Can Marissa Mayer turn Yahoo’s fortunes around? The word on Twitter

18 Jul 2012

Marissa Mayer had been with Google for 13 years before her exit to Yahoo! to take over as CEO this week

Yahoo! has today reported flat second-quarter revenue, while it also welcomed former Google technology executive Marissa Mayer who officially took over as CEO yesterday. But what is the word on Twitter about Mayer’s transit to Yahoo! and how she can revive it?

Mayer will be the third person in 12 months to take the CEO helm at the company and the fifth in five years.

As for the Yahoo! financial results that have just been released, the internet company posted second-quarter earnings of US$1.22bn. This is up 1pc on the previous year and has afforded Yahoo! a flat operating profit of US$191m.

“In the second quarter, non-GAAP earnings per share exceeded consensus and both display and search revenue ex-TAC showed modest growth,” said Tim Morse, chief financial officer.

“We also moved aggressively with new strategic agreements with Alibaba and Facebook and announced several new partnerships including CNBC, Clear Channel and Spotify,” he said.

Yesterday, after the news broke that Google’s first female engineer, who had been with the company for 13 years, is to take the top spot at Yahoo!, Mayer subsequently revealed on Twitter that she and her husband Zack Bogue are expecting their first baby. Mayer had given the news to Fortune that her first child, a boy, is due in October.

So here’s a brief snapshot of what people have been saying on Twitter:

Johnnie Manzari ‏@johnnie
Yahoo is profitable and has $2.4B in cash. One smart acquisition from Marissa Mayer and they are back in the game.

Jennifer Gunter ‏@DrJenGunter
Yahoo’s issue in nutshell -> “@HAL9000_: Marissa Mayer is the new CEO of Yahoo. I still used Google to find out who she is.”

And a lot of users on the social networking platform are asking Mayer to work her magic on revitalising Flickr.

Neville Hobson ‏@jangles
Please Make Flickr Awesome Again #dearmarissamayer

And Mayer herself had this to say:

marissamayer ‏@marissamayer
Love that on a Yahoo search for Skype you get a big “Download” button #exactlywhatyouwant http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=crmas&p=skype

Not Mark Zuckerberg ‏@notzuckerberg
Congratulations, new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. I wish you the best of luck in revitalizing Yahoo’s core business of making avatars that wink.

Julia Segal ‏@juliasegal
Marissa Mayer went from Google to Yahoo! She hasn’t said what the next job will be, but let’s just say Tom at MySpace better watch his back.

Erik Michaels-Ober ‏@sferik
The Marissa Mayer move says more about Google than it does about Yahoo!. She wouldn’t have left Google for any job in the world 5 years ago.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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