18 Easy Ways to Fix Yahoo!

The year was 1995, my exposure to the Internet was much like my bandwidth at the time... limited. In fact I wasn't really sure what the Internet even was. For the years leading up to this my experience was localized, spent on the many BBSs (bulletin board systems) nearby. It was here, in ASCII purgatory that I made my first connection to web, I think back then we called it something silly like "the information superhighway".The process was clunky at best, a piggy back of a local BBS with the aid of Winsock and Netscape 1.0. I was guided through it by an anonymous connection on the other end. A sysop, eager to show off his new tech. Once the connection was finally made there was just one question, now what?"Try this website, www.yahoo.com. I think they are some type of directory for the Internet." he typedAnd there it was, suddenly the world became very flat for me. Compared to what is available online today it was a paltry selection, nevertheless epic. I imagine for grid connectors of the day, Yahoo was among their first online "homes". Once again we called them something silly, "portals". Some of you may even have Yahoo accounts older than your car. I know I do.So call me nostalgic if you must, but all the recent trouble over at Yahoo actually makes me sad. Like many, I've long replaced my search needs with Google. However I'm still jumping on Yahoo services all the time. In fact I think many outside of the tech world are still very content with the site. So why all the doom and gloom?Today I went through their vast list of services, perhaps some of the issues lie right here. On that list you'll find over 100 services, some integrated into Yahoo others completely separate properties. I think its time Yahoo looked closely here and started slashing. I know its not that easy, but lets play God Yang for a bit here and do it for them. Of course some of these services are useful, they just need better integration into the core of Yahoo.Heres looking at you, Yahoo:

1. 360: The social network that never was. Lose it, integrate interesting features directly into the Yahoo profile system.
2. Answers: One of the few great new services to come out of Yahoo recently. Introduce more moderators and integrate some of the Yahoo Answers content into search.
3. Bix: This service rates videos in a "hot or not" format. Seems pretty useless, lose it.
4. Bookmarks: Why have multiple services performing the same task? Lose it and shift users to del.icio.us.
5. Buzz: Another of the great products to come down the pipe recently. Keep growing this, include buzzed content in search results.
6. del.icio.us: Have you forgot about this one? It's the best book marketing service around and you've barely taken it for a spin since you bought it. Release the redesign already, expand usage of del.icio.us content into search results.
7. DSL/Dialup: Why do you still continue to offer this service? I think by now, most consumers look to their local cable providers before thinking of Yahoo for their net connection. Lose it.
8. Flickr: Hard to complain about anything here, continue to push visitors to the service when possible.
9. Geocities: Geocities is some what of joke throughout the collective conscience of Internet users. I'm sorry, you didn't know? Well it is, lose it.
10. Green: Continue to grow vertical properties like this. Reach out to other websites (even search engines) for syndication.
11. Jumpcut: You have yet another video/photo service? I've never even heard of this one. It does offer some interesting remix features. Yank these out for use on Flickr video, toss out the rest.
12. Mobile: Keep pushing mobile, you have tons of great services here many don't know about. Lean heavy towards the iPhone.
13. omg!: Celebrity gossip, others do this much better than you. Toss this crap out and better syndicate this type of vertical content. Look at sites like WeSmirch for inspiration.
14. Search: The main piece, the historic yet falling search box. I don't think there is any easy fix here. Google does advertising much better than you so let them. If they want to show search results here, I would also say let them. Look at what you do well and do a better job of integrating this content into search.
15. Search Marketing: Not really sure why you offer this or even label it as such. I've dealt with your "Search Marketing" division. It seems when you sign up for some credit cards or open a business license you get a call from them. They are annoying, pushy salesmen spewing BS. Fire the telemarketers first and shut the rest down.
16. Upcoming: Another good acquisition that doesn't seem to get much love. I'm not sure what can be improved here or than integration with Flickr and search.
17. Video: Your third of fourth video service, is this one profitable? If not cut it loose and focus your users to Flickr video.
18. Web Hosting: Another service that seems odd for such a company. Is it widely profitable? I ran a small web hosting business and it was a pain in the ass. Tons of low paying and low tech customers sounds like a resource nightmare to me.

What do you think of the Yahoo Everything list? A solid portfolio or simply another example of boring blue shirts gone wild?Update: Richard MacManus over at Read Write Web has a nice related post that references this list. Reminds us of the Peanut Butter Manifesto and Jerry Yang's 100 days.Seems Jerry is doing a bit of guest blogging over at the fake steve jobs blog.