Reinventing Yahoo

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Kara Swisher at the Wall Street Journal is reporting on Yahoo’s trials and tribulations as CEO Jerry Yang works to regain the glory days Yahoo enjoyed years ago when Yahoo, not Google, was the internet wonder company whose upward potential seemed to know know bounds according to many stock analysts and tech watchers.

Here’s more from PaidContent on what some seem to think is a Yahoo mini-bloodbath.

At an SES Conference lunch table I was sitting with several well connected tech watchers and warriors and asked about Yahoo’s prospects. “They are dead” said one search marketing insider, noting that Yahoo search results remain easy to spam, leading to inferior quality and search problems. Another thought Yahoo needs to become the king of videos, essentially working to become “the” online network, monetizing with extensive advertising embedded in the videos. However the concensus seemed to be that Yahoo needed to move “sideways” and simply consolidate their second place search status in the hopes of stopping the hemorraging of morale and stock price.

On balance I’m a lot more optimistic than most about Yahoo’s prospects, though I think they need to get more comfortable copying Google in several respects. Also, given Google’s accelerating dominance in the online sector it seems an MSN buyout is the most logical course for Yahoo and probably MSN as well. This would allow MSN to continue to focus on their bread and butter with Office and Vista while bringing their clever LIVE staff in line with Yahoo. Yahoo would continue much as it does now but be an MSN “brand” for online stuff while MSN would seek to connect as tightly as legally possible their offline dominance with their current online weaknesses. Despite the fact that Yahoo is the clear number two in online search, it’s currently capitalized at about 30 billion, less than 20% of Google’s massive 158 billion market cap and only about 11% of MSFT’s 265 billion market cap. Is the Yahoo online empire worth a mere *fifth* of Google’s? Sure seems to me the answer is yes. Microsoft what’s wrong with you and

Yahoo – what the HECK is wrong with YOUHoo, too?

Disclaimer: I have some Yahoo Stock. Yes, I’m still proud of that!
No, I’m not making money on it. Wake up Yahoo!

Children’s Musical Theater of Oregon – Bravo!

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Here in Southern Oregon we’ve got a lot of outstanding professional and community theater action going on. The Children’s Musical Theater of Oregon is no exception. We just enjoyed their excellent performance of Peter Pan, complete with amazing flying effects, great costumes, rich sets, and some outstanding performances by very talented young people.

CMTO is the product of Rhonda and John Taylor’s enthusiasm for working with theater and with children. Rhonda teaches school and John is a very accomplished musician and director who has worked with many musical luminaries as well as two years at the Las Vegas Bellagio as the musical director and keyboardist with Cirque du Soleil’s “O”.

One of the benefits of living here in Southern Oregon is having great professionals in theater, music, movies and television who bring their expertise and enthusiasm to our community.

More about Peter Pan from Mail Tribune

Google will strike gold with mobile OS

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Well, Google does it again with yet another online brilliancy. How do you market a “Google Phone” without paying a dime for hardware development? Engaget is reporting that Google appears more likely to release a mobile OS to multiple phone vendors rather than develop it’s own phone. This is a *really clever* approach because it will allow Google to maintain core competency focus on software and advertising, something that founders appear to think has been lacking lately with the many aquisitions. Also, this will bring market forces to bear to quickly lower the price of iPhone-like mobile devices. How does Google benefit from lower prices on browsing phones? Why, ADVERTISING of course! Ads remain about 98% of Google revenue and mobile ads are arguably the online sector with the most explosive growth potential. Rather than go head to head with the iPhone Google will continue to sing it’s praises and then simply scoop up all the juicy advertising revenues as users demand Googley browsing capabilities on their phones. Vendors may get squeezed by customers to lower prices on the phones but Google still comes out a big ad winner.

No wonder they can throw such a lavish Google Party every year!

Social Networking, Niches, and Facebook

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This WSJ piece by Jessica Vascellaro is talking about a clear trend in social networking – noting that we’ve passed the “teen early adoption” phase and entered the professional phase where pretty much everybody will eventually participate in social networking of one form or another.

To filter the noise this social networking will increasingly take the form of highly targeted groups in thousands of interest niches. In fact this may transform socializing from the current scene to a world where most of your friendships are begun online and then extended in the real world.

Facebook’s future is tied up in how this shakes out.    If they succeed and become “the” general social network where you can branch out into specific niches even Google’s current level of success may pale in comparison.  However, unlike Robert Scoble, I’m not enamored enough with Facebook to think this will happen and these social aps will eclipse Google.   Rather I think the “killer application” has yet to be fully structured but will take the form of a robust, transportable, avatar laden, secure personal ID that you can modify easiy and then use to navigate the increasingly socialized internet.     As you visit websites this identity, all aspects of which remain under your own control, will allow other users to interact with you and branch off to your pictures, blog, or other items you choose.    Ultimately we’ll be able to interact online *far more effectively* than offline thanks to the reservoir of information (pictures, blogs, notes, comments, emails, video) many of us now pour online regularly.

One gets a glimpse of this by some of the early efforts like OpenID, bbAuth or Microsoft unified logins, or noting how Facebook cleverly allows the user to import blog posts to their facebook account.  Thus somebody looking at my Facebook profile also is “linked” to my blog posts without much effort.   Unfortunately, however, I have perhaps 100x the number of “active” real world contacts than I have “friends” in Facebook.    This may change, but I’m guessing that many people will never want to maintain much of an online identity, but almost everybody *would* want an application that would help them share and interact with others as they surf.

