Bronte Media

but here is one more anyway

First, as context I tend to agree with Greg - it feels a lot like MSN late last year, or even in 04. They need to stop the rot. Losing page views in categories like Finance and of course market share in search is a lot more important than not integrating Flickr into Yahoo Photos.

The monetization gap in search is unnacceptable and it is time to turn up the heat. Sign a deal with Google much as Ask and AOL have: 90% of 11 cents a search is better than 100% of 4 cents a search (and not even taking into account the overhead in the 4 cents a search).

Don’t give up yet though. Run Google ads in 20% of the search queries to Yahoo. Track everything about the implementation - the ads Google chooses to show on the search, which ads users click on, what those users do elsewhere on the Yahoo network etc. Learn everything you can and implement the conclusions into Panama.

Give the team 12 months to bridge the gap or to substantially bridge the gap. If they can’t (with all that information from Google’s ad selection and user behavior), consider giving up and just running Google ads next to Yahoo’s organic search.

Remember that you are only giving up on page one of search - i.e. the search results page. Instead look at selling chapters 2-10 of a search - inventory of that user who has searched for ‘mortgage refinance’ on other pages of Yahoo and other pages on Yahoo’s publisher network.

With the money, pour more resources into organic search and with the leftover sales people completely focus them on selling chapters 2-10 of a search - the inventory in Yahoo Mail and Answers of the people who searched for mortgage earlier in the day.

But all of this is for nothing if they can’t stop the rot in audience. The fact that the most important position in the company is not filled does not auger well. They need only look at MSN if they can think they can stay the course - an advertising center that advertisers and agencies love, except for the simple fact that there is not enough volume and the volume is declining by the day.

And just for some saucy gossip, Tom Foremski has some great back story on Dan Rosensweig allegedly being offered the Audience position (in effect a demotion) and turning it down. And the best Internet reporter, Kevin Delaney of the WSJ, getting the story first, trying to parlay that into an interview with Semel and ending up with Yahoo announcing the news earlier than planned.