As Yahoo gets ready to re-invent itself globally after the search pact with Microsoft, Indian operations seem to be busy redefining the ?consumer experience?. Yahoo India managing director, Arun Tadanki claims to be studying each offering to ?consolidate our leading market position in the region?. In the last few months, Yahoo has revamped the homepage, enhanced mail and messenger and pulled the plug on India-specific social networking site SpotM. In a candid chat with Pragati Verma, Arun describes Yahoo?s plans to expand and consolidate business as the online landscape continually changes. Excerpts:
You have moved to Yahoo at a very challenging and interesting point?
Yes, in my first two days at Yahoo, most people shared the view that I could not have joined at a better time. There is a strong momentum in the company since the new leadership team has taken over. A lot of new products are hitting the market at a super pace.
You have recently revamped your homepage and mail offerings. Are you planning to rework the entire portfolio?
The first few days have gone gauging the pulse of consumers and advertisers. We are focused on putting the customer in the centre of everything we do. We want to be the centre of people?s online lives. I feel that relevancy of content plays a vital role in engaging our users further. And this includes advertisements. For example, an ad that is not relevant to the user will make no sense to him, and will therefore not be effective. If we observe that some ads excessively repeat themselves, we take steps to change that even if it doesn?t make business sense.
There are certain ads, which might be allowed in certain sections of the site. For instance, how often do you want to see a matrimonial ad on the website, if you are married? Some ads could slow the tracks on a narrow band connection and that will slow the experience for the user.
We also give a lot of importance to interactive engagement. Relevancy and targeting are important in delivering the right ad to the right consumer. As we work on removing irrelevant ads, we will enhance the experience by better and more relevant ad targeting. This benefits not only the advertisers who are looking for greater effectiveness and accountability, but also consumers who will only receive ads directly related to their needs and interests.
So are you targeting these ads only at a particular set of consumers, or do they also completely go off your portal?
We apply editorial judgment on all content, and sometimes even decide to remove some ads all together for editorial considerations. Sometimes you need to apply discretion based on your learning of user behaviour. This is how Yahoo! owns the experience holistically.
Yahoo global research head Prabhakar Raghavan says you are only outsourcing search at backend and will compete on search frontend. How does that work?
The search platform will be powered by Microsoft but the user experience will be led by Yahoo for Yahoo properties and Yahoo visitors. At this time, we are currently exploring future plans for the user interface. As part of our deal, Yahoo would retain full control over the resulting search page, including the layout of the page, applications used on the page, and even the number of search and paid search results themselves. We will continue to innovate in every aspect of the user experience.
Through the deal, the combined platform will continue to provide Yahoo with search results and ads, while at the same time ensuring that Yahoo will have the resources it needs to compete in other parts of its advertising business. The key is that we own all key advertiser relationships. As part of our deal, Yahoo would retain full control over the resulting search page, including the layout of the page, applications used on the page, and even the number of search and paid search results themselves.
Prabhakar was also excited about Yahoo?s search efforts like BOSS and SearchMonkey during his Indian trips? What is their fate after the deal with Microsoft?
Innovation is a way of life in the internet industry. I am sure all those efforts will continue. Search is a very important business to Yahoo. However, we are not just a search company and that is not the only thing we do. Everything that we are doing today includes ?open? and ?social? elements in it.
The Web no longer consists of walled gardens and it?s becoming more about innovating around third-party content/services so we can make it relevant to our own audience. For example, Y! updates are incorporating not only Y! Buzz and Flickr, but also Facebook and Myspace, Yahoo Cricket and YahooMovies.
You have recently removed some apps like SpotM. Is there more rationalisation in store?
As part of Yahoo?s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others. After careful consideration, Yahoo will no longer offer SpotM, a communications service that we experimented with in India. This was not launched for public and was one of the research and development initiatives undertaken by us. The effort is much stronger on the consumer insights especially in the social space.
We see social as an enabler and not a destination?it should be part of everything we do. Social is not merely a set of relationships between people, it?s a means by which people get things done like sharing/ conversation, consuming content, asking questions, coordination/planning and filtering information.
Our social strategy is to mirror real world experiences by creating social platforms on which people run their lives and get things done. My thought is that the game is far than over. And it is not necessary that we target the same users as other social networking sites might be targeting.
Yahoo has been talking about focusing on new users logging to internet. How do you plan to more inclusive?
It is more about understanding the behaviour?what would they like to do on the internet when they come in for the first time. We need to think about that segment quite differently. The environment in which they access the internet could be different and their needs could be different. Same is the case with users who experience Web only mobile phones. We are operating in this space with an open mind.
At the same time, there are people like you and me who use mobile extensively. We have done a lot of things that will sync the experience on a PC with what you can get on your mobile device. Browsing experience will actually drive the market because it is scalable. Like you are on the road somewhere, you need to find a restaurant. You can?t stand in front of the machine when you are on the road. We got to give that through a search experience.