Design Couldn’t Save Yahoo

Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo, as you’ve no doubt heard by now. To my mind, it’s a terrible idea to combine two foundering behemoths in an attempt at besting an even bigger behemoth like Google (and moreover to do so with only enough ambition to shoot for being number two). But the point, I think, is that Yahoo has failed. The company flew high for much of its life, but it would surprise no one to say that it’s been in trouble for some time.

Why is Yahoo in this position? I won’t pretend to have all the answers to that question, but I can say one thing: design apparently had nothing to do with it.

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NYT: Why Does It Still Take So Long to Publish a Book?

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“Technology may be speeding up the news cycle, but in publishing, things actually seem to be slowing down. Although publishers can turn an electronic file into a printed book in a matter of weeks — as they often do for hot political titles, name-brand authors or embargoed celebrity biographies likely to be leaked to the press — they usually take a year before releasing a book. Why so long? In a word, marketing.”

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