madcomments

What led to Semel’s demise?

Posted in Media, Digital, Mel Varley, Latest reporters' blogs June 19th, 2007 by Elspeth

Poor ex-Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel. After finally beating off calls from shareholders that he should step down from his role, he changes his mind after one week (and growing criticisms) and then the shares rise by a massive 3.2 per cent. Talk about kicking you while you’re down.

Semel stood down from the role this week after six years in the top job. He was prompted by shareholders who asked him earlier this month to leave the role down as they were disappointed over his reluctance to capitalise on the search advertising market. They also said the company ‘would be better off without him,’ which the share price happened to prove today. 

His reluctance not only to recognise an opportunity in the market place but to learn to grow the company in new ways meant internet giant and arch rival Google overshadowed Yahoo! with its DoubleClick and YouTube acquisitions.

The worst thing for Yahoo! is that it is a global company with headquarters in the US and therefore it launches all its new products and services, such as Panama, there first and waits months before doing so in the UK.

Unfortunately the case for Yahoo! that it is too behind with everything else in the world because it is thinking only about the US.

Yahoo!, as much as I like it and use it everyday, is dated and is in need of a major revamp.

Google constantly surprises its customers, especially with its acquisitions and its face always stays fresh and innovative. Yahoo! is quickly falling behind the market with the attitude, ‘it’s not me, it’s you’ when Semel said last week the internet was still evolving. 

The brand is fast becoming another Virgin story, as when it began it was smart, innovative, popular – but its problem now is that it hasn’t changed and it’s not so cool and new anymore.

Will Flickr and Bebo save the ailing internet giant?