[...] the deal that Yahoo announced last week, that Verizon Communications would buy its Internet business for $4.8 billion, looked more like an escape than an exit. Under the leadership of Marissa Mayer, the company made numerous attempts to improve its core business, with a steady run of acquisitions and investments in new apps and services. [...] one central aspect of Mayer’s strategy — putting major money and attention into Yahoo’s media properties, a wide range of news and entertainment publications and video projects — always seemed curious. Because our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, high-quality content is incredibly important to Google. Even Web media companies, she acknowledged, depended on their ability to capitalize on distribution — to be able to sell their sites, and their audiences, as publications. To concede a direct relationship with readers to Google, or another company like it, is to turn your product into someone else’s inventory, and to risk accelerating any media company’s nightmare: full commoditization. Mayer’s more specific prescription for how the Web of 2009 should develop to accommodate Google, on the other hand — by creating constantly updated and growing “living stories” to replace articles and Web pages — didn’t quite come to pass, as search results were superseded by fast-moving social feeds for news and entertainment. Yahoo was, when Mayer took over, a marginal but large search engine itself, and its home page, driven by millions of email users, was able to direct viewers to articles, videos and other properties in the Yahoo ecosystem. Nonetheless, according to Yahoo’s and Verizon’s public statements about the value of the acquisition, Yahoo’s media operations were a crucial motivator for Verizon, which acquired AOL, a similarly threatened content and ad-tech empire, last year. “As one of the largest wireless and cable companies in the world, Verizon opens the door to extensive distribution opportunities,” Mayer said in an email to employees last week.
Mayer’s Media Problem At Yahoo Now Verizon’s To Solve
New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle: Business
Fri, 07/29/2016 - 5:12pm
Welcome to Wopular
Wopular is an
online newspaper rack,
giving you a summary view of the top headlines from the top news sites.
Senh Duong (Founder)
Wopular,
MWB,
RottenTomatoes
MoviesWithButter : Our Sister Site
- "Expendables 4" Starts Shooting This Fall, Says Randy Couture at the Arnold Sports Festival more
- “Expendables 4” Gets Funding Interest from “Ip Man 3” Financier more
- "Ip Man 3" Distributor Suspected of Box Office Fraud, Parent Company Loses $200M in Market Cap more
- Yen Targets "Ip Man 4" for 2018 Release; Discusses Film with Director, Producer more
- "Ip Man 3" Shatters Expectations with $72M Opening [China Box Office] more