(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Topping this week’s tech news, Marissa Mayer, Google exec and first female engineer, has assumed the role of CEO at Yahoo! (For historians, Yahoo! is the ironic name of a once viable Internet company.)
Now the big question: as Yahoo’s seventh chief exec in five years, how should Ms. Mayer turn the struggling company around? As a random yahoo from the blogosphere, I hereby offer—like everyone else—my expert recommendations.
Merge with Google. The new search site, Yahoogle, can adopt the mantra “Don’t be relevant.”
Capitalize on Yahoo Finance. Ask its experts to devise a financial strategy for Yahoo.
Uphold the “Hacker Way.” Embody Silicon Valley’s hacker-centric philosophy—by continuing to make it easy for spammers of all ages to hijack Yahoo email accounts to send Cialis ads. Or as one email wisely put it, “jjbv kilys_donk3i3yn.”
If someone—anyone—offers you $50 billion, take it! Granted, this may be chump change for Google employee #20, but the next time Microsoft comes a’knockin’, don’t pretend Balmer’s a Jehovah’s Witness. Even with that crazed look.
Restore a culture of transparency. Yahoo advertises itself as “the premier digital media company.” In a related statement, Yahoo News reports that Colonel Gaddafi still maintains a stronghold in Libya.
Develop Yahoo Time Machine. Use the product to transport back to 1998 and regain a raison d’être.
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Turn “Yahoo” into a verb. Granted, it might never have the same ring as “Let me Google that,” but the word may as well describe the Valley-familiar pattern of executive turnover—e.g., “After the Oakland Raiders went 8-8 in 2012, they Yahoo’ed the coach…just one season into his tenure. (Onto the seventh in 10 years…time to throw a Hail Mayer!)”
Use Yahoo Horoscopes to predict product lines that have a future.
Cure malaria. Face it: Mayer is 37 and all she’s ever accomplished is revolutionizing search, achieving wealth and fame and status as a leading female role model, and impressing colleagues by working 130-hour weeks (even resolving to power through her three-week maternity break)—on her way to becoming a major American CEO. If the Tiger Mom Zeitgeist has taught us anything, it’s this: Ms. Mayer should stop slacking.
Explore new revenue streams. Start by devising a method to monetize the most popular query (put to Mayer): so...what about the role of women?
Add more products. At last count, Yahoo offered only 37,852 products. (Be honest: who doesn’t have a Yahoo Avatar?)
Become a premier news outlet. With search already outsourced to Bing, many experts are urging Yahoo to reinvent itself as a content and media hub. For starters, Mayer should double down on Yahoo’s commitment to hard-hitting journalism, devoting additional resources to such Times-worthy investigations as “Which star wears her leather pants best?: Katie Holmes sports sexy trousers very similar to Kim Kardashian’s” and “Suri Cruise pouts over a puppy.” (To be fair, Yahoo’s “omg!” blog does give new meaning to Mayer’s background in “artificial intelligence.”) On the topic of degrees…
Double-check her resume. Yahoo’s previous CEO, Scott Thompson, was ousted after four months for listing a bogus Computer Science degree on his CV. Mayer may as well admit it: she doesn't have two CS degrees (as modestly reported), but eight, and her diploma isn’t from Stanford but Stansbury (Saved by the Bell, Season 3, anyone?).
Improve Yahoo Jobs. Begin by clarifying the tab: it’s a link to Monster.com, not an ad to become the next Yahoo CEO.
Team up with MySpace, Friendster, AltaVista, and CompuServ. Pen a few songs, stage an epic reunion tour, and cash in on twin American crazes—hipster irony and retro nostalgia—to the tune of a dial-up modem.
Reignite that dying ember, Flickr. Lest anyone deem Yahoo’s acquisition a dud, think again: images of the once-promising startup can still be found all across Picasa, Facebook, and Instagram.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Manage a tight-run ship. To clarify, this was one of Mayer’s greatest strengths at Google. To clarify further, the “ship” now in question rhymes with “Bitanic.” Speaking of rearranging deck chairs…
Tweak the hue. The data-driven exec famously used A/B testing to choose between 40 shades of blue for Google’s search links. Yahoo, a company facing an existential crisis, clearly needs a similar brand of visionary leadership—as applied to the color purple.
Launch Yahoo Plus. Challenge Google to an Olympic dive: whose redundant social network can go down with even less of a splash?
Improve your customer base. I’m not talking about attracting new customers (c’mon), but giving your current base a makeover: for every perfectly pleasant AARP member using Yahoo as their default landing page, invent a formula (magic, not algorithmic) to make them younger and trendier, and thus more active and influential online. Combovers don’t count.
Continue attracting top talent. Because really—what wide-eyed young programmer doesn’t dream of fleeing Apple or Facebook to cultivate groundbreaking innovations like Yahoo Shopping and Yahoo Games? (To say nothing of the forthcoming Yahoo Golden Parachute.)
Re-energize employees. Former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang famously sent company-wide emails in all lowercase (including to announce massive layoffs). Learning from history, Mayer might take the opposite tack, sending memos in all uppercase: e.g., “OMG FML - NASDAQ: YHOO = 0. :-( ISO CEO #8 ASAP, LOLZ. ;-) NBD. BCNU L8R. CYA! MM
Coherently explain what Yahoo is and what it does. Granted, this suggestion won’t make you burst out laughing. For that, check out the site’s current user interface.
Bring back Barney. It’s lonely being the world’s only purple dinosaur.
Prove the bloggers wrong. Make the joke on us. Anything’s possible?
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