The Google-fication of Yahoo!

Hugh Pickens writes "Since coming to Yahoo!, CEO Marissa Mayer has added a weekly, Friday afternoon all-hands meeting, just like at Google; she announced that henceforth the food in Yahoo's URLs Cafe will be free, just like at Google; and she has begun prepping major changes to the layout of the work spaces and buildings of Yahoo to make it feel more collaborative and cool, just like, well.. you get the idea. Such focus on improving cultural issues is an interesting initial move by the neophyte CEO, since the care and feeding and, most of all, cosseting of employees has been a critical element to Google's success at creating an always-sunny work environment. But Mayer has been up to much more serious business, said several sources, especially product innovation as the savior for Yahoo: Better email! Better search! Better ad-serving! And a special plea to make Flickr awesome again! In other words, better every product Yahoo has to offer. 'This is the sound of Yahoo becoming a technology company again,' says one source. 'It will be all about platforms and products.' Sources say that will likely mean a big splashy tech or product deal in the days ahead, perhaps via an acquisition to signal the new direction, perhaps with the acquisition of a sexy product like Flipboard. In the meantime, many at Yahoo are bracing for a pack of current and former Googlers — Mayer had a lot of loyal staffers — to come on board, writes Kara Swisher. 'And, by the looks of all the Googley changes at Yahoo, they'll feel right at home when they get there.'"

The obvious next shoe to drop...

[Mike Van Pelt]

Cue "Workplace Culture Patent Violation" lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

We Have To Modernize

[MightyMartian]

We have to modernize Yahoo so that when Microsoft and Google want to buy us out we can demand top price!

Do they discuss....

[Reasonable Facsimile]

... security measures at these all-hands meetings?

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/yahoo-confirms-apologizes-for-the-email-hack-says-still-fixing-plus-check-if-you-were-impacted-non-yahoo-accounts-apply/

Re:Good

[locopuyo]

Yahoo search used to be powered by Google. Now it is powered by Bing. Which is powered by Google.

Goolified?

[smittyoneeach]

Googlified?
It's all been tried
With smooth visage
Can't take our pride
Burma Shave

What about platforms

[Spy Handler]

Marissa should bring Steve Regge onboard so he can teach Yahoo people to eat their own dogfood and build a common platform around Flickr and YIM that will be API accessible for 3rd party developers to develop an ecosystem!

Re:Good

[jhoegl]

And all of it powered by Al Gore's internet!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing is the Samsung of the search world. They copy google's results but then fuck them up.

Re:Good

[publiclurker]

How about a garage sale.