Yahoo for content, tech ties with Indian firms

Speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave she said Yahoo was open for partnerships from Indian companies for both content and technology. The company would focus on localisation and expansion into more languages in India, she said. 

Bartz said the company also looked forward to onboard new Indian Internet users by making the website easier to use.  She said for Internet to see wider use in India, the price of bandwidth had to fall and cheap access devices such as tablets become available.

Speaking on the future of her company, she said the long term goal of Yahoo was to become largest digital media content company. Intense personalisation or auto-generating a customised page for each of the over 600 million users of the company was the company’s dream, she said. Personalisation would not stop at the home page, but would spread to all pages, design and layout.   

Bartz also emphasised that to make strategic partnerships work, “You need to know how to be a good partner. Like marriage and dating you have to work on it.”  She also called upon Indian entrepreneurs to improve their product management skills. “Products are not just writing code. Having just a great idea of product in a room, did not suffice. Getting an idea tested in a market place, evaluating and revising it was equally important part of the process,” she said.

On young teenagers hooked to social networking sites like Facebook and whether it offered a threat, Bartz said 12 year olds would not spend their entire life on any particular site. Social networking was indicating what people would do on the Internet.