Yahoo! Lays Off 1,500: A Stay Of Execution For Some, Others Shown Door

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Yahoo! Lays Off 1,500: A Stay Of Execution For Some, Others Shown Door

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    Even after the Yahoo! vs. Microsoft roller coaster these past few months , I still go to work every day proudly. Yes, that’s right, I work for Yahoo! and I am not quitting. The value of my company is determined by more than super-mogul-blow-hard, insider, stock-holder-interest-group nonsense.  I am part of Yahoo’s live streaming and video content production team.  Our division of Yahoo! rose to the online media industry on the shoulders of web-broadcasting pioneers Broadcast.com, co-founded by internet mogul, Mark Cuban.

                Some of my colleagues worked alongside Cuban in the early days of web audio/video in a very primitive warehouse in the Deep Ellum area of downtown Dallas.  Many of the systems and tools that we use today were conceptualized by those early Broadcast dot com engineers.

 Although progress can sometimes be slow in large corporations, the content production team at Yahoo! makes advances in video content production quality on a daily basis. With so many media industry clients it is sometimes surprising to see the vast difference in professional media standards amongst big name media outlets. 

    Our facilities aren’t the most complex in the world, but Yahoo! strives for quality in our content.  Have you watched any HD trailers lately on Yahoo! Movies? Those premium quality trailers didn’t magically appear online. They were transferred, digitized, and transcoded by us, then delivered to you.  That is a valuable service.

One of our most important roles in content production is to standardize the myriad of media types that we receive from our media partners.  Our job is to convert files and tapes into our own network media standards for on-demand delivery to our users. Yahoo!, isn’t the only web content producer, but we do set high standards for quality in the industry.  This is valuable.

As a media company with a strong engineering focus, we contribute new and innovative techniques for online media production and online content delivery. That is also valuable. 

Our contributions to the World Wide Web at-large are far more valuable and far more important than some random retirement fund’s stock values.  I too am a Yahoo! stockholder, but I measure the value of my company by more than just stock price. I value the privilege that it is to contribute to an industry leader. I also value creating higher standards and better user experiences for an industry that I love.  

Although it is what began Yahoo’s business, search is only a part of our business in 2008. Besides great search, we create standards in the online advertising business. We also connect people, places, and businesses with news, sports, live events, personals, photos, real estate, food, movies, TV, and interactive video content.

    I am proud to work for Yahoo! and proud to contribute to the online industry in an innovative and positive way.  Maybe I’m a bit biased about Yahoo!, but it’s a great place to work and an organization with deep value, at least in my opinion.  The next time you watch a news clip or a movie trailer online, remember that Yahoo! helped invent and perfect the industry and technology that allows users to access the world’s media, all from their laptops, desktops, and Blackberries.  Not bad!