Business Management Lessons from Yahoo’s Demise
Updated Feb. 7, 2012
From a management perspective at the board level, Yahoo is starting to make the right moves. Chairman Roy Bostock, the chair for four years, and three long-serving board members have resigned. This follows the resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang after the search giant hired a new CEO, former PayPal executive Scott Thompson.
Why are the moves positive?
You might recall Yahoo missed a chance to sell to Microsoft for $47.5 million in May 2008. Do the math. This would have meant $33 per share. At this writing, Yahoo’s stock is trading at $15.82.
Other negative headlines: The public catfight between deposed Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and the board. After her termination, she refused to resign from the board.
Certainly, published reports show Ms. Bartz failed to demonstrate quality leadership in terms of the company’s performance and her personal style of communication. Thirty-two months of valuable time was lost during her tenure. That’s a big sales-opportunity cost.
Despite whatever skills Ms. Bartz seemed to possess to get the top job after previously working at Sun Microsystems and Autodesk, they weren’t apparent in her nearly three years at Yahoo.
True, she successfully addressed financial and organizational issues.
But she didn’t seem to show an adequate grasp of the big picture – to understand the company, its marketplace challenges and solutions. The company’s heritage advertising platform has been backsliding. Too, I have to wonder if the vaunted Yahoo Finance platform has suffered in reputation. It’s been a favorite for those who want to check stock prices.
During her reign, Yahoo’s stock price was at stagnant levels. It’s worth noting that Yahoo’s share price immediately jumped 6 percent when she was terminated. That’s indication she didn’t have friends on Wall Street, either. It might have been advantageous for her to read the book, “How Win Friends and Influence People.”
But, of course, Yahoo was sliding before she took the reins.
Yahoo was once the No. 1 search engine, but since the 1990s it failed to stem the rising tide from competitors Google and Facebook. The board ostensibly didn’t understand the link between financial performance and succession planning.
Yahoo has seemed to be standing still. It hasn’t evolved, or re-engineered its focus like all companies must do. It needs to look fresh and innovative with compelling products and services. In other words, it needs a vision.
In a nutshell, to regain its 1990’s stature, Yahoo must accomplish three salient goals:
- Hire a chief executive officer who acts like one – productive interpersonal skills, who understands the big picture for Yahoo to successfully compete. Hopefully, Mr. Thompson will meet the challenge.
- Short-term, the search giant should become relevant in the minds of Internet users, especially among younger demographics. With its significant stake with a Chinese partner, Alibaba Group, fence-mending is indicated.
- Long-term, Yahoo needs to develop a strategic action plan for a successful business model.
My hope is that Yahoo is again successful. If not, a merger might be in the works.
From the Coach’s Corner, it would seem Yahoo is left holding the bag without adequate leadership. Consider these resource links:
Management Strategies for a Successful Turnaround
Is Carol Bartz Using the Right Leadership Approach
Hottest Tactics to Beat Your Competitors
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Facebook’s Popularity Drops in U.S., Canada and Europe, but Inches Toward Highly Valued IPO
Updated – June 14, 2011
Many analysts believe Facebook is now set to go with its widely anticipated initial public offering in Q1 2012. What’s astounding is Facebook has lost ground in North America and Europe, but analysts are predicting a valuation as high as $100 billion.
A Web site, www.insidefacebook.com, reported the irony regarding Facebook’s popularity in this article: “Facebook Sees Big Traffic Drops in US and Canada as It Nears 700 Million Users Worldwide.”
It explained where and why Facebook lost members in the month of May:
- U.S. lost almost 6 million down to 149.4 million
- Canada dropped by 1.52 million to 16.6 million
- UK, Norway and Russia each lost more than 100,000
Ostensibly, Facebook’s privacy issues are having an impact.
So, why is Facebook growing? Inside Facebook indicates the site gained 11.8 million users among Third World populations that have recently started warming up to the thought of using the social networking site.
Meantime, many marketers started allocating more of their budgets for Facebook ads, according to a report in Website Magazine, www.websitemagazine.com, as early as Aug. 2010.
“Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us,” Website Magazine’s senior editor Mike Phillips quotes Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “They started buying with us a year ago. Now, they’re going big.”
Mr. Phillips writes that she claims the social medium’s top advertisers are now investing 10 to 20 times more dollars.
“Facebook appears to be positioning itself for an IPO in 2012,” confirms Francis Gaskins, a widely quoted and respected IPO expert. “Here’s an interesting article.”
