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Apocalypse Yahoo?
By dave_pasternack | April 25, 2008
I spent some time this week watching Apocalypse Now (Redux), one of my all-time favorite films from the 1970s. I’ve seen this film at least 10 times, and it always has some new lesson to teach me about the state of the world, and this time around, a few scenes reminded me of Yahoo’s current death dance with Microsoft.
One such scene occurs when Willard, reviewing the secret dossier on Colonel Kurtz, notes that Kurtz claimed that “he only needed ten highly motivated divisions to win this war.” This observation unerringly describes Yahoo’s troubles.
Another scene (deleted from the original release) concerns Captain Willard’s encounter with a group of French colonialists holed up at a rubber plantation who refuse to face their inevitable fate. These die-hards aver that they will “never leave,” because their entire identity and family history is intrinsically bound to the land. Captain Willard leaves them before their fate is revealed to us, but it is clear that they are ultimately doomed. I’d hate to think that the Yahoo board’s apparent failure to reasonably negotiate with Microsoft is rooted in a similar, irrational emotional connection to the Yahoo brand.
Topics: Search Engine Marketing |
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