By Jason 7/30/09
The once proud warrior of the internet space laid down its sword, knelt at the feet of Microsoft and gutted itself today. There was no honor in this death, it was one brought by the shame of losing to Google and a lack of faith in one’s ability to compete in the space they created. To be clear, Yahoo didn’t need to do this deal, Microsoft did. Ultimately Yahoo will look back at this moment as the second–and perhaps fatal–mistake in their epic history. Search is the most important business of the 21st century and owning a commanding lead in second place is not insignificant. At one time Yahoo was the number one search engine and portal. However, they didn’t see the value in search and decided to syndicate that piece of their business to a small company called Google. For a couple of years we all experienced Google in Yahoo’s wrapper. Our only indication of who made this wonderful tool was a tiny “Powered by Google” logo on the top right of the page. We noticed and we learned. The thought leaders went directly to Google and dragged everyone but the laggards (Yahoo’s current 20% market share) with us. Yahoo accelerated the ascent of the master. Had Yahoo not given their search franchise over to Google back then, there is a good chance that the race for the most important business of the 21st century would be a dead heat. Certainly it would be closer. Today, with their Microsoft deal, Yahoo again undervalues their search asset. Again, they will be “Powered by…” and again they will destroy their brand and its value.
Read more info here -->Link
No comments:
Post a Comment