Yahoo shouldn't be such a hard company to figure out. It's one of the oldest and best-known content providers on the Web. Its news, information, entertainment and communications services attract more than 170 million U.S. visitors each month.
Yet many investors consider Yahoo to be a mystery.
Its stock has lost 15.4% of its value in 2010 as Yahoo failed to show significant gains in page views and ad sales. The big question on Wall Street is whether Yahoo is too scattered and stodgy to fend off powerful competitors led by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL.
Concerns grew last week as Yahoo lost three executives who were trying to freshen its content and attract new fans — including people who use smartphones to access the Web.
No wonder all eyes in the digital world are on Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.
She was a surprise choice to manage one of the industry's toughest turnaround challenges in January 2009. The move to Yahoo capped a long career in Silicon Valley that included 14 years running Autodesk, a computer-aided software design firm.
Bartz, 62, has spent much of her time cutting costs, and deals, as she tried to sharpen Yahoo's focus on services that appeal to advertisers. For example, last year she agreed to let Microsoft's Bing power Yahoo's search engine. And this year Yahoo bought Associated Content, which assigns news stories to freelancers based on data about subjects that interest Web users.
It's been a long journey from the farms of Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the tart-tongued executive was born and raised, to Yahoo, which is expected to generate $6.5 billion in revenue this year.
Bartz shared her views about Yahoo, prospects for the Internet and the economy with USA TODAY's David Lieberman at the 12th USA TODAY CEO Forum on Sept. 29 at Georgia State University.
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