{"id":893,"date":"2007-01-11T16:09:25","date_gmt":"2007-01-11T21:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/2007\/01\/11\/a-web-20-revolt-against-yahoo-management\/"},"modified":"2007-01-11T16:09:25","modified_gmt":"2007-01-11T21:09:25","slug":"a-web-20-revolt-against-yahoo-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2007\/01\/11\/a-web-20-revolt-against-yahoo-management\/","title":{"rendered":"A Web 2.0 revolt against Yahoo management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Mark Twain once said, everyone complains about the weather but no one ever <i>does<\/i> anything about it. Well, lots of people complain about Yahoo too &#8212; about how it is big and bloated and unfocused and is losing ground to Google, not to mention the fact that its peanut butter is <a href=\"http:\/\/paul.kedrosky.com\/archives\/2006\/11\/18\/yahoos_peanut_b.html\">spread too thin<\/a> &#8212; but is anyone doing anything about it? Eric Jackson is trying to.<\/p>\n<p>Eric, a Yahoo shareholder and management consultant who writes a blog called Breakout Performance, is like Peter Finch&#8217;s character from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0074958\/\">the movie<\/a> <i>Network<\/i>. He&#8217;s mad as hell and he&#8217;s not going to take it any more. So Mr. Jackson <a href=\"http:\/\/breakoutperformance.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/shareholder-activism-blogging-and-plan.html\">wrote a post<\/a> called Yahoo Plan B, complete with a video clip of himself describing said plan, and sent it out to various places, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NlRpmvywMfk\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NlRpmvywMfk\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"left\" id=\"image894\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/eric%20jackson.jpg?w=525\" border=\"0\" alt=\"eric jackson.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a nutshell, Eric is trying to get a wave of shareholder support for change, in the same way that activist hedge funds and other prominent investors often do, except he&#8217;s starting with blogs and YouTube and wikis instead of a board seat and a couple of hundred million. He says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Yahoo! is drifting; and its board and management have been too slow to act to this fundamental problem. As shareholders, we don&#8217;t have to sit by and watch this. <\/p>\n<p>Activist Investing has principally been the domain of hedge funds &#8212; well, no longer. With the help of the web, blogs, and wikis, I&#8217;m asking all current and future retail investors in Yahoo! to join me in pushing for a change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So far, Eric has gotten some favourable press at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/_tscfoc\/smallbusinesstech\/smallbusinesstech\/10331781.html\">TheStreet<\/a>, as well as from former trader <a href=\"http:\/\/davidneubert.com\/2007\/01\/09\/yahoo-yhoo-individual-activist-may-shake-up-yahoo.aspx\">David Neubert<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetoutsider.com\/2007\/01\/grassroots_yaho.html\">Internet Outsider blog<\/a>, written by former analyst and Bubble 1.0 cheerleader Henry Blodget.<\/p>\n<p>Eric says he has received many emails of support, and <a href=\"http:\/\/breakoutperformance.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/how-can-i-get-more-engaged-with-plan-b.html\">now has<\/a> shareholders with more than $1.7-million in Yahoo stock who are backing his campaign. Not exactly a hedge fund, but not a bad start. Good luck with the crusade, Eric.<\/p>\n<p><b>Update:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Eric&#8217;s campaign now has a wiki as well, at Yahoo.Wikia.com.<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Mark Twain once said, everyone complains about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. Well, lots of people complain about Yahoo too &#8212; about how it is big and bloated and unfocused and is losing ground to Google, not to mention the fact that its peanut butter is spread too thin &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2007\/01\/11\/a-web-20-revolt-against-yahoo-management\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Web 2.0 revolt against Yahoo management&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}