If Facebook is inching toward its initial public offering in 2012, shouldn’t it show it’s making profits from ads.
So, what about Facebook as a marketing tool?
“For most companies, it’s not yet completely clear whether Facebook ads are truly effective at generating quality leads or increased conversions/revenue,” Mr. Phillips astutely points out. “What is clear, however, is that Facebook continues to grow its user base.”
He says research firm comScore reports Facebook has overtaken Yahoo as the nation’s No.1 display advertiser.
“Now might be the time to get involved in Facebook advertising,” suggests Mr. Phillips. “Prices have remained steady, the website is still the hottest property online and you can expect those prices to increase sooner than later. You can run a few simple campaigns on the cheap, look for results and optimize in no time at all. There is plenty to gain here.”
As a business-performance consultant, I concur. To quote my good friend, Cork Platts, now a retired Los Angeles marketing guru, a basic marketing tenet is “test, test, test.”
For me, that’s especially true when it’s an inexpensive marketing investment. But be careful to get a return on your investment, and don’t cannibalize your brand. I wouldn’t want a Facebook presence to trump my Web site. Facebook should merely part of overall marketing. Consider: Winners and Losers in Facebook’s Invasion of Google’s Turf.
Meantime, my biz coach sense is that an IPO with a $100 billion valuation doesn’t make sense for a social networking site that’s lost ground in the U.S., Canada and parts of Europe, especially when we’re not sure about its revenue.
Such a high valuation on dubious earnings is reminiscent of all the hype and countless failures in the dot.com bust. Was it that long ago?
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related social-media resource links:
11 Tips to Make Money on Facebook
5 Strategies to Sell More from Your Web Site
Invigorate Sales with Customer Retention, Referral Strategies
Mr. Gaskins’ resource links:
(Note: Mr. Platts is also founder of Consultants West, www.consultantswest.com, an association of veteran consultants that meets regularly in Los Angeles. Mr. Gaskins is also a member, and I’m proud to be associated with them.)
“Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.”
-Pete Cashmore
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complementary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Web Publishers: Are You Optimized for Bing?
Updated Aug. 17, 2010
The time has come to optimize your Web site for Bing. That’s because the long-awaited deal between Yahoo and Bing is in effect. Microsoft Advertising’s Tina Kelleher explains in a blog post today the change is underway. Initially, the change will take place on English-language Yahoo searches.
Why is optimizing for Bing important? In terms of market share, Yahoo and Bing are expected to combine for 30 percent – hence, the need to act.
Bing is powering the search for Yahoo. However, each will still have separate identities. You might recall that Yahoo and Bing signed the advertising deal for a 10-year duration.
This column originally quoted a Website Magazine report about the change. Website Magazine also suggests you check out Bing’s new webmaster tools.
The magazine reported an alert by Yaho0 to optimize for Bing “…if organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website.”
You know what? Success in organic search listings is indeed noticed by most Internet users.
“It also indicated that Yahoo! hopes to migrate its paid-search ads to Microsoft’s adCenter by the beginning of the 2010 holiday season, but that it may wait until the start of 2011 to take that action,” states Website Magazine.
In my experience, Bing has kept its promise to improve its method of organizing searches compared to MSN. The navigation has proved to be easy. While it’s similar to Google in many ways, personally, I’ve found it to be a great search experience.
Moreover, it’s fairly easy to optimize your site for good placement on Bing.
Here’s a checklist:
- Make sure you add your site to Bing. It has a dashboard for analysis of your summary, profile, links, keywords, site map and crawl issues. Don’t forget to add your site to Bing’s Local Listing Center.
- Like Google, Bing more easily recognizes domain age. Both recognize title tags and keywords for your content.
- Unlike Google, Bing is not as concerned about the quality of back links as it is anchor text. But my sense is great content attracts great links. (In my SEO work for clients, to save time from having to review other linking sites, I simply don’t allow back links with a Google Page Rank of less than 3. Even then, I do check to see the site’s focus before allowing it to back link to my client.)
- Be extra careful with your content, especially the headlines and blog summaries. Bing has a great feature, a document preview, which is a text box that shows up next to your mentions on Bing – the verbiage is copied from your site.
- As both Bing and Google pay homage to flash with stronger prominence, be sure to consider inserting such videos.
- Bing is far more amenable to publishing quality press releases than Google, which accelerate your success. Here’s a sample from Bing News of how some of my press releases appear. They’re in place for four weeks.
- Bing is very cognizant of social media. The more relevant social media you have, the better. Twitter and Facebook are good. Despite what you’ve read about sharing blogs on Digg.com, Digg is still a player. LinkedIn is terrific.
