Yahoo! CTO admits the Search game is lost, looks to Social Networking

[edesignuk]

Yahoo! is likely to buy its way into social networking, and it accepts that Google has won the search game.

Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer, told Reuters Global Technology Summit: "I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will do some stuff in-house." He said now was a good time to buy because valuations are low.

He did not name specific companies, but said Yahoo! was talking to various firms about partnerships and other deals.

He said that Google had won the search contest: “Search the way we know it, with 10 blue links, Google has clearly won that game. Saying anything other than that is just not stating the fact."

He said looking at a page of search results was an anachronism, put too much onus on the user and was accompanied by extremely ugly advertising.

Yahoo! is also aiming to make many of its other services more Facebooky. The company believes it effectively already has a social networking infrastructure underlying its services and just needs to add the bells and whistles. It is adding more social features, like status updates, to its mail service shortly.

The Register.

 

[Unspoken Demise]

At least they can be the bigger man about it. I can honestly say I havent visited Yahoo, even once, for about 3 years. I use google and gmail all the time. And AskJeeves its been like 6 years.

 

[iShater]

I use Yahoo for groups, mail, and occasional searches, messenger, and definitely for finance info.

Search I google mostly, but that is not the only area where google won. Maps is a big thing too.

 

[edesignuk]

At least they can be the bigger man about it. I can honestly say I havent visited Yahoo, even once, for about 3 years. I use google and gmail all the time. And AskJeeves its been like 6 years.

Indeed. It seems the first step to recovering the business is to admit that their efforts in Search are largely pointless. Time to refocus else where and see what they can do.

 

[Unspoken Demise]

Indeed. It seems the first step to recovering the business is to admit that their efforts in Search are largely pointless. Time to refocus else where and see what they can do.

Think about all the money Yahoo has in fact made being relocated towards other resources. I wonder what they could accomplish. I'm certainly interested.

 

[themoonisdown09]

I can't remember the last time I went to Yahoo's site. It was probably the late 90s!

 

[ejb190]

Interesting. The end of an era? Maybe.

Seeing Yahoo focus on social networking might be interesting. Yahoo Groups is a useful system that could use some fine tuning and Yahoo Answers seems to be overrun by junior high kids trying to get someone else to do their homework.

They already have networks in place, it just hasn't been tied into a single product yet.

 

[MacNut]

I don't know if Yahoo has anything left. It should go the way of the other late great 90's internet companies.