"Content vertical" is the term Yahoo uses to describe the major sections of the programmed content (as opposed to search, or mail, or Tumblr, or whatever) on their site.
It's tricky for Yahoo to communicate about how its business works, because Yahoo is the oldest and largest "portal" site, and so by design it tries to do (and milk revenue from) everything it can. Their business is complicated at a fundamental level by design, because sometime during the late 1990s, someone running Yahoo came to believe that the whole Internet was a kind of land grab, and the winner was going to be to the Internet what AOL was to, I don't know, the Internet for people who didn't know what the Internet was.
Since they're a huge public company, they have to communicate facts about their business to investors, with some precision, and so they expose you to terms like these.
A non-crazy way to think about Yahoo is like a magazine publisher that also owns a couple somewhat popular applications (mail, search). The "content verticals" are the magazines.
The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.
It's a subsection of the larger site, dedicated to a specific type of content. Vertical refers to them being fully-featured sites or application by themselves. For example, a real estate vertical might have search options dedicated to housing (number of bedrooms, square footage, etc), whereas the general site would only have generic search operators, not tailored to a specific use case.
"'To that end, today we will begin phasing out the following Digital Magazines: Yahoo Food, Yahoo Health, Yahoo Parenting, Yahoo Makers, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Autos and Yahoo Real Estate,' Nelson wrote in a Tumblr post."
"Vertical" as in a marketing channel for ads (disguised as a vaguely interesting website or publication).
In longer form: basically a codeword for "A once vaguely or perhaps genuinely interesting website / channel / magazine / whatever but which is now (through various nefarious means) in the possession of Megacorp X, which, in turn, couldn't begin to give a toss about the actual content (let alone the so-called "community" of once passionate viewers / readers), other than through the perception that they serve some marketing demographic Y, real or imagined, to whom, they would like to fancy, they can sell zillions and zillions of ads to."
A web application or applications which hosts writing, audio, video, or a mix of all three in the middle of purpose-written computer code. The writing/audio/video has a consistent theme; Thomas' analogy of a magazine is apt, or maybe a niche cable channel.
Yahoo spends some small X% of their resources on the web applications, some larger X% of their resources on the writing/audio/video, and some much larger X% of their resources on an advertising sales force which explains to e.g. brokerages why those brokerages should be investing their ad dollars on Yahoo Finance in parallel to MSNBC or Fortune Magazine.
Moreover, the phrase "content vertical" gets to the heart of Yahoo: Yahoo is a media company which just so happens to write in-house software occasionally, not a software company with a media arm.
This might be the first good move Yahoo has made since Mayer took over.
I can't think of a better example of a company that needs to shed worthless baggage and focus on high value propositions.
And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. They have hundreds of millions of users, at the point they are in giving all their users an automatic account on Yahoo Social might be a dick move, but it's time start taking risks and see what unfolds.
What would be the point of building a social network for Yahoo? Better engagement? I'm pretty sure they always have been a destination for much of their audience (as opposed to depending on social sharing to get eyeballs, like, say BuzzFeed). So I'm not sure they'd have a whole lot to gain from it. Of course, their audience probably will spend more and more time on social networks, so stemming that tide somehow might make sense.
Rather than building out a full-scale social network like Google+ they might be better served by aiming for something like Reddit, or HN. There's enough sociability and gamification to make it an engaging destination, but it's not confusingly trying to reproduce a Facebook. Of course maybe this kind of lightweight social network is what you meant in the first place.
They've already got Tumblr; they just need to... do something, anything at all with it, rather than just letting it sit there. Integrate Yahoo's various news properties into the feed, and vice-versa. Make all of the commenting on every Yahoo property into gradual-engagement reblogs on a Tumblr blog you're not even realizing you're creating as you're creating it. Etc.
They have made attempts at social network, with plans just the way you propose.
They had a major backend overhaul called OpenSocial, that was supposed to bring social networking to Yahoo. I think the overhaul took 5 years and the way I understood, their plan was to start build outward facing social networking once OpenSocial was completed.
When it was finally done, they had been through something like 2 CEO's and nothing came of it.
Quite happy to see the "content verticals" being scrapped (food, travel,etc.) and retained (news, finance, fantasy sports,etc), respectively, are exactly amongst those I had summarized with a product analysis of Yahoo 2 years ago (I was hoping to get a job in Yahoo's product team - which I didn't). As in my analysis, I think it's a great start but there are still a LOT more products that can be dropped while some of the strong ones boosted. Here is the product analysis - https://medium.com/@jharohit/a-new-yahoo-part-1-5b9288595635...
I love how Yahoo Answers is basically a crowd-sourced unit conversion engine that makes lots of mistakes. I notice it show up a lot below the Google-supplied unit conversion I'm actually seeking.
Let's just recap what happened to Yahoo since Marissa took over:
- wasn't able to turn the company around
- wasn't able to monetize tumblr
- wasn't able to capitalize on Alibaba shares
- wasn't able to deliver return to investors
- was able to parachute out of Yahoo with hundred million dollars+
Someone tell me, what CEO out there actually does anything that justifies their insane pay grade because often it looks like someone just waving a baton thinking he/she's a conductor despite how much the orchestra sucks.
Maybe if it actually began investing what it paid out to a revolving door of CEOs looking to make a cool hundred million dollars....just then Yahoo will be a stock worth buying.
"We know you come to Yahoo because of our distinct voice and unique blend of original content, aggregation and personalization."
That made me lol. They should just keep their gossip columns (half the news on the front-page). The comments on those articles are always entertaining.
I'd say this is an unavoidable decision.
