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I wonder if this is due to technical delays or fear of problems bumping up to the big Christmas ramp-up?
Either way, it looks like the old Yahoo bid management tools have a stay of execution for a little while longer (any thoughts on how they may adapt, or just fade away?).
Mike
I wonder if this is due to technical delays or fear of problems bumping up to the big Christmas ramp-up?
Inane to schedule such a roll-out (with such skechy implementation detail) for back-to-school, then the Holidays anyhow...
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It looks like Yahoo! investors won't have any reason to yodel following the company's slightly disappointing second-quarter results and forecast for the third quarter issued Tuesday.The company also announced during a conference call with analysts that long-awaited improvements to its search technology, which were expected to be rolled out at the end of the summer, will now be delayed until the fourth quarter. The stock nosedived after hours on the news.
Influential market research firm comScore Networks, which tracks online traffic, reported Tuesday that search queries at Yahoo sites in the second quarter were up 13 percent from the first quarter and 21 percent higher than a year ago while Google's search volume increased 15 percent from the first quarter and 55 percent from the same period last year.comScore also reported that Google maintained its wide lead in search over Google during June. Google finished the month with a 44.7 percent share of the search market, compared to 28.5 percent market share for Yahoo.
"The most interesting thing is that delaying improvements to Yahoo's search adds to the book of evidence that other companies are not able to keep up with Google," Moran said. "Yahoo is saying we're not there yet and all the while Google is gaining share and showing better results."
What really scares me is that the search numbers are way up and that's without the MSN numbers. Makes you wonder where these results are coming from.
They also seem to be hanging the future of the company on this "Panama" revamp. That can only mean more costs to us for traffic and conversions that are more dubious by the day.
On another forum a Yahoo! rep said in August 2005 that a new DTC would be rolled out early next year (i.e. early 2006). Looks like we will have to wait until early 2007 now!
It reminds me more and more of the disaster at Sprinks & later, FindWhat. These folks just don't have control of things. Over has always had trouble with even simple updates - what makes anyone think that a major overhaul like this is going to be any better.
I don't see a rosy future for Yahoo and if I was holding any stock I'd be dumping it.
[edited by: skibum at 2:28 pm (utc) on July 19, 2006]
According to Semel:
[/quote]“I didn’t want to take it to the market if it was not quite ready and not quite the quality it should be...”
Mr. Semel added that he was wary of changing the system that now accounts for the bulk of Yahoo’s revenue too close to the holiday shopping season, which is also the peak time for advertising. That raises the possibility that the company could wait until next year to switch to the new system...[/quote]
In a way, this is not surprising because Overture has a history of wobbly rollouts.
Do you think this won't roll out until after the holidays?
Our agency rep called last week specifically to tell us that this would be happening around the end of Q3.
Heh, our rep confirmed on Monday this would happen within the next 2 weeks. I forwarded the press release yesterday, no reply so far.
Do you think this won't roll out until after the holidays?
Listening to the implementation detail at last month's Advertiser Summit on the topic, this implementation was going to be a disaster... no roll-back ability, no Google bulk import until *after* a hatchet-job 'automated' conversion, no history imported whatsoever...
Perhaps, they'll take a bit longer (i.e. Q1 2007) to do it the smart way. I mean, if you've waited since 1998 to make an update - what's a few more months? ;)
they need a kick like this up the backside to get their act together
Heh, our rep confirmed on Monday this would happen within the next 2 weeks. I forwarded the press release yesterday, no reply so far.
Same thing hapened with the change from 190 chars to 70 in the description. The rep said, oh it's a ways off won't be happening for a few months and then practically the next day everything changed.
The reps have been great working with us on day to day stuff but some better internal communication would definitely help in planning.
The reps have been great working with us on day to day stuff but some better internal communication would definitely help in planning.
It is becoming more and more obvious that the last thing management at Overture/Yahoo wants is up to date communication between it's advertisers and the reps.
Keep them in the dark and keep shoveling s**t at them.
The same thing happened when other 2nd tier PPC engines started falling apart.
A Microsoft acquisition must be getting more likely.
* Poor conversions
* Poor traffic/doesn't respond/doesn't care.
* Anti-business/hostile attitude amongst yahoo towards its own customers.
* Frequently bans their own small, medium, dont-do-any-seo customers in their SERPS for no rhyme or reason.
Imagine you paid for a prominent lisitng in the phone book/yellow pages, that was reviewed by a human, but when you performed a "search" in the phonebook your listing was banned/non-existant... and this was frequent/common to ban your own paying customers. Sorry that may have worked a few years ago when they were the only game in town. Times have changed but their attitudes towards their customers haven't.
a "new" interface is a joke. The Old interfaced worked fine a few years ago when you could plunk down X amount and get some quality clicks. Now its garbage traffic and clicks to try and rip off their customers and a new interface wont fix that.
Someone at Yahoo better wake up soon, or that company is headed for bankruptcy as far as in concerned.
* Poor conversions
* Poor traffic
Their sales pitch here in Asia is still "we have 14 search engines that will display your advertising". (The number 14 might be wrong now .. but it was in the mid teens).
With their strong media focus, I have no doubts that they will bounce back and right now the stock price is a decent bargain. Yahoo has more depth than any other search engine and really should be viewed as a long term play and not a technology / algorithm of the day play IMO.
I'd view this as a good opportunity for people who tend to think beyond a quarter or two, to buy a few bargain priced shares.
The reps have been great working with us on day to day stuff but some better internal communication would definitely help in planning.
Better communication full stop would be useful. Ask 3 reps the same question and you can often get 3 different answers...
Why has it taken years to create a new DTC? I just don't get it...
Yahoo! only have themselves to blame for their current problems - mostly down to poor communications and planning. If they handled processes, staff and customers better they could be making so much more money.
Vegas? What will Yahoo! show us there?
