Chapter 1169: Yahoo's next step

Saturday, August 14.
In the morning on the east coast of North America, when countless media were discussing how the Federal Justice Department suddenly stopped investigating Microsoft’s antitrust, which will affect the Nasdaq stock market next week, Yahoo finally released the company’s second quarter finance. report.
In the second quarter of 1999, Yahoo's revenue reached $1,322.2 million, a significant increase of 172.5% compared to $399.7 million in revenue for the same period last year. At the same time, Yahoo's second-quarter net profit reached $105.3 million compared to losses in the same period last year.
In addition to total revenue, the performance of each of Yahoo's segmented business segments is very eye-catching.
Affected by the significant increase in online advertising by new technology companies in the first half of the year, Yahoo’s key Internet advertising business, including Yahoo’s own platform and Yahoo’s advertising alliance, achieved a total revenue of $811.3 million, compared to the same period last year. It reached 187.6%, surpassing Yahoo's 15.1 percentage point increase in the overall revenue growth in the second quarter.
In the Yahoo Music Store, Yahoo Music Store’s second-quarter revenue was $125.3 million due to the continued popularity of Firefly, and its performance increased by 66% compared to $75.3 million in the same period last year. .
In addition to the main advertising business and music sales, Yahoo's corporate mailbox, online payment and other business revenues reached 95.6 million US dollars, a significant increase in both year-on-year.
With Yahoo's second-quarter earnings announcement, whether it is a single-quarter breakthrough of $1 billion in revenue, or Yahoo's first net profit of more than $100 million, the entire Internet industry is eye-catching.
Moreover, the financial report also pointed out that although the Yahoo advertising business will fall into a period of lows with the Nasdaq index collapse, but in the context of the continuous explosive growth of Internet users, relying on the long tail theory model to establish the Yahoo advertising camp The collection system will soon recover and achieve sustained growth.
In addition, with the global promotion of Yahoo! Mini Music Store equipment and the successful access of millions of songs from EMI and Universal Records, the company expects Yahoo Music Store not only will not receive revenue in the next two quarters. The impact of the bursting of the Internet bubble may even achieve a continuous large increase of more than 100%.
Even if the overall revenue situation in the second half of the year will decline, but after seven years of accumulation, Yahoo is expected to reach a revenue of about 3.5 billion US dollars throughout the year, still let many of the new technology industry with the Nasdaq crash Investors who lose confidence regain hope.
Many people once again think of Eric’s words in an interview with The New York Times last year: What is impossible in a huge market with a billion-best user base?
As of the first half of 1999, the number of Internet users worldwide has exceeded 250 million. According to the current growth rate, the number of Internet users worldwide will reach 500 million in 2002. In 2005, this number will hit the 1 billion mark.
It is foreseeable that doubling the number of users will definitely not only mean a doubling of the revenue of Internet companies. As the Internet industry matures, the average spending on the Internet platform will increase exponentially, both for individuals and businesses.
Considering this comprehensively, with the increase in the number of Internet users in the new technology industry, the overall industry scale will also rise at an exponential level.
Yahoo has been able to achieve revenues of about $3.5 billion this year. Then, after three years, or even six years, it may be just a net profit, and Yahoo will be able to exceed the revenue scale at this time.
With the announcement of the Yahoo! earnings report, investors who have experienced panic for nearly a month have calmed down and realized once again that the new technology industry is definitely more than just a bunch of bubbles, but it can also bring real revenue.
At the same time, Wall Street Capital, which suffered heavy losses in the Nasdaq crash, began to exert its momentum by creating an opportunity for itself.
There was a series of optimistic comments on the new technology market in the media. Many well-known analysts on Wall Street have changed their winds, saying that even with a bubble, after a month of plunging, the moisture in the Nasdaq index Has been dissipated. In the next few years, the new technology industry will continue to show a booming state.
Then, the next day.
After yesterday's second-quarter earnings report, Yahoo once again announced through the portal: Microsoft will unconditionally waive the 30% stake in Yahoo, but at the same time, Yahoo! browser will continue to maintain Windows by paying pre-installed fees to Microsoft. The status of the system default browser.
