wow - just wow.

I knew something was going to happen with her, when they pulled her off the UI two years ago when Larry took over.

Maybe she can get YPN going again and make it work!

Guess she'll be running for governor next.

Maybe Yahoo will make something of itself now. Hands down better than anyone in the last 10 years or so that Yahoo! has had.

Marissa is a dynamic choice, someone with a proven record. I am excited for Yahoo's future. She is a far better choice than the usual tired old suits Yahoo had previously been considering.

Wow ! But on reflection..Good choice..she may be just the "scary" that is needed at Y..

Unless he is running her as a "sleeper"..( time will tell )..Larry has not played this as well as he could have.. "keep those who could be a threat close" ..appears to have slipped his mind..

A good story about "How Google's Marissa Mayer Prevents Burnout [entrepreneur.com]" was posted 6 weeks ago on Entrepreneur. ;)

In other ironic news, she hasn't updated her Google+ profile [plus.google.com]. It still says "Works at Google."

She has the best shot yet of anyone at Yahoo lately but it takes more than one person. She won't be able to do it alone and if she has to try to do it alone, she'll be gone within 18 months as well. Seems to be an overall dysfunction there that has festered for many years.

First piece of good news re Yahoo! that I've heard in a long, long time. Good luck, Ms. Mayer. A lot of us out here are rootin' for ya.

What a great choice. Someone at Yahoo! did a great job of recruiting her.

She won't be able to do it alone...

Sounds like she's focusing on that already. Acocording to the article:

She said she hoped... to attract new talent from Silicon Valley to the company. “Talent is what drives technology companies,” she said.

In other ironic news, she hasn't updated her Google+ profile [plus.google.com]. It still says "Works at Google."

Looks like she stopped using it a few months ago until the Yahoo! update.

I am just guessing here but I think that this will not be the last Googler making the jump from G to Y.

Interesting.

Mrs. Mayer will have a hard time. While she may partly be behind the success of Google search product, she had been also for years the head of product at Google. And what successes did she have there? Has there been any other overwhelming success apart from Google search? Or have they just been throwing product over product to the wall to see which sticks?

Yahoo! itself is a dinosaur that basically has dying products. E-Mail? Still attracts eyeballs galore but is getting less important by the day. Search? Comes from Bing. Finance? Yawn. Flickr? Once a frontrunner in social networking, it has seen a slow death after several bad decisions since their acquisition by Yahoo!

Reminds me of the (equally) overvalued Tim Armstrong running AOL. Much praise, few results. Admittedly, Armstrong did not sink the company, so he must be doing something right.

I think that Mayer's results at Yahoo! will be similar despite all the praise. (Also, according to the linked article, she seems to be pregnant, and THIS may change her life A LOT. Probably more than she is willing to admit right now.)

But I agree with most analysts that Mayer is at least a glimpse of hope for Yahoo! I wouldn't bet the house, though, that she will be able to turn around the company.

Something of a poisoned chalice.

For some odd reason, I still use my Yahoo email account occasionally, and the comparison of its performance, in all departments (speed, spam, control, interface etc), gives a searingly acute impression of what this poor lady is up against.

Call Hannibal and his elephants!

Somehow, this may not end well for Dear Leader Larry and Google especially if more Googlers make the jump to Yahoo. Google is vulnerable because there is so much cruft in its SERPs, a web full of irritated webmasters (Google's Animal Farm updates),and its once clean interface is awfully kludgy. Yahoo might be able to beat it with a cleaner and simpler to use set of SERPs that do not overload the user.

Regards...jmcc

@zett

Has there been any other overwhelming success apart from Google search?

Google Adwords and Adsense?

Regards...jmcc

@jmcc

Google Adwords and Adsense?

Er, yes, sure.

Adwords and Adsense derived from the acquisition of Applied Semantics in 2003. So, strictly speaking, this is not something that Google developed inhouse.

In any case, I see Adwords in a bundle with Google Search (one wouldn't be without the other). It is thus the base for the success of Google. It is Google's cash cow.

