Getting rid of advertisements may not sound like a recipe to grow a Web business, but it’s one tack Yahoo is taking under new CEO Carol Bartz.
At a two-day staff powwow last week, Yahoo management decided to stop serving ads on its popular Yahoo Mail product in certain emerging markets in order to improve the experience for people with slow Internet connections.
The decision, which Bartz relayed to employees in her weekly memo last week, is intended to stem a loss of market share that Yahoo Mail believes it is experiencing in certain emerging market countries.
The move appears to be among one of the early nips and tucks the new CEO is making to Yahoo as she appraises the various aspects of the business and crafts a broader turnaround plan.
And it struck at least one analyst as a good sign.
Holding on to existing users is vital for any Web business, says Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. A company can always figure out how to make money off the users later.
