Yahoo unveils three-year plan to become cool again

September 16, 2010 12:05 PM
Anthony Ha

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Yahoo executives spoke to journalists at the company’s Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters this morning about their future plans — both upcoming improvements to products like Yahoo Mail, and an ambitious three-year strategy to revitalize the company.

Chief products officer Blake Irving acknowledged that the company has a challenge in “bringing cool back to Yahoo.” A key part of that strategy is moving faster. Yahoo will be improving its products in shorter cycles, rather than spending a lot of time on grand product revamps that aim to “boil the ocean” with a bunch of new features. And those products will be better united into a single vision and experience, he said.

Chief technology officer Raymie Stata said Yahoo has been developing a new infrastructure for all of its products that will allow for that rapid iteration based on user data. Irving, a former Microsoft executive, added that one of the reasons that he decided to join Yahoo earlier this year was his realization that Yahoo had a stronger tech focus than he had previously believed. There’s a perception that Yahoo has become more of a media company, he said, but in fact it’s an “amazing technology company in the media business.”

Pressed to outline what Yahoo will look like if the plans succeeds, Irving said, “Yahoo in three years is a global series of Web experiences across a variety of different devices.”

Reporters also asked how Yahoo will know if it has succeeded in its plans. Irving said there are internal goals that the company will use to measure its success, but he declined to share them. Earlier in the event, he did say that over the three-year period, Yahoo aims to increase the number of Yahoo visitors who log in while using its products from 50 percent to 100 percent.

You can see some of the individual pieces of the product strategy in the graphic above.

Beyond the grand vision, Irving also previewed new products that Yahoo will be unveiling over the next few months, including:

A new version of Yahoo Mail that’s faster, has an improved user interface, integrates with Facebook and Twitter, and blocks more spam [Update: I filmed a video demo of the new Yahoo Mail.]
A new layout in Yahoo Search that presents more content around entertainment and news searches
A new Yahoo iPad app
New ad formats

You can see screenshots of the new Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search below.

Yahoo Mail Screenshot

http://seanmalone.com seanomalone

I can't help but note the irony in the title of this post juxtaposed to the visual of a notoriously uncool school chalkboard with a periodic table of their vision/strategy summary.Also, have to say, I think this vision/strategy slide could apply to quite a number of competitive services. Guess the uniqueness and differentiation is all in the execution.
http://twitter.com/prosperhappily Robert S

I was a Yahoo loyalist until a year or so ago when I switched to Gmail, IGoogle etc. And, I must say, it's gonna take a lot to get me back. They might start by unifying their login. Users shouldn't have to login to E-mail, buzz, delicious and Flikr separately. They might also try updating their graphics. The cartoon look might have looked friendly and reassuring to internet newbies 10 years ago. But, now, it just looks dated and childish. I could go on. I wish them luck in turning their company around. I'll certainly consider using their products more if achieve parity with Google. But, as of right now, they've got a long ways to go.
http://www.toddsampson.com toddsampson

Yahoo, “We're hip. We're with it. Duck-a duck-a, duck-a duck-a, duck-a duck-a…. Ooooohhh.”
http://twitter.com/dpgj dpgj

From what listed here, I think this company is doomed. User-centric product, faster product cycle, united vision … blah blah blah … these generic management prescriptions can apply to everywhere, anywhere. But are they addressing the root problem? Hardly, I doubt if they recognised the problem at all.
http://ajaxed.myopenid.com/ AJ

It's disappointing that they still have a huge, intrusive advertising banner. That is so 90's.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_K7GF3W7A2GCUGIOKBKEF5XG5JU Mike

Blah blah blah ….

It's sad to watch these aging ineffective dinosaurs huff and puff their very last breaths. Every 2-3 years some new and inspired Yahoo exec comes in and talks about his/ her big “turnaround” at Yahoo (see: Susan Decker etc.), and then, just like this, dribbles out another load of meaningless corporate jargon that only further proves how “uncool” and out of touch with reality they are.

“Engage and delight.”

“Bring personal meaning to the web.”

“Build an ecosystem.”

It's the EXACT same thing they say every two years and nothing changes. Maybe they should start spending money on actually creating something rather than spending so much money on management consultants to re-organize their business every two years and spit out an endless parade of store-bought empty business buzzwords.

“Yahoo in three years is a global series of Web experiences across a variety of different devices.”

That should sum it up for you right there- it means nothing. We know it, and they SHOULD know it, but they don't …. and THAT'S why Yahoo fails so miserably.

VentureBeat, please save this article and just re-print it in two years with different executive names.