Where Yahoo! Went Wrong

There is an abundance of news recently regarding the big Y!, and in this case the expression "any news is good news" does not fit. By almost all accounts, the company is circling the drain, and trying to find a new direction that is anywhere but down. This post by a former consumer of Yahoo!'s products is anecdotal and opinionated, but hopefully relevant.

A Culture of Arrogance

Let's face it: In 2000 Yahoo was the portal of choice. In a one-stop shop I could get e-mail, instant messaging, games, shopping, auctions, and both an excellent ontological directory of web pages and good search results (via this new search company named Google). They brought the utility of AOL and Prodigy into the open web, where anyone with a 14.4k modem could access it for free, and their site traffic was enormous. Yahoo! was the top dog of the time, and they knew it.

Now here we are in 2008, and Yahoo! really hasn't changed much. They've changed the layout of their portal page a bit, and the "My Yahoo!" page has support for more widgets, but true innovation has been conspicuously absent. The company's current offerings are evolutionary, not revolutionary. It is my belief that innovation has, with a very few exceptions, died at Yahoo!, largely as a result of arrogant thinking and stubborn resistance to change with many of their products.

The Failings

In the early 00's, people started to realize that they could get the same search results that Yahoo! provided in a minimal interface free of graphical ads by going directly to Google. The day that Yahoo! decided to switch to their own brand of search was the day I stopped utilizing their search engine. Their algorithm was, and continues to be, inferior to PageRank.

On April 1, 2004, Google introduced GMail, which was not just another webmail client, but an entirely new way to think about email. Sure, the initial doorbuster was the free 1GB of storage (several orders of magnitude greater than any provider at the time), but the GMail interface was revolutionary, and to this day is unique among webmail providers. Yahoo! did eventually release a "modern" mail client - an AJAX rendition of the same, tired interface of Eudora mail circa 1996.

It seems that Yahoo! has made some effort, but it's marginal at best. They continue to restrict the functionality of their free email service and request $20/yr for such "advanced" services as POP access, Forwarding, and "No graphical ads", all of which I can get from GMail for free. Why would any new user ever subscribe knowing that they would be provided a significantly inferior service to other offerings?

On a more personal note, I have also seen this arrogance displayed from the customer support side at Y!. Specifically, when my wife's account was obviously hijacked, we tried to jump through so many hoops and provide as much relevant information as possible to get the account back, but to no avail. Since the hackers had changed her personal information in the profile, there was no way that we could convince them that we were the rightful owners. For fun, try searching for site:profiles.yahoo.com "Hack AZ" and look at the over 100 accounts who have this peculiar first and last name. Hint: all of them are hacked accounts that were never reclaimed, yet Yahoo! asserted to us that there was no problem with account hacking. Of course if your name is Sarah Palin they will resolve your email hacking issues very quickly.

The successes

It's not all bad for Yahoo!, and part of the reason the deal fell through with Microsoft ages ago is that their portfolio is under appreciated. They still have one of the best Sports websites around, and their Games page is still a good place to go for simple online gaming. I've also recently found a bit of innovation living at Yahoo! Pipes, a fantastic new mechanism for aggregating information feeds of various types.

They also have in their portfolio some non-Yahoo! branded sites such as Flickr and Delicious that are amongst the leaders in photo sharing and social bookmarking, respectively. I feel that it was a very good decision to let these entities remain mostly independent of the Yahoo! label, and believe that they continue to thrive largely because of it.

How to survive

For Yahoo! to even have a chance at success in the coming years, I believe that they have to follow these steps:

1. Get over yourselves and crawl out from under your rock. You were once the leader, and are no more. You've been out-innovated but refuse to acknowledge superior technology. Your email service is an artifact of the 90's, polished to look like it belongs in the 21st century, and few people are going to pay for webmail services that others provide for free. If you're concerned about monetizing these services, maybe you could attach small text advertisements to the bottom of forwarded and POPed emails?
   