Adsense, on the other hand, has seen its best times a couple of years ago. Just have a look at the Adsense forum here to see that improvements to the program are demanded from webmasters (but not delivered by Google).

Google has many failed products (Base? Wave? Pages? Feedburner?) and abandoned acquisitions (Blogger? Panoramio? Orkut? Groups?) that have barely survived the hype.

Mayer and her team must have been responsible for the creation of this multi-headed hydra, so to see her to turn a similar multi-headed hydra (Yahoo!) into a cool, slim, focused service is hard to believe.

Good luck to her. It's going to be a lot of work to turn Yahoo! around, but she is the best candidate in years IMO.

Mrs. Mayer will have a hard time. While she may partly be behind the success of Google search product, she had been also for years the head of product at Google. And what successes did she have there? Has there been any other overwhelming success apart from Google search? Or have they just been throwing product over product to the wall to see which sticks?

She wasn't actually in charge of products. I'm pretty sure she spent most of her time on the User Interface, and then on Local stuff.

The User Interface was a huge success. There's a school of thought that Google's success compared to other search engines was really a marketing triumph based on the UI. The search results were not that different to other engines, what made G stand out was the clean user interface, and even after they put in ads, they were discreet and clearly delineated. It's only after Marissa Mayer gets moved to Local do we see the UI change, not just in color scheme but in the way the yellow box of the ads has been diluted to the point where it's hard to see.

To me that shows that she understands how searchers and users feel about things (which is rare, everyone, including webmasters, tends to focus on what they want out of a site, especially more revenue, at the expense of the user experience).

If she can transform Yahoo's marketing of itself, who knows what will happen? I'm pretty sure we'll see a new "look" to Yahoo (and remember that part of Bing's launch involved the look with teh daily picture for example - how things look matters, it's not just about technology).

The yellowpages found temporary reprieve as a booster seat, door stop, desktop monitor eye-level elevator, bug smasher.

Come quick, Marissa. I'm unable to smash bugs with Yahoo!.

I think that some people are conflicted between wanting to see Google fail and Marissa Mayer succeed with Yahoo. Imagine all that wasted Animal Farm SEO if Yahoo gets going in search again. :)

Regards...jmcc

Bing powers Yahoo search and now a former Google exec runs Yahoo. I can't figure out if Bing should be worried or if Google should be worried about possible trade secrets being... ?

@Sgt_Kickaxe Yeah because Yahoo really needs to implement Animal Farm to get its search on the same level as Google? :) It is all very confusing but it should be very interesting to see what she does. Of all, Dear Leader Larry and Google should be very worried because Yahoo still has a significant share of Search and if webmasters are dealt with properly and Yahoo restarts its search engine, it could see more sites being optimised for Yahoo. Imagine if Yahoo reached some kind of deal with Facebook. I guess well see more press releases about the Google 'knowledge graph' if this happens.

Regards...jmcc

She's lucky. There is not much to break at Yahoo so maybe they'll let her do brave things

Its a huge score for Yahoo, after parading through a conga line of people who were not very well suited for such a critical mission.

Makes you wonder a bit about the karma at Google these days though, if she would leave their to join Yahoo.

Yahoo's new CEO is also a hyper partisan 1%'er.

In 2010, she held a fundraiser at her house for President Barack Obama and has given to Obama annually since 2007.

Last year, Mayer contributed $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

Mayer is an active Democratic fundraiser. In 2011, she gave $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee. In 2010, she gave two donations of $30,400 to the DNC, according to Open Secrets.

She also has bundled between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama for America and Obama Victory Fund 2012, according to the Obama campaign.

Now Google can point to Yahoo! and say "see? even more competition!"

ork ork

So, Y! thinks Mayer is talented enough to run the company while last year G promoted someone to a position above her. Guess it didn't take her long to read the tea leaves.

Still, announcing as Y! CEO and being preggers on the same day must be some experience.