Can Yahoo! Take on Facebook?

Posted on October 17, 2007

There is an interesting post on Yahoo! Anecdotal by Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO,  that talks about Yahoo’s new 3-pronged strategy  –

  1. Become the starting point for the most consumers
  2. Become the must-buy for advertisers
  3. Deliver open, industry-leading platforms that attract the most publishers and developers

Obviously, point number 2 will drive Yahoo’s revenue, but numbers 1 and 3 are the ones that are interesting from my perspective — they seem to be leading Yahoo right toward Facebook’s focus as a social utility. My “starting point” on the web is now Facebook; it’s always the 1st site I check when going online at home (not at work). I now only occassionally visit Google’s main search page (but use Google Reader everyday), which seems weird. Point number 1 says Yahoo wants to be a starting point for most consumers, which is the position Facebook currently occupies — at least for me. And point number 3 has a focus of “being open,” which is the strategy Facebook has used to become the starting point for millions of people.

Though I love Facebook, I’m hopefully optimistic Yahoo can make strides toward becoming more social. They have Flickr, MyBlogLog, Del.icio.us — now they just need to integrate the properly. They already have massive amounts of traffic, so they have a much easier road to being a social platform than just about anyone other than Google.

So, can Yahoo! pull it off?? Can they beat Facebook at their own game?

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  • http://metzmash.com Adam Metz

    Drew, I really think this is a longshot. These guys are absolutely known for duplicating their own efforts and accidentally-on-purpose shooting themselves in the foot. Remember flickr + yahoophotos co-existing for, like, a year?

    Then again, if anyone can turn this ferry around, it’s Yang. But I wouldn’t change your homepage back to My Yahoo for, like, at least a year.

  • http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com Drew Meyers

    I don’t think it’s that much of a long-shot really, but I won’t be changing my homepage for quite some time — Facebook is too good. I think yahoo has realized their problems w/ duplicated efforts (they’ve shut down yahoo photos, etc).