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Dear Marissa: Think Different

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Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#31

Post by dtran »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #22

Just an FYI: two of Yahoo's stronger properties are Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance, both of whom haven't historically had a large female audience. The other properties that might attract a female audience haven't done as well. That's not to say Yahoo can't sell these and purchase the properties Dave mentions, of course. It's just that Yahoo currently doesn't have a core strength in targeting women and would need to r…

I remember when I interned at Yahoo! several years ago, Yahoo! Shine, their women's lifestyle portal, had a fairly large audience. According to Alexa, it's still one of their larger web properties:

  mail.yahoo.com 48.76%
  login.yahoo.com 29.14%
  yahoo.com 24.39%
  search.yahoo.com 19.22%
  answers.yahoo.com 16.42%
  news.yahoo.com 15.16%
  sports.yahoo.com 6.35%
  finance.yahoo.com 6.25%
  omg.yahoo.com 5.86%
  my.yahoo.com 4.71%
  in.yahoo.com 4.67%
  tw.yahoo.com 3.39%
  docs.yahoo.com 2.78%
  movies.yahoo.com 2.75%
  shine.yahoo.com 2.59%

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#32

Post by svdad »

Cushman wrote: post #23
oh_sigh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suppose that there is an "industry-wide preference for male employees". Just like I suppose there is an "industry-wide preference for female employees" in K-6 education.

That there is a preference is a statistical fact; the controversial question is what is the cause for the preference. Incidentally, even if we were to pretend to compare the industries of "technology" and "education of children between the ages of 6 and 12", your quip fails the test: A majority of teachers may be female, but there is no such majority among those in "leadership positions" (administrators, principals a…

No, "preference" implies intention and active choice. A preference does not exist in the absence of a human actor to have it.

That there is a majority is a statistical fact. Whether anyone has a preference for male employees is the controversial question you refer to.

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#34

Post by nilsbunger »

sp332 wrote: post #26
lobotryas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Pandering to a demographic is an old and common tactic to sell more goods. Want to sell auto and power tools to women? Just change the style a bit: http://www.tomboytools.com/

Pandering to a demographic is fine as long as you actually respect the people in that demographic. Too often (especially in tech) people make something pink and assume that women will buy it, regardless of how good it actually is.

I think Dave's point is powerful because of that: while most of the tech community doesn't know how to reach women, the combination of Marissa and yahoo's natural media strengths could make it work really well. Google couldn't possible do that...

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#35

Post by mkramlich »

I'm not a woman, but I agree this is a great strategy to consider. I think one of the reasons that both Pinterest and Instagram caught so many of the startup & wantrepreneur crowd off-guard was that their success, to a large extent, came from a predominantly female user base, and typically feminine interests. Google, for all it's strengths, is mostly run by intelligent but geeky male nerds. Same for Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. I don't think a "pink strategy" alone will save Yahoo -- I do think they need to import more of the cultural strengths of Google, Apple and Facebook -- but it can be a competitive advantage.

There's one potential negative to the "pink" strategy, however. Regardless of how some might like it to be, the overwhelming majority of hackers do seem to be male. If you evolve your company to be female oriented in their product suite, you may make the company less attractive when recruiting and retaining male hackers. And ultimately having talent on staff is the bottleneck. But there may be a way to pursue a balanced path which gives the advantages of a pink strategy while not being too bitten by the negative, so you come out ahead.

I also wish they'd drop the "!". Just "Yahoo". Much cleaner.

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#36

Post by cellularmitosis »

Cushman wrote: post #23
oh_sigh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suppose that there is an "industry-wide preference for male employees". Just like I suppose there is an "industry-wide preference for female employees" in K-6 education.

That there is a preference is a statistical fact; the controversial question is what is the cause for the preference. Incidentally, even if we were to pretend to compare the industries of "technology" and "education of children between the ages of 6 and 12", your quip fails the test: A majority of teachers may be female, but there is no such majority among those in "leadership positions" (administrators, principals a…

I think I misunderstand what you mean by "preference".

Take as example a company where 90% of the programmer applicants are male. As I understand the word "preference", a resulting workforce of 90% males would indicate no preference one way or the other (assuming the men and women were equally skilled).

Further, a 91% male workforce would be evidence of a male preference, while an 89% male workforce evidence of a female preference.

Is that what you mean by "preference"?

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#37

Post by andymurd »

joshfraser wrote: post #24

I think this is a huge opportunity for companies in general. Let's face it, most companies are run by dudes and we're largely clueless when it comes to understanding what women want. I think there's a massive opportunity for any company that chooses to focus on women right now, whether that's Yahoo or a brand new startup.

I agree that women are under-served by technology companies, but I'd argue that it's vital to break the demographic down to actually provide anything useful.

Tech firms don't build sites with the stated aim of being "for men", they make sites that provide finance news, sports scores, gadget reviews etc. To redress the gender bias, we should be looking to find what the smart/wealthy/interesting women are doing and build sites that they love.

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#38

Post by nostromo »

My favorite success story of marketing towards the under-served gender is Dyson.

Before Dyson vacuums were marketed to women exclusively. If you suggested marketing a vacuum to men before Dyson, you'd be laughed out of the boardroom. Dyson threw that all out the window and entered the market with a vacuum that actually looks like a sci-fi weapon, and to great success.

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#39

Post by joering2 »

dtran wrote: post #31
mikeleeorg wrote: post #22

Just an FYI: two of Yahoo's stronger properties are Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance, both of whom haven't historically had a large female audience. The other properties that might attract a female audience haven't done as well. That's not to say Yahoo can't sell these and purchase the properties Dave mentions, of course. It's just that Yahoo currently doesn't have a core strength in targeting women and would need to r…

I remember when I interned at Yahoo! several years ago, Yahoo! Shine, their women's lifestyle portal, had a fairly large audience. According to Alexa, it's still one of their larger web properties: mail.yahoo.com 48.76% login.yahoo.com 29.14% yahoo.com 24.39% search.yahoo.com 19.22% answers.yahoo.com 16.42% news.yahoo.com 15.16% sports.yahoo.com 6.35% finance.yahoo.com 6.25% omg.yahoo.com 5.86% my.yahoo.com 4.71% in.…

just went there now and were visually raped by a huge background-ad by Disney and Verizon. Don't recall seeing those for a while now; thought horizontal background ads were a thing of a past. Learnt something new today, but definitely won't go back there in next couple years.

Re: Dear Marissa: Think Different

#40

Post by lexarchy »

I admire Dave McClure for being willing to comment on this subject. No matter what you say on a gender-sensitive issue, someone is bound to accuse you of sexism. (It helps, of course, that he makes some good points along the way.)
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