What was Carol Bartz’s mandate as the boss of Yahoo? If it was to make Yahoo into a legitimate competitor with Google or Facebook, she failed. But that job was impossible. If the task was to transform the company from an internet conglomerate into a focused niche player, she did not (or could not) go far enough. Her sacking must be a first step towards a more radical change.
Since the start of 2009, when Ms Bartz took charge, Yahoo’s web empire has increased the size of its audience – but that audience seems to be paying less attention. In the US, the biggest market and where the best tracking data are available, monthly unique visitors to Yahoo’s sites have actually grown by about a fifth over her tenure, according to ComScore data. But the time spent per visitor has dropped by a third while the same figure at Google has risen by 85 per cent, and 150 per cent at Facebook.
In this context, it is actually impressive that net revenues at Yahoo were only 17 per cent lower in the past 12 months versus the year before Ms Bartz joined. One might fault her for not refreshing Yahoo to match current trends. But the experience of legacy media companies shows that it is as hard to buy into the latest trends (social media) as it is to compete for engineering talent with the most innovative companies.