Comments on: An Interview With Yahoo's Jerry Yang, Part 2: On Opportunities, Carl Icahn and Leadership

By: Yahoo’s Jerry Yang to Step Down, As a Search for New CEO Commences | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:34:17 +0000

[...] a recent interview with me, in fact, Yang said about his determination to [...]

By: Sorting Out Fact From Fiction at Yahoo: The Telenovela Edition | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:37:27 +0000

[...] a two-part interview with BoomTown after its sad-sack third-quarter earnings were released, Yang was telling the truth 100 percent: BT: You have been attacked a lot recently [...]

By: Mike Kane

Mike Kane — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:01:42 +0000

Yahoo hit $11.25 a share today, and Yang turned down $33, I still for the life of me can’t understand his comments about doing most, if not all, of what they set out to do. What exactly did he set out “to do” ruin the company? He has got to be the worst CEO heading a major company today. There is no excuse for his arrogance. He is utterly incompetent and should be fired ASAP.

Kara, any chance at getting Carl Icahn to comment? He has got to be furious at watching this train wreck.

By: Brandon Barclay

Brandon Barclay — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:53:08 +0000

No kidding. They tripled mine. I’m moving them as soon as possible. You see this in a lot of credit card processing contracts to. Where if they are not making x% on your business they have the right to raise your fees without notification to the merchant.

By: Patrick Colmenar

Patrick Colmenar — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:32:04 +0000

Kara, can you ask Jerry about a recent pattern of deceptive business practices. One – they tripled their domain re-registration prices and automatically renewed at the higher price without adequate notification. Also, they seem to have shutdown POP access to mail unless users pay an exorbitant fee.

I’d like to know if these practices are what we are to expect from Yahoo.

By: Brandon Barclay

Brandon Barclay — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:10:14 +0000

It’s difficult to see in the dark. A place yahoo has been for some time now. It’s no wonder their stock fell. If you are a webmaster you know what I’m talking about. When was the last time you used yahoo analytics, or yahoo search bar to check your page rank. They are falling behind. Oh and how about the new yahoo phone isn’t that wonderful? It’s about the whole experience. Why don’t you just add a yahoo search bar to your website or an ad program that will generate extra revenue. Yahoo is the same system it was 5 years ago. Sure there have been some nice upgrades made here and there, but they are still no google when catering to webmasters. A service that is much needed for the average marketer trying to promote on a low budget. I’ve been using yahoo for the majority of my searches up until the last six months. When the majority of my traffic comes from Google it seems realistic to change my loyalty. Who would you optimize for when the majority of your sites visitors come from servers which constantly pull and update your content in a matter of days not weeks? Just check the stats, it’s no wonder they are losing money for their stock holders. When you can’t provide much needed services to the professionals who fill your databases with content, they too will go somewhere else.

It just seems like they aren’t catering to the right crowed of developers. Where’s the video, the social networking and have you tried a yahoo chat room lately. There was a time when you could login and talk to real people from anywhere, now it’s bots and advertising. Where’s the breaking point?

Jerry Yang shouldn’t be fired, he should be given $1,000 and told to build a website, promote it using the best methods available. Then see where he ends up. He probably would find that Google provides for a much better end user experience. Especially when it comes to low budget services such as analytics, stats and keyword marketing.

At the same time I do realize that yahoo has a lot more going that just a search engine. They do provide some other great services. It just seems to me at the end of the day, I’m finding myself logged into Google instead. I think people are looking for change and Yahoo is just not keeping up with back end user integration for the webmaster. Maybe Microsoft is the solution, but if that happens then look out. Ever 3 years you will need to learn how to use the new Yahoo, reprogram everything you’ve built in a new language. Plus did you ever consider how much it will cost to keep up with it?

Maybe someone who uses Google a lot should take over Yahoo. They seem to know what they are doing when it comes tech.

By: william olic

william olic — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:06:33 +0000

As was to be expected, you achieved getting nothing of any substance from Jerry Yang, except the usual Yahoo fluff. It is simply amazing how this arrogant, foolish and incompetent excuse of a CEO can claim, “we have done most…of what we set out to do.” What might that be? Losing 48+ billion of shareholders’ money? Yang, Decker, Filo, and the whole board should be imprisoned for the rest of their years on earth. They should all have been kicked out squarely on their rears a long time ago. I lost 60% of my investment in this worthless excuse of a company.

By: Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:01:13 +0000

Well, we will see what happens, but I thought he should be able to speak about what he thought of his performance.

By: Mike Kane

Mike Kane — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:45:13 +0000

Kara,

Congrats on getting Yang to something, he usually hides behind press releases that are meaningless and usually say nothing. Not that his answers to you were any more forthcoming, but I’m cracking up over his answer to your MSFT question. And I’m in stitches over his response to if he is the right leader. Is he serious, when he says “we have done most, if not all, of what we set out to do”. Is he kidding me? He turned down $49 billion and todays market cap is just over 16b. What exactly did he “set out to do”, ruin the company. He is totally out of his league and needs to get fired ASAP.