Yahoo closes $7.6 billion deal with Alibaba Group(phys.org)
phys.org
Yahoo closes $7.6 billion deal with Alibaba Group
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-yahoo-billion-alibaba-group.html
6 comments
I definitely agree. Which aspects of Yahoo! would you like to see reinvestment in as a shareholder?
Well, I don't hold it, so I have not done the research and am speaking from a place of ignorance investment-wise.
But I am very interested in tech, and looking at Yahoo! in a broad sense I think they need to shift their focus from short term profits to making their core offerings a)more functional for their users, b)more beautiful for their users, and c)integrated with the other services and platforms their users use.
I mean, look at their search page. It is literally slathered in adds and links to...god only knows what. Seemingly random news articles? Buttons that say "OMG!" (where will that take me, I wonder?), auto-site links, and hilariously, a 'Trending' section. I almost want to cry.
Now think about a search customer navigating to Yahoo! to perform a search, -that's all they want to do. And they see this.
Same goes for their mail product. You have users that you are serving, but what you are offering them is just as comically abysmal. It's offensive. It's information overload. It looks like shit.
They are, as a company, in a position to better offer some core services like search, mail, photo storage and sharing to an incredibly large audience in a beautiful, user experience enhancing way. I'd love to see them seize that opportunity instead of just slathering their products with garbage to chase short term ad revenue (destroying the user experience in the process and driving people away in the long term), or failing completely to nurture and exploit their better properties like Flickr.
Yahoo! needs to get back to basics and fix those things before it starts moving on to grander ambitions imho. They do that, and users will appreciate it. They will stay with them. New users will come into the fold. Stem the flow of users leaving their properties, bring new users in with core service enhancements, then leverage that audience as they expand into areas of what amounts to pure speculation.
But I am very interested in tech, and looking at Yahoo! in a broad sense I think they need to shift their focus from short term profits to making their core offerings a)more functional for their users, b)more beautiful for their users, and c)integrated with the other services and platforms their users use.
I mean, look at their search page. It is literally slathered in adds and links to...god only knows what. Seemingly random news articles? Buttons that say "OMG!" (where will that take me, I wonder?), auto-site links, and hilariously, a 'Trending' section. I almost want to cry.
Now think about a search customer navigating to Yahoo! to perform a search, -that's all they want to do. And they see this.
Same goes for their mail product. You have users that you are serving, but what you are offering them is just as comically abysmal. It's offensive. It's information overload. It looks like shit.
They are, as a company, in a position to better offer some core services like search, mail, photo storage and sharing to an incredibly large audience in a beautiful, user experience enhancing way. I'd love to see them seize that opportunity instead of just slathering their products with garbage to chase short term ad revenue (destroying the user experience in the process and driving people away in the long term), or failing completely to nurture and exploit their better properties like Flickr.
Yahoo! needs to get back to basics and fix those things before it starts moving on to grander ambitions imho. They do that, and users will appreciate it. They will stay with them. New users will come into the fold. Stem the flow of users leaving their properties, bring new users in with core service enhancements, then leverage that audience as they expand into areas of what amounts to pure speculation.
Great points. I definitely agree that the visual styling of Yahoo! remains in a web 1.5 era and I'm sure Marissa Meyer will have her fair share to say about it in the coming months. After all, Google's famous white background is largely considered one of Marissa's influences.
Other than the design aspect - Yahoo!'s web technology is largely, for the lack of a better word, 'adequate'. Their search bar searches well (powered by Bing), their mail client sends mail, and Flickr is still a great service for image consumption and storage.
What of their 'lifestyle' or 'media' portals? For instance Yahoo! Answers, Finance, Auto, Sports (Fantasy Sports as well as Sports news) etc? These are all great Yahoo! product areas in their own right. What do you think users would say to Yahoo! making a media play similar to what AOL has done?
One gripe of mine is Match.com, another Yahoo! property. It seems largely untapped. It isn't widely branded as part of the Yahoo! portfolio (lacking the trademark Yahoo! Purple design scheme, for one), and it seems it has largely operated independent of its parent company in the past. I think Yahoo! should either choose to do something with this website and have it mean something to the rest of the Yahoo! family of products, or sell it off and use the money to fund other ventures.
Other than the design aspect - Yahoo!'s web technology is largely, for the lack of a better word, 'adequate'. Their search bar searches well (powered by Bing), their mail client sends mail, and Flickr is still a great service for image consumption and storage.
What of their 'lifestyle' or 'media' portals? For instance Yahoo! Answers, Finance, Auto, Sports (Fantasy Sports as well as Sports news) etc? These are all great Yahoo! product areas in their own right. What do you think users would say to Yahoo! making a media play similar to what AOL has done?
One gripe of mine is Match.com, another Yahoo! property. It seems largely untapped. It isn't widely branded as part of the Yahoo! portfolio (lacking the trademark Yahoo! Purple design scheme, for one), and it seems it has largely operated independent of its parent company in the past. I think Yahoo! should either choose to do something with this website and have it mean something to the rest of the Yahoo! family of products, or sell it off and use the money to fund other ventures.
I thought IAC owned Match.com.
Unless you consider 'they' the hedge funds who are now in control of the Yahoo board, your perception of who is inept is misplaced. This decision was a critical part of the regime change that took place. While Mayer is currently the CEO and may have the best of intentions, she doesn't have anything resembling the control that Zuckerberg, Larry Page or even Tim Cook have over their company. If she did, it is a near certainty that this money would have been retained and invested in the company.
I'm confused -- how do the following reconcile:
-- Alibaba is paying [...] to buy back Yahoo's 20[%] stake
-- Yahoo will retain a roughly 20[%] stake in AlibabaYahoo previously owned 40%.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-alibaba-buyback...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-alibaba-buyback...
ah, thank you.
Time to start more acquisitions?
Anyone remember how much Yahoo paid for it's initial stake in Alibaba?
"Yahoo originally acquired its stake in Alibaba Group in 2005 in exchange for $1 billion and the sale of its Yahoo China business to Alibaba Group."
--http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-alibaba-buyback...
--http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-alibaba-buyback...
Hmm...
As an investor, I'd rather capital was reinvested at Alibaba than at Yahoo, though I'd prefer a dividend to that.
As an investor, I'd rather capital was reinvested at Alibaba than at Yahoo, though I'd prefer a dividend to that.
23% still is
This is kind of a conspiracy theory, but I have to wonder... Mayer came from Google. As we know from recent news about Asus and Android, Google has a big problem with Alibaba because of their Aliyun OS, which Google claims to be an incompatible fork of Android with pirated apps in the app store. I have to wonder if this sale isn't somehow related. Possible Yahoo wishing to distance itself from Alibaba?
This sale to Alibaba has been in the works for a long time, theres no chance that the Aliyun OS incident has anything to do with it. The timelines just don't match up.
They're actually retaining 20% of AliBaba, so your theory doesn't hold. More likely, AliBaba's management want to consolidate their independence and see the use of a cash reserve to boost share price as a good thing.
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If Yahoo! was in my portfolio, I would be furious if they distributed that money to me in the form of a dividend.
Well maybe not furious. I'd take it, then immediately sell all my stock on the signal that they are too inept to see that that money would be much better spent on transformative changes and acquisitions in order to turn the company around.