YHOO-MSFT-ICAHN: What a Mess

I've just stopped blogging about it, because I stopped saying anything new. Everyone has done a bad job and everyone is angry. We get it!

But I can only hope Henry's analysis is the consensus of Yahoo's investors leading up to this shareholders' meeting. I don't say that as someone who draws a salary from Yahoo. First off, I don't think Microsoft would cancel TechTicker and it's just one of my several jobs, so it's not like my livelihood depends on this deal not happening. And I don't own stock in any tech companies, Yahoo included. (Besides, whenever I write or speak about Yahoo it's as a reporter not a contractor. I don't report anything I see or experience being on campus for work, per my contract.)

I'm just weary of all this fire-sale/break-up news that positions Yahoo as if it's, say, Novell: A troubled company that's a shadow of its former self. (Sorry friends at Novell!) Let's be clear: Yahoo is a shadow of Google when it comes to search-- which is hardly its whole business or greatest asset. But hardly a shadow of itself.

As a member of the media, let me express how remarkably unbroken Yahoo is as a property. Just see the news that the SF Chronicle is laying off another 100 newsroom jobs? Picked up an every shrinking issue of any business magazine lately? Yeah, that's our world. No other platform reaches half a billion people a month. TechTicker has become one of the biggest audiences for financial video content since its February launch mostly by being on Yahoo Finance. (As much as I think we're awesome...) And remember the much maligned Digg-copycat Yahoo Buzz? Look at its traffic, again just by being in front of that fire-hose of traffic.

Yahoo may operate like a fiefdom at times but it's a fiefdom that draws its strength from that torrent of traffic. Why you'd think you could get more value from breaking it up is beyond me. I guess that's why this story has ceased to interest me. It's become nothing more than a Wall Street game. And one that even Henry is bored by!

Comments

[Robleh]

Yahoo would be better off broken up because it buys absolute gems like delicious then suffocates them under its bureaucracy. Maybe if it was a looser group of associated companies all with a clearer focus decisions might be taken faster and great innovations would not be lost. Delicious should have been the heart of Y Search from the day they bought it instead of being relegated to an also ran.

But I agree it is totally boring now – pee or get off the potty dudes.