Legal Research

Would you buy Yahoo!? Would investors invest in librarier?

Yahoo?s Three-Year Plan: Grow Revenues 73 Percent By Focusing on Display Ads, Mobile, and Better Search By Erick Schonfeld on Yahoo

"Today, (March 18) Yahoo filed a presentation detailing its three-year financial plan that management gave to its board of directors in December, before Microsoft?s unsolicited bid. Yahoo is projecting revenues after traffic acquisition costs (TAC)?i.e., what it shares with other Websites that run Yahoo ads?to grow from $5.1 billion in 2007 to $8.8 billion in 2010."

It's an interesting review of the insider thinking in the search space at a time of extreme change. I undertsand that this was done about December 2007. Of course, the stock and currency markets have changed quite a bit since then. I wonder if Yahoo! is worth less from the shareholder POV for their delaying tactics. Given that a few are suing I think a some stockholders think so.

This is an interesting example of the arguments put forward to investors and bankers in the search and content space. I think it's worth reading.

I wonder if libraries can we do a similar presentation about our value to our investors (the public for instance). What is our marker - our impact measure - not revenue but circulation, visits, websites hits, or more? What is the library's real ROI and how do we compare across types, branches, systems, consortia, etc.? What is your growth plan for through 2010?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).