On a side note: If you want to reach professionals — LinkedIn is outstanding — if you participate on a frequent basis. LinkedIn members respond well to good content, especially if you introduce your content with a question. Actually, LinkedIn provides this Web site with more visitors than Google.
To summarize, it’s important not to dismiss the potential of Bing. Bing is attractive and is doing a good job. You’ll find it to be a fairly simple process to optimize for Bing.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you’re launching a new Web site, try to use HTML. That will help you make faster progress than you will with a blog format, such as WordPress. Google gives more preference to HTML, especially if you want to be inserted in Google News. WordPress simply will take you a little longer for success.
Here are some other basic pointers: Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet.
Trend: Google Down Slightly While Yahoo, Microsoft Up
May 11, 2010
In U.S. Internet searches, Google sites dropped a bit while the Yahoo and Microsoft Web sites experienced an increase in visitors in April 2010, according to the latest comScore Core Search Report. The research company also reports there were 15.5 billion searches last month.
Google’s market share was 64.4 percent – down .7 percent from 65.1 percent.
Yahoo’s sites jumped in visitors by .8 percent – from 16.9 to 17.7 percent.
Microsoft increased by .1 percent from 11.7 to 11.8 percent.
“Both Yahoo! Sites and Microsoft Sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels,” according to the comscore press release.
“These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content and meet comScore’s established criteria for counting search queries,” added comScore. “Ask Network captured 3.7 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.4 percent.”
The ranking in terms of searches:
- Google – 10 billion
- Yahoo – 2.8 billion
- Microsoft – 1.8 billion
- Ask Network – 574 million
- AOL LLC – 371 million
The comScore disclaimer: “Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.”
Here’s the link for the comScore press release.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a helpful article on Six Ways to Test Your E-commerce Site.
Google vs. Microsoft-Yahoo Heats Up – Indirectly
April 25, 2010
There seems to be a misconception that recent upgrades on Facebook imply an intensified competition with Google. Well, yes and no.
On three occasions since Christmas Eve, 2009, Facebook has outdrawn Google in U.S. visitors. And Google now counts social media in ranking Web sites, but ostensibly tends to disregard the importance of Facebook.
Facebook made some big news when it unveiled details about its new “Like” button. What you should know about Facebook’s changes – CNN.com was a very popular topic on the Web.
So, in defensive football parlance, Google is probably hearing Facebook’s footsteps. At the same time, however, Google is also hearing Bing’s footsteps. Bing provides search for Facebook, which means its capitalizing on Facebook’s success. And, of course, the effect of the Bing-Yahoo advertising-search partnership will soon be obvious. My sense is that Yahoo is already doing better in search.
So what is Google doing? It continues to evolve, too.
Google is already tweaking its Google Places, which it launched in the Q4 2009. Google Places inserts listings for companies that Google lists also in local searches.
The features include:
- Companies can display the territories they serve in their service areas.
- With advertising tags for which Google charges $25 per month, companies can be spotlighted on Google Maps and Google.com. Their applications include pictures and coupons.
- Depending where you are based, Google provides free photo shoots of business interiors. If you wish, you can also add your own pictures.
- From Google Places Dashboard, you can get customized QR codes, which direct customers to your place page. Prospects can use their smartphones to scan the codes, which can be inserted on your marketing collateral.
- The search engine’s Favorite Places program is forwarding window decals that have codes to about 50,000 U.S. companies.
- With Google Places, you will be able to learn from where customers are coming and who they are.
There are restrictions, for example, companies must indicate a mailing address and only one listing for each address.
Huh? Yes, all of these developments are true. Check them out for yourself.
Whatever your online marketing and search-engine preferences, such competition is exciting and provides more options for businesspeople and consumers.
From the Coach’s Corner, there are Google restrictions. Here are the Google provisos.
U.S. Internet Search Grows, But Pace Slows
April 10, 2010 -
Internet usage continues to grow in 2010 – by 7.6 percent in March – but at a much slower pace than reported during the same period a year ago, according to a published report.
Website Magazine reports that recent comScore research indicates Americans increasingly used the Internet last month but not at the torrid rate of increase during the same period a year ago.
Google’s market share declined from 65.5 percent to 65.1 percent. Yahoo’s share increased by .01 percent to 16.9 percent. Bing moved up from 11.5 to 11.7 percent.
