Of course there's a lot of hate against Meyer and that parachute. But does anyone know of anything good Yahoo tried, or achieved in the last few years under her leadership?
It seems the only time Yahoo came in the news it was for something bad. Kinda sad that.
The Yahoo board hired an incompetent business executive in Meyer, so the outcome was pre-ordained. (Not putting ads on Tumblr was a fatal revenue mistake.)
The only thing that improved under Meyer was that Yahoo mail is a fairly good product now, as it was improved a few years ago, then they started using it internally (dogfooding.)
I'm a little embarrassed to say, but I'm a regular yahoo (frontage) visiter. It's entirely muscle memory for me, I've been using the site since the mid 90's.
The only things I've noticed in her tenure are that they've really streamlined their click bait articles, built custom results based on viewing habits and integrated sketchy 3rd party promoted ads and everything gets a summarization. It's all meant to keep you clicking on their site, whore you out to one of their ad partners or just capitalize on ADD people with TLDRs everywhere.
Technically, they've implemented JavaScript based article preview overlays that keep you on the site, but create a terrible experience when you want to go offsite to view the whole article- you want to continue from where you left off, but realize that you have to start over because you just read a bad summary. Yahoo really embraced that kid's summarization engine that they purchased a few years ago... To a fault.
Bottom line is that they did well with bringing in some good content providers- getting great results for hockey all year- in favor of many terrible "in-house" personalities. It's less about yahoo-branded content and more of an aggregated list of stories you might like. Unfortunately much is just click bait garbage with a terrible user experience optimized for ad revenue. There are often very offensive articles from yahoo's "reporters" that make lite of human tragedy or just attack people in a very mean spirited way- TMZ has higher standards. These changes started soon after Meyer started so I put it all on her, but I keep coming back so it's not all bad.
Funny note, I've been using the username "elpresidentedechimichanga" for nearly 20 years. With all their auth changes over the years, it still works. On a not so funny note, yahoo's comment section is one of the dankest recesses of human expression. I would have cleaned this shit up first thing if I was CEO.
In hindsight is seems obvious Meyer was not the right person, but it didn’t seem too bad at the time. I've not met her not have real inside information but my impression is she is a super smart attention to detail type person. This is great for someone 'optimising' a business but that’s not what Yahoo needs. Yahoo needs (or needed) vision and reinvention. They probably needed someone a bit maverick. Maybe someone that has been a founding/creating force in several (to show repeat-ability over right place/time) mid-size successful start-ups that rethink/create a new industry and give them a chance to play in the big leagues. It would be risky but Yahoo largely faces a long decline without some serious redirection. Optimisation of the business will only slow that.
...and I acknowledge this comment is extremely opinionated off limited information.
Ellops was totally like Microsoft's spy to take Nokia down to a point where they sell it for pennies on dollar. Ironically, it hasn't worked out for Microsoft yet! Some may call it Karma!
Her pay was tied to Yahoo's performance via stock. She lost tens of millions because of her poor performance. It just so happens that CEO compensation is so inflated that she still ended up with staggering amounts of money.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 37.7 ms ] threadIt seems the only time Yahoo came in the news it was for something bad. Kinda sad that.
The only thing that improved under Meyer was that Yahoo mail is a fairly good product now, as it was improved a few years ago, then they started using it internally (dogfooding.)
The only things I've noticed in her tenure are that they've really streamlined their click bait articles, built custom results based on viewing habits and integrated sketchy 3rd party promoted ads and everything gets a summarization. It's all meant to keep you clicking on their site, whore you out to one of their ad partners or just capitalize on ADD people with TLDRs everywhere. Technically, they've implemented JavaScript based article preview overlays that keep you on the site, but create a terrible experience when you want to go offsite to view the whole article- you want to continue from where you left off, but realize that you have to start over because you just read a bad summary. Yahoo really embraced that kid's summarization engine that they purchased a few years ago... To a fault.
Bottom line is that they did well with bringing in some good content providers- getting great results for hockey all year- in favor of many terrible "in-house" personalities. It's less about yahoo-branded content and more of an aggregated list of stories you might like. Unfortunately much is just click bait garbage with a terrible user experience optimized for ad revenue. There are often very offensive articles from yahoo's "reporters" that make lite of human tragedy or just attack people in a very mean spirited way- TMZ has higher standards. These changes started soon after Meyer started so I put it all on her, but I keep coming back so it's not all bad.
Funny note, I've been using the username "elpresidentedechimichanga" for nearly 20 years. With all their auth changes over the years, it still works. On a not so funny note, yahoo's comment section is one of the dankest recesses of human expression. I would have cleaned this shit up first thing if I was CEO.
...and I acknowledge this comment is extremely opinionated off limited information.