Look into the stock price of Yahoo Inc. on Yahoo Finance, you will find out Yahoo should specialize its business/ contents a long time ago. If you set the range from 2000 to 2016, you will find a great drop there!
By the time anything is thought of a "content vertical" it's pretty much past its time, on autopilot editorially-wise, and generally worth disregarding anyway.
I can never figure out what it is Yahoo _does_. Their original core business (search) was demolished by Google many years ago. Their website looks exactly like any of a thousand different sketchy, clickbaity news aggregators, and all of the couple dozen "content verticals" in their sidebar are the same thing, only focused on a specific topics. They've also got a few services that other companies do substantially better (Mail, Weather, Flickr...) The only thing I see that's really relevant is Tumblr, which I hadn't even known was owned by Yahoo.
Is that what Yahoo is these days? Clickbait news and Tumblr? How are they still regarded as a major tech company?
[+] [-] snorrah|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|10 years ago|reply
It's tricky for Yahoo to communicate about how its business works, because Yahoo is the oldest and largest "portal" site, and so by design it tries to do (and milk revenue from) everything it can. Their business is complicated at a fundamental level by design, because sometime during the late 1990s, someone running Yahoo came to believe that the whole Internet was a kind of land grab, and the winner was going to be to the Internet what AOL was to, I don't know, the Internet for people who didn't know what the Internet was.
Since they're a huge public company, they have to communicate facts about their business to investors, with some precision, and so they expose you to terms like these.
A non-crazy way to think about Yahoo is like a magazine publisher that also owns a couple somewhat popular applications (mail, search). The "content verticals" are the magazines.
[+] [-] cft|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kzhahou|10 years ago|reply
Hope that helps!!
[+] [-] maxpupmax|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kafkaesq|10 years ago|reply
In longer form: basically a codeword for "A once vaguely or perhaps genuinely interesting website / channel / magazine / whatever but which is now (through various nefarious means) in the possession of Megacorp X, which, in turn, couldn't begin to give a toss about the actual content (let alone the so-called "community" of once passionate viewers / readers), other than through the perception that they serve some marketing demographic Y, real or imagined, to whom, they would like to fancy, they can sell zillions and zillions of ads to."
[+] [-] patio11|10 years ago|reply
Yahoo spends some small X% of their resources on the web applications, some larger X% of their resources on the writing/audio/video, and some much larger X% of their resources on an advertising sales force which explains to e.g. brokerages why those brokerages should be investing their ad dollars on Yahoo Finance in parallel to MSNBC or Fortune Magazine.
Moreover, the phrase "content vertical" gets to the heart of Yahoo: Yahoo is a media company which just so happens to write in-house software occasionally, not a software company with a media arm.
[+] [-] bksenior|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EasyTiger_|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lisper|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unixhero|10 years ago|reply
"I'm a CEO speak" for categories.
[+] [-] cpeterso|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] return0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alaskamiller|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smegel|10 years ago|reply
I can't think of a better example of a company that needs to shed worthless baggage and focus on high value propositions.
And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. They have hundreds of millions of users, at the point they are in giving all their users an automatic account on Yahoo Social might be a dick move, but it's time start taking risks and see what unfolds.
[+] [-] skewart|10 years ago|reply
Rather than building out a full-scale social network like Google+ they might be better served by aiming for something like Reddit, or HN. There's enough sociability and gamification to make it an engaging destination, but it's not confusingly trying to reproduce a Facebook. Of course maybe this kind of lightweight social network is what you meant in the first place.
[+] [-] derefr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidarh|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_360%C2%B0
[+] [-] emidln|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanp2k2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1024core|10 years ago|reply
3: Yahoo 360, Yahoo Kickstart and Yahoo Buzz.
[+] [-] wodenokoto|10 years ago|reply
They had a major backend overhaul called OpenSocial, that was supposed to bring social networking to Yahoo. I think the overhaul took 5 years and the way I understood, their plan was to start build outward facing social networking once OpenSocial was completed.
When it was finally done, they had been through something like 2 CEO's and nothing came of it.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jharohit|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AznHisoka|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanarothe|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calebegg|10 years ago|reply
Example: https://www.google.com/search?&q=what+is+3+lbs+in+kg+site%3A...
[+] [-] atrudeau|10 years ago|reply
Add Experts-Exchange to the blacklist while you're at it.
[+] [-] lostcolony|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nandemo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorgecurio|10 years ago|reply
- wasn't able to turn the company around
- wasn't able to monetize tumblr
- wasn't able to capitalize on Alibaba shares
- wasn't able to deliver return to investors
- was able to parachute out of Yahoo with hundred million dollars+
Someone tell me, what CEO out there actually does anything that justifies their insane pay grade because often it looks like someone just waving a baton thinking he/she's a conductor despite how much the orchestra sucks.
Maybe if it actually began investing what it paid out to a revolving door of CEOs looking to make a cool hundred million dollars....just then Yahoo will be a stock worth buying.
[+] [-] dfar1|10 years ago|reply
That made me lol. They should just keep their gossip columns (half the news on the front-page). The comments on those articles are always entertaining.
[+] [-] batmansmk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inesf|10 years ago|reply
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=YHOO+Interactive#{"custom...
[+] [-] tn13|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Laaw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbritton72|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kafkaesq|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandymcm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crackpotbaker|10 years ago|reply
If you can't value the state-of-the-art research being done in your labs, then you don't really value a thing.
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|10 years ago|reply
Is that what Yahoo is these days? Clickbait news and Tumblr? How are they still regarded as a major tech company?
[+] [-] cphoover|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] known|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SatoshiRoberts|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minimaxir|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]