Yahoo is shutting down about half of its content verticals

Post by Angostura » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #162

xerophyte12932 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think every field has its own subset of language that makes most sense to them. I am sure a lot of words that make perfect unambiguous sense to tech people, would confuse non-tech people who would say "why don't you simply say it like..." The term "vertical" seems to be common amongst executives. I first came across the term when my father asked about the verticals of companies I was applying to. It appears to mean…

A vertical in MBA-speak is a specialised niche market which typically has plenty of competition. It's eccentric to consider - say - food journalism as a vertical, because it really isn't. But then "We're closing some of our online magazines" wouldn't sound nearly as decisive and strategic-y.

Post by staticautomatic » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #112

cft wrote: 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.

I completely agree. That's why we founders, who are much better at using simple language, should ideate a way to pivot our unicorns to disrupt this space. These executives will discover they're not a culture fit in this paradigm shift where sweat equity is properly valued. (Can I get some help working in 'gamification', 'bootstrapping', and 'dogfooding'?)

Post by crackpotbaker » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #167

crackpotbaker wrote: post #165

I'm interpreting that the moment when Yahoo started falling apart was when they fired their whole vowpal wabbit team. If you can't value the state-of-the-art research being done in your labs, then you don't really value a thing.

> If you can't value the state-of-the-art research being done in your labs, then you don't really value a thing. that's a bit simplistic. vowpal wabbit is cool, but if the corporation can't figure out a path from the research to revenue, then it's smart to spin it off or shut it down. maybe the more amazing thing is that they couldn't find a competitive advantage in the vowpal wabbit project.

Post by cphoover » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

Post by jrnichols » Fri, Feb 19, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #61

derefr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already got Tumblr; they just need to... do something, anything at all with it, rather than just letting it sit there. Integrate Yahoo's various news properties into the feed, and vice-versa. Make all of the commenting on every Yahoo property into gradual-engagement reblogs on a Tumblr blog you're not even realizing you're creating as you're creating it. Etc.

Tumblr is tricky. Mess with it and they'd very quickly have a rapidly escalating campaign seeking peoples head on a stake. Tumblr users already regularly express deep suspicion or hate for Tumblr staff whenever they tweak some small aspect of the service. If they get it right,, I agree it could be a big deal, but the potential for totally destroying it by accident is great.