Yesterday, General McChrystal was sandbagged with the same technique.
Back in 1994, Netscape developed the first major browser for the Internet. Their initial public offering in August of 1995 was the stuff of legend on Wall St. and is viewed in hindsight as the beginning of the Internet boom of the late 1990s.
If you were around at the time, Netscape was remarkable for patting themselves on the back but failing to anticipate many aspects of how the Internet would actually be used.
I can still recall getting a copy of Netscape Mosaic and having its default home page set to www.netscape.com. This was perhaps the most viewed page on the nascent world wide web -- and what did you see there? Probably a press release from Netscape noting that Archer Daniels Midland had just licensed 200 copies of Netscape, or something like that. They were busy hyping their success instead of watching their customers to see what they (we) were doing online, and building a business.
Along came Yahoo. Jerry Yang and David Filo were two kids out of Stanford who created the first major directory of Internet sites. With a geeky attitude and a silly company name, they offered Netscape a search bar for the Netscape home page and Netscape took the bait. Netscape continued to post press releases while sending their search traffic to Yahoo, which became a huge web property and went public themselves in April 1996.
The remarkable part of the story is that Yahoo! Inc. didn't see it coming when two more geeky guys left Stanford with another silly named company -- this one was called Google. We all know that Google has built a multi-billion dollar business on paid search.
The idea of paid search started with Bill Gross at Idealab, who founded a company called Goto.com. Idealab changed Goto's name to Overture and sold it to Yahoo! But Yahoo failed to see Google as a serious threat to its business and -- fast forwarding through a lot of web history -- Google became the Web's default search engine. Google’s paid search listings (formally called AdWords) demolished Yahoo/Overture and has given Google the cash flow it uses to innovate and grow.
In short, Yahoo! got Yahoo'ed! But what does this have to do with General McChrystal, who departed the White House today having lost control of his Afghanistan command?
Jeremy Peters in the New York Times asked an important question -- why did this experienced commander grant such intimate access to a reporter?
The answer seems peripherally related to the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull. The General and his team couldn’t fly, waiting for the ash cloud to settle, and were stranded in
In short, the General got Yahoo'ed. The facts of the article are not in dispute. The comments were made and they were published. A reporter is a reporter and should never have access to the dirty laundry of any such organization.
Now Rolling Stone has a huge boost in readership and prestige at the expense of otherwise strong military careers and an aging war which remains on the precipice.
The next time you are stranded in Paris, can't fly out, and have nothing to do, try renting All About Eve.
