Yahoo doesn't need a phone to leverage any of those products. It needs quality mobile apps what people actively want to install, and it needs partnerships with carriers and manufacturers to preload devices with their software to get more people to use their services. That's effectively Dropbox's mobile strategy. I presume it's working.

If Yahoo were a startup trying to ante up then I'd agree with you. Yet Yahoo already has the cards they need to play big: users, branding (especially in Asia), core products, content partnerships, profits, and financing in place to join the big 5: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft.

I don't see how the need for a phone follows from being a major internet player.

Apple built a phone to build a better phone.

Google built a phone to make sure they had a solid foothold in mobile ads and the mobile web in general.

Microsoft built a phone for mobile ads and to ensure that their enterprise applications had a mobile experience that they controlled, so no one would switch to a different application because it had better mobile features or support. It should be noted that Microsoft's efforts are failing, though their tablet will probably see some success. (EDIT: That's clearly not the reason why Microsoft built phones in the first place, but I think it's a solid justification for why they still care. Windows Phone is a money loser thus far.)

Facebook doesn't have a phone. They're rumored to be building one. I don't understand why it's a good investment for them when their apps are on every phone, with contacts integration on iOS.

Amazon is rumored to be building a phone, but I don't understand the logic behind it. The only reason they have a mobile OS is because they needed a device to push their content to.

Other than advertising, I don't see a good reason for Yahoo to start building devices that are any more involved than throwing some Yahoo apps on top of Android. If they built something incompatible with an existing mobile OS, it would fail.

The reason for Amazon to build a phone is for distribution of digital content. As Apple proved with the iPod and then the iPhone, the device is the distributor. Music, movies, video, books, and apps are all multi-billion dollar industries. In a fragmented world of content producers, power goes to the distributor. The decreasing costs of producing quality content means the world will only become more fragmented, hence distribution becomes more critical.

I guess I was thinking mostly about books. A phone makes sense since Amazon sells a lot of content that people consume on their phones, particularly music, and to a lesser extent, movies and books. As a defensive move against Google Play, it makes even more sense.

My comment aside, you are right to question if it's the wisest investment for Amazon to make a phone. Could they form strategic partnerships instead, paying handset manufacturers to install Amazon media marketplaces like Google did with Dell to install search? As Nokia, Palm, BlackBerry, and others can attest, phone making is a difficult business. I haven't crunched the numbers and cannot offer an informed opinion, but as I articulated above, there is reason for Amazon to consider the option.

"Imagine a phone with built-in Flickr". Right, I'm imagining it.. what's good about it? Why does anyone want that over Facebook integration?

You make good points about Yahoo's content, but they should work on integrating that content with someone else's device.

Flickr is stronger IMHO at searching, sorting, browsing, organizing, collaging, archiving, and sharing with loosely-connected groups. The HTML5 uploader is good and the Justified layout with thumbnail commenting is good too (similar to Google photo results, Metro, skydrive).

Will you do all these on your phone? I think yes, especially given the colossal success of Pinterest. People seem to love organizing, sorting, tagging, and collaging. And with the Yahoo phone, photos can be connected with your messenger, calendar, games, and email.

Am I going to search, sort, organise, collage and archive on my phone? They don't sound like everyday activities to me. The uploader and justified view wouldn't even apply to a mobile platform.

People who just want to share photos without all the snooping through the medicine cabinet that Facebook does (though Yahoo may do it too, for all I know).

So a tiny minority of people, then. I would be deeply concerned about launching a mobile platform on that basis.

In this case, the platform exists. This would be moving it to mobile and extending its audience/reach. I'm not big into photography so I'm a terrible judge of this particular domain. But it strikes me that if you are absent in such a large market as mobile, but already have a substantial user base you're risking losing customers as they move to the more convenient platforms. It also presents a barrier for new customers: go with a potentially better, but not on mobile, platform, or the slightly inferior, but available everywhere, platform?

