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Yahoo Appoints Scott Thompson CEO

businesswire.com

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Re: Yahoo Appoints Scott Thompson CEO

#2

Post by basseq »

PayPal is an entrenched player whose largest market also happens to be its parent company. Their customer service is terrible, they've been vilified in the press, and I can't say they're known for innovation, technical or otherwise.

Not who I'd want running a floundering tech giant.

Re: Yahoo Appoints Scott Thompson CEO

#3

Post by Mystalic »

I've met and interviewed Scott several times over the course of my career.

He is the anti-Carol Bartz. He is extremely likeable, approachable. He's a consensus-builder, not a bomb thrower. And he did double PayPal's user base and revenue to 100+ million and $4+ billion respectively.

Yahooers will like this guy. He's sharp. He's the right man for the job.

Re: Yahoo Appoints Scott Thompson CEO

#6

Post by parfe »

“Scott’s primary focus will be on the core business"

That's good (even though I don't know that business that refers to) because they botched the entire mobile entry.

http://m.yahoo.com/w/frontdoors/ provides a decent mobile experience. So they developed their own android app, which only acts as a branded web browser for the above URL. The only "features" the app seems to add are Posting to facebook (not a yahoo! property!) and Sharing a url via the standard email/message/text/etc.

The mobile site looks well designed and easy to navigate, but cuts essential features to get there.

* For instance, Sports team by conference, but you can't see records or standings http://m.yahoo.com/w/sports/ncaaf/teams/ncaaf.i-a.2?.ts=1325... Guess I'm going to ESPN

* The mobile calendar has no month view and requires a 3 drop down date widget to navigate beyond next/prev week. Can't see which weeks in February I'm free for vacation without navigating through each week. Guess I'm sticking with google calendar's native app.

* Yahoo Games has a huge offering and user base and nearly every game should be playable on a phone, but I can't play Yahoo chess. Why not? Too busy cloning youtube and myspace I assume.

* http://m.yahoo.com/w/movies?.intl=us&.lang=en Check out the mobile movie page. An incredibly useful feature! And it includes reviews! Go ahead and click reviews for a movie to see what yahoo users think. Wait.. brings you to the movie page. Ok, click reviews again... oh wait it isn't a link. How do I read user reviews on my phone? Guess I'm going to another site for that content.

Simple stuff that just screams "We aren't using our own products!" I don't for a second believe Yahoo uses their own calendaring system for work. Tons of stupid broken features they should clean up, but it seems no one cares to pay attention.

Yahoo has tons of content but they refuse to deliver it. The above issues aren't really that bad, but I have options so I will gladly go to a provider who delivers a better experience.

Meanwhile, running paypal should not count as a positive credential. Perhaps if yahoo swears fealty to ebay then they too can benefit the same way paypal has.

Re: Yahoo Appoints Scott Thompson CEO

#8

Post by tlack »

Mystalic wrote: post #3

I've met and interviewed Scott several times over the course of my career. He is the anti-Carol Bartz. He is extremely likeable, approachable. He's a consensus-builder, not a bomb thrower. And he did double PayPal's user base and revenue to 100+ million and $4+ billion respectively. Yahooers will like this guy. He's sharp. He's the right man for the job.

That's great news. Yahoo deserves better than the shitty luck they've had lately with their leadership. But critically, does he have any experience on the media and publishing end of things? Selling impressions is a lot different than what he was doing at Paypal.
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