Here is the Internet usage-growth by reporting period:
- March, 2010 – 7.6 percent
- February, 2010 – 10.4 percent
- January, 2010 – 12.4 percent
- December, 2009 – 16.5 percent
- September, 2009 – 17.3 percent
- June, 2009- 21.8 percent
- March, 2009 – 33.1 percent
Obviously, it’s hard to sustain double digit growth indefinitely. And it’s way too early to conclude that the Internet has reached its saturation point like mature companies and sectors will do over time.
From the Coach’s Corner, also from Website Magazine: Weekend Warrior Websites You Can Build This Weekend.
Facebook Clips Google – Is Google’s Bloom Falling off the Rose?
March 16, 2010
The Internet world has been buzzing after Facebook enjoyed more visits than Google in the U.S. during the second week of March, according to the research company, Hitwise. This is ostensibly the third time Facebook has beaten Google as the No. 1 engaged Web site since Christmas Eve, 2009.
Facebook is credited by Hitwise with 7.07 market share percent compared to Google’s 7.03 percent.
A competing research firm, comScore, reports Facebook’s share was helped by its 10 percent growth rate – from 395 million visits January to 436 million visits in February.
The Internet’s intrigue is exciting. Three years ago MySpace was the No. 1 Web when Google took over. And for most of 2009, Twitter seemed to be the recipient of most of the online buzz.
Now, it’s Facebook because it makes it easy to share content and information, and it’s becoming a first destination site for users.
Most importantly is the implication that Facebook will ultimately help Bing in its competition with Google. Bing handles search for Facebook. This is another indication of Microsoft’s brilliance in forming strategic alliances.
Meantime, Hitwise differs by about 25 percent from other research companies, comScore and Nielsen, in estimating Bing’s performance. Hitwise only pegged Bing at 9.7 percent market share in search.
For example, in February, Bing continued to accelerate its growth according to Nielsen. The Nielsen press release states Bing’s market share is 12.5 percent. That’s a 15 percent jump since January. Nielsen also reports Google lost market share for two consecutive months – from 67.3 percent in December to 66.3 percent in January to 65.2 percent in February.
Nielsen also says Yahoo has dropped to 14.1 percent. This might represent a red flag for Bing if it is only taking market share from Yahoo. Bing needs to demonstrate success against Google. That’s because Bing and Yahoo will soon join forces in their 10-year deal with Bing being responsible for search and Yahoo handling the advertising.
So, it’s hard to say at this point whether the bloom is falling off Google’s rose. Other than death and taxes, nothing is ever certain but change.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s the latest Nielsen press release:
Bing Hits All-Time High Market Share: Nielsen.
Risk Management – Lawyer Explains Basics in Protecting Intellectual Property
Each hour, it seems, news headlines are published about patents. Normally, patent headlines are a sign of business friction as the case with Xerox vs. Google and Yahoo, and Apple vs. Nokia.
So it’s extraordinary for adversaries such as Google and Yahoo to be on the same side. Xerox filed a patent lawsuit naming the two search giants alleging they are violating automatic query and information patents, according to InformationWeek.
It’s also rare when you can spot a positive news headline regarding patents. Note this PC World headline: “Microsoft, Amazon Strike Patent Licensing Deal.” This means Microsoft and Amazon.com will each tap into the other company’s technology. As part of the arrangement, Microsoft will receive payments from Amazon.com.
Entrepreneurs are well-advised to consider ways to avoid legal entanglements over their inventions and intellectual property.
Here’s an example: Apple vs. Nokia. In this case, the U.S. International Trade Commission is investigating.
Sounds serious, doesn’t it – it’s time to turn to a noted patent attorney for an explanation of this case.
“It looks like Apple and Nokia are using their patent portfolios to obtain some leverage from each other,” says Adam L.K. Philipp, founder of the Axios Law firm (www.axioslaw.com). “Generally, two firms of this size may posture, but then settle, especially as their respective patent portfolios are so large.”
He speaks from experience. He says his current clients include: “RealNetworks, Wetpaint, PhotoBucket (formerly Ontela), SEOmoz, Appature, Winshuttle, Kashless, HealthUnity, AirSplat.com, and many more.”
China makes a lot of intellectual property headlines. Is China getting a bad rap?
“China is becoming an intellectual property powerhouse; a bit like a very large high college football player. Young and inexperienced, but having a lot of potential and with the right seasoning has the ability to go to the NFL,” explains the Seattle attorney.
“Generally I tell my clients that it is not enough to have a business partner or intellectual property in China, you want to give your business partner the tools to use by filing for intellectual property protection in China,” adds Mr. Philipp.
