Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Yahoo Bogosity: Marissa Mayer's Got Numbers -- Just Not the Right Ones




From Forbes: Call it growth, Yahoo-style.  Three months ago, glossing her new company’s fourth-quarter earnings, CEO Marissa Mayer dropped an impressive if context-free number, claiming to have resolved “resolved 385 of the high-priority obstacles our employees identified to us.”  This quarter, she had an even bigger number to report: Under her watch, Yahoo has launched no fewer than 567 “employee-focused initiatives.” That’s 182 more employee-focused initiatives launched than high-priority obstacles resolved, for those keeping score.

If Mayer’s been emphasizing the made-up metrics, it’s most likely because Yahoo has been having a tough time with the generally accepted ones.   It’s no mystery what’s going on. Yahoo disappointed on both the display advertising and search revenue fronts. The display performance was especially worrisome, with the total volume of ads sold falling 7% year over year and the price per ad dropping 2%...

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