You ever heard of Yahoo/Kimo? No, probably not. It's the local unit of Yahoo and it's a sign of what's wrong with the company.

It held a *press conference* (wonder how Jerry Yang would feel about that?) this week to announce a 30 percent uptick in revenue based on increased ad sales. This in the midst of economic uncertainty led by shrinking consumer and corporate spending. The company itself admits its business model is shaky: Relying on selling *cut-rate* ads to troubled small local businesses. This comfortable, lazy position; lack of creativity and foresight in the local management, and over-reliance on a fading revenue stream will surely have repercussions. I'll give you 100-to-1 odds that the company won't be holding this kind of media event at the beginning of 2009!

Yahoo has held a strong position in the Taiwan Internet space for a while now. With Google making noise locally, regionally and certainly globally, the time would seem right for the innovative company to come in and sweep out the amateurs. Sources tell me Yahoo's local team is not so great and maybe couldn't fend off the competition.

For now, I'll enjoy my front-row seat at the Google/Yahoo deathmatch.

More to come
--jag 

 

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