He says entrepreneurs face five common problems in intellectual property (IP). They include:
- Waiting too long to seek IP protection
- Talking about their technology before securing protection
- Spending too little money on IP protection
- Spending too much money on IP protection
- Spending money on the wrong IP protection
“From a business perspective it is always important to think of intellectual property as providing a business with business tools,” he says. “By simply understanding IP better, businesses can make better decisions on a cost/benefit basis of how or if to proceed with IP protection.”
And he believes patents are needed for five reasons:
- To obtain exclusivity in their market (barriers to entry for others). Also to satisfy investors.
- To obtain licensing revenue
- For bragging rights (PR)
- For cross-licensing opportunities
- All of the above
How about trademarks?
“Securing the investment in a brand and the associated goodwill,” explains Mr. Philipp. “It is expensive and distracting to entrepreneurs and their customers to change a brand. Registering a trademark can help to avoid that.”
He warns about the importance of copyrights. “Registering copyrights allows a rights hold much easier and cheaper enforcement options. In particular access to statutory damages that can be quite effective in copyright litigation.”
He’s knowledgeable in the core issues in business-method patents, such as Bilski. Bilski was a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and later debated at the U.S. Supreme Court. But the high court’s decision still left questions about what can be patented.
What’s Bilski all about?
“The core issues revolve around the United States’ policy of protecting innovation; and deciding what types of innovations are worthy of patent protection,” Mr. Philipp says. “If is it merely a method of doing business, is that the kind of thing our Founding Fathers really wanted enshrined in the Constitution as protectable?”
Verbiage regarding patents, obviously, is technical, such as the machine or transformation test.
“That a process patent must either be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or must operate to change articles or materials to a ‘different state or thing’,” he explains. “Currently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office merely requires a recitation of a particular computer performing the process for software inventions.”
OK, the bottom-line: When does he recommend inventors seek a patent attorney?
“As soon as they decide to build a business around their idea(s),” he concludes. “But that does not mean that they need to start filing for protection right away, rather that they should be informed and strategic about how they allocate their budget.”
Take it from me, pay heed to this information if you want to avoid unnecessary headaches.
From the Coach’s Corner, on a lighter note courtesy of Forbes, here are images of The Kookiest Inventions. (I haven’t verified whether they have made money. )
Tech Drama: How Microsoft-Yahoo Can Beat Google
Pick any high drama you want. But the desperate high-stakes competition of Microsoft and Yahoo vs. Google certainly has more drama than some other events preoccupying Americans. For countless stakeholders – from investors to technology employees – the nail-biting is as intense as it is for sports fans seeking respite from the weak economy in rooting for their favorite teams in the World Series or Super Bowl.
A lot of commerce is at stake: The future of the three companies, more than $22 billion in advertising, financial success for advertising companies and their employees in a tepid economy, as well as the efficacy for 180 million daily Internet users.
The 10-year Internet marketing deal – Microsoft’s Bing will power Yahoo’s searches and Yahoo will sell advertising for both companies – awaits regulators’ approval. And Google has been trying to crush the deal.
I’ll explain the merger delay a little later in this column.
Meantime, intense work is being performed by engineers from Redmond, WA near Seattle to the Silicon Valley in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Does search giant Google feel the threat of competition? Yes, however, no one probably feels sorry for Google because it’s under attack by Microsoft and Yahoo.
Aside from the fortunes of the three companies, it’s worth noting the winner in this passionate competition will be Internet users thanks to major innovations in online searches.
Who would have anticipated that Twitter, which rose to prominence as a social networking site, would be courted by Microsoft’s Bing and Google. Just hours after Bing announced its deal to search postings on Twitter, Google followed suit.
In music, Yahoo reminded us it has shown audio-file links with Rhapsody since 2008 – just after Google announced users can easily find links to their preferred songs on Lala or MySpace.
Even with the proposed merger, Yahoo has been working on its search engine. Yahoo is allowing users to bundle searches from their preferred bevy of publishers. Yahoo also features a search pad so users can see their search history.
Google is constantly fine-tuning, such as its real-time search feature, moving its advertising closer to content results and enlarging the size of its search box. With its revenue down in text and display ads, Google is constantly updating its approach to appease publishers that have also felt the financial squeeze. (Disclosure: The Biz Coach site uses Google AdSense., but it is proving to be unsatisfactory)
According to comScore at the start of Q4 in 2009, Google had a 64.9 percent market share in search compared to Yahoo’s 18.8 percent and 9.4 percent on the Microsoft sites.
