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March 6, 2006

Caution: Severe Backpedaling Ahead!

Posted by Lisa Barone

Yahoo! has announced they no longer want to be considered a media powerhouse.

Or at least that’s what I got from Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna Stevens’ recent statements that Yahoo! will focus on producing other people’s work instead of creating their own original content. There’s a PR move.

My favorite quote regarding the situation comes from Yahoo! spokeswoman Nissa Anklesaira:

"We are changing our overall strategy. We’re going to have original content, partner content and user-generated content. But they’re not all equal. In the past, there was more of an emphasis on original."

Actually, this quote from Forrestor Research Analyst Josh Bernoff is pretty good too:

“I think they may just be trying to ratchet the expectations down… It is not easy to figure out what you do here. Nobody knows the right way to do it.”

Ratchet the expectations down? No one knows the right way to do it? I don’t know whether to shake my head or to giggle. I’m not sure what’s worse: That Yahoo thinks this is a strong, viable option for them, or that they felt it was something to announce in the first place.

What happened to the old Yahoo? The one run (and I emphasis run) by Lloyd Braun, the guy who promised a slew of new projects? There was going to be cleverly original, TV-like content, like adapting the discarded reality-TV show The Runner into a multimillion-dollar Internet program and or creating a home-electronics reality contest nicknamed Wow House? Yahoo 2006 doesn’t include any of that.

Braun is now backpedaling, stating that Yahoo will commit to only a handful of new projects this year, not the dozens originally promised. Braun resigns that his early expectations for what he could do at Yahoo had been ‘overly grand’ and that he didn’t know what he was getting into. I’d say.

The decision to pull back comes amid rampant rumors that Braun would be resigning as the head of Yahoo after clashing with the company’s CEO Terry Semel. Braun denies these rumors.

“I thought it would be a good time, given all the rumor and innuendo, for me to reiterate once and for all that I am not going anywhere.”

Hear that? Braun’s not going anywhere… and neither is Yahoo.

Posted at March 6, 2006 9:15 AM
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