Marissa is going for broke. Looks like Yahoo may stop using Bing results.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/microsoft-yahoo-likely-end-us-search-alliance-google-remains-market-leader-1493938?
May we live in interesting times.
Speculation:
1. Yahoo must have something in the skunk works to replace Bing.
2. Yahoo will focus on mobile.
3. They need to come out with something good, right out of the box.
4. Will we see return of the Alta Vista brand?
Yahoo is schizophrenic, they acquired Overture and Inktomi and then scrapped them to use Bing technology. Now, they are going to start all over again?
Well Blekko has shut down and sold part of their technology to IBM, so Yahoo can't buy them.
>start all over
If I was Yahoo: yes. It was a fatal mistake to lose control of search to begin with. Search may be less sexy than it was 10 years ago, but it is still a fundamental function of the Web. Plus now is a good time to increase competition, with nuts, bolts (and ethics) falling out of Google right and left.
I can't believe Mayer hasn't been planning for this for awhile. I think this was Mayer's goal when she agreed to be CEO of Yahoo. Yahoo has to have a contingency plan and some search process up their sleeve.
DuckDuckGo would be a decent acquisition, mostly for the PR value. Maybe use it as a gateway, then fold it in later.
I wouldn't bother with AV, no brand recognition ...except among old dawgs.
*IF* Y goes independent, it will be interesting to see whether they go for a clean, stark, less-ad-bloated UI with minimal self-promotion or the now crowded/hated load-ALL-our-crap version. Debbie says she'd follow G's example when they entered the market against AV and go minimalist.
Somewhere, sitting in the room, is the Safari search deal with Apple.
>minimalist
Agreed. They can probably come up with custom UI's 1. Distinct UI's for Apple desktop and another for mobile, that meets Apple's needs, 2. mobile for the masses, still minimalist, 3. desktop for the non-Apple masses.
More news:
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-tests-search-without-bing-branding-2015-4
They might be testing just dumping the Bing branding or testing for their own mobile search.
There are also a few articles starting to float around that Bing will be massively integrated into Win10. I see this as more than likely and it supports, at least coincidentally, the Y rumor.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/16/microsoft-and-yahoo-renew-search-allian/
So, it was basically posturing...
so, now that's sorted...what about apple/iphone/safari?
>>After October 1, either company can terminate the agreement "at will."
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/It-looks-like-Marissa-Mayer-drove-a-pretty-hard-6212631.php
Devil is in the details and it looks like things will get interesting.
I can't help but conclude from the above article, that Mayer is going to try and develop a search engine for Y! She may not have a copy of the current algo but she knows a lot about what works and does not work, both from a algo and about the display on the SERP's via all that research Google did in the past. That will certainly shorten the R&D time.
>what about apple/iphone/safari?
I think that is still lurking. That is the prize Y! is going after.
Possibly related:
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-to-build-siri-competitor-google-now-cortana-2015-4?
"Ms. Mayer said the company was developing mobile search tools to anticipate what on-the-go users might need, like boarding information for a flight"
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/technology/yahoo-quarterly-earnings.html
Profit way down, mostly due to paying for traffic.
Hmm, we might have a fork in the road here: 1. search product for OS X and iOS, 2. personal assistant (I can see this for Android but I'm having a hard time seeing Apple allowing the integration needed for iOS to replace Siri.