In recent years, many arguments have argued that the biggest reason for the rapid development of the Yahoo portal is that the Yahoo browser, which is pre-installed as a Windows system, provides a large amount of traffic to the Yahoo portal.
Since the expiration of the five-year contract between Yahoo and Microsoft last month, the industry has been paying close attention to this matter.
Now, Yahoo has not only got rid of the original contract without any burden, but also continues to gain the status of the default browser on the Windows platform. Even if it is necessary to pay expensive pre-installation fees to Microsoft, almost all analysts understand that Yahoo is This cooperation accounted for a very large and cheap.
Therefore, this news has had an impact on the industry as much as the Federal Ministry of Justice suddenly announced the abandonment of antitrust investigations against Microsoft on Friday.
Some of the brains that opened their brains even slammed into the ground and began to speculate whether there was an intrinsic link between the two events that were unexpected to everyone.
Of course, the truth is likely to never be made public.
Moreover, the attention of most people has already shifted to the Nasdaq index for the new week.
The week-long gathering is coming to an end, and some tight-ranking executives have begun to leave.
Sunday afternoon.
Eric and Yahoo CEO Ian Gurney appeared on a ranch in Tasmania in southern Australia.
Tasmania is more than 200 kilometers south of the Australian mainland and covers an area of ​​over 60,000 square kilometers.
During the time when Shantou was in Australia, Eric specifically asked her to buy some land on this island. At this time, including the pastures at the foot and the forests not far away, Eric has more than 200 square kilometers of private territory on the island at the end of the world.
Due to its temperate maritime climate, although it is a midwinter, this pasture in the northwestern part of Tasmania does not appear to be cold, and there is green everywhere.
Putting his hands in the trench coat pocket and walking alongside Ian Gurney, Eric admired the surrounding scenery and said: "Ian, you know what Warren’s most popular donation project was when Warren founded the Buffett Foundation. ?"
Ian Gnelle doesn't know if Eric is a temper. The Buffett Foundation has long been known as the Tuen Mun Foundation. Over the years, the Buffett Foundation’s assets have grown at a much faster rate than its donations. However, he smiled and replied: "Should it be population control?"
"This is in recent years," Eric shook his head and said: "Before the 1990s, Warren's most concerned project was how to prevent nuclear war. He only showed the ratio of donations in this area. Usually more generous."
Ian Gurney looked at the empty low sky above his head and said, "So, are you worried?"
If a world-class nuclear war occurs, Australia is indeed the most likely continent to stay out of the way.
Eric nodded: "There is a theory about nuclear war, throwing a black stone on a beach covered with hundreds of millions of white stones, and people take one every day. So, although the chances are small, After all, one day, the black stone will be picked up by people. This black stone represents a nuclear war. However, in my opinion, the black stone in a pile of white stones, the obvious goal, the possibility of being picked up Any other white stone is much bigger."
Ian Gnell silently silenced for a moment, saying: "I think the possibility of a large-scale nuclear war is still very low."
"Who knows, when a nuclear warhead is shot out, the attacker is destined to launch a counterattack, then the attacker attacks again, and the counterattack continues to counterattack, which is a dead knot. At that time, unless God can personally stand up and stop, otherwise the result It can only be devastating. Because unlike any traditional war, there is no winner in a nuclear war."
"Maybe I should buy a farm in Australia," Ian Gurney smiled. He felt that the topic was a bit heavy and took the initiative to turn: "Eric, in fact, I am more optimistic about online games than cloud computing. business."
In the past week, Yahoo has redefined its focus on the next step.
In Saturday's quarterly earnings report, Yahoo still did not separately list the revenue generated by the search engine business to the company. But in fact, Yahoo's advertising revenue for Yahoo in the second quarter of $811.3 million in advertising revenue has exceeded 30%, which makes all Yahoo executives clearly aware of the search engine business. Great potential.
Therefore, in the next few years, the search engine business will become Yazhong's top priority.
Beyond the search engine, the second is social networking.
Similar to Google, Eric has privately registered Yahoo with Facebook's domain name.
With the further explosion of the Internet population around the world, it is now time to focus on promoting Internet social networks. After several years of operation and exploration of Yahoo's personal homepage, coupled with some of Eric's memory, Yahoo management has also summarized the general pattern of social network development.
Eric’s basic plan is that in the next few years, Google and Facebook will successively set up separate subsidiaries, which are attached to the integrated Yahoo! At the same time, Yahoo will focus on developing the two cores of search engines and social networks at all costs, even if it gives up other businesses.
But outside of search engines and social networks, Eric also put Yahoo's cloud computing business on the agenda.
In memory, the rise of cloud computing is about ten years later.
But in Eric's view, the cloud computing business is not limited by the various stages of development of the Internet. The reason why it began to rise ten years later was only because the Internet industry realized the broad prospects of the cloud computing business at that time, and gradually grasped the business operation mode of the cloud computing business.
Since Yahoo can successfully promote the Internet advertising business in advance and develop cloud computing in advance, there will naturally be no problem.
With the bursting of the new technology bubble, it is now also a good opportunity to develop cloud computing.
After all, compared with the traditional web hosting business, the cloud computing model, Internet companies want to operate the website, there will be no need for complicated equipment purchase, website construction, post-maintenance work, etc., which can save a lot of the cost of. In the cold winter of Internet capital in the next few years, cost control is extremely important for Internet companies that want to survive.
Moreover, compared with Amazon at this time, Yahoo, which already has large data centers around the world, undoubtedly has an incomparable advantage.
Because in the early stage of cloud computing promotion, Yahoo does not even need to spend huge sums of money to build a new data center for cloud computing business, only need to use Yahoo's own computing and storage resources to build a cloud computing framework, which can also be realized in another aspect. Take full advantage of Yahoo's data center.
In addition to search engines, social networks and cloud computing, Yahoo will continue to pay enough attention to portals, e-mail, instant messaging and other services, but in fact, these businesses will gradually become more peripherals outside of Yahoo's core business. Later, regardless of the experience of Internet companies in the East and West, these businesses have been able to bring huge users to the enterprise, but it is difficult to generate too much direct profit.
As for the Yahoo Music Store, Eric has only used it as a companion to the Fireflyer player.
Of course, in all mainstream Internet businesses, online games are definitely one of the most important. However, at this meeting, Eric rejected the management's next step to focus on developing online games.
"In fact, I am also very optimistic about the online game business," Ian Garnier turned to the topic, Eric also followed: "But, from the experience of water testing in recent years, whether it is North America, Europe is still a slapstick, players still prefer host games. Of course, just like the story of selling shoes in Africa, the number of online game users is much lower than that of console games, which means huge business opportunities. However, the game business actually Similar to movies, as a creative industry, its uncertainty is very large. You can't just recruit a group of programmers and make a successful online game. In comparison, cloud computing can be done. Developed into a 'just-needed' service. Moreover, since Yahoo is positioned as a technology-based company, we must also make due choices between all parties."
Speaking of it, the only online game in memory, the only one that can cause Eric’s interest is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Just because I haven't paid much attention to the game industry, when Eric accidentally discovered it, Blizzard has become a sac in Weiweidi.
Fortunately, there are still five years away from Warcraft.
If Vivendi acquires Seagram according to its previous development route, it will definitely be in trouble in the next few years due to excessive expansion and the drag of the entertainment industry. At that time, fireflies will have the opportunity to buy Blizzard.
However, even if you can rely on Yahoo's Internet resources to further promote World of Warcraft in the future, Eric has not let Yahoo alone distracted to do online games.
After all, the national conditions are different. Until many years later, the mainstream of the game industry in Western countries is still the main game. Eric has not found any Internet giant in the West to rely on online games to rise. Since this is not the right direction for development, Eric will not let Yahoo waste time exploring this aspect.