http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/technology/yahoo-aims-to-produce-more-original-reporting.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw
Yahoo dominates online news, sports, and finance, but if you were to ask someone on the street what the top brand of news was, they wouldn't say Yahoo... hence why Yahoo has eyeballs and not a voice. The whole article is about Yahoo trying to get more of a voice to help their company out-do competition. The fact that they didn't have a voice to begin with, makes me think that there isn't very good teamwork behind their strategies. Jain Singh is a recently new editor in chief of Yahoo, who seems to be making things better at Yahoo, and i believe has been putting teamwork into better effect. One example, is that he has instituted weekly meetings of the editors from each section to talk about coming coverage and special projects, whereas before, separate sections often failed to talk to each other.
Yahoo is now trying to personalize it's site so that topics appear that are more in tune with the taste of each individual user. To do this, you would need plenty of teamwork... everyone has different tastes, and i'm sure each employee differs in their tastes, and would be able to give good input how to personalize the site to fit some individuals tastes.
Yahoo is also trying some different things with social networking related to facebook and an app for the iPad so that users may be more likely to use Yahoo.
Yahoo is best in their sports section and is what has been most helpful at keeping people on Yahoo longer.
I would say before Yahoo realized they needed to find a voice, and before Jai Singh started at Yahoo, teamwork wasn't as strong as they are becoming now. Yahoo can't accomplish what they are trying to do without good teamwork.
Do you think that Yahoo will be able to build their teamwork up enough to succeed? What do you think Yahoo could do to improve their teamwork?
-Kylie Merth
I believe that they already succeeded. They have more views than any other of their competitors. What they need to do is make their viewers think of them more often. By having different sections put together special projects it will increase awareness from viewers. If the site could be personalized to the preferences of individual users it would make finding stories easier. This would ultimately make viewers think of Yahoo first and use Yahoo for their primary source of information.
ReplyDeleteAs already in use, I think it is a good idea to hold meetings among separate sections to share ideas and collaborate to work on special projects.
-Steven Stanek
To succeed, most any company needs teamwork. So if Yahoo continues to focus on strengthening teamwork within the company, they will grow. Since they are a company that isn’t founded on teamwork, they are going to need to teach their employees the value and need of teamwork. They should have team building exercises and workshops that can make them see how important it will be to the company. Once the employees see how important team work is, then that will be key to the success of the company.
ReplyDeleteCreating a higher level of teamwork will be ideal for getting Yahoo more well-known and talked about. The different teams can come up with different ideas together, that would have never been thought about individually and then use them to help Yahoo grow.
I feel that up to this point Yahoo has been a very successful company. As the article said, they have the most viewers. This fact was very surprising to me because as most people I wouldn't name them off as the top news company. I do feel though that we are entering a new way of doing business and that the practices that Yahoo currently implements needs to change.
ReplyDeleteIn order for yahoo to make this major change they need to be able to work together like you said. If they don't then they won't be able to improve. I think that the sports division has done this right but I feel that it's now their duty to help the rest of the divisions improve.
I also think one of Yahoo's bigger problems is that they are trying too much at one time. They are trying a new app, a new outlook on their news and social networking. If they try to do too much at one time without a good enough team then they will fail.
This last comment was by Rebecca Doukas
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