Yahoo chief Carol Bartz sees trouble for Google
 

Google will have "a problem" if it does not diversify its business, the head of Yahoo has told BBC News.

Carol Bartz said that Google would have to "do a lot more than search" and suggested that it would have to "grow a company the size of Yahoo every year".

Ms Bartz made the comments when asked if Yahoo's sprawling network of sites and services had a defined brand image.

Yahoo is one of the largest sites in the world with an audience of more than 200m, according to analysts Nielsen.

It competes with Google in the search market, but has only 17% of the US market, compared to Google's 65%, according to Comscore. Yahoo recently did a deal to use Microsoft's Bing to power searches on its sites.

"Google is going to have a problem because Google is only known for search," said Ms Bartz.

"It is only half our business; it's 99.9% of their business. They've got to find other things to do.

"Google has to grow a company the size of Yahoo every year to be interesting."


Yahoo has more than 70 websites and services, many of which are available in 20 languages around the world.

Some have criticised the firm for growing too large, not making use of acquisitions and having too many sites.

Technology blog Techcrunch has said that Yahoo is the place where "startups go to die".

But Ms Bartz said that its broad portfolio would be its advantage in the long run.

Continue reading the main story Advert uplift helps Yahoo profit

Yahoo 'talks tough' about search
Ms Bartz also said that the firm could also hold its own against Facebook, the current poster child of the web.

She described the site, which has more than 400 million users and has stated that its ambition is to be at the heart of the "social web", as a "frenemy".

"They certainly are taking people's attention and time," she said. "But what is kind of wrong about the conversation is that social just means Facebook.

"Social is interaction. Social is commenting on news stories. It's blogging. It's sharing photos.

"So there are social capabilities running throughout all of our sites, including Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds."

However, earlier, she had told a press conference that she expected that Facebook and Google would overtake Yahoo in terms of the amount of time visitors spent on the site.


Ms Bartz took over the company from founder Jerry Yang in January 2009.

Since then, she has been trying to reverse the fortunes of the firm by cutting costs and jobs, as well as changing the organisational structure of the company.

The firm recently posted quarterly profits which were almost treble what they were a year ago.

During the interview, Ms Bartz stated an ambition to bolster the firm's mobile offerings, but said it would not follow Google by offering a mobile operating system.

The firm currently has its mobile application on around 2,000 different handsets from various manufacturers. It recently signed a deal with Samsung to extend its reach.

She also said that she wanted the firm to focus on personalised and "hyperlocal information" for users.

"It's about what is going on in your local area," she said.

There has been a lot of speculation in the technology press that Yahoo is about to buy Foursquare, a location-based game that allows people to earn points for visiting locations in the real world.

However, Ms Bartz would not confirm if a deal was imminent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10090449.stm

LOL.

Wow.

This coming from the same company that's been unloading properties for far less than they paid for to focus on just search? Wow. She's got a lot of nerve to say that to Google.
WG

Diversifying your business is a good thing. Imagine you spend $4,000 by spending 1 dollar at 4,000 different stores. It is a genius thing.

yahoo trying to give advice to google? :1orglaugh

Did he see that his own business in trouble?

"google is only known for search." is this true?

My thoughts exaclty! :1orglaugh

It's like Arby's trying to tell Mc Donalds, "You guys are fucking up!"

I'm not trying to take too huge a shit on yahoo, but they are no where near as diversified as Google and are in a downward spiral fuled by bad decission after bad decission.

Yahoo never heard of Gmail or Android or the countless other apps Google has released apparently.
WG

That's really frightening. I feel bad for YHO shareholders.

two words
"hedgehog principle"

google it

that was some of the funniest shit i have read all year....

just shows you how out of touch some ceo's are about their verticals and competitors...





.

Diversify? Ummm....All I gotta say is...."Drrrrrrrooooooooooooooiiiiiiiidd!" That phone OS is even more popular than blackberry as far as the consumer market is concerned!

She sounds like a fucking idiot to me

She's to put it mildly an IDIOT!

I worked for Overture which was the leading company in paid search until Yahoo bought it. They spent several years loading the company with execs that couldn't tie their shoes much less understand search

So here we are a little over 5 + years later they gutted Overture so badly that now Microsoft will be taking over all paid and organic results

Maybe someone at Google could give Bartz a few tips

I remember when Overture used to be GoTo. The good old days. Sigh.
WG

Sometimes a homeless guy can give you the best advice on how not to go broke.

