Yahoo Inc, owner of the Internet's most-used search site, needs to buy or partner with companies that can give users unique entertainment and information, investors and analysts said.
Only with content that can't be found elsewhere on the Web can Yahoo charge users enough to reduce its own dependence on online advertising, analysts said.
New Chief Executive Terry Semel needs to boost revenue from so-called premium services, analysts said, as sales of advertising on Yahoo's pages decline. The company Wednesday reported a second-quarter loss of US$48.5 million compared with profit of US$53.3 million in the year-earlier quarter.
"Yahoo has an incredible amount of users going to its site on a daily basis," said Paul Cook, a portfolio manager at Munder Capital Management Inc, which owns Yahoo shares. "But it's a free site. I would think they need to provide more and better content to convert free users into paying users."
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo's Web pages had 59.9 million US visitors in June, according to research firm Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. Only AOL Time Warner Inc's and Microsoft Corp's Web sites had more visitors. Those companies, unlike Yahoo, own Internet services that users subscribe to.
Yahoo collects fees from users by providing stock market information, an online auction service, online bill-paying and other services.
Still, most of the information on Yahoo's pages can be read for free. The company gets more than 80 percent of its sales from selling advertising on its pages. The slowing US economy and the failure of hundreds of Internet companies over the past year and a half have caused online ad sales to decline.
Yahoo agreed in April to distribute music for Pressplay, the online music joint venture of Sony Corp and Vivendi Universal SA, owner of two of the biggest record labels.
Semel, in an interview Wednesday, said he would introduce new services focused on areas such as entertainment, sports and finance that are "personalized" to users tastes.
Yahoo two weeks ago agreed to buy online music company Launch Media Inc for US$12 million, giving it music news and music videos to show online.
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