Yahoo!, the oldest web company still in business was founded 20 years ago by Jerry Yang and David Filo. It was, and still is, a directory or search engine to help people navigate the web. When Yahoo! came on the scene the WWW was not what it is now. You could actually count the websites back then. It could be said that Yahoo! was the Internet’s first golden child. My how times have changed.
Now Yahoo! is known as a cauldron of intrigue, dysfunction, and fascination and it may be dying as we know it. Yahoo! used to be so cool. Critics say that the company failed to keep up with the explosion of mobile and social networking. Despite multiple turnaround plans, nothing has really worked. Now it is rumored that Yahoo! may be selling off its Internet businesses and maybe even itself.
Earlier this month Yahoo announced it was laying off 15 percent of its 11,000-strong workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs. It is also closing a number of overseas offices cutting as much as $400 million in expenses. In addition to those cost cutting measures the company is also shutting down some of its web businesses including Yahoo! Food, Yahoo! Health, Yahoo! Parenting, Yahoo! Makers, Yahoo! Travel, Yahoo! Autos, and Yahoo! Real Estate.
Yahoo!’s biggest move in recent history is its purchase of the social media website Tumblr for $1 billion. But that has not helped the overall picture. Now the company is selling itself either whole or in pieces.
In the business world Yahoo! is commonly known as a fallen angel. That means it is a company that has value but is not performing the way it should. That would explain why there some pretty big name players that are looking at buying some or all of Yahoo! or even a merger.
Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. are companies that are expressing interest. Other investors that are said to be looking into Yahoo! are Bain Capital Partners, KKR & Co. and TPG.
Time Incorporated, publishers of Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Fortune magazines, may be looking into merging with Yahoo’s core digital operations that could deliver Yahoo! from being sold in pieces. According to Bloomberg, executives from Time Inc. were considering the merger following a presentation from Citigroup bankers pushing the deal.
As we all have known Yahoo! it seems to be coming to an end. Questions are everywhere about the future of the company; can a buyer be found or will the company be slowly sold off piece by piece? What will the remainder of Yahoo! look like and how will it affect its millions of customers and email account holders? Will advertisers slowly move away draining the life blood, money, from the company? Can a buyer rebuild the brand into a force again? Only time will tell.
