AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT YAHOO! (03/24/24)

MARCH 24, 2024 — 1,600+ LAYOFFS

The company has announced plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring of its advertising technology unit. The reduction in force will impact more than 50% of Yahoo's advertising technology employees — more than 1,600 people.

According to a company spokesperson, “These decisions are never easy, but we believe these changes will simplify and strengthen our advertising business for the long run while enabling Yahoo to deliver better value to our customers and partners.

Yahoo’s previous strategy in the ads business was to offer a “unified stack” consisting of a demand-side platform (DSP), supply-side platform (SSP), and native advertising platforms. However, “Despite many years of effort and investment, this strategy was not profitable and struggled to live up to our high standards across the entire stack,” and as such, it will shut down the SSP side of the business.

CEO Jim Lanzone noted that the sunsetting of an older business model would be “tremendously beneficial for the profitability of Yahoo overall.”

FEBRUARY 24, 2023 — Original post…

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo!, the iconic web services provider, has announced a major reduction in force.

The job action will impact 1600 employees or 20% of the workforce.

Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone noted, "that these layoffs are not a result of economic issues, but rather, they are intentional changes to strengthen the unprofitable Yahoo for Business advertising unit."

“These changes announced today are entirely within the context of creating a better business plan for that division going forward. The company has taken many bites of the apple here in trying to make it work over the years, but as a standalone company, we had to take a very honest view of how we apply our resources. The company is “very profitable. We would’ve made these changes even at the peak of the market.”

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

IF YOUR COMPANY RELIES ON SEARCH, YOU MAY BE HEADING FOR TROUBLE

Many companies rely on the major search engines to help them overcome the noise of the marketplace and to direct profitable traffic to their websites. Unfortunately, the search business is dominated by large companies behind such search engines as Google Bing, and Yahoo, Amazon, and Facebook who pretty much dictate their own terms of service, their sponsors and users be damned.

Now we are finding the search function once again changing in a significant way …

• The first change was moving from pure search to keyword stuffing and those who claimed that they could game the system using SEO, search engine optimization.
• The second change was moving from keyword stuffing to content analysis and affiliated links.
• The third change was moving from content analysis to user analysis and content presentation. 
• The fourth change was moving to smaller form factors, tablets, and mobile devices and away from the desktop environment. Casting screens from small devices to larger displays is just becoming a reality.
• And now, we are seeing the implementation of voice search with its own particular semantic demands. Especially with words that sound the same.

ASK YOURSELF

Is your organization capitalizing on the incorporation of question words (who, what, why, when, where, and how) into your searchable content? Or will you be left behind when someone asks a tabletop device to perform a voice search?

Are you using “Microdata” – the facility that allows the placement of descriptive metadata into standard content? Is your organization even aware of Microdata and how search engines are using this information to provide a richer user experience?

Do you have a feature and keyword-rich FAQ that allows a much denser packing of keywords than most regular web pages or blog posts?

Do you understand “long-tail” keywords and how to incorporate them into your presentation materials?

How with this affect your discovery efforts, sales, and marketing? Will the impact be sufficient to cost market share, revenue, and jobs?