Steve Rubel on Yahoo Gives Up On Search

Steve Rubel has a great response to Yahoo’s statements about not being able to catch Google on search:

[Micro Persuasion: Yahoo Cedes Search to Google and So Do I]

That’s it, I am no longer using Yahoo Search. I have no interest in using a product that the company doesn’t aspire to make best of breed. If search is no longer hip to Yahoo, then Yahoo Search is no longer hip with me. As much as I am a fan of Yahoo on the whole, I would rather stick with a search platform that is run by a company that’s always striving to be number one, e.g. Google. (BTW, Microsoft would rather die than say they are ceding search to Google. That’s a big difference between the two companies.)

I think most of us had already given up on Yahoo, which is why Yahoo has given up on Yahoo.

And the answer to his question — if they aren’t search, then what are they? — I think that’s obvious from the companies they are buying: they are trying to develop leadership in social architecture/media, based on melding Flickr, Yahoo Groups, etc., with new entertainment media stuff, and they have hopes they will be the market leader. (Witness Susan Mernitt’s new gig at Yahoo Personals.) But that’s goiing to be an equally competitive arena.