The CEO and Board of Yahoo are in a turmoil while they continue discussions on finding the best option whether to return it to solvency or a shell corporation. The Discussion primarily revolves around the two major core assets Flicker and Tumblr and what the company should proceed with.
Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo projects three years to save Yahoo from the fall but the present scenario and intelligence suggests that it is soon to become a little more than a holding corporation. In this case, Yahoo will have to consider selling itself of bit by bit gradually. There are tons of small fish in the Yahoo Aquarium and here’s an insight to where its two most notable ones should probably end up…
Tumblr
A blogging platform aimed at Generation Y is more into imagery rather than static text. Should be a perfect buy for twitter since they have made signification improvements in live photo support and a GIF maker. Jack Dorsey of twitter had hinted the company’s 140-character tweet limit would expand to 10,000 characters with no other details mentioned. Incorporating Tumblr into Twitter wouldn’t be impossible as there is huge possibility that a 140-character tweet could lead to an expanded Tumblr taking us beyond 10,000 characters. Additionally Tumblr could also serve Twitters other properties as Embedded Vines and Periscope feeds. And when it comes to pop culture Tumblr would complement Twitter Moments. Tumblr would be a new bridge for those users who just don’t quiet ‘get’ Twitter to cross into the Twitter sphere.
Flickr
Flickr is a popular web destination for hosted imagery with features set directed towards professional photographers. If it’s put up for sale there would be plenty of companies in line who would love to acquire it. The best fit would probably be for Google not to mention Facebook would also very much benefit from the buy. Since both the big giants very much would love to get a shot at Flickr, they would have to see and analyze the benefits from the buy ;step by step. On one hand Google has been toying with surfacing Flickr images in search for quite some time and they like to filter everything through its search engine. Whereas, on the other hand Google has its own photo storage and search option, Google Photos which is awesome and has an impressive set of editing tools already in place and doesn’t need help from the Flickr image search. Flickr just adds to the mix but nothing meaningful for Google.
Facebook could certainly benefit from Flickr, though. The on-boarding process for imagery on Facebook is very dated as all you have to do take a picture, then upload it, and that’s about it. Integrating with Flickr’s tool set, Facebook users can enjoy a bit more control over creating great images within Facebook. Instead of just snapping pics and uploading, users could be able to edit the same to their personal best use filters seamlessly.
Facebook have always preferred to have in-house solutions rather than extensible products so they would probably need to work Flickr’s features into their platform which would absolutely make Facebook better. They already has Instagram at its disposal, but has yet to bring any of its features into the Facebook fold as any modification certainly requires some work.
Both these Platforms have been great for Yahoo and can make money for the firm and they would always consider just hanging on to them. But, Yahoo just made Flickr’s upload feature a paid one and this is not making its users happy. If Google or Facebook would have been the owners then most of the features (if not all) is likely to be free. The dedicated users really don’t care who owns them as long as their stewardship remains intact and they can enjoy benefits from the same.
The inner details of what’s going on at Yahoo is still it’s a mystery but something has to gibe and if the board gets its way then it’s very likely that they will sell off their assets and do a little more than sit on the Alibaba stock. And Users can certainly cross their fingers and hope that Flickr and Tumblr go to the right buyers and enjoy some new features and benefits from this sell off.