Flickr already has an Android app, not particularly popular one though. There were late to the game, but so was Instagram.

No supply chain, hardware connections, or top talent. Steering clear from this and strongly partnering with Apple is a far superior plan.

I don't think a phone is good idea either, but all of this can be essentially had by partnering with an Asian ODM also.

The Yahoo phone would work in Asia, where the Yahoo brand carries a lot of weight and you already see entrenched Yahoo-branded services (e.g., http://bbpromo.yahoo.co.jp/). In America, I'm not so sure, but it's an interesting idea.

If they really wanted to do this, there is a struggling phone company that will most certainly be willing to talk in Waterloo...

That said, I think this is a bad idea for a number of reasons: 1) they can't leverage the same "total experience" OS/app combo that apple and google can. 2) they aren't in the hardware business, and google has already got a lock on all the non-software vendors. 3) seriously, phones?

One area that they might want to pursue though is cameras, not phones. I'm talking Canon/Nikon here...dslr's are begging for cloud integration and Flickr is right there. That would be 1-2 years out though, and Mayer may not have that time.

Short term solution though would be to ruthlessly cut the fat and focus on high value products. I'm assuming she has a good idea of where she wants to take the company already, but the question remains if the board will let her. You don't go through as many short term CEOs as Y! has without realizing that they aren't being allowed to call the shots when it matters.

They don't have the supply chain to pull an Amazon or the gravitas with the open source community to pull a Mozilla. A Yahoo phone would be DOA.

If Yahoo were to make hardware that leveraged Flickr's brand, I would think a slick web-connected digital photo frame or something like that would be a lot more attractive and lower risk.

Ultimately hardware is too high risk and low reward, especially when you're not firing on all pistons and basically in a something of an existential funk in many of the current business lines.

Exactly! What could go wro..

Seriously, friend

A person makes a suggestion and goes on to explain how it would work, why it needs to be done, etc... Never mind that his point is worth exploring, but you come out of nowhere and claim the idiocy of his proposition without 1) explain why, or 2) putting forward an alternative.

I cannot say you are exactly what is wrong with online societies, but your attitude is exactly that and your previous comments prove me right. All negative.

Seriously, Friend, change your attitude towards life.

Really? Why do you think so? :)

I think a big part of the problem is that, were Yahoo! to enter the phone game now, they'd be years behind their competitors. iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows mobile are all pretty established, and could all easily out-maneuver a new competitor. Second, I don't think she would really move into a market that Google is already working in by introducing competition for Android. Yahoo! needs to find some untapped market need and hit it HARD. Unfortunately, phones are probably not that need.

Per the GGP post, they can use Android, they wouldn't be competing with it. They can leverage their market position to create an additional Android app marketplace, or produce a suite of apps that create a Yahoo! integrated experience on other Android devices, whether they distribute these in their own store or someone else's. Android manufacturers already exist, establish a relationship with them and they can start churning out Yahoo!/Android devices in addition to their Google/Android B&N/Android and Amazon/Android devices. The device manufacturers are competing with each other and Apple for the market. They can be promiscuous with companies seeking to create X branded Android devices. They get to rely on their existing production infrastructure and design database, and they get paid by Brand X to create a custom design, it's not out of pocket for them.

The competition would be with the Google/Amazon branding, but Yahoo! already has a relationship with millions of customers, many of whom already own Android devices. Give them better Yahoo! integration into their existing devices + the future option of migrating to a Yahoo! branded device.

Ah yes, that makes sense. I'm not terrific at business sense, thanks. I had not considered that targeting existing Yahoo customers doesn't necessarily cannibalize Google's customers, since they're clearly not jumping to move to gmail, are they?

I'm not the person you are responding to, but I do think the idea of a Yahoo Phone isn't a winner. Mostly because phones are basically fashion items at this point. Can you imagine anyone being impressed that you have the latest Yahoo phone? Me neither.