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What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

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Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#91

Post by powertower »

cube13 wrote: post #41
powertower wrote: post #27

I dont understand why the current wave of criticism is leaving the market penetration (and 1st mover advantage), brand, and million users (and climbing) out of the picture - like it's not important. And are assuming that Yahoo must of paid it all to hire 3 people.

Uh, the end result is that Yahoo paid for all of it to hire 3 people. The app has been pulled from the app store( http://summly.tumblr.com/post/46247554262/yahoo-agrees-to-ac... ), and it does not sound like it's going to be back. Which is a disappointment, because I wanted to know exactly what the heck the app is, since I've never heard of it before. So Yahoo's dropped any market penetration, the entire brand, and t…

My bad.

I did not realize they were shutting them down.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#92

Post by Trezoid »

6ren wrote: post #37

A common motivation for acquisitions is to buy users, not technology. YouTube used PHP and the video tech in flash - but they were the ones to grow the userbase (and continue to do so). If Summly had the product/marketing to be popular and growing, that's why Yahoo bought it. (though it seems Summly doesn't have the strong network-effects of YouTube, of gaining both producers and consumers). EDIT they could be buying…

Considering that yahoo immediately killed the product, and that its 1mill total users read 90mill summaries in ~18 months (that's less then 1 a day) I'd say they aren't buying users.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#93

Post by thom »

api wrote: post #74

What this really underscores is that conventional capitalism provides little incentive for fundamental innovation. All this stuff we're gluing together is the product of state-funded research, mostly from the cold war era. DARPANet, the web (CERN), DARPA research on "augmented human intelligence," etc. Stuff like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY (I bet you thought Xerox PARC invented that stuff, right? Or…

CHAIRMAN: Yes, and, and, and the wheel. What about this wheel thingy? Sounds a terribly interesting project to me.

MARKETING GIRL: Er, yeah, well we’re having a little, er, difficulty here…

FORD: Difficulty?! It’s the single simplest machine in the entire universe!

MARKETING GIRL: Well alright mister wise guy, if you’re so clever you tell us what colour it should be!

FORD: Oh Mighty Zarquon! Has no-one done anything?

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#96

Post by Lewisham »

rdouble wrote: post #51
samstave wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY! I've been saying this for the last three years here on Hn: Yahoo is stupid to not be aggressively and heavily spending their massive cash reserves to buy back into an innovative place here in the valley. Mayer is no dope! She knows that being the convoluted portal that Yahoo is, is a death sentence. They need to act quick and fast and often. Buying up a very young tech upstart is a good step toward splicing…

I remember when selling to Yahoo! was the exit plan.

Exactly. Yahoo tried the "buy our way into being innovative" when they went on their Web 2.0 spending spree, picking up Delicious, Flickr and Upcoming. They systematically choked each one to death because the corporate structure/culture didn't support buying in companies that way (see EA for the same thing in games).

Marissa Mayer may be able to stave that off this time around and Yahoo may be able to buy their way into mobile, but when mobile is so hit-driven and short-term, it seems unwise to start spending money on little things like silly TL;DR apps (that you're going to shut down, anyway).

If the deal is about pushing into mobile, Yahoo needs to secure culture changers, not apps. They need to buy the Duartes and Rubensteins and Brichters, and give them full autonomy to run the mobile ship however they please. That's a longer term plan, but it pays off in actual tangible results. $100 says we never hear anything about Summly's technology again, and the kid leaves as soon as his stock vests.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#97

Post by mindcrime »

What this really underscores is that conventional capitalism provides little incentive for fundamental innovation.

I'm not as convinced as you may be, but there certainly seems to have been a decline in past decades, in terms of private funding for basic research. At one time, Bell Labs, Xerox, IBM, HP and others did quite a bit of basic, fundamental research. IBM still do, last I saw, but here's the question... if it made economic sense to fund private, basic research in the past, what has changed? WHY don't the HP's and Bell Labs, and Xerox's of the world still spend as much on research.

Note: I am, of course, talking out of my ass here, as I have no actual objective numbers to support the idea that private funding for basic research is diminishing. But, subjectively, from what I read, see reported, hear, etc., it sure seems to be the case.

All this stuff we're gluing together is the product of state-funded research, mostly from the cold war era. DARPANet, the web (CERN), DARPA research on "augmented human intelligence," etc.

That's probably true, but there is a danger in looking at the past on a macro level and saying "this means the future must be $THISWAY". The problem is, we don't know what the other outcomes could or would have been. If DARPA had not funded all of that research, we cannot say that the same innovations would not still have been developed via other sources. History, IMO, hints at conclusions, but it's hardly a definitive guide to the future.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#98

Post by dr_ »

I've never used Summly but perhaps it would have come in handy when reading this article. Many businesses have been built by riding on the backs of others. A good number of them have already been mentioned in the discussion here. Many others have also tried, and failed. And have lost both time and capital in the process.

Lets not forget something here - a 17 year old kid licensed technology from SRI and then developed this app. How many 17 year old kids do you know who would even think to do something like that? It's certainly not something that ever crossed my mind as a teenager. Obviously Yahoo sees something in him (them) that many others don't. Can't comment on whether its the right move or not, but just look at their stock price since Mayer took over.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#99

Post by guelo »

> For 95% of the news I read, that can be done with a regexp that slices out the first sentence.

Interestingly, that seems to be what Google News does for its summaries. It works well most of the time but I've seen some screw ups. Also interesting, Mayer worked on Google News so she probably knows this topic well.

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