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"Marissa Mayer has been CEO of Yahoo for two years. In that time, there has been no shortage of speculation about her plans for the company. \nYahoo is constantly subjected to the question \"is it a tech company or a media company?\" ever since Steve Jobs stopped by the company's headquarters. The question points to the widely held assumption that, to succeed, the company will need to learn to compete at a high level in one of those two industries. \nIt has become clear that Mayer does not agree. \"In short, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we build products that people love,\" she recently said in response to the question. \nHer overall strategy does seem to reflect that idea. Under her direction, Yahoo has both invested heavily in major media names like Katie Couric and David Pogue as well as in technology companies like Tumblr and Aviate.\nBut judging by the numbers, Mayer's report card for the last two years reads like a C-. \nHer tenure is a mixed bag from the impressive (its overall traffic and share price), to the underwhelming (its falling share of the digital ad market and inability to monetize its traffic in a changing market). Things are still changing, and Mayer may still have a long runway thanks to a significant cash infusion from Alibaba. But with its competitors extending what is in some ways an already-lengthy headstart, time is of the essence for Mayer's Yahoo. \n125%: the increase in Yahoo's stock price since Marissa Mayer became CEO\nJust about any chief executive would be happy when they look at this graph. Despite continued struggles to increase revenue, investors have piled into the stock.\nA rising stock price is arguably the brightest point on Mayer's Yahoo resume. Not even Google or Facebook \u2014 which have each logged their own significant gains \u2014 can claim to have risen higher than Yahoo since Mayer took over. \nMayer, on the other hand, can take little credit. Yahoo owns almost one-fourth of Chinese ecommerce Alibaba, along with a chunk of Yahoo Japan. Those rising values have been credited with improving the stock price of Yahoo. The investment has provided her with the cash and the time to make moves before the market begins to start asking major questions about the company's core business.  \n$42 billion: an approximate value of Yahoo's Alibaba and Yahoo Japan assets\nThe Alibaba stake is so valuable that it theoretically accounts for all of the company's market cap, meaning that, in investors' eyes, Yahoo is nearly worthless. \nYahoo will not get that all in a lump sum. It will be forced to liquidate some of its Alibaba position in the IPO, but hang on to a bulk of it. Yahoo could net around $15 billion.\nIn its earnings report on Tuesday, Yahoo said it had struck a deal that would allow it to keep a larger chunk of Alibaba shares after the IPO. It also reported that it will return at least half of the proceeds of the sale of Alibaba shares to investors, meaning Mayer's shareholders will be happy, but she will have less of a war chest with which to continue to change Yahoo.\nStill, the windfall means Mayer will have cash with which to pursue acquisitions from outside the business and push change from within. As Tim Worstall pointed out in Forbes, based on Yahoo's stock price, investors appear to have little faith that Yahoo will be able to translate that cash into significant growth.\nPut simply, Yahoo's stock price probably should be higher even with its recent climb. '\n-.1%: revenue at Yahoo since Mayer joined\n\nYahoo ex-TAC Revenue | Create Infographics\nYahoo is still huge and attracts traffic in droves. Its struggles, however, become clearer in its earnings reports. The company has not been able to bring in more money despite digital ad sales rising. Yahoo is a boat that is not being lifted by a rising tide.\nAn inability to monetize its existing traffic is arguably Yahoo's biggest problem. As changes in the advertising industry such as programmatic buying have taken a toll on how much Yahoo can charge. Yahoo simply hasn't been able to change quick enough to avoid being on the wrong side of this trend.\n$1 billion: the price tag on Tumblr, Mayer's biggest acquisition\nMajor questions continue to surround Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr. Most indications, including a piece in the New York Times indicating that Tumblr continues to operate independently, but the company has lost much of its senior management, including vice president of engineering Blake Matheny and vice president of product Derek Gottfrid.\nMeanwhile, Tumblr's affect on Yahoo's overall business is hard to tell. The blogging platform is barely mentioned in earnings reports, if at all. Tumblr had plenty of traffic but has not been considered a particularly strong revenue play. The company brought in $13 million in 2012 but had set its sights on $100 million in 2013.\n40: the number of companies acquired during Mayer's leadership\nOther than Tumblr, Mayer has overseen the acquisition of a varied group of smaller companies. Many focus on areas perceived as weaknesses for Yahoo. Yahoo has bought into video through acquisitions like RayV, EvntLive, Rondee, as well as persistent rumors that it could buy video platform News Distribution Network. It has boosted its mobile acumen with companies such as OnTheAir, Aviate, SPARQ and Blink.