![]() ![]() Then again, Facebook and Google can look at the demise of two of the internet’s most powerful companies and remind themselves that this could be their fate, too. Just wishing that there was an alternative to the Facebook/Google advertising duopoly doesn’t make it so, for instance. This one contains multiple teachable moments. VERIZON YAHOO WRITEDOWN SERIESThe playbook from here on out calls for a series of staff cuts and asset sales, followed by more writedowns, followed by more cuts, etc. Now Verizon has formally acknowledged that it, too, can’t turn AOL and Yahoo around and has written off $4.6 billion of the money it spent buying the two properties. And no one except Priceline has ever revived a faded consumer internet company - once it’s done, it’s done. The two companies used to define the internet, but by the time the phone company bought them, they were long past their prime. "Maybe tailor that sub-brand with names toward products, like Yahoo Mail, Finance and Sports.It was easy to predict that Verizon would end up regretting the $10 billion or so that it had invested in AOL and Yahoo. Sub-brand just like AOL has," Giusto said. ![]() Then again, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and other sites kept their separate identities after AOL bought them years ago, and Verizon didn't change that approach. However, because Verizon is merging Yahoo with AOL's operations, it could also merge everything under the AOL brand name. Verizon bought the Yahoo brand as part of the deal and has the option to keep the name. The parts Verizon isn't buying Yahoo's stakes in Yahoo Japan and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group will get a name change once the deal closes. The enthusiastic name has been synonymous with the Internet's rise in the 1990s, but now that the Internet has matured, it's not clear whether Yahoo as a brand name will survive. As the nature of blogging itself changes, Tumblr faces competition from sites like Medium, which is increasing in popularity as a destination for longer-form writings. The company took a big accounting write-down last week to reflect the declining value of Tumblr. ![]() Yahoo's Tumblr blogging site is another matter. The ones that are left, including Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, are more popular, so they may stick around. For instance, Yahoo shuttered Yahoo Health, Yahoo Real Estate and five others in February. Outsell analyst Giusto points out that Yahoo has already been closing its less popular digital magazines. ![]() Yahoo reaches over one billion active users each month, including 600 million mobile users, and McCormack said that scale is attractive when selling ad space. "Yahoo's content and advertising portfolio should vastly expand AOL's reach and technology," Jefferies analyst Mike McCormack said in a note to investors. Verizon is buying Yahoo to strengthen its media and advertising platform, so the websites are a valuable part of that. Giusto expects Verizon to eventually make changes, but the company will need time to assess its new properties. Both Yahoo and Google have closed down services that millions of people use when they don't fit with the companies' strategies. With 225 million users worldwide, "they would be really foolish to do anything to mess that up at least in next six to 12 months," said Randy Giusto, lead analyst at Outsell.īut nothing is ever permanent when it comes to the Internet. In fact, Verizon upgraded AOL email accounts to give them unlimited storage and more room for email attachments. People with AOL addresses did not have to change their email address. Look to what Verizon did with AOL as guidance. Because of that, it makes sense for Verizon to keep that brand affinity intact, eMarketer analyst Paul Verna said. It's even more popular in Europe and Latin America. In the United States, Yahoo is the second most-popular email service behind Google's Gmail. "We haven't even scratched the surface," how things will be run after the takeover, Mayer said. In an interview with The Associated Press, CEO Marissa Mayer said Verizon has told her it's interested in keeping the Yahoo brand. Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. ![]()
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