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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Content Not King Confirmed By Yahoo

In last weeks blog, I speculated that content may no longer be king.  Well it seems that Yahoo also doesn't think content is king either.  They have just announced plans to shut down original content sites, including digital magazine sites covering food, parenting, travel and more, while cutting 300 jobs.  As to the original content sites they are keeping, news, finance and lifestyle, they will likely rely on more third party content sites then their own created material.  Ring the Content Is King death bell for Yahoo.

So original content costs more than syndicated content.  And proprietary content is more valuable to a site than open content.  And some combination of each makes a successful digital content strategy.  Just ask Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.  But Yahoo couldn't make it work with its Yahoo Screen app, another killed idea by a company that is declining quickly in the digital universe.  A once promising brand with a easy to remember brand name has lost its cache and its way.  What happens next to some of their remaining "stars", like Katie Couric and David Pogue?  The hour glass indicates their time at Yahoo may also be nearing an end.