Jerry Yang is stepping down from being CEO of Yahoo. That is good news in my opinion. But first I have to thank him, because he made me some good money. I had bought Yahoo stock shortly before Microsoft made the unsolicited acquisition offer and sold it with about $10 gain per share. 
Anyway – here is my advice for the new CEO (yet to be determined). Please look at Yahoo Search Marketing in more detail and make necessary changes so that it becomes a competitive product. I am saying this as a publisher and as an advertiser. Why do I need a Gold Account for YSM? I want to spend money on your network and you won’t let me or at least make it very painful. Give me an import functionality for my campaigns. It is retarded just to offer it to Gold account members. Also, bring out a client software like Adwords Editor or MSN Desktop Manager for Adcenter. I will always prefer MSN Adcenter over YSM because it is so much easier to work with. If you provide more and better tools for advertisers, you might actually make more money because it is easier for us to spend it.
On the publisher side of things – fix the ad targeting. I removed YPN ad from almost all my sites because of irrelevant ads being displayed. Google Adsense on the other side is top notch. Hint to CEO: If we can display more ads, you can earn more money because you can offer more inventory and generate more revenue.
Those are just 2 issues, but I think they are critical to the future success (or failure) of Yahoo.
Related posts: