Yahoo & Googles Mission Statements : Do They Connect?

Yahoo has undergone a good amount of restructuring over the past years, in part due to internal roadblocks & financial reasons, and also because of the adoption of social media. With its integration of social offerings such as Flickr and Yahoo Answers into the lives of its registered userbase, Yahoo has become more of a social network of sorts, a social network based upon the sharing of experience. To help reflect their change, and future direction, Jeff Weiner, the Executuive Vice President of the Yahoo! Network Division, has announced that Yahoo has introduced a new company mission statement: To connect people to their passions, communities, and the worlds knowledge. I thought it would be interesting to compare Yahoos mission statement with that of Googles:

Yahoo! : To connect people to their passions, communities, and the worlds knowledge. Google : To organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Sure, Yahoos new mission clearly differentiates its path from Googles with Yahoos emphasis on the user life experience and emotions, with the terms connect, people, passions, communities. However, I believe that such a difference is quite evident, as Google has taken a different approach of connecting its users to Google search as its core, rather than to each other, like a network operates; hence Googles success in search. The main difference is the use of the two terms knowledge and information. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the two terms as follows:

Knowledge : a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique b (1) : the fact or condition of being aware of something (2) : the range of ones information or understanding

Information : a (1) : knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2) : INTELLIGENCE, NEWS (3) : FACTS, DATA b : the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects c (1) : a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data (2) : something (as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (as a plan or theory) that

represents physical or mental experience or another construct d : a quantitative measure of the content of information; specifically : a numerical quantity that measures the uncertainty in the outcome of an experiment to be performed Interesting choice of words here and again, quite reflective of the difference between these two companies,

Yahoo! : Providing knowledge obtained via personal experience, association, awareness and understanding. (Answers, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Inclusion) Google : Providing information obtained via investigation, study, data, measurement and numerical quantities. (PageRank, Algortihm, Link Measurement, Profiling)

Two very different and exciting directions from these two companies, makes you wonder who will win in the end? Man or machine?
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Yahoo's mission quest

It's not as memorable as 'Don't be evil,' but Yahoo's new mission statement shows it's ready to leverage its unique strengths, says Fortune's Adam Lashinsky.
By Adam Lashinsky, Fortune senior writer February 2 2007: 7:17 AM EST

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Mission statements are a funny thing. They seem terribly important to the corporate pooh-bahs who craft them and then force their minions to memorize and swear to live by them. The rest of us rarely pay attention, no matter how often we're told about a given company's supposed credo. And yet, now and again it's worth listening, either when a company changes its mission statement, or, worse, when one of the pooh-bahs can't necessarily articulate what the mission is.

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Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune Take the case of Yahoo (Charts), the Internet's most successful punching bag. The only way to think of Yahoo as less than one of the great media companies of our day is in relation to Google(Charts), which is truly one of the great media companies of our day. Yahoo's strategy, execution and stock price have been stuck for months, a victim of its poorly played competition with Google. Part of Yahoo's problem has been that for all its lucrative online advertising businesses, it botched search, the best online business of them all for several years running. In an interview last summer with Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, I cited to him his arch-foe's disarmingly simple motto, "Don't be evil," and asked what Yahoo's motto is. After an uncomfortably long pause, Semel replied: "I don't know that we have a motto. Well, the mission of the company is, Deliver great value to our consumers and, basically, value them." Wrong. As it happened, Yahoo did have a mission statement, even if Semel, chief executive for five years, didn't know it: "Our mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses." That was broad stuff, and not bad as far as mission statements go. That Google had become far more essential for one of the most common Internet services consumers and business people seek - search - sort of derailed Yahoo's mission. Clearly it needed a new one. Investors groan as Google grows Now Yahoo has one. The company invited journalists to its Sunnyvale headquarters Tuesday for a presentation by three executives from its Santa Monica, Calif.-based media group. That's the outfit formerly run by ex-television executive Lloyd Braun and now run by Jeff Weiner, who has expanded his responsibilities from being Yahoo's top search executive. At the beginning of his presentation, Scott Moore, Yahoo's head of news and information, flashed a slide of Yahoo's mission statement, which, it turns out, was quietly rolled out internally around the time the company restructured its management late last year. The new line is equally broad. But it might fit a bit better than the old one. "Yahoo's mission," it reads, "is to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world's knowledge. To ensure this, Yahoo offers a broad and deep array of products and services to create unique and differentiated user experiences and consumer insights by leveraging connections, data, and user participation." As with seemingly everything else, Yahoo's mission statement will suffer in comparison to Google's, which is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." What's good about Yahoo's new message is that it clarifies the differences between Google and Yahoo. The geeks in Mountain View may be organizing the world's information. The cool kids in Sunnyvale are connecting people to their passions. In other words, they're in the entertainment business, a time-tested and durable way of making money. The "deep array" of gizmos means Yahoo still tries basically anything that works online - as increasingly does Google as well. The line about leveraging connections, data and user participation, however, truly says something about how Yahoo sees itself. Its e-mail program is still the most popular online, it is increasingly willing to use its data as a come-on for advertisers, and by user participation, Yahoo is referring to its Yahoo Answers, Flickr and other social-networking services that give the 10-plus-year-old company some true hipness in a Web 2.0 world.

