What a day for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to take the stage in front of a thousand or so people at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The Google search marketing deal is toast, and it’s not clear what Yahoo’s plan is as the company’s stock continues to wither.
Conference co-organizer John Battelle welcomes Yang to the stage at 4:50 pm.
Yang says its been an “amazing year” in response to Battelle’s first question on how he’s doing personally. Battelle then asks what happened to Yahoo this year, going back to Microsoft’s offer to acquire the company in February 2008.
Yang says flat out that he’s open to a sale to Microsoft, that they were ready to negotiate a deal and that they weren’t that far apart. He says Microsoft continues to be clear that Microsoft is no longer interested in the deal. Yang also says that he and his board of directors felt that at all times they did the right thing. Both sides are to blame, he says, for the deal not happening.
Battelle says that a lot of people claim Yang is to blame for the deal falling apart. Yang counters, saying he is indifferent about keeping Yahoo independent and just wants what’s best for the company. He also reiterates that they went back to Microsoft after the offer was revoked to get them interested again.
“I have a lot of respect for Steve [Ballmer]”
“It’s not personal”
Battelle then asks about the Google search marketing deal, which fell apart today. “What happened,” he asked. Yang says they were working with the Department of Justice to make the deal worked, but Google “clearly didn’t want to stay in the deal.”
Yang says that the deal was a way for “two competitors to try and compete more by doing this.” If Yahoo could take advantage of Google’s ads, he says, users would have a better experience, which would help Yahoo “compete vigorously” in the search marketplace.
“It’s disappointing to us that Google didn’t want to defend this deal,” he said.
Yang says the government doesn’t understand our industry and has a market definition that is too narrow. “Things like this have unintended consequences on the broader industry,” he said.
Battelle asks “You founded Yahoo 15 years ago, for the first 8-10 years Yahoo was the standard bearer for the Internet. Then you had a crisis in ‘06, and you came back as CEO. Why? Why do that to yourself? Are you the right guy?” Yang answers: “It was ‘07 when I stepped back in…I didn’t make the decision to be CEO lightly…In retrospect, I don’t take my position lightly…I wanted to make the changes at Yahoo that I believe I’ve made. There has been a lot of change, a lot of people coming and leaving, but the plans we’ve tried to execute against have been done and I’m extremely proud in the sense of rewiring Yahoo as a platform company.”
“I don’t regret any minute of what happened.”
“What is the vision for Yahoo” Battelle asks.
“Yahoo is a consumer brand that allows people to do what they want on the Internet.”
Yang says that opening up Yahoo as a platform is important. YOS allows third parties to developed applications for the Yahoo audience. “It’s very different from Facebook” he said.
Yang talks about Search Monkey and BOSS and how it is changing the search experience by bringing in third party apps and they opening up search as a web service.
Battelle asks what went wrong historically with Yahoo, and if Yahoo culture of fiefdoms got in their way. Yang responds that Yahoo’s culture is changing, and that the company needs more product discipline. Historically the company had scale problems, he says, because they didn’t have a platform approach.
Battelle says there are three companies that want to be platform advertising players: Google/Doubleclick, Microsoft and Yahoo. He asks what Yahoo is trying to do with Apt, their new platform that let’s publishers form advertising subnetworks under Yahoo. Yang says they are able to bring a large audience to advertisers, but APT creates a liquid and fluid market where all types of advertising can be sold.
Battelle talks about Yahoo three years ago, when they bought Flickr and Delicious. Those days are over, he says. Will Yahoo start buying again? Absolutely, Yang says. “We bought 40 companies this year,” he says. It’s very important to us, he says.
Battelle asks if Yahoo is talking to Microsoft about any kind of deal. Yang says no. Battelle asks if Yahoo is buying AOL, Yang says “I can’t talk about that.”
In response to an audience question about search competitiveness going forward, Yang says he believe search is innovation based, not capital based, and that he believes Yahoo is spending enough on capex.
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“Dear Advertiser,
We wanted to reach out to you directly regarding Google’s decision, announced earlier today, to terminate the advertising services agreement that the companies announced in June. Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement, and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s and advertisers’ concerns.
While disappointed by this turn of events, we are writing to you to reaffirm our commitment to working together to drive your advertising results, and to provide the continued leadership you expect. The fact is that this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search.
As you know, Yahoo! has long focused on how to improve the user, advertiser and publisher experience. We will continue to enable you to easily connect with the consumers you most want to reach, by creating a more open, efficient and effective marketplace for advertisers and publishers. We also plan to continue to provide the cutting-edge advances in products, platforms and services that the industry needs and expects, by leading the way in helping advertisers navigate the converging contextual and search ad markets. Finally, we remain committed to innovation in anticipating the needs of Yahoo!’s audiences–one of the largest and most engaged populations of consumers on the web–by creating the unique context that delivers results for brand advertisers online.
In short, even in the absence of a commercial agreement with Google, we intend to become an ever-stronger player in online advertising. Our certainty on this front comes from the progress we continue to make in many areas, not the least of which are the significant innovations we’re making in search. We continually optimize our algorithmic and sponsored search. In fact, in 2008 alone, we have developed and launched hundreds of improvements to our search engine, including index expansions and updates, ranking models and performance tuning. Each of these features is designed to improve search quality and deliver a more relevant search experience to our users.
Particularly in this economic climate, identifying and making rich and deep connections with your target audience is of the utmost importance. No company is better prepared to help you succeed in that quest than Yahoo!. In addition to being the largest aggregate publisher in the U.S., we are #1 or #2 across virtually every key category, including being #1 in the categories of News, Sports, Finance and Entertainment, and we’re putting our leadership to work for you every day.
