Can Anyone See Behind the Curtain?

[MJ DeMarco]

Here's the article...

Don't Bother Earning These Five Degrees - Yahoo! Education

I'm curious as to how many people can see behind the curtain?

This is what Yahoo has promoted to their FRONT PAGE...

If you think you know what I'm talking about ... post!

 

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[AgonI]

Education.yahoo.net | Find Schools | Find Schools ?

 

[johnp]

I found Yahoo Education about 2 weeks ago when I was doing some research on my start-up. I honestly never knew that Yahoo had an education Portal, until 2 weeks ago. But does Yahoo really run this portal? I don't think they do.

First Thing that I notice - The degrees that they are suggestion are in-line some of the top researched and demanded degrees on the internet.

According to some white papers and studies that I have read, the majority of people are looking for online degrees in

1) Business
2) Education
3) Medical (mainly nursing)
4) Law/Criminology
5) Sciences

*this is in no certain order, and this is based on memory at the moment. My connection is too slow at work to dig up the reports.

First one that I am looking at - Business Administration - That's a key search right there. And then if you look below you see some other popular majors which people are searching for.

Second One - Education.

Third - Criminal Justice - Wow. Yet another one that matches the big 5.

Psychology - I don't get. I guess that's popular.

Computer Science - This makes sense. Yet another very popular major that people search for.


And it gets more interesting. Back to my digging around last week. I noticed that Yahoo's education portal is connected to this company -

Vantage Media, LLC

Vantage Media - We Deliver Customers - That's their site.


So then I went to their site and started digging around...


Right on their home page it shows that they cater to Education! Ok, so let's click learn more and see what happens.

Some of their copy reads

Partnering with more than 300 leading schools, we work with the best. From associate's degrees to master's degrees, from nursing to accounting to legal, every program is unique. We know how to match the right student to your unique programs and drive your school's enrollment and success.

More than 300 schools!

And look at some of the key words that they used. "nursing, accounting, legal" - They are all related to that article.

Another interesting thing - The color and images resemble colors and clip-art images that Yahoo uses. (yellow boxes and clip-art)

If I had to guess, then I would say that the article has something to do with generating leads for schools. The article is playing into some of the most searched for and demanded majors for higher education. I would go so far to say that Vantage Media has something to do with writing/promoting the article. This company is somehow partnered with Yahoo and using Yahoo's traffic. I'm sure Yahoo is getting a very nice kick back or something. Not too sure how it works.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

If I had to guess, then I would say that the article has something to do with generating leads for schools.

Bingo.

It's a "front" for lead-generation.

Of course, I use that word loosely as it implies there's something illegal going on which is not the case ... just found it interesting and of course, I wonder what Yahoo's revenue share is on this ... you just don't get to the front page by accident.

I find it borders on being an "Advertorial" which of course, it is not being advertised as such. While I might notice these types of things (and some others here would too) 99% will not.

 

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[MNentre]

I can only imagine the payout for a qualified lead that would generate the school ~$60,000 in tuition.

Not to mention, all of the traffic going to yahoo, even if you convert at .1%, its a nice pay day

 

[Alana]

It seems like they are steering folks away from professions that involve creativity (art, design, deep thought, ethics, cultural study, etc etc) and instead directing them to jobs that are laying in bed with the conventional establishment (ie: also known as ‘The Man’ to some of us: business, criminal justice, elementary education (because we have to make sure we ‘get ‘em while their young’).

I’m a goat herder, so it’s easy for me to see that the shepherd is simply telling his flock what to do and not to do. My goats are stubborn as hell, and if they could talk I’m sure they’d tell you that they run the ranch. But truth is I’m the one who makes their decisions for them. I know where they are going and what I’m going to do with them before I even open up the gate to their paddock. It’s all decided for them...I just lead them with a bucket of treats and they follow.

That’s what I see in this article…but maybe I’ve just been spending too much with my flock.

 

[mayana]

I usually don't read these types of articles from sites like Yahoo, since the quality of their "news" is pretty terrible, but it's pretty easy to see that it is basically lead generation by the "earn this degree instead" link directly under the degree that they don't recommend. The sad part is that a lot of people (even smart people!) fall for this type of misleading information.

One good thing that this forum has done for me is that it has taught me how to look at advertisements more critically, or even things that don't initially appear to be advertisements. I always joke to people about how, when watching a t.v. show, you can tell what advertisers think they know about their target market based on the commercials.

I don't know what this Yahoo article says about people, other than that a lot of people are really gullible. I think that the article, generally, is a bunch of crap. Business degrees tend to be popular degrees, and people tend to study what they want instead of what degree will get them into a field that needs workers (sounds like a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make when searching for products to sell... haha).

 

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[johnp]

Monster.com kind of does this. They have a resume writing service. If you take a look at their resume writing service then you would actually think that they are writing the resumes for you. But dig deeper and you will soon find out that they are partnered with a 3rd party. I'd imagine that it's easier for them to make the commission off of the resume/lead than to actually deal with all of the hard work that goes into the actual writing. And think of how great that is for them. You need a job? Well then you need a good resume. Here is the lead. Oh now you have a good resume, now you need a job. It's perfect.

If anything, then I'm learning something from all of this. As soon as I get the traffic and systems in place I don't need to do it all myself.

 

[MikeRuss]

I found Yahoo Education about 2 weeks ago when I was doing some research on my start-up. I honestly never knew that Yahoo had an education Portal, until 2 weeks ago. But does Yahoo really run this portal? I don't think they do.

First Thing that I notice - The degrees that they are suggestion are in-line some of the top researched and demanded degrees on the internet.

According to some white papers and studies that I have read, the majority of people are looking for online degrees in

1) Business
2) Education
3) Medical (mainly nursing)
4) Law/Criminology
5) Sciences

*this is in no certain order, and this is based on memory at the moment. My connection is too slow at work to dig up the reports.

First one that I am looking at - Business Administration - That's a key search right there. And then if you look below you see some other popular majors which people are searching for.

Second One - Education.

Third - Criminal Justice - Wow. Yet another one that matches the big 5.

Psychology - I don't get. I guess that's popular.

Computer Science - This makes sense. Yet another very popular major that people search for.


And it gets more interesting. Back to my digging around last week. I noticed that Yahoo's education portal is connected to this company -

Vantage Media, LLC

Vantage Media - We Deliver Customers - That's their site.


So then I went to their site and started digging around...


Right on their home page it shows that they cater to Education! Ok, so let's click learn more and see what happens.

Some of their copy reads



More than 300 schools!

And look at some of the key words that they used. "nursing, accounting, legal" - They are all related to that article.

Another interesting thing - The color and images resemble colors and clip-art images that Yahoo uses. (yellow boxes and clip-art)

If I had to guess, then I would say that the article has something to do with generating leads for schools. The article is playing into some of the most searched for and demanded majors for higher education. I would go so far to say that Vantage Media has something to do with writing/promoting the article. This company is somehow partnered with Yahoo and using Yahoo's traffic. I'm sure Yahoo is getting a very nice kick back or something. Not too sure how it works.

They're also the degrees very commonly offered by for-profit and online schools, which have hundreds of millions of dollars in their marketing budgets. This is a lucrative move for Yahoo, whether they're managing it themselves or not.