But there is some truth to what she is saying and analysts have hinted towards the same thing. Despite being the huge juggernaut of the internet, they have failed to create another significant revenue stream other than Adwords and search. Most other tech firms have been much more successful in exerting their dominance beyond their core market.

Not saying it will happen, but Google has the potential for being one of the fastest collapses in the tech world. Granted Google is everywhere but none of those things bring in any revenue, if someone chips into search like some have suggested Facebook and Twitter might, they have no way to recover those loses.

They can just buy Facebook or Twitter you say? If you owned a company that had Google scared and threatened their core business, would you sell?

Yahoo is run like shit, but most analysts will tell you there is weakness in the current Google model and echo what Barts mentioned in that article. Short term it won't matter, but long term it could become a factor.

Also ad sense and ad words are huge....oh and I guess the people at yahoo never heard of one of the most popular websites in the world called "YouTube". :1orglaugh

Where the fuck has she been?

Google does a hell of a lot more than search.

This is why Yahoo has always sucked. I don't know anyone thats even been on their webpage since Google came out years ago. Regarding The Google search, you have to admire them for keeping that front page so simple, despite underneath it all being a gargantuan megacorp. Yahoo's search page has always been a giant fucking mess, and never returned good results on a search.

Diversify? SE, online apps, mobile OS, etc etc etc

Oh yahoo, how I miss your paid inclusion you fucking bastards.

This is the problem with Yahoo. Exactly how much more will Google have to "diversify". I mean, pretty much everything I do is tapped into Google - Search, email, GPS, maps, chrome, etc....

Yahoo is a bunch of college kids who came up with a great idea and then blew it.

Haha, was this posted on the onion or something.

Yeah, Google doesn't have Maps, Voice, Mobile OS (Android), Gmail, a Browser (Chrome), Analytics, YouTube or anything.

Just search.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Google has nothing else that generates revenue.

Youtube once it is loses it's lawsuit is going to change. It doesn't generate a profit.

Yahoo is run by idiots.

yahoo sold off search, so they're focusing on everything BUT search

non of those make any real money, so she's correct that Google has just search

If google never does another thing they still own the #1 site in the world Google.com and all the search and revenue that goes with it. The #3 site in the world with Youtube.com. The #8 site with Blogger.com as well as a browser that now controls around 6% of the market and gmail which, if it is already the most popular online email program, it is quickly becoming it. Not to mention all the other stuff that other people have mentioned.

That is pretty good if you ask me.

I can't believe nobody has posted a facepalm pic yet.

:2 cents::thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I find this funny after release where is Google declared as biggest brand on world.

Y! Tips don tplease

:1orglaugh Zing!

Can't believe this shit came out of her mouth? I mean talk about a bunch of bullshit, did someone scrape this from 10 years ago or something?

Have they never heard of, Analytics, have they never heard of Google Affiliate Network, Google Payments, just to name a couple things off the top of my head?

On top of that, what has Yahoo ever been? Nothing more than a bunch of stolen ideas and a directory and they got lucky and made a community out of it.. one that is probably nothing more than the old AOL base and dwindling every year..

Yea that's pretty damn funny, I have a paid ad campaign that runs the exact same ad with same keywords on Google, Yahoo, and Bing(soon to merge) and I spend 10x on Google than Yahoo and Bing combined, so maybe she should work on building her much smaller site into a Google... :winkwink:

your chart is wrong windows embedded runs on cell phones/zune

and it missing some stuff like pvr/tv/cars/ which microsoft all has

If I were on the board of directors at Yahoo, I would tell her to focus her psychic powers on their issues instead of Google's.

But that's just me.

funny girl, should be a writer at SNL

I started in the GoTo days and was there when we sued Disney for copyright infringement of our logo and colors. We had a great cake of Mickey Mouse and the Castle that we ate after we won 21 mill from them

They actually didn't sell search. They entered into a 10yr rev share agreement with Bingo/Microsfot to take over search so they won't have to keep investing in technology.

10 years from now the stockholders will wish they had sold search outright but one more blunder for Ms. Bartz

Yep, yet another in a long line of Really Bad Decisions
:321GFY (to Yahoo, not you!)

Now on the topic of diversification, I disagree. Where is it written that you simply MUST expand your business into every other market possible? Okay, besides shareholders ... but don't get me started on that.

There are plenty of companies that were hugely successful in one area and disaster in everything else they touched. The WWE comes to mind - a colossal blunder when they moved into bodybuilding and football before finally sticking to the one business they know.

I guess in this day and age every big corporation's dream (and goal) is to take over the world. Sigh.