As the CEO and founder of a vertical search engine software development company, the recent layoffs at Yahoo! seem like another trough in this unstable economy. But more than sparking fear, it makes me think: opportunity.
Kara Swisher points out in her news story regarding the layoffs, that Yahoo! plans to cut projects and the development teams working on them. This means products geared toward emerging trends and innovation won’t see the light of day, while well-developed projects will be up for sale.
This scenario represents opportunity for savvy entrepreneurs to analyze Yahoo!’s “unfinished business” and fill the void. In a tough market, entrepreneurs can find ways to innovate and help build tomorrow’s success stories.
As Yang, Yahoo!’s CEO said, “I look at these cuts as both a short-term and long-term effort. In the short term, we have consolidation and organizational corrections to make. In the long term, we will look at our whole portfolio and are now asking ourselves in each case if we need to be in this business. We’re asking ourselves–should we sell it or should we shut it down? That is the kind of comprehensive look we are doing across the company.”
Vertical search is our main innovation avenue at Vortaloptics. We have built a controllable site search engine that integrates into a website and enables the administrator to “shape” the results to optimize relevancy for their site. Customizable features include changing/adding URLs and their related content, editing keywords that trigger results, and pinpointing the order of results.
Making the web a better place to find information is our mission at Vortaloptics. As the bigger players shift focus back to their core competencies and away from innovation, it falls to forward-looking entrepreneurs to complete the tools necessary for a more efficient web community.
I encourage smart entrepreneurs to look at what makes the cut and what doesn’t in Yahoo’s product development line and strategize how to step in and fill the gap.
I am an executive and the founder of a 
Download David Gosse's vCard
Follow David Gosse On Twitter