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The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

economist.com

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Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#101

Post by isolli »

nolok wrote: post #81
dkrich wrote: post #75

This seems implausible precisely because it’s the crowded view. But can anyone recall a time that the crowd correctly predicted the ascent of an unpopular product or the descent of a popular one? I’m old enough to remember Yahoo’s rise and fall. There was a time people thought Zuckerberg was a greedy fool for turning down a $1 billion bid from Yahoo. Oh yeah did we forget about that? Yahoo failed because they were ou…

> Yahoo failed because they were out-innovated The worst part is that Yahoo innovated a lot ... In incubators, side projects, etc ... But they failed to bring their innovations to their main products, or to turn their side things into full blown products. They had no plan, neither overall or per product. Take emails for exemple, for the longest time (and still now, although not as dominating) THE key to user identity…

Required reading on Flickr: https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost...

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#102

Post by 2sk21 »

fabricexpert wrote: post #54

I know of a few people turning off IG and FB due to the volume of ads, when WhatsApp is monetized lots will do the same. Competitors can offer a similar experience to IG, WA and FB with less ads, because the margins are so massive for FB now, and their products are relatively easily replicated. It's VERY easy for user to switch to a competitor compared with other industries. The scale of the network is hard to achiev…

I agree - replicating WhatsApp will not be hard. In any case, Signal and Telegram are waiting in the wings.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#103

Post by 2sk21 »

typon wrote: post #86
fabricexpert wrote: post #54

I know of a few people turning off IG and FB due to the volume of ads, when WhatsApp is monetized lots will do the same. Competitors can offer a similar experience to IG, WA and FB with less ads, because the margins are so massive for FB now, and their products are relatively easily replicated. It's VERY easy for user to switch to a competitor compared with other industries. The scale of the network is hard to achiev…

> It's VERY easy for user to switch to a competitor compared with other industries Not FOR WhatsApp it isn't. I don't know of an app that all my family/friends would switch to if WhatsApp decided to put ads on it. Switching chat apps with your entire contacts list is very cumbersome.

It's not as hard you might think. Other messaging services like Telegram and Signal also use phone numbers as the identifiers so it would be relatively easy to switch.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#104

Post by katzgrau »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #92

It's easy to predict that companies will fail, because most do in the end. It's very rare for companies to survive for long periods of time. Just look at the fortune 500 over time. It changes, massively, from decade to decade. If anything that trend is accelerating: companies grow faster and disappear faster as well. So, predicting that neither e.g. Google nor Facebook will be around a decade or two from now is not t…

Facebook is the most expansive ad platform ever built. There are few fronts where it isn't the clear leader in capability. Advertising is problematic as a revenue model for companies on the other side of that mile-wide moat.

And if Zuck ever goes, the entire company goes with it.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#105

Post by lowercased »

nolok wrote: post #81
dkrich wrote: post #75

This seems implausible precisely because it’s the crowded view. But can anyone recall a time that the crowd correctly predicted the ascent of an unpopular product or the descent of a popular one? I’m old enough to remember Yahoo’s rise and fall. There was a time people thought Zuckerberg was a greedy fool for turning down a $1 billion bid from Yahoo. Oh yeah did we forget about that? Yahoo failed because they were ou…

> Yahoo failed because they were out-innovated The worst part is that Yahoo innovated a lot ... In incubators, side projects, etc ... But they failed to bring their innovations to their main products, or to turn their side things into full blown products. They had no plan, neither overall or per product. Take emails for exemple, for the longest time (and still now, although not as dominating) THE key to user identity…

>They had no plan, neither overall or per product.

I seem to remember some leadership there being adamant that they're weren't a tech or internet company, but a 'media' company. I can't remember which one (or ones?) but this embrace of hollywood/media vs technology seems to have been a key factor in their perpetual slide.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#106

Post by na85 »

chewz wrote: post #60
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #30

Being compared to the tobacco giants is one of the business world’s more toxic insults, but it is not the only unflattering analogy circulating. A lower blow is the suggestion that Facebook may become like Yahoo, the once high-flying internet firm that plunged. The article is by The Economists, but I tend think the societal costs outweigh the financial to shareholders and employees.

There is more to analogy with big tobacco. Facebook is used exactly ina way that cigarretes are used. People at work or during commute look at Facebook instead of taking a cigarette break. And then they go back after their business. As more and more democracies realize that Facebook and the likes are toxic for them [1] (democracy is people taking informed decisions not 'engaged' decisions) Facebook will get regulated…

The idea that Zuck will end up in jail is laughable. Laws don't apply to the ultra-wealthy.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#107

Post by dkrich »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #92

It's easy to predict that companies will fail, because most do in the end. It's very rare for companies to survive for long periods of time. Just look at the fortune 500 over time. It changes, massively, from decade to decade. If anything that trend is accelerating: companies grow faster and disappear faster as well. So, predicting that neither e.g. Google nor Facebook will be around a decade or two from now is not t…

> Google has more of a chance of diversifying their business enough that they may survive.

Had to laugh a little at this. Alphabet made $9 billion in profit in three months.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#108

Post by wybiral »

nolok wrote: post #81
dkrich wrote: post #75

This seems implausible precisely because it’s the crowded view. But can anyone recall a time that the crowd correctly predicted the ascent of an unpopular product or the descent of a popular one? I’m old enough to remember Yahoo’s rise and fall. There was a time people thought Zuckerberg was a greedy fool for turning down a $1 billion bid from Yahoo. Oh yeah did we forget about that? Yahoo failed because they were ou…

> Yahoo failed because they were out-innovated The worst part is that Yahoo innovated a lot ... In incubators, side projects, etc ... But they failed to bring their innovations to their main products, or to turn their side things into full blown products. They had no plan, neither overall or per product. Take emails for exemple, for the longest time (and still now, although not as dominating) THE key to user identity…

> The best non-yahoo similarity I can find is what Google is doing with Blogger.

That's a good point. But to be fair everything "social" that Google has touched has died with the exception of YouTube.

In fact Google really hasn't done a great job holding onto many other arenas than their main ones. Blogger has been blasted by Medium. Knol was outlasted by Quora. Google Code was beat by Github. Their "shopping" attempts have always been eclipsed by Amazon. They can't get an edge with Google Cloud compared to Azure and AWS.

Gmail, YouTube, Maps, and Android are all success stories. But if you look at their "social" products YT is really the only success story.

EDIT: I use and love Google Photos but I can't remember the last time I heard someone talking about it. Instagram did it with a social spin.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#109

Post by nothis »

pavlov wrote: post #88

Facebook is not Yahoo — it's much more like Windows. It's ubiquitous, everyone has their pet peeves, and the actual user communities are wildly heterogenous yet tech commentators tend to assume they themselves represent the only kind of user that matters.

Windows doesn’t have true competition. Facebook has. Even if they’re clever and buying lots of it. Still, Instagram has nowhere near the amount of neatly categorized personal data as Facebook which is interesting.

Re: The new Yahoo? Facebook should heed the lessons of internet history

#110

Post by mcintyre1994 »

cenal wrote: post #32
tokai wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Zuckerberg knows they need to create or acquire the next big thing to make it in the long Isn't that exactly what yahoo did?

They turned down buying Google. Zuck smartly buys his competitors.

It'll be interesting to see how effectively they can keep that up now their VPN's been taken off the App Store.
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