Yahoo's Rise to Fame

Yahoo’s Rise To Fame

Student: Bill Nguyen

April 15, 2010

Yahoo’s Rise to Fame

Yahoo is perhaps one of the largest search engines and offers numerous other applications on its customized and local websites. It offers features such as file hosting, mailing, shopping and downloading features on its website and is a one-stop for nearly all online services. However it is not working in a safe industry as newer companies are launching and competition is fierce to grab the attention of individual customers. The case discusses the strategies and efforts of Yahoo to maintain its top position and the extent of its success in its efforts.

Yahoo’s Environment

Yahoo operates in a low barrier environment, where companies can easily be launched due to the ease of online launches. There is hardly any barrier to entries as websites can easily be launched via servers at low costs and people can launch any business if they have a solid idea and a strong product vision.

Yahoo is offering numerous features on its website and each of these services faces intense competition from small and large companies which exist online. These companies offer differentiated products, often times being more specific to the nature of their services, such as Youtube has dominated the video hosting category and Facebook dominating the social networking category. The environment in which Yahoo operates is highly competitive due to the nature of the products and the non-existent barriers to entry.

Another key feature of the environment for Yahoo is that Yahoo has a very broad market to defend. Unlike other online companies which have specific niches and can be identifiable with one or two specific applications, Yahoo has a brand identity which encompasses numerous activities and features. This means that Yahoo has a very broad service offering yet in the online industry this may not be a good thing. Yahoo has spread itself too thin and has to compete with a wide...