Download Complete Broadcast.com now deep in the heart of Yahoo

Yahoo T-shirts and license-tag frames arrived last summer for employees.<br><br>The operation's co-founders, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, officially departed this month.<br><br>Construction is winding

Monday, April 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Yahoo T-shirts and license-tag frames arrived last summer for employees.

The operation's co-founders, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, officially departed this month.

Construction is winding down on new office space, which should be open within weeks.

The hot start-up once known as Broadcast.com has completed its transition into what is now essentially a large outpost for Yahoo Inc.

The Dallas operation is the multimedia heart of Yahoo, where the infrastructure of satellite dishes, computers and networking equipment built by Broadcast.com now pumps 11 million hours per month of audio and video programs over the Internet.

However, it is somewhat less autonomous than originally envisioned when the acquisition was completed in July, according to Yahoo executives.

"An independent business unit? Yes and no," said Jeff Mallett, president and chief operating officer of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Yahoo.

Initially, Broadcast.com was to operate as an independent subsidiary called Yahoo Broadcast Services.

Instead, the former Broadcast.com is better described simply as the Dallas operation of Yahoo because the integration has gone deeper, said Kevin Parke, a Broadcast.com veteran who is now the company's senior executive in Dallas.

Dallas has the second-highest concentration of Yahoo employees, after the company's California headquarters, Mr. Parke said.

Not all of Yahoo's multimedia staffers are based in Dallas, and some of the Texas employees are working in other business areas.

Yahoo has more than 2,300 employees worldwide, but it doesn't break out the figures for individual sites.

Broadcast.com had 335 employees at the time of the acquisition, and the operation has been hiring aggressively since then.

Overall, Yahoo has been evolving from a search directory into an Internet media company, offering news, entertainment, electronic mail and shopping services.

Some Yahoo offerings are available on cell phones and hand-held devices as well as computers.

Strategic initiatives

The Dallas unit is at the vanguard of some of Yahoo's most important strategic initiatives.

Broadly, of course, it represents Yahoo's push into audio and video in addition to text and graphics.

Yahoo is also expanding business-to-business services, which grew largely out of Broadcast.com's work helping corporate customers put their earnings conference calls and sales meetings on the Internet, Mr. Mallett said.

"We're going to have a much heavier focus on B2B," Mr. Mallett said, adding that more details would be released soon.

Everything that Yahoo offers, "We're going to wrap things up and make it available to corporations - personalized, customized information."

Also, Yahoo is beginning to produce a lot more original material for the company's various Web sites, rather than simply organizing and distributing content from other media.

One program - Yahoo Finance- Vision - offers TV-style market news and information broadcast over the Web.

The program, aimed at a young audience, is hosted by casually clad Yahoo anchors in a Santa Clara studio, and the show is intended to have a Silicon Valley feel.

Much of the technical side of the operation is handled from Dallas.

Yahoo FinanceVision is the most important project so far to come out of the Broadcast.com acquisition, Mr. Mallett said.

Yahoo plans to have similar programs aimed at a variety of interests.

"Take out the word finance and think of it as an X-Vision strategy," he said.

"You are looking at the template of what we'll expand across Yahoo networks both domestically and globally."

Music is one example of what might be offered in an expanded format similar to Yahoo FinanceVision.

Already, musicians regularly show up at the company's Deep Ellum studios to perform Live @Yahoo concerts that are broadcast over the Internet.

Some of the concerts are also archived for later viewing.

Employees typically gather around a platform in the office for concerts, including one recently that featured Willie Nelson.
All of the initiatives will be gradual, which is Yahoo's style, Mr. Mallett said.

"Someone referred to us as like termites," he said. "You don't see us, and then all of a sudden we're into a marketplace."

Yahoo has long maintained that it wouldn't produce original content, relying instead on partners.

Mr. Mallett argued that the move isn't a major departure from that mission, describing the show hosts on Yahoo
FinanceVision as human aggregators of content.

Natural evolution

Analysts say that Yahoo needs to continue to find ways to serve its growing audience of users and that original content is a natural evolution.

"I think it makes sense," said Phil Leigh, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Gary Arlen, an interactive services consultant in Bethesda, Md., said Yahoo needs to be ready to deal with the possibilities that some of its concepts won't work, a greater risk for a company that makes the investment to create new material.

"They might wonder: If only one in 10 is a hit, why make the other nine?" he said.

The cultural blending of the Yahoo and Broadcast.com cultures hasn't been difficult because they were so similar, Mr. Parke said, touring the new, larger space, a short walk from the current offices and closer to the area's restaurant and club scene.

Both companies were built moving fast, making it fun and being focused, executives said.

The big change in operating style was that Broadcast.com's original mission was to prove that audio and video over the Internet was a viable and compelling concept for mass audiences, they said.

Now, with millions of people regularly turning to their computers for video programs, the mission is shifting toward providing the various services that people might want to watch.

"Rich media? Of course. Everyone wants it now," Mr. Mallett said.

Yahoo had considered moving the operation to a facility in the suburbs off LBJ Freeway, but officials decided instead to renovate the brick warehouse on Crowdus Street in Deep Ellum after the city offered financial incentives to stay close to downtown.

The new facilities will have many of the features that make dot.com companies seem a bit like college dorms, including room for game tables.

Just beyond the main entrance is a large atrium for companywide meetings or for concerts.

The entrepreneurs who founded Broadcast.com in 1995 had become increasingly disengaged from the company, with Mr. Cuban involved with his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks and Mr. Wagner pursuing philanthropic activities.

Asked whether he had any regrets that Broadcast.com didn't remain independent longer, Mr. Wagner said, "You can never look in your rearview mirror in life.

"I don't regret for a minute the deal we did with Yahoo. They were the perfect partner."

Wealthy employees

Dot.com stock has made many of the former Broadcast.com employees wealthy, and the company's parking lots spill over with new luxury German sedans.

Much of the core management team decided to remain, including Mr. Parke, now a Yahoo vice president, who had effectively been the operations chief at Broadcast.com since just after the initial public offering in July 1998.

Indeed, for many at Yahoo in Dallas, the announcement that Mr. Parke is in charge was little more than a formality because he's been making the everyday decisions for some time.

Perhaps the most visible difference between his role and that of the co-founders in the days of Broadcast.com is that every other week, Mr. Parke is expected to fly to Silicon Valley to attend a Yahoo management meeting.