Yahoo! (YHOO) reported horrible third-quarter financial results. Its co-founder and CEO, Jerry Yang, just jumped ship. And, according to conventional wisdom, the company seems to lack a clear strategy. Yet this unattractive package has no shortage of suitors.
Since a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) acquisition has yet to materialize, others continue to mull the possibility of buying all or part of Yahoo!. And one of the latest to express interest in the wayward search company is former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller, who reportedly is trying to raise funds to buy all or a piece of Yahoo!. However, there’s also reportedly a significant question as to whether Miller, who it is rumored is aiming for a $20-22 per share deal, can pull it all off.
Yahoo! is tops in terms of e-mail users, and it’s made some interesting acquisitions in photo site Flickr; Jumpcut, an online video-editing platform; and del.icio.us, the bookmark-sharing service. Yet nothing has electrified investors or stood out as a clear strategy for the company.
The company does social networking. But Yahoo! 360 in no way measures up to Facebook or the News Corp.-owned MySpace. Yahoo! does photo sharing. But Flickr isn’t monetized the way it could be. Yahoo! does e-mail. But it hasn’t figured out how to target advertising as Google has done with Gmail.
None of those properties has been “utilized to their fullest potential,” said Mukul Krishna, director for digital media at Frost & Sullivan.
