Semel on Yahoo: We lead in social media

Terry Semel, Yahoo CEO, let the investor community know, once again, that the Yahoo homepage is “the most visited page on the Web.” He also let Wall Street know, however, that he is not satisfied with his company’s financial performance and he intends to do something about it, starting now and aiming for the long-term. Semel began Yahoo’s Q3 investor conference call today by saying he is “excited” but not satisfied with Yahoo’s performance and that he will lead the company to a better financial performance. 

Semel acknowledged that Yahoo is “not exploiting our considerable strengths as well as we should” and he outlined a three prong plan to “improve”:

1) Close gap in monetization of search,

2) Widen lead in graphical advertising,

3) Seize the opportunity in social media, video and mobile.

SEARCH MONETIZATION IMPROVEMENTS

 

Yahoo’s new “Panama” search advertising platform, front end component, is now live, beginning a several month roll-out across markets designed to increase search advertising margins.

 

GRAPHICAL ADVERTISNG LEADERSHIP

 

Yahoo announced two acquisitions designed to maintain its graphical advertising leadership amidst a “shift in marketing dynamics in graphical advertising.”

Strategic Investment in Right Media; Twenty percent stake

The Right Media Exchange offers advertisers the ability to bid on Yahoo!'s non-premium inventory through an open and transparent marketplace. 

To Acquire AdInterax; Developing Self-Service Rich Media Platform for Marketers 

Agreement to acquire AdInterax, a provider of rich media advertising solutions to online publishers. The acquisition of AdInterax will enable Yahoo to provide advanced rich media creative assembly and campaign management tools directly to marketers at no charge as part of Yahoo!'s graphical advertising offerings. Financial terms were not disclosed.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO, MOBILE

 

In “Yahoo vs. MySpace, Facebook, Digg, YouTube” I projected that Yahoo will be making a new push to affirm its “rightful” leadership in the social media space. Semel indeed confirmed such a push today.

 

Semel declared Yahoo hosts the Internet’s “largest community in social media” with 100 million users and cited stats:

Flickr, 20 million users per month

Yahoo Answers, 60 million unique users worldwide,
120 million answers worldwide, 18 countries, nine languages

Semel on Yahoo’s video strategy: “video will be as ubiquitous as text” on Yahoo with a high-end infrastructure and high quality user generated content strengthened by deals such as Jumpcut acquisition, a Flash-based online video editing site, and video syndication deal with CBS…

 

CBS Video Deal: 

Exclusive video syndication agreement in which local news video from 16 of CBS's owned stations will be made available on Yahoo to the Internet's largest news audience. The relationship…marks the first video agreement between a network-owned television station group and an Internet news provider. CBS and Yahoo will share revenue from advertising sold adjacent to CBS Stations' content on the site.

 

Yahoo Mobile: Yahoo Go for Mobile

Suite of products and services for your PC, mobile phone and even your TV.Yahoo! Go allows you to access the information and content that is important to you on whatever device you choose. So wherever you go, your photos, your music, your email, – your life – is right there with you. Ready to go.

Excerpt from my "Yahoo vs. MySpace, Facebook, Digg, YouTube":

Yahoo is embarking on a concerted campaign to reassert what it believes is its under appreciated leadership position in social networking. I witnessed the campaign in action this morning at the Shop.org ecommerce conference in New York City.

Yahoo literally “interrupted” regularly scheduled conference programming to make a direct pitch to the 2000 plus retail marketers in attendance that Yahoo is the social media vehicle of choice for their brand messages.

A Yahoo representative was invited to the podium in-between morning featured events to put forth the Yahoo “Social Media Marketing” agenda:

Placement,
Integration,
Empowerment…at Yahoo!

Yahoo asserted that user generated content is “today’s self-expression” and that Yahoo is the destination of choice for users to “create content and consume content of peers.” Yahoo invited retail marketers to embrace content “produced by ordinary people” and “get influence on your side” via Yahoo Answers, Yahoo 360…

Yahoo estimates that every “one” creator of content leads to ten synthesizers of content and then 100 coveted consumers. 

Yahoo’s concluding exhortation? Yahoo can make “your” brand part of “their” identities.

Will Yahoo buy Facebook? Ask Yahoo answers!

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