For a number of years Yahoo has been slipping down the popularity stakes, with Google dominating the search field. Recent weeks have seen things get even worse.
Earlier in February, it was announced that the web portal’s chairman, Roy Bostock, and a further three board members were leaving. There has also recently been a new chief executive coming in, with Scott Thompson becoming the fourth CEO in five years.
Capping it all, one of Yahoo’s founders, Jerry Yang, stepped down in January.
The root of all the problems can be traced back to the rejected 2008 bid from Microsoft. The offer valued the company at $33 (£21) a share, giving it a value of $47.5bn (£31bn). Today, shares are valued at just $15 (£10).
With a touch of irony, it is the relative success of Bing from Microsoft that has really damaged the brand, resulting in very few SEOs taking much notice of tailoring their sites for Yahoo search.
Indeed, without Flickr, the brand may well have already failed.
The company has courted a number of investors to help turn things round but, the fact remains that it is wholly not an attractive proposition.
Things got worse this week though.
In his statement announcing his departure, Mr Bostock said:
“[There are] active discussions with our partners in Asia regarding the possibility of restructuring our holdings in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.”
Today,15 February 2012, it was being reported that these discussion had failed; resulting in a further 5% being wiped off the value of Yahoo Japan.
Worse still, there could yet be a great deal more turmoil in 2012.
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