Yahoo! Buys Maven Networks - WTF?
February 13, 2008 – 3:35 pmWe thought the whole idea of laying off a bunch of people at Yahoo! was to trim its workforce, but on the same day the bad news broke out for almost a thousand employees, came the news that Yahoo! is purchasing a video ad company called Maven Networks. The NYT couldn’t have said it better:
Maven brings something to Yahoo that it doesn’t need now: More complexity.
A commenter noted “The timing on this deal reeks of desperation and pointlessness. With the firing of 1,000 employees accompanying this kind of news, it makes Yahoo seem callously lame and thoughtless…”
Indeed — and why make such a huge investment when competitor Google owns the most popular video sharing service (YouTube)?