The recession dominates our thoughts, of course …
It’s hard not to be discouraged when we see the belt-tightening going on across all sectors in reaction to the tough economic conditions—cost cutting, layoffs, closures, loss of advertising, scaled back growth plans, etc. … But we’re a tough and resilient lot. Things are bound to improve. And, as one of my more optimistic-minded colleagues pointed out, the tough times forced his company to re-examine how it was doing things and to implement some cost-cutting changes that should have been made earlier.
It was painful to watch Yahoo!’s slide this past year—this company that once was highly esteemed for its brand, directory, and site traffic and was a real force on the internet. The company went through terribly tough times this year with the on-again-off-again attempted acquisition by Microsoft; it then saw its stock price tank and most of its top managers leave. Then, its ad deal with Google fell apart when Google bailed out facing antitrust pressures. TechCrunch, calling Yahoo! "poor, alone, and sad," says the company was burdened by a "CEO that still can’t clearly state the core goals." As of this writing, the company still had not named a new CEO to replace Jerry Yang.
Technology played a huge role in the 2008 elections, marking a permanent change in how politicians use technology. Barack Obama maintained an impressive presence on the net, clearly using social networks to his advantage. Since the win, he has been posting weekly addresses on YouTube.
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