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Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

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Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#121
post #42
post #30

What the fuck is a content vertical?

The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.

Bro. Yahoo has been a publicly traded company since 1996. What did you think?

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#122
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.

Would you prefer them say "categories of content on the site that tend to deal with a central topic or theme." Content vertical is a pretty standard term. These kind of judgemental blanket statements have no place on a site like this,and worse show a lack of experience working in any large company. Please try to be more productive when contributing.

Most trades develop a vernacular particular to the trade...this makes it easy for those in the trade to distinguish between knowledgeable tradesmen and those who are new...

It's a rite of passage...

Go work a construction site...a hospital...a day care center...if you're new you'll either pick up on the "code" or be somewhat of an outsider until you do...

It's the price of true admission...

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#123
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that specific. It's everywhere. I see it all the time in programming terminology. There are technical terms that annoy me when I first hear them. It appears people are trying to inflate their worth by using unnecessarily specific or complicated terms. Then on some random night when I'm bored I'll familiarize myself with the term and all its' nuances and from that point forward it's more efficient to use the…

I've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories: 1. It's a genuinely useful term, descriptively named, for which no good succinct alternative exists: eg, "outrage porn." 2. A genuinely useful term, poorly named, but excusable because it already has an entrenched history and community using it: eg, "monad" in functi…

Do you have a suggestion for a replacement for "monad"? It's always been such an opaque term to me, even as I began to get a grasp of it.

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldnt care less. It just screams inexperienced teenager that thinks everything adult is stuuuuipd. Just had higher expectations for the discourse, thats all.

This teenager is on HN 64 days longer than you.

Ah, yes, HN -- the font of all life experience.

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#125
post #98
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.

On a typical day, this site does a pretty good job of inflating the irony aneurysm building up in my psyche, but I'm afraid that if I read a comment from a tech nerd complaining about how "executives" use jargon to obscure what they do, that aneurysm will certainly rupture.

I've been lurking in your /threads page for a good while, and this single-scentence post conjures up an excellent comic strip image. Keep up the good work!

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#126
post #13

This might be the first good move Yahoo has made since Mayer took over. I can't think of a better example of a company that needs to shed worthless baggage and focus on high value propositions. And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. They have hundreds of millions of users, at the point they are in giving all their users an automatic account on Yahoo Social might be a dick…

Yahoo fucked up Yahoo Answers (original SO) along with the comments section on their news. Both of these were social networks with millions of users.

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#127

What about Yahoo Answers? I hate seeing their results show up in the top 3 when I do a Google search. They're always low quality and not useful.

Blast Yahoo Answers back to hell by installing a Chrome extension called Google Search Filter: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-search-filt...

Add Experts-Exchange to the blacklist while you're at it.

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#128
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories: 1. It's a genuinely useful term, descriptively named, for which no good succinct alternative exists: eg, "outrage porn." 2. A genuinely useful term, poorly named, but excusable because it already has an entrenched history and community using it: eg, "monad" in functi…

Do you have a suggestion for a replacement for "monad"? It's always been such an opaque term to me, even as I began to get a grasp of it.

This post (http://stackoverflow.com/a/194207/438615) makes a good case for "computation builder." Also, as there are abstract data types (stack, queue, etc), monads are abstract control flow types. Another answer there suggests "control type". Something even better is probably possible, but I like both of those better than "monad".

Re: Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

#129
post #30

What the fuck is a content vertical?

A web application or applications which hosts writing, audio, video, or a mix of all three in the middle of purpose-written computer code. The writing/audio/video has a consistent theme; Thomas' analogy of a magazine is apt, or maybe a niche cable channel.

Yahoo spends some small X% of their resources on the web applications, some larger X% of their resources on the writing/audio/video, and some much larger X% of their resources on an advertising sales force which explains to e.g. brokerages why those brokerages should be investing their ad dollars on Yahoo Finance in parallel to MSNBC or Fortune Magazine.

Moreover, the phrase "content vertical" gets to the heart of Yahoo: Yahoo is a media company which just so happens to write in-house software occasionally, not a software company with a media arm.

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