Yahoo is slipping according to The New York Times.
Yahoo, the world’s largest portal, said yesterday that its profit fell sharply in the third quarter and that growth would continue to slow for two main business lines — graphic display advertising and advertising on Web searches.
The company’s chief executive, Terry S. Semel, was unusually contrite yesterday in a conference call with investors.
“I am not satisfied with our current financial performance and we intend to improve it,” Mr. Semel said. “We are not exploiting our considerable strengths as well as we should be and we are committed to doing better.”
Doing better doesn’t mean buying YouTube, something rival Google just did to the tune of $1.65 billion. Bubble 2.0 anyone?
Responding to the deal by Google to buy YouTube, the biggest site for user-uploaded video, Mr. Semel said he did not regret not buying the company.
“I came out with a grave concern about how severe the copyright violations could be,” he said. “It could be a gnarly problem if lawsuits come. And I did not want to put my company in that type of risk.”
In an odd way, this might be a good time for Yahoo to struggle.