2. Monetize your unbranded assets. I'm not a huge fan of advertising, but I know what pays the bills. It seems to me that Delicious, Flickr, etc. could definitely use more contextually relevant text advertisements. You may lose a few consumers who refuse to have their bookmark and photo streams polluted with advertisement, but I think overall it would be a huge gain.
3. Focus on innovation. Concentrate on revolutionary ideas such as Pipes. Explore new avenues of search that aren't just minor improvements on your ranking algorithm. Improve the quality of service of your products by looking towards the future while being aware of what is available in the present.

Considering its current state and the overall economic climate, a long, challenging road lies ahead for Yahoo!. They still have plenty of high quality assets and consumer base, but it will not be sufficient to rest on these laurels.

First Friday means First Saturday

I'm going to First Saturday this evening, if any of my loyal readers would like to join.

Content

I've now been using Blogger for just over a year, with a grand total of 36 posts (counting this one). An average of 3 posts per month isn't exactly prolific, and while I wish I could post more, I don't have the time. I spend way more time thinking about my posts than is necessary, because generally the first draft reads terribly.

One good way out of this rut, I've found, is to let someone else do the thinking for me. While I don't write a ton of original content, I read quite a bit through Reader, and republish a lot of good content through the sharing functionality. So, for those of you that are seeking more than I can provide, I've got some options for you.

I've decided to start sharing all of my own posts on Reader, such that with one simple feed you can get both my content and the articles I find worthy of inclusion. If you are one of the two people (Annakie, Smurf) that are already 'friends' with my Reader account, you will automatically have everything. Otherwise, you can subscribe to Don Juan's Romantic Shared Items through your RSS feeder of choice.

If you want to simply read this blog and none of my shared items, you can still subscribe to the RSS feed for Don Juan's Romantic Mexican Food. Most of my shared items fall under the mandate of this blog (gaming, poker, sports, random humor, etc), so if you will find those things boring then just stick to this one.

Finally, if you're one of those people that actually visit the blog directly, my shared items appear in the sidebar to the left, somewhere above the Adsense box, in case you were looking.

I also still publish to Twitter occasionally, but I'm not going to share that feed since I figure it will just result in people being annoyed by the redundancy. You can subscribe to my twitter feed or just 'follow' me.

LHZ

A post from the wife, because we had a hard time embedding this in an email.

Hello Llamas!

We have replaced our gang sign.

Here is the old sign .....



Here is the new sign ....




Long Live LLamas!!!!!

Hey, Helen, where's an updated llama cartoon group picture?

I am doing Jott for...

I am doing Jott for the first time, I'm standing in a Wal-Mart. Usually whenever I order a Chick-fillet sandwich, I always get it exactly like it comes because supposedly that is the perfect way--with the 2 crucial pickles. But today they screwed up my order and mistook the word 'tea' for 'cheese', and now I have a new way of ordering my sandwich. listen

Powered by Jott

Jott definitely screwed up the transcription on this one quite a bit, and either they have a human doing the transcription of these things or a pretty amazing topic / language model ... I'm guessing the former.

Delegation, Part 7

(Start with Part 1, most recent is Part 6)

A sign-in sheet progressed down our row, then back up the next, finally returning to its origin with the precinct secretary. Since I'd been conveniently discarded during the three weeks between the two caucuses, I was forced to take some extra time to fill in more details. I checked the "under_36" box, filled in that I was MALE and WHITE, wrote in and circled my prefered candidate as OBAMA, signed the form, and sent it on down the line.

Concerning the matter at hand, the reason we were all wasting our Saturday, the voting for delegates was an application of a simple math problem. Our goal was to ensure that both the delegate and alternate chosen would be Obama supporters. Our 12 votes against the 5 for the other candidate worked out such that if exactly 6 of us voted for each one we'd get both of our nominees in.

Earlier in the day P had distributed small slips of paper with the name of the nominee we were to vote on. This orderly action stood out in dark contrast to the chaos that had permeated throughout the event.

The precinct chair queued behind the many other precincts submitting their roll-calls, and we waited.

