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Mayer's mobile vision for Yahoo
Fri, 19th Apr 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Marissa Mayer has a big game plan for Yahoo, focussing on the mobile space in a bid to drive the company forward.

With the honeymoon period now over, the CEO is looking ahead - believing everything is in place for an assault on the mobile space.

“We have the content. We have all of the information that people want on their phones,” Mayer told Fortune in an exclusive interview.

“Now it's about making it easy and relevant to use on mobile.

With the main priority of fixing Yahoo from top to bottom heading Mayer's list of things to do, the former Google executive has turned the screw since her July appointment last year, instilling a new focus for the struggling business.

Even though workers can no longer work from home, they can enjoy cool new phones and free canteen food thanks to Mayer, to aims to make Yahoo 'fun' again.

And at the forefront of her plan, lies mobile.

Launching a full-frontal attack on her former employers and Facebook, Mayer believes users want simplicity and speed - all on their mobiles.

Whether that be email, news, photos, videos or whatever, Yahoo says we live in a “mobile first” world these days.

But what does that mean exactly?

"Well it means that apps and websites should be designed and tailor-fitted with experiences optimised for these smaller, mobile screens," the Yahoo Mobile Blog says.

"Not only do the experiences need to fit the device you're using, your data and content need to come with you, wherever you go."

A current candidate for Time's Person of the Year, Mayer is leading the mobile charge as usage of Yahoo's various mobile apps was up around 50% during the first quarter of 2013 - reaching over 300 million monthly users.

“Our product progress is extremely promising and is clearly increasing user engagement,” Mayer said during the company's financials last week.

“Our product teams are executing incredibly well in mobile.

“We're focused on building great new experiences optimized for smaller screens."

With acquisition such as Summly and Stamped, Mayer's mobile-related vision is coming to the fore, question is, will it be a success?