What if instead of suing Facebook, Yahoo proposed to Facebook a greater partnership and deeper integration of its products with the social layer?
What if Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News now had an advanced social layer that managed contacts autonomously (like GMail) and becomes official curator of news on a social level? (Not like, here's a lot of news, and then a commentary section. I'm talking a brief abstract with link of rest of article and just a ton of commentary)
That would actually make me consider leaving GMail (Really). And for once I would give a dang about the things being posted in my feed, rather than filtering out the majority of my contacts and likes.
The last thing I would be interested in is the husk of Yahoo imbued with facbook/social anything powered by bing search.
I've been here a long time - and I havent visited a yahoo site/page for probably 6 or 7 years.
I let my @yahoo.com mail die years ago and never went back.
Sorry for anyone who still likes Yahoo - I just find them completely irrelevant.
I stated several times on HN that if they had any wisdom - they would go on an investment spree in the valley. However, they are taking the opposite approach and going trolling.
Hadoop was developed by Doug Cutting while he was working at Yahoo. I think it skews the reality of the situation to focus solely on the public facing pieces of Yahoo (as a home page, as an email service), which kicked the bucket a long time ago. On that front Yahoo has been irrelevant for > 6 years, but their advertising business and their software engineering R&D department continued on after that.
What do you think is going on in the minds of its current employees?
Do you think employees are making plans for an exodus?
Also, as I recall, wasn't there a senior exec that left recently upon Thompson's new appointment as CEO. Perhaps he saw this coming and thought similarly?
Several execs have left. I think people at Yahoo have made peace with the situation or have a strong reason for staying there. I know some people who are there because they feel that the tech/scale they work on won't be possible at any other company. Others because they just like the team/people they hang out with, etc.
So no, I don't expect an exodus because of this. I do think that this will cause major hiring issues, even more than before. Not because employees have a moral stance against patents but this move signals desperation. Folks can 'smell' that this is different than when Apple uses patents offensively and that this isn't something a healthy company should do.
> I think people at Yahoo have made peace with the situation or have a strong reason for staying there.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: The ones with a "strong reason" to stay at Yahoo would be those on H1B work visas in the green card sponsorship queue. Because if they find a job elsewhere, the whole process restarts. A strong reason, sure, but IMO not a good reason to stay.
Current Yahoo here. I love working for Yahoo. Fun & unique challenges to solve, compensated well, and is a nice environment.
Think what you will, but there are plenty more that are like me. My current team is full of some of the best people in the industry at what they do and the average tenure of them at Y! is ~6 years. So, there's plenty of very talented people left at Yahoo who are here because they want to be.
Definitely a sign of desperation. I imagine, stale board room meetings, lackluster performance in product development and an anxious board. Scott Thompson took this for a red flag and called it for what it is, a sinking ship.
Except this lacks in both grace and providing the company with any innovative, competitive, long term solutions, and definitely sets it in a bad light. I don't see any benefit to doing this.
There are benefits to expunging any good will you have in a community, reaping what short term profit is available then going into liquidation.
Maybe yahoo is pursing this goal.... with their schizophrenic product line (they once had two competing photo sharing sites under their banner and three social networks), I can imagine that they are worth more as separate parts than as a single undirected company.
Or... they can organize themselves as a traditional conglomerate.
Three signs (flickr fiasco, massive job cuts, now patent trolling) so far, of possible buyout... either by a good-willed or malignant purchaser, depending on how Yahoo management play their cards.
These are good moves only in the short-term. Either Yahoo is flailing, or it's setting itself up for sale. Lots of good folks who work there (some of whom I know well)... I hope they're prepared.
Incredible to watch.
Offered a rich perspective into your design process.
Demonstrated to me unique use cases of Photoshop.
Documented change in vision and approach.
Showed me how to do simple things I never thought to try.
Made me feel at the end that with enough work, vision, and the creativity to evolve, I too can create something beautiful.
What if Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News now had an advanced social layer that managed contacts autonomously (like GMail) and becomes official curator of news on a social level? (Not like, here's a lot of news, and then a commentary section. I'm talking a brief abstract with link of rest of article and just a ton of commentary)
That would actually make me consider leaving GMail (Really). And for once I would give a dang about the things being posted in my feed, rather than filtering out the majority of my contacts and likes.