Despite all the hoopla over Google, advertisers would be well-advised to consider the time-spent user data from The Nielsen Company also during Sept.
Nielsen confirms Google is number one in total searches with an average user time-spent of one hour fifty-three minutes. But Yahoo users stay about 50 percent longer – three hours nine minutes. Users on MSN/WindowsLive/Bing spend two hours one minute. Obviously, a longer time-spent viewing on Yahoo by users means advertisers have a better shot of their messages being seen.
My sense is that Yahoo’s success in time-spent users’ data has to do with its terrific content in finance.
With video watching up 25 percent in Sept. 2009, Nielsen says Google maintains a huge lead. YouTube had 106 million viewers.
It’s interesting to note the change in online searching and the expectations of consumers. In 1999, Nielsen reported there were119 million U.S. users and the Internet began attracting more women. At first, mostly men used the Internet.
No longer are users content just to find a Web site; they’re looking for more specific information, and they want it to be comprehensive, more appealing visually and lightning-fast. Go to any search engine and you will notice more images in addition to information, not just blue links.
The Microsoft-Yahoo merger is in a sense a surprise. Microsoft isn’t known for major alliances. And it remains to be seen if the merger will yield a productive return because of corporate cultural and technological questions. True, a merger would probably give Microsoft a bigger standing in the Silicon Valley, and momentum in Internet search expertise.
What now?
The merger ostensibly displeases the brain trust at Google, who is reportedly trying to stop it – How Google Is Trying To Hold Up The Microsoft-Yahoo Deal (GOOG, YHOO, MSFT).
Size matters in the advertising world and Internet advertising growth is the most prolific in history – even more so than television’s legendary track record. Clearly, Microsoft has ratcheted up its online search capabilities with Bing’s execution and monetization to attract consumers. But that’s expected given Microsoft’s acumen in monetization.
To simultaneously compare Bing and Google side-by-side: www.bing-vs-google.com.
My sense is that the success of Microsoft and Yahoo Google will depend on user trust, which helps lead to strong brand equity. Trust and brand equity are closely related. In years past, I wrote that Microsoft was faring badly in brand value, according to Forrester – 2005 Technology Brand Scorecard.
In March 2009, CoreBrand’s Brand Power Index – which ranks the top 100 brands in market reputation and awareness – indicated Microsoft’s brand made a small comeback in 2008. But it’s doing much worse than in 2005 – 2008 Corporate Branding Index.
However, BusinessWeek reported in 2009 that Microsoft is doing well on its top 100 brand ranking. Microsoft No. 3 behind Coca-Cola and IBM, respectively. Google is ranked No. 7. Yahoo is not listed.
The jury is still out. It’s all about user trust and other basic elements of brand equity. But to explain all that it entails requires a separate column.
As always – whether it’s the World Series, Super Bowl or business – I tend to root for underdogs. Competition is good. But as the disclaimer in the BusinessWeek ranking states, “Valuations do not represent a guarantee of future performance of the brands or companies.”
From the Coach’s Corner, here are steps to alleviate wireless Internet threats while you’re traveling, courtesy of consultant Jerald Savin at Cambridge Technology Consulting Group, Inc., www.ctcg.com.
He advocates taking charge of your WI-FI connections on Windows XP:
Step 1: Go into Wireless Network Connections from either the tray icon or from Network Connections. In Wireless Network Connections, go into “Change advanced settings.” There are three tabs: General, Wireless Networks and Advanced. Click on “Wireless Networks.” Your first surprise will probably be the number of wireless networks listed under “Preferred Networks.” My guess is that you won’t know half of the networks listed there.
Step 2: Delete the wireless networks you don’t need. Use the “Remove” button below the window listing the Preferred Networks.
Step 3: Change all of the wireless networks to “On Demand.” To do this, highlight the network and click on “Properties.” In “Properties”, go to the third tab, “Connection” and uncheck the box “Connect when this network is in range.” This means that whenever your laptop senses a wireless network, it will prompt you to connect; it won’t automatically connect. (Note: The first tab, “Association”, is where wireless network keys are entered.)
Step 4: Go to the “Advanced” tab and unclick the box “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet Connection.” This prevents “bridging”, connecting between networks across a computer.
Mr. Savin admits the steps aren’t 100 percent foolproof, but you’ll be headed in the right direction.
Incidentally, if you’re considering upgrading from XP to Windows 7, he suggests for many people it will be an arduous task. So he advises buying a new preloaded machine instead.