OpenID is the most promising approach theoretically, but it’s not taking off because there’s no big money to be made which I think has kept away the robust innovations needed for online identity solutions to really take off.

Scoble: Facebook, Techmeme, Mahalo (!) will depose Google

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Scoble’s provocatively suggesting that Google should fear Facebook, Techmeme, and Mahalo.   I think his key assumption is that these social media environments are resistant to spammy SEO tricks and therefore will do a better job of delivering relevancy over time than Google which will continue to be weighed down by junky content and spamming.

But … I think he’s wrong.   Google could be deposed by a better search tool, but I don’t think that will come from any of these three.    Techmeme is great and I think will gradually scale into a powerful blog tool, Facebook is already on it’s way to co-dominance (with myspace) as the social network of choice for many.    I’m skeptical Mahalo will gain much traction.   I have not been following it all that closely but Mahalo’s “top of mind” prominence seems to be more from Jason’s amazingly aggressive promotional efforts than from a natural rise in the ranks.    But depose Google?   Nope, not gonna happen from these players.

FOX Sucks

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So I’m watching the ‘Teen Awards’ with my 11 year old daughter. Hilary Duff, Hannah Montana, and, WTF!!?? (pls forgive the modern parlance) here comes Snoop Dog and then the “Party like a Rock Star” finale.

Here are the lyrics from FOX’s awards show targeting kids of all ages:

i’m on a money makin mission
but I party like a rockstar
flyin’ down 20 lookin’ good in my hot car
you know them hoes be at my show
worried bout where my chain go
I uh rubba in ma pants
but these hoes won’t let my thang go

I uwa like I uwa
cuz you know them hoes be tryin us
hoe don’t you know I fuck wit fine dimonds
that look like Pa-me-la
they fine and they hot bra
when i’m in the spot bra……
I PARTY LIKE UH ROCKSTAAARRR!!!!! !

Let me just say on behalf of a lot of parents that I’m so totally sick of the BS that passes as family fare. This is not prudish, it is a recognition that the extensive commercializing of kid-focused media is leading to a complete distortion of what should be considered appropriate family content.

Almost all sane people favor media censorship in some forms. For example most favor restrictions on child pornography and consider it a parental obligation to keep kids away from extreme violence and adult content. But FOX and other network “family shows” that use adult themes masquerading as “Family Fare” make it almost impossible to do what parents are obligated to do – restrict adult themes. This is especially outrageous because critics of censorship typically argue that parents are simply avoiding their obligations when they rant against the media’s sexual assault on children. “just turn off the TV” squeak the idiots who generally don’t have kids, have a huge monetary stake in continuing the media’s sexual assault on children, and rarely provide a thoughtful solution to the growing challenges facing a modern, open minded parent. Do you advocates for unrestricted modern media have *NO* shame? NO creative solutions to this? Or are you just too drugged out, drunk, or morally bankrupt to care at all?

Palm Treo Problems

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Ha – I just wrote about how unhappy I’ve been with my Treo 650 and to spite me it went into an endless loop thing after a hot synch and now the phone won’t turn on. I did find this nice Treo Troubleshooting forum post which has a lot of helpful stuff and links, but I also am deciding that my price point for a Google Phone is going up – way up if I have to buy a new phone in any case.

The Treo is too much an example of tech designed for tech people rather than regular folks. It’s a good phone though Sprint rural connectivity has been very lacking and I always find myself wanting a better browser and also a modem for my laptop. My old little sprint cell gave great modem capabilities even with regular service (Sprint only supported them in a marginally weird way after I bought a Sprint branded but “no longer supported” connection cable and software). I think they were gearing up for the EVDO stuff.

(hours later) I’m not finding an easy fix for the Treo problems so it looks like a complete reset will be needed. I’m reading for a Google phone now.

Powerball Lottery redux

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OK, I’m mathematically confused again about whether there are unusual times when the *after tax expected return on a lottery ticket can be > $1*

Powerball website reports these odds for the Grand Prize:  1 in 146,107,962.00

I assume an extension of this means that you could *guarantee* a winning grand prize ticket if you bought a ticket with *every single possible combination*.  This would cost $146,107,962.     Now, the recent payout was way above this, about 341,000,000.    Even with a tax bite of 50%  if you were the *only winner* you’d be way ahead.      However, if there were other winners  you’d have to share but I’m not clear that the previous analysis I noted had taken a prize of this size into account.

So, anybody out there willing to lend me $146,107,961 ?   I *promise* to split the winnings with you!

Downtowne Coffee Shop, Talent Oregon

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Here in lovely Talent, Oregon and in Southern Oregon in general we’ve got more than our share of great places for coffee but my favorite *by far* is the Downtowne Coffee Shop here in Talent, where the owners have created a cozy little coffee oasis right in the heart of our tiny town.     The coffee and specialty drinks are *always* first rate, food excellent, soups made right here, and the owners are almost always around.    WIFI is fast and reliable, outdoor patio, and really nice cozy indoor seating away from the separate room with the espresso machine.

If you are making your way up or down I-5 and need to check email or just grab a nice cup of java I’d recommend you drop in.  Downtowne Coffee Shop is only about a mile off the interstate and easy to find right in the heart of Talent.

(FYI this is an unsolicited review – I really love this place!)