Not a second before all precincts had reported their attendees we finally started the task of the day.

"Ok," the precinct chair stated, "are there any nominations?"

As expected there were three, all of which had been determined hours prior. Nominations closed.

"All in favor of Fran?" The five outsiders raised their hands.

"All in favor of Grandma Dee?" Six of us, including myself, raised our hands.

"All in favor of Harry?" The remaining six raised their hands.

The chosen two delegates, having tied for votes, stepped away for a moment to decide amongst themselves who would be delegate and alternate. This was completely for show, as this minor detail too had already been decided hours in advance.

"He's a gentleman," Grandma Dee said cheerfully as she rejoined the rest of the group. "He's going to let me be the delegate."

Tired, sore, and hungry, I walked over to P to confirm that my part in this drama had concluded.

"Am I done here?"

"Yep, you're free to go."

I lingered a few moments longer, and ended up catching a ride with a fellow 'bama who was just as tired of this mess.

"Think you can drop me off at the train station?"

"Sure."

He of course neglected to tell me that he'd parked a quarter mile off campus and we were going to be walking for a while. My legs swore to never carry me anywhere ever again.

"Thanks again for the ride," I spoke as I forced my legs to step out of the small sedan. Just a little bit farther now. He nodded and pulled away and I hurried onto the escalator leading down to the platform.

*ding ding* *ding ding*

Oh shit, here comes the train! I hustled down the remaining half of the disappearing steps, caught the train doors just as they were opening and stepped inside.

Quiet. Empty. Bliss.

I slumped into a seat near the door, ignoring the curses of my knees.

Soon, very soon now.

In just another hour I'd be with my wife and child, enjoying the delicious warmth of crispy, yummy tacos at my favorite restaurant, and the events of this day would fade into distant memory.

The doors closed, the horn sounded, and light faded as the train entered the tunnel.


(Bonus! Check out pictures of the event on this web album)

Delegation, Part 6

(Start with Part 1, most recent is Part 5)

"Before we get to the state delegate voting, there are a few items of business." The high-pitched voice reverberated throughout the stadium. "First, there are some challenges to the Credentials Committee that must be resolved to solidify the delegate counts." After waiting in that line, it seemed to me that this particular committee had plenty of its own challenges, without having others add to the mix.

"First, we have a challenge of a count of delegates from precinct..."

Without going into excruciating detail, here's how this fiasco proceeded. First, the credentials committee chair, CCC, feebly attempted to explain the challenge, and no one understood him. Then a better-spoken young woman came up and read the minority report, which boiled down to an Obama supporter being kicked in favor of a Clinton supporter, which solicited jeering from the crowd. CCC then brought the motion of the committee report, and no one understood him. This went back and forth until yet another better-spoken young woman further explained the voting procedure. After a few rounds of this back and forth, a vote was finally called on the committee report, which failed, and then on the minority report, which obviously succeeded.

This entire process took about 30 minutes - for one precinct. One down, eleven more to go. At this rate we'd be wrapping up by around Sunday.

The second precinct took just as long, with another feeble explanation by CCC and a feisty minority reporter. This time, however, the committee sided in favor of an Obama supporter, so the committee decision passed. Tyranny of the majority -- I can has it.

I didn't hear the incantation, but at some point during the voting a nearby cleric cast Owl's Wisdom on CCC, because he finally had the sense to speak up and actually explain a few things about the committee - it's mission, composition, and motivations behind the committee decisions. The five minutes spent on these details would end up saving us hours.

"Next, we have a challenge of a count of delegates from precinct..."

"Madam Chair," an older gentleman stood down on the court at the microphone below the podium. "Madam Chair, since it has been explained to us that this committee has been designed to act fairly according to the rules, and made its decisions with bi-partisan support, I would like to motion that we accept the committee's report in it's entirety." Thunderous applause erupted in the building. This man was an angel, sent perhaps by God himself, to save us the grueling agony of listening to each precinct's whiny little problem one-by-one.

