`The recent departure of Carol Bartz from Yahoo and the discussed removal of Tim Armstrong from his similar post at AOL have created greater speculation that both Yahoo and AOL will soon be joining, dinosaurs, dodos and Myspace as obsolete and extinct. With all fairness to the dodos and dinos, they were the victims of natural selection and big meteors. Yahoo and AOL on the other hand have been the victims of greater competition in the form of Facebook and Google.
Reports on the status of AOL and Yahoo cite their lack of ability to renew themselves via innovation as has done Apple. Facebook success is still credited as part of its shiny newness. So on the basis of Apple innovation and Facebook being liked by so many friends, a death knell has been sounded for AOL and Yahoo. The predicted diminishment and demise of these two internet pioneers is ridiculous. It is more likely that Facebook would become the next Myspace than Yahoo. Yahoo is the fourth most popular website on earth. AOL has a hundred million users who STILL prefer to surf the net by means of its portal. Both of these super-sized sites made a conscientious planning decision years ago to move towards becoming media based, as opposed to socially based. Their choice has not yet been shown to be wise or unwise.
That answer and the future of not just Yahoo and AOL but Facebook will depend upon whether the public grows weary of the Facebook experience and opts for something else. Or they may simply spread their online time around to all the available channels. If the latter case prevails, then Yahoo will again prosper. AOL will still need to define its persona. At present, the AOL Huffington look is hard to digest.
Don’t look for Yahoo or AOL to fade away. Too many internet users like these familiar starting points. Too many of us also have 12 year old Yahoo and AOL email addresses that we are quite fond of and attached to.