There's an interesting
article over at Cnet about the long term ramifications of
Lloyd Braun, a former ABC executive, joining Yahoo! to
help them drum up more original media and entertaiment content deals. Cnet speculates this is perhaps a natural
movement by companies like the Internet portal towards new ways of keeping eyeballs around longer:
The move is part of a natural evolution of the leading portals, including America Online and Microsoft's MSN, as they search for new ways to expand their businesses beyond aggregation of content that has become commoditized on the Web. Although they survived the dot-com meltdown, the portals have been forced to compete for limited advertising dollars while conceding much of the search-engine business to market leader Google.
This move, according to Cnet, seems to tie in with Yahoo!'s recent speculated, but denied to comment on, bidding for CBS Marketwatch.
The big question for Yahoo! as they make changes like this falls to what it will take to keep bringing people to them. In the old days, it was for web links. As web users became more savvy, they began sticking around for message boards, chat, personals, games and other interactive features. More recently, content deals like the Apprentice Yahoo! TV site have shown a direction which reflects more towards the Braun hiring and CBS Marketwatch bidding.
Who knows - soon there may be Yahoo! the Survivor series, where you spend weeks trapped in the Yahoo! Complex in Silicon Valley, doing things like trying to find your way out of a massive maze of cubicles or singing the Yahoo! Yodel while juggling flaming Ys.
[Link via New Media Musings]
1. Yeah, but only the really skilled warriors manage to score a table in the Cafe around noon.
Posted at 5:43AM on Dec 19th 2005 by jr