Turn Google's strengths into weaknesses by opening up all of Yahoo's products (Search, Mail, Finance, Maps, Sports, News) to developers to be maximally programmable. Allow developers to monetize in any way they feel like (aside from fraud) and let them link together apps in creative mashups. This links together YQL, Yahoo Pipes, YUI, BOSS, and several other existing Yahoo technologies into Yahoo as the platform for the Open Web.
If Marissa wanted to really push hard on this: buy Blekko, take a big stake in Github, buy Mozilla, and possibly buy Meteor and/or DerbyJS. That gives you a tech stack which is pretty strong in search, best of class among developers, pretty strong in browsers, and the future of web development. Then let developers knit the pieces together and give them contractual terms which stipulate you won't go up the stack at them like Facebook, Apple, and Twitter did if their apps are successful.
Basically, if Apple represents ultimate centralization and Google is somewhat open, turn Yahoo into the ultra open, monetizable platform for the web. They have the traffic, they could make this a very attractive proposition for developers.
Turn Google's strengths into weaknesses by opening up all of Yahoo's products (Search, Mail, Finance, Maps, Sports, News) to developers to be maximally programmable.
This sounds great, in a handwavy way. In practice though I'd like to hear specifics about what Yahoo could/would offer that Google doesn't already?
Maps: Seriously? I'm not even going to bother linking to the Google Maps API
Google doesn't have great developer stories in Finance, Sports or News. I guess there are some opportunities there, but exactly what they are isn't obvious.
Anyway, isn't this whole strategy what Yahoo tried in the 2006-09 timeframe? It failed then (mostly by failing to bring in revenue) - why would it be different now?
> Maps: Seriously? I'm not even going to bother linking to the Google Maps API
There is a reason many have transitioned to OSM based data and tile hosting services: price. The Google Maps API is no longer the "no-brainer" that it once was among developers.
Google charges the most for maps because they have the best service.
And generally speaking, I don't think competing on price is a great strategy for turning the company around. The OSM map services will have a big price advantage because all of their data is free, even though it's not as good as Google's. And if Yahoo enhances the data, or gets their own data and tries to charge a premium, then they're back to where they are now trying to compete with Google...
I'm not saying they can't make a better service for cheaper, but their focus should be on making a great map service, not on cutting the price.
0) Embed apps on the frontend: The APIs you mention are good, but they are backend APIs or APIs for customizing (say) maps within a widget on your site. I'm talking about opening up the frontend too. A prosaic way of thinking about it is an App Store for each large Yahoo subdomain, starting with search.yahoo.com but ultimately allowing very deep apps that pull from many Yahoo properties. Importantly, app installation buttons should be heavily but tastefully promoted: every relevant URL, map result, or email from an app provider should allow a one-click install with ID and billing optionally from Yahoo.
1) Concrete example: suppose Yahoo allowed website proprietors to embed a widget to the right of search results that linked to them. The widget would display if it met the performance and load requirements of Yahoo Search, and not if it didn't. Given that Yahoo is now powered by Bing, this could be a Windows Phone tile sort of thing. Visualize a minified version of what you'd click on the website to see. Facebook could show your last 5 messages, Mint your last few payments, and so on. Basically, take microformats to the next level and allow site proprietors to create their own onebox experiences.
2) Data: In addition to opening up apps, take every piece of data that Google never made open for fear of giving away a proprietary advantage and throw open the doors with an aggressively priced data.yahoo.com API, both to monetize and to differentiate against Google.
3) Re: Yahoo's open stuff in the 2006-2009 timeframe -- that was grassroots and built by engineers, never really pushed by their leadership as the future.
4) The Y Prizes: One other thought is that if this open strategy works, Yahoo could announce an acquisition tournament for each hot new closed web property. All the Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, and Pinterest clones would register for a three month competition to build an API to Yahoo's spec, with the winner being acquired for a fixed up front cost of say $10M. Cheap for Yahoo, life changing for the 5 man dev teams that would arise for a shot at this prize. These Y Prizes would allow Yahoo to stay ahead of the curve on new stuff without trying to do everything themselves.
5) Moral high ground: Yahoo as the platform for the Open Web would give them the moral high ground and goodwill to pick (and win) a bunch of fights. Always punch up.
0) Embed apps on the frontend: The APIs you mention are good, but they are backend APIs or APIs for customizing (say) maps within a widget on your site. I'm talking about opening up the frontend too. A prosaic way of thinking about it is an App Store for each large Yahoo subdomain, starting with search.yahoo.com but ultimately allowing very deep apps that pull from many Yahoo properties. Importantly, app installation buttons should be heavily but tastefully promoted: every relevant URL, map result, or email from an app provider should allow a one-click install with ID and billing optionally from Yahoo.
Well, if you've tried making a Gmail gadget, it involves unnecessary XML wrangling, many separate pages of documentation, and is nowhere near as simple as it could be. Stripe/Square vs. Paypal show how a good API can transform a category.
Moreover Gmail Gadgets are not heavily promoted nor a profit center for Google, so they are an afterthought. As indirect proof of this, when pg had that recent thread on fixing email, had the Gmail API (+ Gadgets) been a strong API for working with email, people would have brought that up as the obvious solution.
As for OpenSocial, that seemed to me to be big companies banding against Facebook, not actually opening up the web. But we can agree to disagree here.
This would make a bunch of SEOs of my acquaintance absolutely giddy, because you could use e.g. Yahoo keyword data or the proprietary financial data which is just maddening to get one's hand on to create arbitrarily large data-heavy sites... to rank in Google.
Huh. You might be on to something there. "Champions of the open web" is a big niche that's empty right now, largely because of Google's failure to occupy it – an unforced error in my opinion. Yahoo under Marissa could seize that position. It could turn them from uncool to cool and win them a lot of good will among hackers very quickly. I'd be surprised but delighted if she did this.
Re: Github, it'd be pretty interesting to allow one click deploys from github.com to a Yahoo app or widget. Millions of engineers would also see the Yahoo logo all day long.
I understand your point, but mindshare can be difficult to evaluate. Do you actually know how popular Mojito is? I certainly have noticed the popularity of Meteor - and unpopularity of Mojito - on HN, but how does that translate to the general population of developers?
501(c)(3)s can be sold to for-profits. It's just a little complicated as an appropriate recipient for the purchase $$$ needs to be found among other things.
"The Mozilla Corporation was established on August 3, 2005 to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue."
The for-profit Mozilla Corporation only exists for tax purposes, and is wholly owned and controlled by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
Turn Google's strengths into weaknesses by opening up all of Yahoo's products (Search, Mail, Finance, Maps, Sports, News) to developers to be maximally programmable. Allow developers to monetize in any way they feel like (aside from fraud) and let them link together apps in creative mashups. This links together YQL, Yahoo Pipes, YUI, BOSS, and several other existing Yahoo technologies into Yahoo as the platform for the Open Web.
If Marissa wanted to really push hard on this: buy Blekko, take a big stake in Github, buy Mozilla, and possibly buy Meteor and/or DerbyJS. That gives you a tech stack which is pretty strong in search, best of class among developers, pretty strong in browsers, and the future of web development. Then let developers knit the pieces together and give them contractual terms which stipulate you won't go up the stack at them like Facebook, Apple, and Twitter did if their apps are successful.
Basically, if Apple represents ultimate centralization and Google is somewhat open, turn Yahoo into the ultra open, monetizable platform for the web. They have the traffic, they could make this a very attractive proposition for developers.