Yahoo in Four Words

Advertisements

What is Yahoo?  That's the question  Yahoo's chief executive, gets incessantly in Silicon Valley, where technology industry insiders closely follow her company's struggles and second-guess the direction it is headed this month.

Her response, at least on Tuesday at the  conference in San Francisco, began lightheartedly when she spoke of how long she's pondered the topic to come up with an answer. "Maybe it's taken me two years, but I've got it," she declared. "Content, communications, media and innovation."

Remarkable? Maybe not. But it's part of her effort to show that she understands Yahoo's business and that she can successfully  in the face of stiff competition from google and facebook

"I think Yahoo has always stood for those words," Ms. Bartz said. "It went off track a bit when people thought it was a search company." She solved that problem. Yahoo recently handed over its search business to Microsoft  although Yahoo still oversees the design of the search results page.

Ms. Bartz acknowledged a rough couple of years at Yahoo. But in the minds of its users, she said, Yahoo retained an image of fun and the reputation of a trusted Web site.

In fact, Ms. Bartz said that the intense focus on the company, and questions about what it stands for, extends no further than the San Francisco Bay Area and New York. "When you get 30 miles out of Silicon Valley and 60 miles out of New York, people know what Yahoo stands for," Ms. Bartz said.

Changes to Yahoo are needed, she acknowledged. She said the service should be more interactive and personalized.

But given that she was speaking in Silicon Valley, the questions were inside baseball. Was Yahoo considering buying ? What about a buyout by  companies? To that, Ms. Bartz, known for her outspokenness, declined to comment. But she let loose on a few other topics that raised eyebrows.

On Yahoo's stock price, Ms. Bartz was emphatic. "We have a stock price that is going to go up," she said before conceding that given regulatory rules, "I'm not supposed to say that."

Asked about Google recently giving 10 percent raises to its employees, she responded that Yahoo's workers would get a 15 percent raise. She then followed up with the punch line: "Not really," much to the disappointment of Yahoo employees across the globe.