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Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#161

Verizon shouldn't be allowed to own any web properties. They inject a unique subscriber identifier into your HTTP requests unless you turn it off. http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-hea...

Direct URL to opt-out: https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.a...

Ironically, it makes me log in with my "username or mobile number" even though they know exactly who I am from the unique ID I'm trying to opt out of having :)

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#163
post #10

>Shortly afterwards, Verizon announced it would start combining data about its mobile network subscribers - which is tied to their handsets - with the tracking information already gathered by AOL's sites. I was talking to a friend who is in the Telecom industry in Japan, and apparently this sort of arrangement is not legal there. EU is generally wary of such arrangements as well. So this is a merger whose product syn…

The problem with yahoo was never quality of the traffic. They have the most coveted audiences cornered. Their problem is the lack of good ad units. They have banners... That's unacceptable in 2016.

Yahoo does a lot more than banners, they have all the major formats today covered, however their quality of traffic is a massive problem and likely 50% fraud or long-tail junk that doesn't work.

The yahoo.com homepage used to command some of the highest ad rates on the entire internet, but now you can buy their crappy inventory for a few cents/click, some of the lowest in the industry, even amongst other junk like taboola and outbrain.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#164

I did a little work as a developer for Verizon's ecosystem back in 2007. Let me just say, from what I could see, they were a huge, bureaucratic company without a single redeeming cultural trait. The managers seemed like a bunch of frat boys who had been raised up into positions of authority through some inscrutable lottery, and none of them seemed to possess an iota of analytical capability or human management talent…

FWIW, I have a number of friends at Verizon Labs doing some pretty cool work with Scala and Haskell.

Just using cool functional languages has little to do with this work culture. Lets not propagate this notion please.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#165

To the guys on this thread who talk like they're some mini-pundits who know it all saying this is what Yahoo gets for walking away from larger valuation offers from a decade ago: No one thinks you're intelligent for pointing out something years after the fact. Tech companies come and go, and I would bet that a lot of the hottest tech companies right now will meet the end just like Yahoo did in a decade (or less). Ima…

It's hard to determine when a company is at peak value. Everyone here thinks it's easy - in which case they should spend their lives as short traders, selling the stock of every company that is at its peak, rather than working on their own startups which will see the same success as Yahoo.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#166

To the guys on this thread who talk like they're some mini-pundits who know it all saying this is what Yahoo gets for walking away from larger valuation offers from a decade ago: No one thinks you're intelligent for pointing out something years after the fact. Tech companies come and go, and I would bet that a lot of the hottest tech companies right now will meet the end just like Yahoo did in a decade (or less). Ima…

I think most of the comments were just pointing out how much and how fast fortunes can change, but yes, the only right way to judge a decision is within the context in which it was made.

Were they the right choices given all the information those people had back then? It seems that they were.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#167

To the guys on this thread who talk like they're some mini-pundits who know it all saying this is what Yahoo gets for walking away from larger valuation offers from a decade ago: No one thinks you're intelligent for pointing out something years after the fact. Tech companies come and go, and I would bet that a lot of the hottest tech companies right now will meet the end just like Yahoo did in a decade (or less). Ima…

Are you seriously suggesting that when Microsoft made its final offer in 2008, Yahoo was one of "the hottest tech companies"?

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#168
Can someone change the title to include the fact that this purchase is for the search and advertising operations part of Yahoo? Everyone here thinks it's for the entirety of Yahoo. It's like they didn't bother to read the article.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#169

YHOO used to be valued at $112B at its peak.

It's turns out valuations are imaginary numbers that mean nothing? I once sold a $1 beer to a friend for $2. Let's back-of-the envelope that: 100% markup, $1 profit. If I buy and sell 1 billion beers per year, that's a profit of $1B/year. Ok, so given a 5 year return on investment, that means my beer business is valued at $5 billion. Nice! Anybody interested in investing please get in touch I'm raising a series A.

Except that's not how the stock market works...

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.asp

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#170

What the hell has Marissa Mayer been paid for? Everything about this smells like Yahoo! is being run by idiot MBAs with some spreadsheets somewhere totally misunderstanding that technology can empower people to do fantastic things including those working within Yahoo! - instead it's been hamstrung by each property not being held accountable to it's competitors effectively. I would have started competitors (startups)…

She got paid to spend Jerry Yang's money. Sold Alibaba's shares at $13 per share for $7billion when it's worth 6x that. Then turns around and spends it on junk like Tumblr. Who uses that nowadays? Jerry Yang invests $1billion in Alibaba years ago, a global powerhouse, and she spends $1 billion for Tumblr? A stagnant platform...

She could have taken the $1 billion and invest in a few hundred up and coming startups. At least it will do some good for Silicone Valley

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