Wall Street's hope for Yahoo is that if it can deliver with its new search-advertising platform, Panama, it can at least hold its own against Google and begin to leverage its unique strengths. If Yahoo's articulation of its own new mission statement is any indication, it might have half a chance.
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Analysts: You Can't Compare Yahoo to Google

By Nicholas Carlson | Page 1 of 1 December 08, 2006

On Tuesday, the news hit the wire: Yahoo had finally shaken up its corporate structure. COO Dan Rosensweig was out, CFO Susan Decker moved over, and the search began for a leader who can help Yahoo develop products and keep, engage, and grow its audience. Almost immediately, industry watchers began calling the shake-up a result of Yahoo's competition with Google. It's true Yahoo runs a search engine business that competes with Google for searchers and advertising dollars. And it's true Google regularly trounces Yahoo in the search engine and search marketing business, whether the score is kept by revenue dollars or market share. But in the wake of Yahoo's shake-up, at least a few contrarians are wondering what the bigger problem for the company is: its competition with Google or the fact that no one seems to understand how little Yahoo's core business competes with Google's core business. "Part of the problem, which isn't really a problem except that they are a public company, is that they're compared to Google and they're not really in the same business," JupiterKagan analyst David Card told internetnews.com. Google is a search engine. Yahoo is a portal with a search engine product, Card said. But it's only one product among many, and, overall, he said, the company is in a "good position." "They have a big, broad, loyal, general-purpose audience. They can slice and dice that audience up into pieces. They have a rich advertising platform and because they can do search, they can do video and they can do sponsorships, they can deliver different kinds of marketing messages in different kinds of context. "That's not a bad place to be." Numbers from Hitwise Market Research confirm Card's assessment. In the market share of visits for the week ending December 2, Yahoo ranked first in business information sites, first in e-mail, second in maps and first in news. By comparison, Google ranked 21st, fifth, third, and sixth, respectively. The good news for Yahoo, Forrester Research Analyst Charlene Li wrote on her blog, is that the company's reorganization resulted in a mission statement, "to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world's knowledge," that de-emphasizes its search competition with Google. "I really like this because it puts 'people' at the center of Yahoo!'s strategy. Compare this to Google's mission 'to organize the world's information" and you get an idea of each company's battle plan,'" Li wrote. The people at the center of Yahoo's strategy are its audience, of course, and Card agreed that they are the company's most valuable asset. It's also one that Google, no matter its growth, isn't really trying to steal. While Yahoo publishes content on topics ranging from sports to food, Google characterizes itself as a switchboard. A Google spokesperson even confirmed that the company doesn't want or need users to stick around on its site; it wants the users to find relevant search results or sponsored links that lead off the site. This doesn't mean Yahoo's core business doesn't face competition for that audience. That's coming from Internet properties that have little to do with search, such as MySpace, Facebook, ESPN, MSN or AOL. In other words, it's

coming from content producers and platforms whose goals are to keep users around as long as possible, looking at the brand advertising. In particular, Yahoo should be wary of social networks, Card said. "The social properties are stealing a lot of the buzz because a lot of marketers are intrigued if not spending a lot of money them yet." But, despite that challenge, a competition with a bunch of buzz-stealing upstarts remains much different than a competition with Google over search. Advertising revenue went up 30 percent across the Internet in 2005 so there's plenty of new business to go around. A reorganized and refocused Yahoo should get its share, Card said. "They're in a good position. If this reorganization helps them make better decisions faster and implement them faster, then they should be in a good shape."

MISSIONS AND VISIONS

I had a chance late yesterday to catch up with Jeff Weiner, point man at Yahoo for all things search. Jeffs been a great resource for both this site as well as the book, and it had been far too long since we last caught up. The last time we spoke at length he showed me prototypes for what became Y!Q, so my expectations were high for this chat. Jeffs always been the kind of guy who not only suffered my fascination with Joints after Midnight topics, hes even encouraged them. This time around he brought one such topic to me: the overall vision statement for Yahoo Search. The statement is not particularly new, Terry Semel referred to it at the beginning of his comments in the last quarterly earnings call, but Jeff wanted to bounce if off me, and by extension, all of you. He also wanted to talk about where search was going, and the implications of the flood of news in this space over the past few months. The vision statement for Yahoo Search is pretty damn good, if youre into that kind of thing (Ill admit, I am). Here it is, in its entirety: To enable people to find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge. Jeff and his team have been testing this phrase at small gatherings and in the press this month, and so far it seems to be well received, if still a bit under the radar. Compare it to Googles mission statement: To organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible. Interesting, no? Now, Im mixing my visions and my missions, as many of you may quickly point out. Yahoo Search also has a mission: To provide the worlds most valued and trusted search service. But that doesnt really have the same ring to it. Googles mission, I think, is really a vision statement in mission clothing, and it feels appropriate to compare it with the Yahoo Search vision. When you think about Yahoos search mission as an organizing principle, a lot of what Yahoo is doing 360, MyWeb, Y!Q, the purchase of Flickr start to fall into place. Weiner calls his vision FUSE (for Find,

Use, Share, and Expand) and its an apt metaphor using search to fuse a myriad of services and applications, all of which center on knowledge and its application. As Jeff pointed out to me, at the center of the idea of FUSE is whats happening to media how every single medium music, TV, print, telecom, even our first versions of the web is being remixed and reordered by Web 2.0. Its an old saw, but mass media really is becoming my media through RSS, podcasting, iTunes, Tivo, blogs, and many innovations to come. And central to navigating a my media world is search. Hence, the FUSE vision holds water for me search is not just about a web index. Its about my interface to the world. I like both Google and Yahoos visions, to be honest, they both augur a future where control lies with us, through the questions we ask and the tracks we leave across the ever expanding web. Yahoos focus on sharing, I think, is critical, and perhaps a key area where Googles (stated) vision may be lacking at the moment. But with so many recent innovations in that space search history, Gmail, increased RSS support, centralized account management I dont expect that deficit to stand for long.