Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz reiterated today that Yahoo is still talking with Microsoft “a little bit” about a possible search deal, but said that it would require a “boatload of money” along with the right data-sharing arrangement (because the search data is key to Yahoo revenues, ad relevance, and user experience). Pressed onstage at the AllThingsD conference whether she would reconsider selling the entire company to Microsoft, she replied: ” Oh, they’d have to have big boatloads of money.” While she still seems resistant to the idea,the fact that she would now consider it at the right price is a softening of her public stance. This doesn’t mean an outright sale is back on the table (that original $45 billion boatload of money left port a long time ago), but at least she is open to the possibility.
A search deal with Microsoft remains a more likely transaction. She explained: “There are two parties in all of this. The other party has all the money, we have the data.” Both are valuable.
More immediate deals might come from Yahoo doing some acquiring itself. “We are very interested in social, and in video technology,” said Bartz. She was particularly bullish on Web video: “This is just the beginning. The whole video area is so exciting. Video advertising growing four times by 2011.”
In terms of what she needs to do to get Yahoo back on track, her main focus remains streamlining management and decision-making at the company. Bartz related the following story of Jerry Yang inviting her over to his house when he was trying to recruit her for the CEO job, which she didn’t want initially:
Jerry said, ‘At least come to my house and talk to me.’ I said, ‘I will come talk, but I am not taking the job.’ He pulls a flip chart out of the closet. We all have a flip chart at home, right?
I said, ‘Show me who on this board would make the big search decision. He started drawing the arrows. It was like a cartoon. I said, ‘Oh my God. You need management here.’ I couldn’t figure out who was in charge. He didn’t explain that part very well.
So what does she think needs to do fix Yahoo? She didn’t get into specifics, but acknowledged that Yahoo needs to be updated and do a better job of what it already does well:
Yahoo drives more traffic to more sites on the Internet than anything else. What is it about us? People trust us. We just have to do an even better job. We have to make it simple. On the other hand, it has to be more customizable. It just has to be a more modern UI and more modern approach, and that is what we are going to do.
Bartz distanced her strategy from chasing any particular hot trend, whether it is search or social networking. “Everybody doesn’t just go to Facebook,” she noted. “People visit 85 sites a month, but spend most of their time on one or two. They can start on Facebook, but it doesn’t give them their news, their stock quotes, it doesn’t give them a of of things.” Them’s fightin’ words.
I would think they won’t spend tons of money on Demand media? do you think? I would hope not. That deal will decide if Y! is or is not headed in the right direction.
Bartz is right, though. There are people who think social networking is worthy of its own stock exchange as an independent industry, when in reality it has more in common with email, instant messaging, or even faxes or telephones.
It will be a part of how anybody does business, not a core competency for anyone but a few who struggle to make a business of that market.
It would be too easy to jump on the latest unprofitable hype and lose the big picture in all the euphoria.
interesting that she’s bullish on web video when almost everyone else thinks it’s a losing proposition (Hulu notwithstanding).
There’s way more to video than some tv shows on the web. Think a little bigger.
I think all this points to Bartz having found her sea legs. She’s adjusted her compass, and taken the helm boldly.
What do you mean, like CCTV big brother video 24-7?
Yes, but is are any video sites making money? That’s the critical question. Yes, online video is growing exponentially, yes it is a hot new area, but is anyone making money out of it? Youtube isn’t.
Tough job.
I’m liking this Bartz girl. She seems very committed, headstrong, she knows what she’s doing. Well done, it’s a hard job, but you’re doing it well.
Yahoo CEO saying open To Search Deal For ‘Boatloads Of Money’ is the epitome of bombastic personality disorder.
NOT if you look 20 years younger than you really are… and 100 pounds lighter… LOL
Steve Balmer: That guy ahead of me (Eric Shmidt)got a deal
Bartz: You want a deal? $37 a share
Steve Balmer: Devlp Devlp Devlp Devlp
Bartz: “$42″
Bartz: “No Yahoo for you! Come back One Year”
http://themeetingnazi.com aka soup nazi
i know this happened because i was there sitting in Bartz iphone
On the site I work on, we get many more visitors from Google, but the users from Yahoo stay a lot longer. I don’t know why. There’s something about the Yahoo users – they seem to have a longer attention span.
Its probably because google search is better and gives lots of relevent results and sites to look at. But Yahoo search is just okay, so you don’t have as many options to browse the few relevent links.
actually your argument describes the opposite. People not sticking around DIDN’T find what they wanted. People who do stick around DID.
I see your point, but for the ADD, the more options you have, the more likelihood that you’ll try to view everything. But if you are given a few options, you will take your time depending on the site.
Interesting. that’s what we have at Cocktail Match http://budurl.com/4Yahoo Social with great social content and GREAT video, especially our One Shot Show. We’ll just keep doing our thing.
You can watch this weeks show here: http://budurl.com/1OneShot
Yahoo is walking dead. My guess is that Microsoft still buys this piece of c***!
