Wenda Harris Millard tells what's wrong with Yahoo

Brian Morrissey at Adweek has posted a story about yesterday's interview of Wenda Harris Millard by Federated Media chief John Battelle at the Conversational Marketing Conference. It proved unusual in that Martha Stewart Omnimedia media president Millard actually took swipes at her former employer, Yahoo, which seems to have sunk into a year-2001-like mire since her departure. But Millard's criticism doesn't come off as sour grapes, but as a well-reasoned analysis of a company that has lost its, well, sites, placing technology above all else. "Technology is very important, but where many companies go wrong is when they think technology is the answer or primary solution to proving a business solution to a marketing problem," she said. "The business of advertising is still a business of persuasion. Machines can't make art." (Of course, Yahoo has said that it can do great brand advertising and focus on technology at the same time.) UPDATE: Martha Stewart Omnimedia just announced that Millard and the president of merchandising, Robin Marino, are being promoted to replace Susan Lyne, who just said she is leaving as chief executive.

The Facebook doldrums—or dot-com bust 2.0

You'd think that Facebook getting a $240 million investment from Microsoft would be a good thing, but—if the posts I've been reading the past week or so are any indication—we've reached the beginning of the end, with Facebook cast as the canary in the coal mine for dot-com bust 2.0. Take this post by Micro Persuasion's Steve Rubel, who has gone and gotten all morose about the entire Web 2.0 phenomenon. He doesn't mention Facebook by name, but take an I'm-about-to-jump-off-the-cliff sentence like this one and try to think of anything besides Facebook: "Let's face it, we're skunk drunk and it's because of money. It's almost like we all need to enter Betty Ford Clinic 2.0 together." Let me go get some Kleenex and then do a CGM commercial of me crying and post it to YouTube! Then there's John Battelle, who says that the recent revelation that Facebook employees can see who is looking at any Facebook member's profile constitutes a lack of respect for privacy laws that might not make the company worth as much as the Microsoft investment would have you believe. "The privacy issues is [sic] a very real one for Facebook, because, well, it's the heart of how the company intends to make good on that $15bb valuation," he explains. Man, you folks are bumming me out. I think I'll go on Facebook and update my status to: "Boo-hoo."