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How Marissa Mayer shook up Yahoo
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Five strategies and tricks she
enacted after taking over the struggling company
Launched in 1994, Yahoo is one of
the old dogs of the tech world. In 2012, former Google executive Marissa Mayer came
on as CEO, amid much fanfare and a few photo shoots. Beyond the publicity, she
quickly executed several smart strategies that have shaken up Yahoo.
1 She finally got a redesign to go through
Yahoo leaders have wanted a redesign
since 2009. But it never got done. Why the holdup? “It tested poorly“ in 2009,
said one source. Still, Mayer didn't wait any longer. She launched a redesign
of Yahoo's homepage, logo, and features like Yahoo Mail and Flickr. The
homepage redesign “presents what Yahoo sees as the `latest' Internet,“ wrote
one web design critic. “And this part of the site feels like a success.“
2 She sought to make Yahoo a regu lar habit for consumers
Behavioural science shows us that 40
per cent of the decisions made aren't really decisions -they're habits. Mayer
told Bloomberg her goal for Yahoo as a web destination was to make it a habit:
I think there's a real opportunity to help guide people's daily habits in terms
of what content they read. For example, Yahoo acquired the news summarisation
app Summly a year ago.
3 She's hired heaps of engineering and editorial talent
When Mayer started at Yahoo, it had
about 40 mobile engineers. It now has almost 400.Yahoo has also doubled down on
editorial talent. Former New York Times tech reporter David Pogue went over
late last year, and star broadcast personality Katie Couric signed on to become
“global news anchor“ of Yahoo in January.The initiative is a news website that
drives traffic back to the Yahoo platform.
4 She acquired an insane amount of companies
Yahoo has snapped up almost 40
startups since Mayer took over in the summer of 2012. The organisations have
been young, with only a handful of them making it past the Series A round of
venture capital funding. The biggest buy was Tumblr for a whopping $1.1
billion.
5 She's made friends with her competitors
“Given that we do not have mobile
hardware, a mobile OS, a browser, or a social network, how are we going to
compete?“ Mayer asked. Since Yahoo doesn't have a strong foothold in any of
those areas, Mayer says there's “an opportunity for strong partnerships“ with
those companies that do. Making your greatest enemies your allies is certainly
a clever way to catch up with them
ET140604
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