Yahoo Hopes Internal Shifts Add More Yoo-Hoos

Have you seen Google in the news?  Do you use Google's services to get your news?  As Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land reports, a lot of people use Google across multiple verticals.

Yoo-hoo!  Remember Yahoo, a company that could've gotten friendly with Facebook to the point of making it a part of the family, a company who Microsoft wanted to get close to too?  Today, Yahoo is in the news, shifting the board of directors around in hopes to make forward momentum.

As Sterling's article showcases, though regularly first or second (behind Google) in search statistics (Comscore's December 2011 stats), Yahoo has made no significant improvement in recent years in a number of verticals: media, retail, travel, autos, finance, and health.

Yahoo plans to replace half of its board of directors.  Two new members have been appointed:  Maynard Webb and Alfred Amoroso; the brand intends to 'search' for more.  A New York Times article indicates both new appointees have dense, digital technological experience.  Webb is former chief exec of LiveOps, an online call center services provider.  From 1999 to 2006, Webb quarterbacked multiple departments for eBay.  Amoroso is a director of Rovi, serving as the company's chief exec until last December.  Amoroso also has a past, as a top exec at I.B.M.'s Asian services business.

What's interesting in the reflection of usage from the Sterling article (as he points out) is the exclusion of Facebook from the statistics.  How many people are using Facebook?  As another Times article suggests, some numbers (especially coming from Facebook) could be misleading.

Facebook proudly boasts about its 845 million monthly users and 483 "daily active users."  Those numbers are impressive, and likely issued in lieu of its IPO.  However, those numbers are subjective, depending on what you consider to be an 'active' user.  For instance if you click on one of the Facebook icons below WebiMax SEO blog articles, you're considered an active user.  Would you agree?  Would you if you were Facebook execs, wanting to accrue as many user numbers as possible to impress investors?

That's likely the brand of pressure executives at Yahoo are up against.  Competing neck and neck in search with Microsoft, and making no immediate waves on the social or mobile scene (neither is Facebook at the moment) is not inspiring anyone to shout about Yahoo's extraordinariness.  That's the newly-appointed job of Webb and Amoroso (and to-be announced board members) - to make more people give Yahoo a 'yoo-hoo,' but, is it too late to shift the statistics?