Verizon followers on Monday got a bit more insight into the U.S. wireless carrier’s strategy and timeline for two major projects: its go90 mobile video platform and acquisition of Yahoo Inc.
Speaking at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2016 conference, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said the Yahoo transition has progressed slowly thus far thanks to the summer. Armstrong said things should start to more rapidly take shape this fall as AOL sifts through Yahoo’s different work streams to see where they fit going forward
“The auction closed and then a lot of people were away in August,” Armstrong said. “So we’re with Marissa and her team (now). Basically, there’s about 20, 21 work streams we’re going through and my guess is by the time we get through the early fall we’ll have more of the strategy wired down. The overall premise is to do strategy, structure and then how do we basically finance the future growth overall.”
According to Verizon Executive Vice President Marni Walden, the first inklings of a Yahoo deal began back when Verizon acquired AOL last year. Though they hadn’t yet honed in on Yahoo, Walden said Verizon executives knew they would need to look for additional avenues to draw a greater audience. Walden said the move is also part of Verizon’s plan to avoid becoming a “dumb pipe” for data.
“We needed to get into the billions, we talk about that, in terms of eyeballs and Yahoo certainly does that for us,” Walden said. “…But it is about monetizing above the network. When we have the network business, that’s great, but we also believe that we have the right to play in the platform space and services as well.”
On the platform side, Walden addressed Verizon’s progress on go90, the carrier’s mobile video platform that launched nearly a year ago.
Though Walden, like other Verizon executives, did not disclose any hard usage figures, she said the company has “learned a lot experimenting with content” thus far.
“So we’ve found some things that work extremely well – live sports, live music, concerts, work really well,” Walden said.
Walden said the platform gained record numbers of viewers during the NFL’s Super Bowl as well as some of go90’s NBA and soccer content, and has also seen success with some of its original content aimed at 12-24 year old female viewers. But some other content offered on the platform – which Walden did not specify – has not done so well, she said. Walden said there were certainly things the company would do differently if given the chance, but said a learning curve was to be expected.
“I think we are learning,” Walden said. “I would tell you I am encouraged by engagement, that we have learned a lot about content and you will see us continue to work that model and to get it right…This is a little bit different for us and I think you’ll see us be successful but we’ve got some things that we want to change as we move forward.”
Walden said in the future Verizon plans to spread its content across platforms, including the go90 app, and all of the Verizon, AOL and soon-to-be Yahoo assets.
“You’ll see that content flowing on digital properties, you’ll see it flowing on Fios,” Walden said. “Then as we move into the world of 5G, you’ll also see that content show up there.”
