Yahoo Mini Case Study
1. Yahoo initially grew by learning that if they forced users to stay on their site, they could find ways to profit through page views. They developed their core business by adding value through functionality through services such as Yahoo Finance, Mail, and News. Their advertising model revolves around having private advertising deals and partnerships. These would be placed all over the Yahoo network. By comparison, Google focused on contextual advertising which scans keywords on a website and returns ads to that site based on what the user is viewing. This allowed publishers to capitalize on Google’s ad networks and not just their website as in the case with Yahoo. The success of Google’s model has forced Yahoo to emulate them. For Yahoo to compete with Google on the global market, Yahoo must re-evaluate their corporate belief, “to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world’s knowledge”. By connecting people to their passions, Yahoo was intending to monetize its own web pages. Yahoo must look above and beyond being only a portal company. Their once belief of keeping users on their website from the content they provided has done the opposite as users have flooded to Google due to the fact their search engine is straightforward and easy to use. Yahoo’s search engine has suffered over the years as it lagged behind the services that they offered. Their search engine provides fewer results and is inferior in determining if a link is a true editorial citation or an artificial link as compared to Google. For Yahoo to immediately challenge Google, they must focus on their search capabilities. After all, it is the user who searches through the internet that generates most of Google’s revenue through advertising. Maintaining a portal is limited with growing numbers of competitors each day. These competitors are social networking sites who perform a better job at retaining users and allowing them to connect through user generated content. In order for Yahoo to focus on their search capabilities, they must allocate resources to plan out and refine a new algorithm. Only then will Yahoo have the potential to recapture their diminishing user base. Additionally, Yahoo must immediately release Yahoo Publisher Network (competitor to Google’s Adwords/Adsense) out of beta stage to complement their new search engine. This would include expanding their ad network to accept new publishers and advertisers. Google’s dominance in the US and world market is not reflected in Taiwan. Yahoo’s Taiwan search market share in 2006 was 74%. Yahoo’s first mover advantage has allowed them to ingrain themselves into the Taiwanese market with applications that have very few competitors. Examples of these applications are Yahoo Auctions and Taiwan’s largest social networking portal, Wretch. Unlike the US where competitors such as Ebay and Facebook exist, Yahoo Taiwan has a large presence and dominance in e-commerce and social networking sites over their competitors. For Yahoo Taiwan to compete with Google and keep them out of the market, they must aggressively continue to use their strategy of incorporating portals with social networking capability while also maintaining their brand loyalty. This may include purchasing highly visited websites as found with Wretch or entering the mobile market with Yahoo Go 2.0. In addition, as found in the US, Yahoo must refine their search algorithm to retain customers and to enhance their searching experience.
2. The recent global economic crisis and the shift into subsequent recession witnessed in many countries will mean that there is less cash around to be pumped into conventional advertising channels. In this environment the business value of social applications and platforms become much more evident as great advertising can be found comparatively cheaply. There will be a move away from simple awareness campaigns of letting people know about your product to an increased focus on the value of word of mouth and the consideration phase, particularly when consumer finances are tight. For example, if your friend tells you on Facebook that they heard about silly design faults with Apple's iPhone or that there's great New Year discounts offered on books from Amazon.com, you may be much more likely to consider a purchase. Therefore, social applications which recognise this occurrence and are responsive to it will be most successful at retaining users, e.g. Facebook has already implemented a function which allows you to see which groups or fan clubs your friends are members of while browsing your own pages. Another trend that is worth noting is that a key characteristic of successful social applications will be the intelligent integration of both the mobile and the PC platform, and being able to deliver a top-notch user experience, tailored to the very different usage conditions of each medium. An example is the success of Mixi in Japan, a market where Facebook has floundered. 1 in 10 Japanese Internet users has an account on Mixi, making the site the #1 social networking service in Japan, with a total of more than 10 million users, and market share exceeding 80%. The service, which is available on both the PC and the mobile, has evolved far beyond standard social networking features. It includes advanced features like music playlist-based social networking, photo and video albums, and user product reviews on anything from music, books, restaurants, software, games, which are linked directly to product offers on affiliated e-commerce partner sites like Amazon.jp and iTunes. Interestingly, Yahoo has recently launched oneConnect, an application for the Apple iPhone which aggregates a number of different social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and Twittr, into a single accessible function. Using oneConnect, you can view through a single window the status updates of all your friends using the various different social platforms. There is also a messaging function which can combine elements from instant messaging, email and SMS into a single conversation thread. So we can see that Yahoo is racing against Google and others to bring more applications to mobile devices in an effort to tap into the growth of mobile Internet use. Previous Yahoo applications such as OneSearch and Go compete against Google applications including Gmail, Search, and Maps. It seems that this time Yahoo is trying to anticipate the trend rather than simply following the moves of their competitors. It seems likely that the most effective social applications that can attract and retain the most users are those have recognized the future direction of nomadic computing and the increasing need for flexible, open applications.
3) The Yahoo! Developer Network offers Web Services and APIs that make it easy for developers to build applications and mashups. Yahoo! APIs let developers tap into Yahoo!'s data and infrastructure to help power their businesses and integrate data sources in new ways, making the web a more useful and interesting place for everyone. Currently Yahoo! offers 42 APIs in 9 categories as below: 1) ADVERTISING & BUSINESS SERVICES APT, Y! Search Marketing 2) AUTHENTICATION & SIGN IN BBAuth, OAuth, OpenID 3) COMMUNICATION Address Book, Mail, Messenger 4) CONTENT Finance, HotJobs, MyBlogLog, RSS Feeds, Shopping, Travel, Upcoming 5) MAPS & LOCATION BASED SERVICES Fire Eagle, GeoPlanet, Local, Maps, Traffic, Weather 6) PHOTOS, AUDIO & VIDEO Flickr, Media Player, Music API 7) SEARCH Answers, BOSS, delicious, SearchMonkey, Y! Search SDK, Y! Search Web Services 8) SOCIAL APPLICATIONS & SERVICES Contacts, Social Directory, Status, Updates, YAP, My Yahoo! 9) UTILITIES & DEVELOPER TOOLS Konfabulator Widgets, r3, Mobile Widgets, Network Time, Pipes, YQL.
Compared to Google’s offering of 65 APIs, Yahoo! is still lacking some useful APIs, such as: i) ii) iii) iv) v) to create customer buttons and upload files to 3rd party service to integrate YouTube videos into the website or application to manage the personal health information with Yahoo! to enable web applications to work offline, from the desktop PC or the mobile device. to enable businesses to provide coupon listings that will be included in Yahoo! search results. Coupon feeds enable merchants to easily distribute coupons for free via the web. Consumers can also search for, print and redeem coupons for free. Download lists of suspected phishing and malware URLs. Provide public transit route and schedule information for Google Maps and more.
vi) vii)