Marissa Mayer’s first day at Yahoo

Today is Marissa Mayer’s first day at Yahoo. Here’s what I think she should do.

Print out this page listing every service that Yahoo offers. There are over 70 sites listed here. Cross out everything, except: Calendar, Entertainment, Events, Fantasy Football, Fantasy MLB, Fantasy Sports, Finance, Flickr, Games, Jobs, Local, Mail, Maps, Messenger, My Yahoo!, News, Search, Sports, Travel, and Weather. That’s 20.

Next, have an all-hands meeting explaining that these are the 20 core services that Yahoo is going to offer going forward. Also explain that over the next year, there are three goals that the entire company will be focusing on:

  1. Streamline the Yahoo site to focus on the core services above. Better design. Less ads. Mayer will be great at this.
  2. Go mobile. Yahoo has created some impressive mobile apps, such as Axis and Time Traveler. Make more. Focus on creating a best in class suite of mobile applications focused on the core services above.
  3. Go social. Whether through acquisitions, partnerships, or homegrown solutions, the core services need a social layer. Mind you, they don’t need a competing social network to have a social layer. They just need a social component that neatly combines their core services. Don’t shove social down users’ throats. Just make it available to provide value to the core services.