For Yahoo! Answer’s first birthday, the best contributors get a gift. For certain level distinctions, those who contribute the top answers are entitled to either a sticker, a car magnet, a water bottle, a hat, a coffee mug, or a fleece jacket.
We all know that social networking is a popular medium and this was likely the reason for Yahoo’s obvious victory over Google. And this “gift” incentive isn’t too bad either.
For Yahoo!, it really wasn’t entirely necessary to award its best community members with something completely unexpected. However, it sets an interesting precedent. Monetary prizes and gifts, beyond just the online recognition, is an excellent way to encourage people to contribute to social networks even further. We have sites that give away money to their “hired” community members, but with Yahoo! giving away prizes just because they wanted to honor their best, we have something even greater — acknowledgment of individuals within the community at large who didn’t apply for a job, yet they outshine the others without seeking compensation. It makes new contributors, who may be hungry for such incentives, acknowledge the site and want to participate. Even though the Yahoo! Answers site might already make the participants feel warm and fuzzy inside when they answer something well and satisfy some answer seeker, it’s not about the community itself noticing anymore: Yahoo! took notice and awarded accordingly. How much happier should you feel about that?
It truly is a win-win situation for Yahoo. So happy birthday Yahoo! Answers, and here’s to many more.
Bookmark this post:
Hello, Yahoo reorganization, goodbye Lloyd Braun! Due to a strategic conflict within the company, Braun has been ousted by the company.
When he was originally hired, partially due to his successes at Disney’s ABC Entertainment Television Group and tremendous popular series, “Lost,” the company was speculated to become a lead television player.
However, his hiring preceded the competition presented by MySpace and YouTube within the last year, and the sales of full-length television shows over Apple iTunes. In an earlier interview, Braun said that he was not able to agree with senior management in terms of thinking about content versus technology.
And so they canned him.
Does this mean that Yahoo, who was victorious last week when Google Answers shut down, is surrendering this war to Google and shifting its focus on more promising endeavors?
Bookmark this post:
Yahoo has announced their top searches for 2006 a few weeks short of the year’s end. The year in review shows that some things change, while some things stay the same.
On the note of staying the same, Britney Spears has been #1 on the top overall search for five out of six years. (Her divorce probably has something to do with it and it probably isn’t “all talent“.)
What else is on the top 10 of all searches in 2006? A lot of celebrities and celebrity activities: WWE, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, American Idol, Beyonce Knowles, Chris Brown, Pamela Anderson, and Lindsay Lohan.
In the newsworthy category: Steve Irwin death, Anna Nicole’s son dies, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, U.S elections, Fidel Castro stroke, North Korea nuke, JonBenet confession, Saddam Hussein trial, and Danish cartoon.
The whole list contains top celebrity searches (the list above only had overall search results), top celebrity babies, top blogs, top sports teams, top song lyrics searches, top movie searches, top TV shows, and top politician searches. Definitely worth a look.
Bookmark this post:
In a move to become a nimbler, more Google-like company, Yahoo Inc. today announced the departure of Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo’s chief operating officer and also the resignation of Lloyd Braun, the former ABC executive who ran Yahoo’s media group in Santa Monica, Calif. According to the Wall Street Journal, the executive shuffling awards a key expanded role to its Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker who assumes oversight of revenue-generating activities, including its online advertising sales teams.
The changes follow concerns within the company’s ranks about its strategy, including a memo distributed internally by senior vice president (and their very own Jerry Maguire) Brad Garlinghouse dubbed The Peanut Butter Manifesto. Garlinghouse stated that Yahoo lacked a “focused, cohesive vision” and that Yahoo’s be everything to everyone strategy was like “spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world”.
According to the NY Times – under the new plan, Yahoo will reorganize itself into three operating units, including one focused on its audience and one on its advertisers and publishers. A third unit, focused on technology, will develop products serving the entire organization.
Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel will remain as the company’s chairman and chief executive. “There is no question, our new structure will increase accountability, will reduce bottlenecks and speed decision making,” Semel, said in an interview.
Bookmark this post:
Community is what Yahoo appears to be best at. When Google surrendered its Answers product and announced its closure, Yahoo really scored in the community aspect.
Maybe Google can be the leader in search. But Yahoo deserves to be good at something.
Not long ago, Yahoo was under attack by such media giants as the New York Times for its lack of innovation and expedience with regards to a possible YouTube acquisition. The NY Times said that Yahoo “has suffered some embarrassing setbacks” and it was suggested that Yahoo sport some “bold moves to signal to [the world] its commitment to innovation.”
