Strategic Management BA 4305-002
March 29, 2007
Can Yahoo! Maintain its Competitive Edge?
Yahoo! is one of the oldest and most well-known Internet content providers. Yahoo! offers one of the most diverse Internet websites and CEO Terry S. Semel has a goal of making Yahoo! into an Internet theme park, or a "digital Disneyland" (Shamsie 795). Semel believes that by expanding Yahoo!'s services and expanding broadband access, Yahoo! customers will stay on Yahoo!'s website and spend increasing amounts of time and money (795). Yahoo!'s biggest obstacle lies in its competition in the form of Google, AOL, and MSN. Google has dominated the search market which is a large portion of the revenue for an Internet provider. Yahoo! has diversified its services to offset the losses in the market for search engines and the accompanying advertising revenue. Yahoo!'s greatest challenges are to expand its market share and continue delivering returns to its shareholders.
General Environment of the Industry
The majority of customers in the Internet provider industry are young, technologically savvy customers that use the vast majority of the Internet. There is also a large growth market outside the United States, where many developing countries are rising in affluence and large populations of people are learning of the Internet experience for the first time.
Products in the Internet provider industry are very technologically advanced. The industry uses the latest and greatest technologies to gain and maintain its customer base as well as its advertising clients.
The advent of the Internet created a new arena for illegal activity as well as new problems with First Amendment considerations. Congress has responded to concerns from constituents rega ...