"I second the motion," said a goofy volunteer standing next to him, again wearing one of those dangerous Uncle Sam bayonet hats.

"This motion is on the table," the madam chair stated, "but for it to go to vote first all of the committee recommendations must be read into the record." CCC seized his opportunity for the coup de gras and approached the microphone once again. Softly and swiftly each challenge was read into the record while the mass of minority reporters behind him shook their heads in disbelief.

"All in favor of accepting the committee's report in it's entirety, say 'Aye'."

"Aye." The resolution passed.

"Next, we must elect the permanent chairmen who will oversee the rest of the convention proceedings."

As seems customary with these kinds of things, the 'acting' chair was nominated and approved to be the permanent chair. Continuing down the list of positions to be filled, a few monkeys decided to get cute and run down from the stands to nominate their friends for the position. It really is true that you can't get a mass of people to sit down and shut the fuck up, even when it's in their own best interest to do so. The process which should have taken 5 minutes stretched into 15 as more fools lined up to nominate decidedly unqualified candidates.

"I move to end the nominations," the goofy volunteer finally spoke.

"Seconded," half the auditorium shouted out.

"With all positions elected," the temporary-turned-permanent chairwoman stated, "we can now move on to the precinct caucuses for state delegate selection."

(Conclusion ...)

Delegation, Part 5

(Start with Part 1, most recent is Part 4)

It was no surprise when I finally walked up and found everyone else from my precinct sitting bored waiting for me to arrive. A small cheer erupted as I proudly displayed my substitute credentials papers and picked an empty seat at the top of our section. My legs wept for joy as I'd finally relieved them of their locomotive duties after so long; my stomach grumbled.

Despite the rules committees not being prepared for two hundred, much less two thousand, apparently the seating committee was planning for a full crowd of twenty thousand, and many precincts were seated up in the nosebleed section.

There were still a few unfortunate souls trying to prove themselves down in hell credentials, so we couldn't do much else but mingle. At this point I started evaluating disaster scenarios. Would there be other difficulties with my attendance? I didn't want to provide any basis for a challenge based on the stupid rules that these people had established. I looked down at the blue paper tied around my neck.

Credentials: Precinct Chair Copy

"Damnit!" I'd torn and given the wrong sheet of paper to the precinct chair when I walked up. The flimsy twine dangled carelessly as I pulled the slip from around my neck and attempted to remove the permanent knot. "What next?" I thought to myself as I poked a hole through my copy of the credentials with a cheap Bic pen and re-threaded the twine.

"Can I have your attention please?" a high-pitched woman's voice echoed throughout the stadium. I glanced down to the floor where I could see a pink blur, somewhat in the shape of a female, standing on an elevated podium. "I would like to announce that the long line for the credentials table has finally been cleared, and all delegates are now validated." The statement resulted in an eruption of cheering, hooting, and hollering.

Finally we're getting somewhere.

"We still have a bit of work to do in the credentials committee before we can get to business, but since everyone is here we are going to start with our guest speakers."

Better than nothing, I suppose ...

For the next hour we were subjected to the ramblings of various politicians, either talking about how they got elected or, in most cases, how they were going to be elected in November. Another recurring theme was the circle-jerk of Democrat promotion, supported by the impression that all of the people present were there to support the party, where in reality 95% of those people were there to support a nominee. Yes, you fools are going to benefit in November because of the backlash straight-party ticket voting this year, but other than that nothing of what you say is particularly relevant to my current situation.

I walked up to my precinct chair and asked how much longer it'd be before we voted. "Oh, it'll probably be at least four o'clock, maybe five or six at this rate." We were originally told we'd be done by noon, one at the latest.

"Do you think they'll move the voting up, since that's what most people are here for?"

"Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it." Thus ended any hopes I had of catching up to my wife at the birthday party.

Elenor, an elderly women who required the use of a walker to get around, spoke to me as I started back to my chair. "Have you never been to one of these things before? Where were you in 2004?" she quipped in an unfriendly tone.

