Transcript Sweet Spot Case Study Rahul Gupta 9/11/03 CS453 E-commerce Technologies

Sweet Spot Case Study
Rahul Gupta
9/11/03
CS453 E-commerce Technologies
Background
• Two founders from Stanford: David Filo and Jerry
Yang [4]
• Started in February 1994 in a campus trailer [7]
• Incorporated in March 1995 [6]
• In April 1995 funded by Sequoia Capital with an
initial investment of about $2 million [7]
• Went public in April 1996 [6]
• Corporate Headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA [6]
• Director and former-CEO of Yahoo, Timothy
Koogle, is a Wahoo! [6]
Why was it started?
• Started as a way to keep track of their personal
interests on the Internet [7]
• Evolved into a complete online navigational guide
[7]
• Initially called “Jerry's Guide to the World Wide
Web” [7]
• Yahoo! acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical
Officious Oracle” [7]
• Definition of Yahoo accepted by creators: rude,
unsophisticated, uncouth [7]
What’re the consumer functions?
• Provides internet content from over 2000 top-ofthe-industry providers in areas such as news,
travel, sports, games, and weather. [6]
• Provides commerce services such as shopping,
auctions, finance, and classifieds. [6]
• Provides communications services such as Mail,
Messenger, Photos, Greetings, and Clubs. [6]
• Yahoo! Everywhere provides consumers with
mobile access to information via devices including
wireless phones, two-way pagers and PDAs. [6]
What’re the enterprise functions?
• Marketing: Enables agencies and clients to find
and connect to audiences through Fusion
Marketing. [6]
• Business and Enterprise Services: Integration of
commerce, communications and media into web
portal and similar services via Corporate Yahoo!,
Yahoo! Broadcast Services, Yahoo! Small
Business. [6]
• Premium Services: Yahoo! Store, Business
Express, Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Yahoo! Auctions,
Yahoo! Bill Pay, and extra mail storage. [6]
Who are the customers?
• More than 237 million unique worldwide
users in 25 countries and 13 languages
(December 2001). [4]
• 93 million active registered users [5]
• More than 1.5 billion page views a day [5]
How does Yahoo! compare?
Taken from reference [9]
How it compares cont’d
Taken from reference [9]
Awards
Taken from reference [9]
Why is Yahoo special?
Taken from reference [9]
Front-end of main portal
Taken from reference [1]
Front-end of Yahoo! Search
Taken from reference [2]
Front-end of Yahoo! Auctions
Taken from reference [3]
Back-end
• Yahoo at first used a proprietary server-side page
language written in C/C++ [5]
• Transitioned to PHP in 2002 [5]
• 4500+ servers in 16 co-locations [5]
– USA: Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Diego, Washington
DC, Dallas
– Intl: England, Central America, South America, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Australia, India, Japan,
Korea
Acquisitions
Yahoo! has acquired
twenty companies since
its start. [6]
Taken from reference [6]
Financial information
• The opening price of
Yahoo!'s stock on the day of
the IPO was $13.00 per
share and the closing price
on that day was $33.00 per
share. [6]
Taken from reference [10]
How’s Yahoo! doing now?
• For Fiscal Year 2002 [8]:
– Revenue per average Unique User per month:
$0.40
– Net Revenues Total: $953.1 million
– Net income (loss): $42.8 million
– Net income (loss) per share: Diluted: $0.07
– Free Cash Flow: $221.0 million
Spectacular successes
• According Nielsen/NetRatings 8/2002,
Yahoo! is the World’s most trafficked
Internet destination. [5]
• First all-encompassing portal/guide to the
Internet [4]
• Takes number 1 spot on corporate desktops,
with a 70%+ reach in the U.S. workplace[4]
Spectacular successes cont’d
Taken from reference [9]
My Thoughts on Yahoo!
• I believe that Yahoo! is going to continue to be very
successful due to it’s extremely wide breadth. It turned a
healthy profit early in its history and each year that profit
has increased. I predict that it will continue this same trend
in the coming years.
• Yahoo! Search is a great feature designed to rival the
simplicity of Google, but it might not be enough to
recapture the customer-base that Google has earned. I
personally use Google as my main search engine because it
gets me what I want quickly and accurately.
• Even with so many formidable competitors I believe that
overall Yahoo! is still unique due to the fact that it seems to
have everything that most people use on a day to day basis
such as search, auctions, sports coverage, news,
directories, music, movie reviews, and email.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Yahoo!: http://www.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Search: http://search.yahoo.com/
Yahoo! Auctions: http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/
Company Overview: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/overview.html
Making the Case for PHP at Yahoo!:
http://public.yahoo.com/~radwin/talks/yahoo-phpcon2002.htm
FAQ: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/pr/faq.html
References Cont’d
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
The History of Yahoo! - How It All Started... :
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html
Supplementary Financial Information:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/investor/metrics.html
Yahoo! Facts & Figures:
http://solutions.yahoo.com/advertiser_center/research/factsandfigure
s.html
Yahoo! Investor Information: http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/
TechWeb: Yahoo Turns Reputation Into Acquisitions:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990401S0016
References Cont’d
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Yahoo! Introduces New Yahoo! Search:
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?&ReleaseID=
105839
Yahoo! Auctions Introduces Offline Seller's Management Tool:
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release709.html
Press Release: Yahoo! No. 1 Online Music Destination in the U.S.
According to Nielsen/Netratings' Marketview Report:
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release990.html
Press Release: Yahoo! No. 1 Search Destination in the U.S.
According to Nielsen/Netratings' March Marketview Report :
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release983.html
Press Release: New Yahoo! Shopping Network Ranked the No. 2
Online Shopping Destination by Nielsen/Netratings:
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release904.html