I worked on Upcoming briefly as a contractor in 2006, and it was a strange thing to witness. At the time Yahoo was acquiring a bunch of small sites but seemed to have no idea what to do with them. They just hung there suspended, like raisins in a jello mold, waiting for something to come along and digest them.
Eventually Yahoo solved the dillema by wrapping these projects in successive layers of management, like a bureaucratic oyster reacting to some irritant it doesn't understand but can't get rid of. Vast amounts of time would be spent on things like requiring integrated login, rather then stepping back and figuring out how to really fit Upcoming or Flickr or Delicious into a vision of what Yahoo was for.
I'm really happy Andy got the ___domain back. I'm still holding out for Joshua to reclaim Delicious!
I actually preferred the second metaphor, about the oyster. :) Perfectly captures my experience of corporate M&A, and the way it actually handles what is commonly termed the "digestion" process.
Second metaphor about the oyster seemed perfect. Can't say I have had raisins in jello before, but it was easy to imagine and understand what he was getting at.
Really like the oyster pearl one though, gonna have to steal that one. I'm sure I could use it daily at work.
Eventually Yahoo solved the dillema by wrapping these projects in successive layers of management, like a bureaucratic oyster reacting to some irritant it doesn't understand but can't get rid of. Vast amounts of time would be spent on things like requiring integrated login, rather then stepping back and figuring out how to really fit Upcoming or Flickr or Delicious into a vision of what Yahoo was for.
I'm really happy Andy got the ___domain back. I'm still holding out for Joshua to reclaim Delicious!