Some Thoughts on Yahoo's "Peanut Butter Manifesto"

Now these are some very interesting thoughts from a senior member of Yahoo's executive team.

Dubbed the "Peanut Butter Manifesto" for its description of Yahoo's
strategy as "spreading peanut butter across [a] myriad [of] opportunities" that
results in "a thin layer of investment spread across everything" and a "focus on
nothing in particular," the memo calls for a major shake-up at the struggling
Internet giant. Garlinghouse's suggestions include a reduction in workforce by
15-20% and the elimination of duplicative functions between Yahoo's various
business units.

I think they should seriously concentrate on search and try to get the title of best search on the internet back. Yahoo's search engine is a massive joke that rarely finds anything that is worth searching for. Google is just head and shoulders better and they are using their success in search to bring in advertising dollars. The Yahoo experience can be summed up by having a great Toolbar full of useful stuff but then having to use the Google Toolbar to actually search for things. That means their content is great but some other company gets the money that could be going to them.

This peanut butter analogy is almost spot on. They have a ton of services but none of them are the best in category. They have a Personals that gets smashed by Match.com. They have Search Engine that gets smashed by Google. They have a Map function that is blasted by Google Earth/Mapquest. They have a Yahoo Communities that gets smashed by MySpace. Now they even have a Yahoo Videos section that sucks compared to YouTube.

I think they need to go item by item and strive to make each one the best in category. Or just simply concentrate on things that have the strongest revenue streams and forget the rest until those strong items are the best. I think that would be the only way Yahoo will keep themselves from being valued at 1/4 that of Google even though their revenue is only 1/3 less.