Yahoo is patiently waiting to stick Google.
There was a nice write up in the WSJ today on Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer and how the stock price has gone up 70% in the past year since she’s been in charge. I’ve followed Yahoo for quite some time now and it’s nice to see this company turn around a bit. My favorite line from the article was, “It’s no longer shameful to work at Yahoo,” an employee said recently. I still won’t use Yahoo for searching because I have no reason to switch from Google. It’s one of those close minded thoughts that no matter what someone puts in front of me, it’s going to take something profound that is going to get me to switch. Like every time I search I help solve world hunger. Still, Yahoo is doing something right.
Their news feed on the homepage is phenomenal. I’m not sure how long it’s been this way but it’s an endless scroll of news just like a Facebook news feed. I think it’s even tailored to what I’ve clicked on in the past which is both personalized good and creepily bad. My one gripe is the adchoices in between the real stories but I can live with that because every pimp needs to make money from their hoes. Yahoo already has a few strong suits to their company. Everyone, well not everyone, knows that Yahoo Fantasy Football is the premier place to play. Their finance section is tops as well. The only part of Yahoo that lacks is the search and to be honest, I never even use it because I get what I want from Google so I can’t realistically comment on whether it sucks or not. For me at least, someone who was born with Yahoo at the forefront and taking a tumble, I’m happy to see it revived.
Looking forward to the resurgence of GeoCities!
To me – this is where the notion of “complete branding” is valuable. Companies like Kleenex (tissue paper) or Q-Tip (cotton-swabs) have embraced and fought for the notion that their name is synonymous with a certain product/service – often replacing it. Even locally, if you were to enter a bar and ask for a “Lager” – most likely it would be a Yeungling.
This is the Olympus-esque echelon of brand/product consumer status. “Google” meant nothing prior to the company (which misspelled it initially) adopting it as its moniker. How did a service – named after nothing – with a basic “logo” – replace the words “search”, “look”, “discover”, etc. for an entire generation? My assumption is that if it has no meaning – anything can be ascribed to it. But, if the service/product was terrible – it would be a wash.