy, no-substance emails talking about all of the opportunity Yahoo has at its fingertips, but that certainly isn’t working. It is frightening. I honestly can’t see a way out except to get a tough new visionary CEO that can come up with a valid vision and enforce it. They should have taken the Microsoft money and leadership when they had the chance.

-Jeff Tunnell, Game Maker
Make It Big In Games

June 19, 2008
  • Novack

    I've never followed the Yahoo declination deeply, so besides any intuition or casual information, your post is very descriptive of the situation. Very interesting reading.

    About the Microsoft deal however, I dont think even for an instant that would be the solution to nothing. Microsoft never was, and probably never will be. Right now, they are So greedy that are trying to dedicate resources to takeover markets they've never be on, thats the only reason for wanting Yahoo.

  • Novack

    I've never followed the Yahoo declination deeply, so besides any intuition or casual information, your post is very descriptive of the situation. Very interesting reading.

    About the Microsoft deal however, I dont think even for an instant that would be the solution to nothing. Microsoft never was, and probably never will be. Right now, they are So greedy that are trying to dedicate resources to takeover markets they've never be on, thats the only reason for wanting Yahoo.

  • http://evilartstudio.blogspot.com/ Evil Dan

    Very interesting. It seems like a lot of the really cool new technology gets built by indies, and the giants can't seem to keep up. Except maybe by buying out the indies.

  • http://evilartstudio.blogspot.com/ Evil Dan

    Very interesting. It seems like a lot of the really cool new technology gets built by indies, and the giants can't seem to keep up. Except maybe by buying out the indies.

  • http://www.sullisnack.com Sean Sullivan

    While it may be true that Yahoo! has been suffering an identity crisis for a long time, they still remain a top destination for a wide demographic of Internet surfers.

    http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detai…
    http://siteanalytics.compete.com/yahoo.com/?met…

    And yes, I know it's not all about Alexa (#1) or Compete.com (131.8M visitors in May '08) ratings, but they have so much clout, I hope they can harness that energy and hit the nail on the head with some upcoming products, cause they definitely get the eyeballs when they release them.

    Your comments about delicious and Flickr are spot on, those are the cream of the crop when it comes to social bookmarking and photos. As with any web service in which I invest a large portion of my time, I hope they stick around forever so I don't lose all the work I've put in to date.

    My personal opinion about Yahoo! games is that they have the upper hand from others in that less accustomed Internet users might feel a little more trust when Yahoo! is downloading (or caching) something onto their machine versus a site of which they've never heard. Also, with so much traffic to the Yahoo.com home page, the sheer number of people who might happen to click on that “Games” link provides a huge advantage!

  • http://www.sullisnack.com Sean Sullivan

    While it may be true that Yahoo! has been suffering an identity crisis for a long time, they still remain a top destination for a wide demographic of Internet surfers.

    http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detai…
    http://siteanalytics.compete.com/yahoo.com/?met…

    And yes, I know it's not all about Alexa (#1) or Compete.com (131.8M visitors in May '08) ratings, but they have so much clout, I hope they can harness that energy and hit the nail on the head with some upcoming products, cause they definitely get the eyeballs when they release them.

    Your comments about delicious and Flickr are spot on, those are the cream of the crop when it comes to social bookmarking and photos. As with any web service in which I invest a large portion of my time, I hope they stick around forever so I don't lose all the work I've put in to date.

    My personal opinion about Yahoo! games is that they have the upper hand from others in that less accustomed Internet users might feel a little more trust when Yahoo! is downloading (or caching) something onto their machine versus a site of which they've never heard. Also, with so much traffic to the Yahoo.com home page, the sheer number of people who might happen to click on that “Games” link provides a huge advantage!

    • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

      Sean, I would love to root for Yahoo. I used to trust them the way I trust Google now, using their services everyday. MyYahoo was actually open in my browser all the time. That is why I am making the call for vision and strategy to be exposed by their CEO… we need another vibrant and viable competitor to Google to keep them honest. However, it just is not happening. The traffic on Yahoo feels like the kind of traffic that used to be on AOL, i.e. somewhat naive and not willing to change.

  • http://blog.enginefour.com Shawn Oster

    One random aside, why does delicious not having a major update since 2005 make you look elsewhere? Is it a feeling that the lights are off and the service is on autopilot or is it a real need for features that other services are coming out with or something else entirely? Is it a “if they're not growing they're dying” mentality?

    Agreed about Yahoo Messenger, everyone I know uses Trillion instead.

  • http://blog.enginefour.com Shawn Oster

    One random aside, why does delicious not having a major update since 2005 make you look elsewhere? Is it a feeling that the lights are off and the service is on autopilot or is it a real need for features that other services are coming out with or something else entirely? Is it a “if they're not growing they're dying” mentality?

    Agreed about Yahoo Messenger, everyone I know uses Trillion instead.

    • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

      Pretty much just that, i.e. if they are not growing they are dying. Joshua Schacter left Yahoo yesterday. That, combined with the no upgrades fact tells me there are problems under the covers.

  • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

    Sean, I would love to root for Yahoo. I used to trust them the way I trust Google now, using their services everyday. MyYahoo was actually open in my browser all the time. That is why I am making the call for vision and strategy to be exposed by their CEO… we need another vibrant and viable competitor to Google to keep them honest. However, it just is not happening. The traffic on Yahoo feels like the kind of traffic that used to be on AOL, i.e. somewhat naive and not willing to change.

  • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

    Pretty much just that, i.e. if they are not growing they are dying. Joshua Schacter left Yahoo yesterday. That, combined with the no upgrades fact tells me there are problems under the covers.

  • jgostylo

    Jeff, spot on in my opinion. I use yahoo to track my stock and give people I don't trust my yahoo account. Other than that it is a void. Yahoo reads a lot like a tabloid on their front page (celebrity crap) which is probably why they still get so much traffic.

    Yahoo was foolish not to take the Microsoft offer. They overvalue themselves. I think the market has it right currently and I think future projections for their stock price should be south when considering competition.

    I disagree with you on the your view of stock (sort of). If you don't have the interest to research, stay out of stock. However, there are plenty of good companies to buy into and your portfolio does not have to be that broad to be safe, and down (uncertain) times in an economy have always been the BEST times to buy because prices are so low. I think mutual funds are a good place to make fund managers very rich so I always recommend investing individually if you have the interest.

    Question: what do you do with your money if you are not putting it in stocks? Real estate can be a real bargain right now. I would be more worried about inflation than greedy CEOs. Worry about both, but one will bite harder.

  • jgostylo

    Jeff, spot on in my opinion. I use yahoo to track my stock and give people I don't trust my yahoo account. Other than that it is a void. Yahoo reads a lot like a tabloid on their front page (celebrity crap) which is probably why they still get so much traffic.

    Yahoo was foolish not to take the Microsoft offer. They overvalue themselves. I think the market has it right currently and I think future projections for their stock price should be south when considering competition.

    I disagree with you on the your view of stock (sort of). If you don't have the interest to research, stay out of stock. However, there are plenty of good companies to buy into and your portfolio does not have to be that broad to be safe, and down (uncertain) times in an economy have always been the BEST times to buy because prices are so low. I think mutual funds are a good place to make fund managers very rich so I always recommend investing individually if you have the interest.

    Question: what do you do with your money if you are not putting it in stocks? Real estate can be a real bargain right now. I would be more worried about inflation than greedy CEOs. Worry about both, but one will bite harder.