A week later, Yahoo employee Brad Garlinghouse responded in the famous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” saying
I’ve heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.
Yahoo has been embarrassed but then they prevailed. Google dropped Answers, showing Yahoo that their community was better than Google’s. And today, Yahoo has decided to focus on something: aggregate content. In its newly launched Wii portal, the best of Yahoo community is combined into eye candy.
The Wii portal combines a load of Yahoo’s most popular community elements: avatars, Flickr photos, links from MyWeb and del.icio.us, games, Yahoo Answers (hey, what’s a score without utilizing it to the max?!), stories from Yahoo Games, and of course, links to buy the console through Yahoo! shopping.
This “brand universe” that Yahoo is creating is targeted to 13-34 year olds, the company says. Yahoo expects to launch approximately 100 sites just like the Wii-dedicated portal.
In a world where user-generated content is becoming more highly regarded, Yahoo is putting its best foot forward with the integration of its essential and most popular elements. Hopefully, that will be enough to satisfy everyone, especially as people understand the value of user-generated content and the need for markets to talk to each other.
Bookmark this post:
“Over 800″ Google Answers participants (though not 1,000) probably explains Google’s decision to shut the service down. Google Answers was simply never as popular as Yahoo! Answers, which has more than 50 times the market share.
Why did Google fail? I took a look at the two services and came away with my own opinions.
- Google says it themselves: 800 is a small number. And they claim that this was the community that existed on Google Answers “over the last 4+ years.”
- Google charged you to ask a question. Ironic, isn’t it, coming from the world’s largest and wealthiest search engine.
- It was so web 1.0. Yahoo’s success is largely in its community aspect and its friendly and welcoming interface. Google Answers just didn’t have that element. Most people answered for the money, not for the community. And the Courier font that I see on my browser is totally unflattering.
Interestingly enough, Google’s small community of paid “researchers” are already trying to reverse the company’s decision. Maybe Google Answers was not a success overall, but in itself, it was useful to those 84 individuals (and counting) who signed the petition. I wonder when the 716+ others will sign up.
The closure of the Google Answers system still indicates that Yahoo is pulling ahead with social media guiding its way. With its continuous acquisitions of additional social media sites, it will be interesting to see who fares better in the world of online communities.
Bookmark this post:
First Google, then Yahoo. This is a seemingly big trend in the industry lately. Two weeks ago, Google decided that it would begin expanding its ad base to newspapers, and now Yahoo seems to be doing the same thing — only bigger (and this time, I think better).
Earlier this month, Google launched an advertising initiative that would enable advertisers to bid for newspaper ads. The trial was rolled out this month to 50 major daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Advertiser names were not released but only a small percentage of Google’s advertiser base was part of the initial run.
Yahoo is taking this to the next level. Instead of 50 newspapers, Yahoo expanded this number to 176. Their advertisers (Cox Enterprises, Hearst, and the MediaNews Group, among others) produce publications in 38 states. Yahoo also intends to begin advertising jobs, expanding their HotJobs community to these publications. Since such a large percentage of people are always considering a career change, I think this is a very practical and strategic move on Yahoo’s part.
Not everyone agrees. In fact, a lot of people are citing Craigslist as being in the forefront of online classifieds — an 11-year old community website that already facilitates such communications. But how many times have I heard that Craigslist does not satisfy the needs of all users — or even reaches all users? Many times — from both sides. I don’t think there will ever be a “newspaper to rule them all” (or a classifieds site either).
There are other options out there, but nobody is saying that this partnership is going to be the only option or even a replacement to existing options. People like knowing that if they can’t find something somewhere, they can look elsewhere to find it. By localizing its results in the job arena, among other classifieds, to newspapers, Yahoo! is making this possible and much easier.
Bookmark this post:
Yahoo! Continues to Move in on Social Marketing: Acquires Bix.com, MyBlogLog Rumors
Nov 17, 2006 by Tamar Weinberg | Social Networks, Yahoo!Yahoo! is continuing to increase its reach on the social media — now most famous in the del.icio.us and Flickr spheres — by purchasing Bix.com. Rumor has it that they are also in early acquisition talks with MyBlogLog.
Bix.com is a social contest site for mostly singing and dancing content, providing a rating system for hundreds of online videos. The site boasts approximately 500 million visitors per month. Yahoo! still plans to keep Bix independent from its services, similar to its two major social media services, but also developing upon some feature integration.
MyBlogLog is a neat little blog networking utility that enables bloggers to see who has visited their blogs. You can learn more about your blog fan base and see about their involvement in other social networking spheres, including their profiles on such services as MySpace, Friendster, and Flickr.
Bookmark this post:
