⇥ Will It Blend?

December 14, 2008
2 comments
 
⇥ Permalink

Note: this is my exit(0) column from the December 2008 issue of php|architect. I am reproducing it here in the hopes that it will shed some more light on the work that we have done to improve the environmental profile of php|architect


As you probably know, this is the last issue of the “old” php|architect; starting with the January issue—which, ironically, is already on its way to you even as I am writing this—you will receive a magazine that is, in many ways, quite different from the one you are holding in your hands (of reading on your screen).

One of the most controversial aspects of our “reboot” of php|a and the introduction of the new print-required subscription model has been its perceived impact on the environment. Despite having received a good response from readers when we lowered our subscription rates, many current readers wrote to express concern about the fact that forcing all subscribers to purchase a print edition of our magazine seemed wasteful.

My reaction to these concerns was that, first of all, you can still go PDF-only: simply buy each issue individually from our online store. Of course, this is not as convenient as subscribing and receiving each issue automatically, but if the environmental impact of paper is your primary motivator, a solution does exist.

The other point that I have repeatedly tried to make (without all that much success, I am sorry to say) is that the environmental impact of the new magazine is actually lower, both in relative and absolute terms, than the old one. Until today, all that I had to support this claim was simply a number of calculations that we had made as we prepared to switch over. Now that the first prototypes of the new format have come off the production line, I can finally give you a bit more information.

The switch to an all-print format caused us to increase our regular print run by approximately 15% (this is before counting the new subscriptions that we recorded thanks to our price drop). However, the added critical mass allowed us to switch to a much lighter paper, so that the weight of each individual copy has gone down from around 130g to approximately 90g—a reduction of over 30%. Thus, 100 old subscribers that required 13kg of paper have now translated in 115 subscribers, who, however, only require 10.35kg of paper. So, it turns out that having more print subscribers results in a net loss in terms of real ecological impact: less paper weight means fewer trees, and a smaller carbon footprint from transportation.

Even better, the new paper is FSC certified, meaning that it is produced using environmentally sound practices from trees grown in nurseries specifically destined to paper production, rather than from harmful logging (you can read more about the Forest Stewardship Council on their website).

Finally, the greater volume has given us access to organic ink, made from soy and completely biodegradable. So, even though we do use more ink than before, we use ink that is much greener than before.

On this note, in the hopes of having shed some light on the mystery of green printing, I wish you—and your dear ones—a most happy holiday season.

⇥ Dear Yahoo:

December 4, 2008
6 comments
 
⇥ Permalink

I love Yahoo! They are the quintessential geek company, a bunch of people I think of as friends (as well as really smart people I admire) work there, and they have made some real contributions to the world of PHP and OSS.

It is sad, therefore, to see them dying a slow and unhappy death as their sales plunge, their stock turns to dust and their leadership runs in any number of different directions, their heads firmly in their hands.

What to do? As they search for a new leader, here are my humble armchair-CEO suggestions:

1. Figure Out Who You Are

Every time I ask a Y! employee what it is that their company does, I get a different answer—usually ranging from “we’re a search engine” (wrong) to “what doesn’t it do?” (right, and bad).

Five years ago, I sat in front of a Y! employee at a restaurant, asked this very same question, and got the standard “we do lots of things” response. I told my host, “Google is going to bury you, because they’ve figured out the one important lesson of business: they do one thing, and they do it well.” He didn’t believe me, I’m sure, and here we are.

The real problem with Y! is that it has no identity. Is it a search engine? Yes, but it is also a media company. It’s an e-commerce provider. It’s a content provider. It washes. It rinses. It makes coffee.

Google’s mission statement—forget the whole “don’t be evil” bullshit—is simple, and immediately effective:

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

That’s all there is. Fifteen words—even an idiot working at a Google office on Mars could immediately tell if his or her project fulfills the mission’s objective.

Yahoo’s mission statement (when corporate officer remember that they have one) is befuddling:

Yahoo! powers and delights our communities of users, advertisers, and publishers – all of us united in creating indispensable experiences, and fueled by trust.

Do you see the difference? Yahoo’s statement is laden with superlatives and subjective metrics. What “delights” your communities? What makes your experiences “indispensable”? Most of all, it smacks of incredible arrogance—the way I see it, you do the job to the best of your abilities, and it’s up to your customers to decide whether you’re delighting them and providing indispensable services.

2. Ditch the Search

On the surface, search marketing is a big moneymaker for Yahoo—if you look at their latest quarterly earnings report, you’ll notice that a large percentage of their revenues come from that sector. However, so do a large portion of their expenses. The cost of revenues is an abominable 43%—ridiculous for a company that has no physical manufacturing operations, in my opinion—and the cost of sales is 41% of the gross profit.

The search marketing operations should be treated as a strategic asset and sold as such—they could help assist the operations of a floundering rival (like Microsoft for example) and generate much-needed cash to realign and expand Yahoo’s operations.

Why Microsoft? Because it makes sense. MS wants to solidify its reach into people’s homes, and search is a great way to provide a unifying platform for all its other products—something that Google can’t do. Meanwhile, Yahoo can focus on building the best search technology, thus eroding Google’s perceived technological advantage on a level playing field.

3. Don’t Ditch the Search

This is not to say that Yahoo! should abandon its search technology—far from it. Yahoo’s search technology is, in my opinion, years ahead of Microsoft’s and, in many ways, much better than Google’s. Yahoo should play on this strength by becoming a search technology provider, and supply superior search technologies to companies that need them.

This is where Google’s own mission statement is self-limiting: they gather the data, and decide how to organize it. Yahoo could exploit this weakness by providing clients with a service that organizes data they way they want.

4. Organize Your Technology

Yahoo’s biggest strength is its incredible brain pool. They employ smart people—they just don’t know how to take advantage of their abilities. The first step here is to clearly separate research from development. Have a team dedicate to research—make them go nuts and come up with whatever new ideas they want. But also have a team whose job is to build solid products that are reliable and work well in a thoroughly integrated way (and I don’t mean “they use the same login”).

“Solid” is the keyword here. Google’s products, with the exception of its search engine, are flaky and limited at best. Many of them employ good ideas, but suffer from “permanent beta syndrome,” which is simply a consequence of Google’s modus operandi. You can’t ask developers to experiment and build solid products at the same time.

5. Find a Market

By ditching its media-company image and focusing on becoming a technology provider, Yahoo would find a ready market in a gigantic segment of the world economy: entertainment—a market which is all about data and its organization. Think cable companies, media conglomerates—all interests that have shown time and again that they have no clue whatsoever about how to take advantage of the Internet without shooting themselves in the foot with a ballistic missile.

With just a small number of strategic acquisitions, coupled with the services it already provides, Yahoo could position itself to be the primary technology developer and provider for a very profitable segment of the economy and work in a thoroughly synergistic way with them: they know how make good products and capture their markets, and Yahoo knows how to make sure that the products work well and provide ample opportunity for profit.

I am, of course, but a lowly PHP guy, but it seems to me that Yahoo’s predicament is not impossible to fix. Doing so will require management with a decent set of cojones, and a dramatic reduction in the focus of the company. Of course, I see the latter as a good thing, which will, however, require significant sacrifices and long-term support from the investors.