Is it a tremendous surprise that someone wishes to be friends with Facebook? Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is a monster despite its stock price following its IPO. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s interest in strengthening its ties to Facebook should go without saying, it’s as simple as wishing you could eat lunch with the cheerleaders or the football team.
I have to admit, I called the Yahoo CEO search too early on this very site and gave little consideration to the ultimately appointed Marissa Mayer. I was wrong. But did Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) also make the wrong call? Marrissa Mayer, although soft spoken, reminds me of the James Brown lyric, “Talking Loud and Sayin’ Nothing.”
This woman works in vague the way others might work in watercolors or oils as their medium. Last week I found myself tuning into a rare interview with Ms. Mayer speaking to Bloomberg News from Switzerland, only to find myself tuning out quickly as she said nothing but used a whole lot of words to do it.
“A lot of the strengths of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are available to Yahoo users,” Mayer said yesterday at an investor conference in San Francisco. “That’s something we want to build upon. We have a real commitment to bringing valuable content to our users.”
Thanks Marissa.
And then this piece of infinite wisdom….
“One of the things that people really want to do is share their interests with their friends,” she said. “We need to have sharing built as a fundamental component.”
You don’t say.
“How many people at least once a day mark an e-mail as unread on their phone, just so they can go back later and read it on their PC?” Ms Mayer said. “There’s a clear opportunity for innovation. The tool just doesn’t work that well right now. These are the types of things we’re thinking about.”
If these are the types of things she is thinking about, I may start thinking of dropping my Yahoo stock. Hopefully, for shareholders and journalists alike, the 120 new employees with computer science degrees that Yahoo hired in the fourth quarter will do more with their brains.
It is estimated that this year, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s of the U.S. market will slip to 8 per cent, from 9.3 per cent in 2012, according to researcher EMarketer. Google will widen its lead to 18 per cent from 15 per cent last year, while Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) will advance to 15 per cent from 14 per cent.
Ms. Mayer needs some BFF’s and since Apple’s work in social media is limited and not especially innovative that leaves Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). Google would love to see Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) continue to slide, this leaves Facebook to right Yahoo’s ship.