Will MSN rename Yahoo to Bing.com! Haha, or they will just call their search engine “yahoo search”
swag said it right. IMHO SoNet’s are not stand-alone companies capable (if they ever will be) of standing on their own.
One thing for certain is users are gravitating toward (if not ‘thinking’ of) a more unified web experience. Search, shopping, socializing, entertainment – under one roof.
Some SoNet platforms are already poised to handle such integration (hi5, Facebook), but it will take time for developers to get the ‘experience’ underway. Enter Yahoo! (or any other big $$ Co) looking to expand their offerings and lead the way to this new form of social entertainment/networking.
Whatever happens, I think the next few quarters will be exciting indeed.
Go CAROL eFF and S@it the world to death…that will motivate your Indian engineering teams!!
Boatloads of money.. talk about wishful thinking
Like I always say, Video streaming is the future. She needs to go checkout DealitLive.com, that should get them started on something interesting
I agree with Bartz 100%, LOL. This space should be extremely hot in the next few years.
Did I read the right, they want to more “video startup’s”? Didn’t they just shut down like three or four video startup’s they acquired in past two years in the fall of 2008?
yeah, jumpcut. nice one.
“DealitLive.com”??? what, is there like a whole 5 things for sale on that POS site?
O please.
Maybe just 5 items for now, but i thought the idea was good Jenny from the hood!!!!!
They should acquire http://www.yoostar.com
I have the biggest, sappiest, mushiest soft spot in my heart for yahooooooooooooo & always will.
The reason she didn’t go into specifics, sadly, is that she has no clue what to do with Yahoo.
Saying vague things like ‘we just have to do it better’ shows she has no vision for change. Focusing on the stereotypical management fallbacks like reorganising the leadership team and firing thousands of people, indicates no knowledge of products and markets.
Cost-cutting is easy; growing revenue is hard, because you need to understand customers and what they will pay for.
The fact remains that Yahoo is an unfocused business that does everything web-related and is the best in none of them. Until a CEO has the courage to break Yahoo up into much more focused business units that can choose a market and monetise it, there will continue to be this strategic drift.
Well, she was right in that people Trust yahoo, maybe more so than google which is like a big brother data mining operation. If Yahoo wants to generate revenue from consumers, it should merge with Amazon and create a Pay-Pal debit card system.
youtube proves scrappy video websites are not money makers. social networks have not proven themselves either.
“People visit 85 sites a month” wow ….compare that to the 240 million that are out there.
Strategic Multichannel natural language “social shoes” are the future of the internet. if they are serious about social i’m sure we’ll talk.
VideosLocator.com – channel check
Yahoo need stop buy all new startups, buy jumpcut now close the service and other video starups. Yahoo need strategy, need stop call at everything yahoo, it’s yahoo news, yahoo videos, they need stop that if flickr call yahoo photos just not work, they need more marketing names
Every time I read something about Bartz I’m more impressed with her. imo, if anyone can turn that ship around, she can.
From her recent f-bomb incident, to her “It was like a Dilbert cartoon.” comment about the previous organization chart.
Thinking out of the box…and kicking butt. I’m rooting for her.
Is Carol Bartz aware that Yahoo! purchased Maven Networks, a video syndication & advertising platform, just over a year ago? What the hell happened with that? How does it fit into Yahoo’s current video strategy (if there is such a thing), and why is she looking at acquiring additional video plays? And what was the deal with Jumpcut?
Sounds like somebody isn’t doing his/her job keeping Carol up to speed in this area.
I know the Maven folks, and they’re (still) very much part of Yahoo’s video strategy.
I don’t see how disclosing the full details of Yahoo’s video strategy helps Yahoo, and I guess Bartz doesn’t either. Surprise, strategy is about competition and you don’t blab about it.
Bartz is a fool.
YHOO is dead because both she and Jerry killed employee loyalty with layoffs, cost-cutting, and rejecting the MSFT buyout.
If GOOG hasn’t found a way to make money off video, what makes Bartz think YHOO idiots can do better?
MSFT doesn’t want to buy YHOO deadheads. Keep dreaming Carol Fartz
I agree with last post that Carol Fartz Bartz is a fool! She is also in this just for the $5 million per year, which is FIVE TIMES what Yang got as the founder of Yahoo. Yahoo is the walking dead and she is only looking to pad her own pockets. She has a head shaped like a bowling ball (round and stupid looking) and only got this job because her husband is Taiwanese, and so is Jerry Yang. That smacks of nepotism!
I love that paragraph about the visit to Jerry Yang’s. I think the flip chart and arrows are a pretty good example of why he’s not a ‘management’ sort of guy.
I wish Mike Masnick of Techdirt would forget about his “condition” and just get on with life. Everyone has deficiencies and things they are unhappy with. Your situation is not as bad as you think, Mike. Adolf Hitler also experienced this condition and apparently could have fathered children (had he lived to do so)!
Besides being short, ugly and hairy, Mike Masnick of Techdirt has only one nut! How does he get up in the morning and look at himself in the mirror? He must wear a blindfold.
I heard Mike Masnick scratches his one nut all day long. How disgusting!