I was at home, bitch, enjoying my Saturday with a margarita by the pool waiting for the general election since John Ketsup had already won the damn nomination.

"Now Elenor that's not necessary." responded the precinct chair with whom I'd been conversing prior. I returned to my seat to phone my wife and deliver the news. My stomach yelled.

I did briefly consider visiting the food vendors and satiating my belly, but one look down that hallway forced my change of plans. My belly remained frustrated, but my legs told me that I'd made the right call.

At around 2:00 we were beckoned to move down to closer (e.g. on the floor) seats by our precinct secretary. A few of our membership had vertigo and couldn't join us up above, and it was obvious there were plenty of seats available down below. I helped Elenor descend slowly down the steep staircase, passed the morbidly obese woman who was sitting on the stairs because she "couldn't fit" into any of the chairs. My thighs stung with muscle pain as I slumped into my new chair.

It wasn't but a few minutes later that we heard over the microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen, the credentials committee has finished and we are now ready to begin this convention!"

My stomach cried.

(continued ...)

Delegation, Part 4

(Start with Part 1, most recent is Part 3)

"At least it's inside," I thought to myself as I turned to walk through the double glass doors.

My coordinator, P, was just inside, and I informed her of my situation. We walked down the north hall together and found a spot in the line, and then she went searching for answers to my missing file.

What could the issue possibly be? I had voted during my lunch break on election day, and had been validated at the caucus later that evening. There were roll sheets with my name and voting page from the caucus, and I had signed the same sheet that all of the other delegates had signed. No one else in my group seemed to have this problem. I'd been sent to hell's equivalent of a penalty box, sequestered from my pack and left alone to contemplate my sins.

Perhaps "left alone" isn't quite the right term, for there were certainly a lot of people in this line and it was continuing to grow. The crowding of this line was compounded by the increasing activity of the concessions stands against the other wall. Much like a cholesterol buildup, the thickening against both sides of the artery made flow difficult, and was eventually going to give someone a heart attack. Why didn't they put us in the other hall, away from the vendors? The world may never know.

I leaned back against the dark brick wall near a side exit. Quite often people would cut through the line at this point and step outside, presumably to fill their lungs with cancer dust. There was no more movement or adjustment of scenery, just a lot of staring across the hallway at the validated spending hundreds of dollars on nachos and sodas. It was nearing noon, and I was starting to regret my decision to pass on breakfast earlier. Other body stresses, including but not limited to my tiring legs and feet, kept my mind off the food situation for the moment.

P arrived, but with little new information. She pointed out that many precincts were having similar issues, a fact I'd already divined from the increasingly dense line that now ran around the corner, end out of sight. She reserved my spot in line while I took a short jaunt over to the men's room to provide my body a little relief. I returned to the same exact spot a few minutes later and resumed the wait. At this point I had been standing for four hours straight.

Irritability crept in around me. The inhabitants started complaining, at first just amongst themselves, but later towards the volunteers who were trying to sort out and relay information regarding the situation. One of the volunteers, a very young, average build brunette wearing an Uncle Sam top-hat with bayoneted American flag, was trying her damnedest to be as helpful as she possibly could. Unfortunately for her, this meant that most of the ridicule was directed her way. She ran up and down the lines trying to resolve some of the larger scale problems, e.g. entire precincts missing, and asking people to stay against the walls such that traffic could still flow.

"They aren't going to start without us," I stated plainly to P as she returned to stand with me in line. "And besides, I've got nowhere else to be today." That was a lie. At this point I'd be hard pressed to reach my nephew's first birthday party later in the afternoon. Things were not progressing nearly as quickly as we'd originally been told, and those of us in the credentials line were preventing the process from moving forward.

The crowding to my left eventually started to thin, followed by actual movement in that direction. After taking care of the large scale problems, the needs of the individuals were being addressed. This wasn't apparent to the man in front of me, who continued to interrogate the young volunteer. As she was moving away, I caught her attention.

