Archive for November 17th, 2008

Yahoo Searching for New CEO; Jerry Yang Stepping Down

November 17, 2008

As first reported by Kara Swisher at Boomtown:

To: all yahoos
Fr: Jerry
Subject: update

yahoos –

i wanted to address all of you on the news we’ve just announced. the board of directors and I have agreed to initiate a succession process for the ceo role of yahoo!. roy bostock, our chairman of the board, is leading the effort to identify and assess potential candidates for consideration by the full board. the board will be evaluating and considering both internal and external candidates and has retained heidrick and struggles to help in this effort.

i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo. once a successor is named, i will return to my previous role as chief yahoo and continue to serve as a director on the board.

last june, i accepted the board’s request that i assume the ceo role to restructure and reposition the company as a whole in order to more effectively meet the fast-changing needs of both users and partners. since taking on the ceo role, i have had an ongoing dialogue with the board about succession timing. thanks in large measure to your tireless efforts, we have created a more open, competitive yahoo! and we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level.

despite the external environment we face, the fact remains that yahoo! is now a significantly different company that is stronger in many ways than it was just 18 months ago. this only makes it all the more essential that we manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point as effectively as possible. i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.

all of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. i will always do what I think is right for this great company. while this step will be an adjustment for all of us, i know it’s the right one. i look forward to updating you on this process as soon as the board has developments to share, and will continue to do everything i can to make yahoo! fulfill its full potential.

thank you,
jerry

Mamma.com and Mark Cuban Insider Trading

November 17, 2008

With today’s news about Mark Cuban being charged by the SEC with Insider Trading, I thought I would see just how relevant Mamma.com ( not Momma.com ) search results were for Mark Cuban search queries:

Mamma.com Mark Cuban

Mamma.com Mark Cuban

Mamma.com doesn’t integrate news or blogs into their search results like Google does and thus a search for Mark Cuban does not produce any algorithmic links to sites with news about the SEC or their Insider Trading charges.

Mark Cuban Google

Mark Cuban Google

However, an enterprising news aggregator and advertiser – “Newser.com” – is bidding on searches for Mark Cuban in both Momma.com and Google.com

I am sure Mamma.com, Momma.com and even Newser.com are experiencing spikes in their visitor traffic today as a result of Mark Cuban’s having been charged by the SEC for Insider Trading.

RIP Yellow Pages Industry?

November 17, 2008

Will the Yellow Pages industry be the next business category to suffer its demise at the hands of the internet?

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting overview of the state of the Yellow Pages industry.

My take on the Yellow Pages industry:

Will the Yellow Pages go away anytime soon?

No.

Will 50% or more of the existing Yellow Pages advertising supply disappear in this economic cycle?

Yes.

Will the Yellow Pages industry as a whole ever experience the semi-monopolistic product and pricing power it once enjoyed?

No.

The most interesting figure to come from today’s Wall Street Journal article about the Yellow Pages industry is the graph showing the internet audience size of the top providers – MapQuest / AOL, Superpages.com / Idearc, Yellowpages.com / AT&T, Whitepages and Yahoo Local / Yahoo.

Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages

Collectively the group has less than 150 million unique visitors monthly.

How many more unique monthly visitors would the Yellow Pages industry need to become competitive?

Will the industry have time to amass a large enough internet audience to offset the losses occurring from a contraction in buyers and the continued erosion in their print audience?

The Yellow Pages industry could do what the auto industry does when its products and cost structures no longer generate profits – turn to Washington.