I was reading this article on Jerry Yang and his direction for the flailing Yahoo company and a question occurred to me.
Does Yahoo even matter anymore? Is it relevant? Would it be missed?
I am starting to think not. When I go over the list of all the things I do on the web, I come up with two interaction points with Yahoo, and both of them are very easily replaced. Let’s take a peek at Yahoo’s core business units and see how fragile they really are as a company. I think a good litmus test for validity is how they would be missed tomorrow. So let’s say for argument’s sake that they closed shop and let infrastructure in tact for a reasonable period to forward email, etc.
Communication
Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger could both be instantly replaced by any consumer with very little effort by a myriad of services. A few that come to mind are it’s two largest competitors, so some walk to Gmail and Gtalk and the rest go to Live Mail (Hotmail) and MSN, check, done and call it a day.
Content
Yahoo! Sports, Finance, Music, Movies, Answers, Games… all of these services are duplicated all over the net and in many cases done better. Sure they are widely used and generate billions in ad revenue, but if they fell silent tomorrow, how big of a raise in traffic would MSN.com receive, I am betting alot, and I am also betting that other than a few disparate bookmarks scattered across millions of PCs, they would be quickly forgotten. If you don’t believe me, ask AOL.
Mobile
Again, the biggies cover you with Live services on Windows Mobile and plenty of Google services on standard phones. iPhone has them all covered in spades. I don’t see a great consumer outcry here.
Search
Ok, so 80% change their home page to Google and the rest leave their default on Live when they install the Microsoft Live! services to replace Yahoo! Messenger. Ask.com gets four more users and five people notice that Altavista still exists…how?
Commerce
Yea, cause it’s so hard to find places to shop on the web 
Small Business
I hope my big daddy employer gets some big wins here with some of the awesome services we have coming soon (I can’t talk about them yet but keep your eyes peeled) but Google’s got tons of solutions here that would sap up Yahoo in minutes. It would also make room for many more capable boutique services to show what they can do.
Advertising
Duh, Microsoft and Google have an open cage fight and there are justice officials on all four corners of the ring to make sure nobody brings in a folding chair…ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE!!!!
Conclusion
The point is, who cares? This is one cut throat industry and if you aren’t truly innovating and providing fast, seamless, unobtrusive services, you die. Yahoo! is crumbling and the wolves are circling, it’s time for Jerry Yang to rethink what he means by “fair price.” While is stock holders stoke the fire they are building to burn him for not taking Microsoft’s first offer, he better start trying to figure out how he can beg them to make a second one. With the economy where it is, even Microsoft is wary of spending money so Yahoo! would have to come with one hell of a Big Lots style clearance tag to get a taker.