"Thank you," I stated sincerely. She nodded and smiled.

"You're doing a heck of a job!" declared a larger young man standing right behind me. "Keep up the good work!" She nodded again and hustled down the hallway to resolve more complaints.

"She really needed that," he commented in my direction.

"Yeah, it's a thankless job."

A short while later my precinct chair arrived with a clump of documents, on top of which was a list of names including mine stamped with the page numbers of the voting rolls - solid evidence of my attendance at both the voting and local caucus. The chair of the credentials committee (CCC) came over to discuss some issues with a couple of squeaky wheels standing behind me from precinct 2107. Somehow I was lumped in with them as he, for yet a still unknown reason, whisked us to the front of the line (much to the ire of some of the volunteers). I did as I was told, and finally arrived at the credentials table.

The reasons for the sluggishness were more transparent upon approaching the table. Three volunteers shuffled through huge boxes of files, notebooks, and other documentation trying to resolve various issues. Folders were strewn all over the place, and a bunch of people stood along the walls filling out registration forms. The mass of people filling out replacement forms clogged the traffic artery so much that a disabled woman couldn't get through to her seat. A fist-fight nearly erupted as one of the plebeians violently disagreed with some of the volunteers' shouting to clear out the hallway, and I stood directly between the two of them.

It was this point at which I first considered abandoning my post. I could handle the waiting, the bureaucratic incompetence, the unpleasant smells of human bodies in close proximity, but not conflict. I stayed my course, however, and filled out my little blue form.

"Ok, take this back outside to the front tables and they will get you taken care of."

"Thanks," I whispered as I started my journey back down the same hallway I'd stood in for two hours.

I breeched the outside doors to return to the massive crowd outside, but the plaza was empty. I was expecting to return to a massive crowd of waiting entrants, even though I knew that plenty of time had passed to get everyone signed in. I punched a hole in my blue slip with a cheap Bic pin, threaded through a flimsy swatch of twine, and tied the lanyard around my neck.

"Finally, I am a validated delegate." I thought to myself as I turned to walk through the double glass doors.

(continued ...)

Delegation, Part 3

(Start with Part 1, most recent is Part 2)

A large mass of people oozed from the entrance to the coliseum, filling out to the edge of the street. Makeshift signs with four-digit numbers hovered above the crowd, held aloft by tired arms. A select few of these displays looked professionally made, as if the owners had known what to expect. The rest were scrawled on notebook paper, cardboard, spiral notebook backing, or whatever else would hold marker ink.

"So, where is our precinct?" I asked as I scanned the pages above the heads.

"Well, there's 2107, we're probably pretty close to them." Our coordinator, P, pointed out a waving sheet of yellow notebook paper on which the digits 2107 were scribbled. We navigated around a T-shirt booth and began to wedge ourselves into the crowd.

Thus began the standing and waiting. It turns out that we were actually being "organized" by precinct groups, listed on large signs taped to the columns of the entry. It was difficult to see these signs, however, since they were attached at eye-level. It also didn't help that they were trying to stick to plaster using packing and masking tape and the signs were continually falling.

A mosquito landed on my arm an instant before its life ended. "Now I know why they wanted to start so early," I quipped. "In a couple of hours the mosquitoes will be feasting on us."

The blob slowly progressed towards the doors. The movement wasn't really noticeable, but every so often I'd look up and the trees would be in a different place. Over an hour passed, and aside from some parallax against the distant scenery, nothing changed.

"Hey guys, move on up here," I heard P shout as she finally motioned us forward. The remaining 6 of us wove ourselves through the mosh pit and up to the pillars where the registration tables were established.

"Name and precinct?" a burly man in a navy windbreaker asked as I approached. I handed over my identification and waited while he sorted through a file of blue papers.

"You're not in here," he finally resolved as he finished looking through the papers a second time. "Are you an alternate?"

"No, I am a delegate, I should be in there."

"Well in that case, you're going to need to go to credentials."

"Credentials?"

(continued ...)