By offering extensive reach to consumers, breakthrough advances in technology, simplifying inefficiencies in the advertising process, putting new and industry-recognized talent in place, and providing tailored solutions across our network to meet your needs, we are well prepared to provide you with the most significant return on your investment.
We are looking forward to continuing to work with you in building your business. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or anyone on our team with your questions, or to discuss your challenges. We’re open to a productive dialogue with you in the service of continuing our successful work together.
Warmest Regards,
Hilary Schneider
Executive Vice President, Yahoo! U.S.
——
/end
Anyone have some Lysol? A pound of font-feces just slid down my screen and I want to be sure to disinfect.
All advertisers got the letter. It’s a good move, Yahoo must conitnue communicate and innovate. The fact is they have good traffic numbers, and an advertiser you would be foolish to not advertise on their network if you are converting the traffic.
VIc, what insight did you extract from that piece? Just another wet turd from my POV.
Mike,
Ask Yang if the recent developments re: the Google deal will have any impact on the hockey-stick growth his team forecasts over the next 3 years. I’m yet to see an amended plan.
http://www.slideshare.net/redu.....on-329594/
I’m not convinced Jerry.
50 companies could say they’re
“a consumer brand that allow people to do what they want on the Internet.”
jerry looks ready to sell any day now.
Nice read,
Especially on the fact that they didn’t develop their platform accordingly to changes in the market and how they are now trying to catch up with the big players as of recently.
Eerhhh, I now see you are constantly updating
Microshaft can probably have YHOO for $22 a share now. nice way to destroy shareholder value moron….
I accidentally voted yes on prop 8 in Cali. Sorry guys.
lol
Still trolling I see. You have had to cling to this prop 8 thing ’cause McSame lost, and it is sad.
an open letter to jerry yang, ceo of yahoo!
dear mr. yang,
i am double o’trouble
you may remember me
from the 1.0 bubble
you held on to me then
despite all the chaos
please spare me from
the 2.0 layoff
even though times call
for you to be frugal
don’t leave me for dead
like your deal with google
i have little saved
i’m facing foreclosure
i NEED this job
to keep my composure
i’ve increased in value
unlike my shares
plus i have more skills
than ballmer has hairs
i can save yahoo!
i have vision and moxie
and more plans for business
than guy kawasaki
i stood up for you
called bloomberg unfair
when cuban suggested
that you grow a pair
so please keep my job
from the release
wait, what? google’s hiring?
i’m outta here, peace
from double o’trouble, founder of stealthyourself.com
Come on Jerry… One day everyone will realise search results on Yahoo are great, and getting better… That Google is evil… But first Yahoo! needs to fix up and focus.
We look forward to Yahoo turning the tables. Never say never.
http://www.mylot.com/?ref=thesamsmart go her and sign up in the top left to make money by just talking to others!
they’ll take 20 bucks. i want to see jerry and bill holding hands in public.
BuyLocator.com
Jerry
You’ve been had by Microsoft… face it, wake up. You wanted it so badly and they simply played you… now MS is not interested anymore… and google is not an option..
Doesnt it just suck how everyone else is the problem and conspires against you… or like warren buffet said… if you’re playing poker and don’t see the sucker.. get up and leave because you are the sucker…
Yahoo will emerge a stronger, leaner company when the storm passes!
I hope so!
Yahoo is dead.
They need a better video search site to take control and contend with Google.
Why is there so much hate toward Yahoo out there? Wanting Jerry & Bill hold hands? MS is evil and hostile to the cool, open source communities… but Yahoo has been a firm believer of openness since day 1. Recently they’ve been over shadowed by Google, but they continue to come out with cool, open culture products. What’s there to hate (except for the low stock prices?)
The Fall of the AFRO!
Btw
Check out http://www.jobstaxi.com
New Jobs. Playlist. 2K Games. 7digital
i remember yahoo as one of the first sites i ever stepped in back in 1996, many internet users have at least one yahoo service, which is better than any ms service, google came with many many great services its a shame that google and yahoo can´t have that deal, but the internet era always surprise everybody so it might come something big, really big
Noticing a lot of similarities between Jerry Yang’s record this year and Ty WIllingham’s…
I love the developer section of yahoo along with a couple other things they do well. BOSS and search monkey are both extremely interesting. The problem though is that their search is just not very good. Sites that have tens of thousands of pages indexed by google and even a few thousand by microsoft only have a few dozen on yahoo. Most of the people I talk to say the same thing. Is it any wonder why google is #1 at search? They seem to be the only players that are committed to it.
He sounds clueless, sad and dejected.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
“Yang says flat out that he’s open to a sale to Microsoft, that they were ready to negotiate a deal and that they weren’t that far apart.”
Resistence is futile! You will be assimilated into the Borg!
People said we/you would never have a Black President. Now the world has hope that the people stood up and voted for a man of intelligence, rather than be led into international disaster and instability by a puppet.
Just as the world had no hope,
The world/US decided to vote.
Just as Yahoo! have no decent buyers,
Maybe Yang can counter the neh sayers.
Google may just be Evil, Bill Gates is some kind of Capitalist Saint, what will Jerry be? I believe his story has only just begun.
Bring it on Jerry. Turn Yahoo! around from the inside. I understand you have some great talent in the UK… No names.
You have some phenomenal hidden talent. Don’t waste their time with Microsoft and Google. People love Yahoo! enough to evangelise - but we need something to sell. Ps. Why does nobody know how good Yahoo is to search?
Maybe for one (of many) because they get distracted by all the mess on your home page? Please Jerry, make this interesting. Take them all on.
Google is the evil. They made Yahoo resist the buyout from MS followed by turning back from the deal leaving it nowhere. No man’s land.
I just saw Yahoo infected a loss of $18 billion to its shareholders.
Google.. what’s next !!??
Yahoo offers free texting too. Please give up.