\nBut it's not just the products in which Mayer has invested. If Yahoo is going to be a true tech/media hybrid, Mayer has decided it needs premium content to serve on its platforms. \nMayer has not hesitated to spend on media development and talent. Yahoo has said she is willing to dole out \"a few million dollars\" per episode for the development of original video series, and already has the rights to stream Saturday Night Live and produce new seasons of Community.\nShe's backed that up with investments in media personalities like Katie Couric and former New York Times columnist David Pogue.\nThose efforts are part of Mayer's larger efforts to shift Yahoo's brand away from just being a portal to the home of high-end media content, said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.\n\"The brand side is still where they kind of faltered and haven't caught back up yet. Some of it is kind of macro and the way the industry's evolved,\" he said. \"They're not as relevant as they used to be. We don't use Yahoo or AOL as a portal.\"\nMayer's heavy investment in media and technology will need to pay off through higher advertising prices and growing consumer reach on mobile and video.\n$58 million: how much Henrique De Castro was paid after being fired as Yahoo COO\nJoining Yahoo from Google, Mayer's strength was seen to be with products development and management. Not so much on revenue and advertising. \nEnter Henrique De Castro. \nLike Mayer, he came from Google, but had a much deeper background in the revenue side of the business, having overseen much of the company's industry-leading ad network. De Castro had been considered a controversial pick by some. Although he had done well with Google's technologically advanced system, concerns were voiced that he would not be right for Yahoo's display business.\nIn the end, De Castro was let go from Yahoo and ended up walking away with around $58 million for 15 months of work. It could have been worse \u2014 initial reports put the number at $109 million.\n222,264,000: Yahoo's mobile and desktop unique visitors in May\n\nU.S. Multi-Platform Uniques | Create Infographics\nTraffic is certainly not a problem for Yahoo. It generates among the most unique visitors per month of any web destination. Despite this success, Mayer has sought to pivot toward a \"digital magazine\" strategy, closing popular destinations like \"Shine\" for \"Yahoo Beauty.\"\nTraffic, however, is not at a premium. The big money these days is in owning the platforms on which the content is served, allowing companies to accrue valuable data, according to James McQuivey, a principal analyst at Forrester Research.\n\"Yahoo was an Internet portal back when that was something and they've essentially extended their portalness and become an Internet content provider. Even their mobile apps are about providing their portal experience,\" he said. \nForced to play on the turf of other companies like Google, Apple or Facebook, which each have significant technology platforms, Yahoo has little tech upside and plenty of media downside. Even if Yahoo can boost its brand and begin to serve higher-priced ads, its previous competitors have moved on to bigger and better things.\n\"Being in the content business is not a great business to be in,\" he said.\n5.2%: Yahoo's share of U.S. digital ad revenue\n\nDigital US Ad Revenue Share | Create Infographics\nThe issue has been monetizing this traffic. Yahoo's reliance on antiquated display ads has left it susceptible to a shifting digital market. As Yahoo noted in Tuesday's earnings, its price-per-ad in display fell a whopping 24% compared to the same time in 2013.  \nMayer has worked to pivot toward growth areas \u2014 notably video, mobile and native advertising \u2014 which she claimed have grown 90% compared to the second-quarter of 2013. Yahoo did not breakout the specific numbers behind that growth.\n More than 500: the number of full-time employees working on mobile under Mayer\n\nMay 2014 Unique Visitors | Create Infographics\nIn an effort to turn the company, Mayer now has a small army working on mobile products, according to comments she made earlier this year. Yahoo does not break out mobile revenue numbers in its earnings, but its mobile traffic is not far off its desktop numbers. \nThe products along with a new ad-buying platform have helped sway some advertisers, according to Jitka Petrickova, West Coast managing partner for media buying agency MEC Global.\n\"They did a great job in developing the product through a lot of acquisitions over the last couple years in mobile space,\" she said. \"Over the last year, we can see a really great product, an opportunity for our clients to use the content and the design.\"\nStill, Yahoo will need to prove it can capitalize on this traffic along with its growth in video. Yahoo's unique video viewers are up 29% in the past year, but amid heavy competition from established names like YouTube and newer entrants like Maker Studios.\n\nU.S. Desktop Video Viewing | Create Infographics\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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