CES 2014: Yahoo's Mayer puts on a show
LAS VEGAS — Hundreds came to see Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speak at the International CES show today. What they got was a show straight out of P.T. Barnum.
During a far-ranging hour-long discussion on Yahoo's 2014 plans, Mayer shared the stage with John Legend, Katie Couric, cast members of Saturday Night Live, Tumblr CEO David Karp and former New York Times tech columnist David Pogue.
Hundreds waited in line to pack the 1,700-seat Las Vegas Hilton Theater to get an update from Mayer, who delivered her first major speech in months. She made her point early and often. "We are amid a massive shift to mobile," she said.
Yahoo, which recently eclipsed 400 million monthly mobile users (800 million total worldwide), is throwing its chips into the mobile game. That's where the people — and revenue — are, Mayer says. By 2017, the company expects 3.8 billion connected devices worldwide.
Mayer made a strong pitch for Yahoo's commitment to news in the smartphone and tablet age. She brought onstage Couric, who joined the company late last year, to explain her role. Couric, who poked fun at herself for famously asking, "What is the Internet?" on the Today show in 1994, intends to interview newsmakers on Yahoo and bring "perspective and experience" to a "tsunami" of data that overwhelm consumers.
"We're re-imagining how we take original and curated content and deliver it on mobile," Couric said.
Mayer also announced Yahoo News Digest, a twice-a-day news update, which is the offshoot of its acquisition of Summly. Pogue premiered Yahoo Tech, its new digital magazine.
They even threw in an SNL Update spoof, with cast members Kenan Thompson and Cecily Strong. Yahoo has a content partnership with the venerable NBC show.
By most measures, Mayer's first year as Yahoo CEO has been a roaring success. Its stock has nearly doubled, to about $41 per share, and she was recently named No. 1 on Fortune's "40 Under 40" list — the first woman to earn that honor.
She has overseen more than 20 acquisitions in that time, adding much-needed buzz and users to the Yahoo brand through the purchases of companies such as Tumblr and an intriguing partnership with Couric. And, in a chat with USA TODAY during the holidays, she strongly hinted more deals are to come in 2014.
Still, questions linger over Yahoo's long-term advertising revenue prospects, under withering competition from Google, Facebook and others. Yahoo lost its spot as the No. 2 digital ad seller in the U.S. to Facebook for the first time in 2013, according to eMarketer.
There, too, is skepticism on whether Mayer's strategy will ultimately pay off . Many pin Yahoo's recent financial successes on its lucrative stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
"Mayer's turnaround effort is in mid-stride, so she should be given the benefit of the doubt," says Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "But her (previous stint) at Google is quite obvious in her efforts to retool Yahoo's advertising strategy and bolster the company's production of original content. Yahoo is still clearly a tech company but under Mayer that technology is becoming increasingly transparent."