[Tanada]

My old employer, Yahoo!, has been in the news again of late.

Its latest CEO (and former Googler), Marissa Meyer, is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where she has just given her first televised interview detailing her strategy for the beleaguered web giant.

I wish her and the current team at Yahoo! well with their plans, I really do. The saga of Yahoo!'s descent over the past decade was heartbreaking to watch and experience from the inside. I'd love to see the company find a way to become a leader again.

But I don't have faith.

In my opinion, the company can't be "fixed." At least not the way the tech pundits and the past parade of Yahoo! CEOs have touted it can.

Why? Because of a congenital failure to define its identity, paired with a chronic refusal to be honest with itself.

I get asked a lot for my opinion regarding Yahoo!'s fall from grace. I believe the seeds of its failure were sown from the beginning, and I've come up with the following analogy to make it as intuitive as possible. It all starts at the very formation of the company.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/9500 ... itle_95008

[Newfie]

I am remended of a quote by E O Wilson that I can't find right now.

It runs along the lines that we can't get our stuff together until we answers the philosophical questions of who we are and the meaning of life.

I think it's true that humanities reason for being was to thrive as a species. Now that we have overshot that mark we need to re evaluate and adjust what thriving means. I'm not hopeful we will sharpen our aim and clarify our goals.

[PeterEV]

I know of two philanthropists. One is very rich and the other started a small non profit. Both asked questions about a situation and put their time and money into answering those questions. If I were CEO of Yahoo, what questions would I be asking?

One might ask: how can I make myself relevant? Whereas someone else might ask: what can I do for you? What do you need?

A realistic picture of what is going on might be a decent answer. Back in 1956, M King Hubbard hypothesized about oil production from fields over time. In 1975, Robert Redford starred in "Three Days of the Condor" with an peak oil based theme. Today we are close to being in the midst of an energy crisis and yet gasoline and natural gas are at unprecedented lows. It is like we are in the eye of a hurricane and can't see the storm.

I think I would chart various things over time. mass of the Greenland ice over time. The various components going into climate change and their changes over time such as Tisdale's AMO influence on temperature change rates. The S&P 500. The amount of state and Federal debt over the amount of revenue collected. The cost of a doctor visit over time. Something that would allow us to see changes over time.

Funding for sites has always been a problem. If I visit a worthwhile site, I feel obligated to maybe "tip" them. I hate the idea of always having to go through paypal to send money as it takes up a bit of time. I was thinking of going through a portal which adds a tip button and sends the viewed site a predetermined amount everytime I click the tip button. for instance with Peak Oil, they have a link to donate. If I went through yahoo and every URL that I enter, Yahoo would superimpose a Tip Button. If I thought the site or the information on the site was helping me, I would press the tip button. At the end of the month, yahoo would send site X a collective check from all those who pressed the tip button for that site. When my balance runs low, another button would appear and ask for permission to ding my credit card for another sum. I'm not sure of all the security ramifications but it might encourage people to build more useful site and to keep them up and relevant.

Just some thoughts.

[Kristen]

Yahoo was a great search engine when there were more then just three. There was altavista, lycos, meta crawler, etc... Now if you try and search with key words you never find an answer like you do in Google Search. In Minneapolis, Yahoo has billboards plastered all over the city yet I still don't desire to use yahoo search.