NYT: Yahoo!'s LLoyd Braun Now "Gets" the Internet

One of the lingering risks about Yahoo, given Terry Semel's Tinseltown roots, is that the company will lean too far toward becoming a "content company"--and thus wreck a business model that is more powerful than that of any content company on the planet.  Last year's hiring of Lloyd Braun, a television bigwig, seemed another lurch down this misguided path, especially when Braun began jawboning about launching TV-like "shows." 

The Internet industry experimented with "shows" back in the Dark Ages (1995), and immediately abandoned them--because Internet users don't want to watch "shows."  So Braun's background, and plans, seemed cause for alarm.

Well, according to Saul Hansell in the NYT, Braun has, thankfully, seen the light, and has scaled back his more ambitious proprietary-content plans.  He says now that Yahoo!-created content will just be the icing on the cake, which is probably the right way to think about it (Google's no-content strategy leaves it less able to exploit display advertising, rich media, member-based marketing, and other models that Yahoo! is building into real businesses).

The NYT story also tangentially raises one issue that Yahoo! is going to have to solve.  A Yahoo! spokeswoman is quoted as saying that Yahoo! is pleased with the recent Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone series because of "the positioning it gives Yahoo News as a serious news brand."  And there's the problem.  Because "Yahoo! News" is not a serious news brand, and probably never will be.  About the best it can hope for is to continue to be a serious news aggregation brand, which is actually more valuable from a business perspective. 

A brand like "Yahoo!" (or, for that matter, "Google") would have major mountains to climb before it could ever be considered a "serious news brand"--and the first question to ask is why it would want to become one.  There is a reason Yahoo! (and Google) are worth more than most of the "serious news brands" put together.  (The reason is that gathering and reporting "serious news" is expensive, time-consuming, and, unfortunately, largely a commodity business).  Yahoo! would be far better off continuing to promote its branded-content partners, including Kevin Sites, Reuters, AP, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, etc. as the serious news brands, rather than trying to make "Yahoo! News" eventually conjur up a similar image of journalistic history and excellence.

Comments

[Jared Lansky]

Well Said.

[Mike D]

Good move for Yahoo to back off the original programming. Does anyone remember Yahoo FinanceVision back in 2000?  It was awful.  The last thing they should do is repeat that mistake.

[Patrick Dodd]

Nice post. I would expect that Yahoo understands that the future of the web lies in social engagement with user generated content being at the foundation.

[Jeffrey McManus]

It's always fun when people predict that something will "never" happen. Never's a long, long time, chief.

[Jeremy Johnson]

I completely disagree.

Yahoo and Google are already bumping heads with the content producers over use rights. One example is the Google Print initiative. But to take it a step further, if you are the NY Times, do you really need Google indexing your site and displaying it on Google News?

The strongest content production brands, I believe, will either re-assert their position vis-a-vis the consumer, or become irrelevent because they won't be able to support themselves.

Google, and to a lesser extent, Yahoo are essentially getting a free lunch from the content producers right now, and I question the sustainability of that trend.

You may be right in your assessment, but I don't see how you can be so certain at this point in time. Also, are references to 1995-1998 having anything to do with the Internet relevent to the current market environment? (Broadband penetration, overall net penetration, changes in demographics of users)

[replica watches]

replica GUCCI watches,replica BVLGARI watches,replica PIAGET watches,and so on.