What Would I Do to Fix Yahoo!

I love Yahoo!  Just as much as the guys below.

I've had a MyYahoo page for as long as I can remember, and it's still my home page at work and home.  I was a big Terry Semel fan.  I've had Yahoo! email addresses for years, and have no plans to switch to Gmail.  Yahoo! is where I first learned about RSS.  I've partnered with Yahoo! at previous jobs.  I've bought and sold YHOO a few times over, and while I don't own it now, think it's available at a great price.

So I was terribly excited to see AdAge's headline, What Would You Do to Fix Yahoo, a story asking industry experts and readers for their suggestions on how to fix Yahoo! 

I'm not going to judge their suggestions, but let's just say I wasn't terribly inspired by most of the ideas, which included: owning fun, changing corporate colors from purple to red, changing the name of MyYahoo to YaYou and others.

If you've read this blog for long enough you'll know that I'm not going to sit here and claim to have the answers.  Heck, I just read the article about five minutes ago and haven't really thought about it. 

But here's what I do know ... the fact that not one branding or marketing expert mentioned Flickr or Delicious in the AdAge article is a huge problem.  Even worse, that consumers have no idea that Yahoo! owns two of the most trafficked, important and just plain awesome online communities.

Whatever Yahoo's! fix is, I promise you it involves integrating its core search and email functionality with the best-in-class Flickr and the highly utilitarian Delicious. 

Would love to hear your suggestions.  And if anyone from Yahoo! reads this, I am happy to serve as a beta tester!

Comments

[Maayan]

yahoo finance still kicks everybody else's collective ass. Perhaps part of yahoo's problem is that they don't make it clear enough that they own web properties like flickr so they get discounted as a dying brand. Can't stay I'm true to yahoo (more of a google man) but my social networking presence started with yahoo groups, I spent hours and hours on yahoo games, and my first messenger was yahoo - I only got aim because everyone else had it. yahoo already has some breakout awesome stuff, they just need to be louder about it (tons of advertising seemed to help bing).

[giles rhys jones]

sum/some of the parts. stop selling yahoo (who happen to have a bunch of cool things) and sell the cool things (powered by yahoo)...

[Dave Nathan]

Carol Bartz has "said a lot internally and externally that she detests purple."
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/203676

I'd be curious about Yahoo's brand perception (compared to other engines) outside the US. When we were in Tokyo, I was impressed by Yahoo's dominance in electronics stores touting their ISP offering.

From a business perspective (as an advertiser), Yahoo is going to need a partnership with MSFT or vastly upgrade their advertiser interface. An overhaul is about 3 years overdue.

[Ian]

So from what I can gather, Yahoo! needs to capitalize on the 'nostalgia' we all feel for the brand, but demonstrate they are as cutting edge as Google. It appears (and I trust Dave's POV, given what he does for a living) that search is not currently where they will win. But there might be something to more aggressively letting the world know what the entire Yahoo! portfolio of companies includes.

It also appears Yahoo! might be in need of a good old fashioned branding campaign.