Yahoo 2006 = AOL 2001
Yahoo cedes search to Google.
What's going on? More than anything else, Yahoo's resetting the Street's expectations. Although, to an extent, Yahoo seems
internally divided.
Of course, innovators usually don't have to do this - so take
the hype with a grain of salt. If Yahoo's "social search" strategy was working - if they were going to be the world's attention allocator - I think it's safe to say we would have seen something cool happen by now.
Which begs the real question - if Yahoo's not good at search, what
is Yahoo good at?
Now, of course, the reason it's struggling to answer this question is that core competencies don't work when value shifts to the edge. You need edge competencies - and Yahoo's biggest failure, IMHO, is understanding this simple equation.