What struck me was the length of time Thomspon spent on the call providing some direction on his take on what Yahoo must do to become competitive…or become competitive again. Much was said on a generalized basis, what stood out was his mandate that there were “no sacred cows,” meaning he is willing to shut down (pretty much) anything if it doesn’t benefit customers (and presumably shareholders). Curious minds no doubt run through a list of possible products and services on the chopping block: Livestand? Screen? Livestand came out fairly strong but now seems like another in the growing pack of social magazine platforms. Screen (which, for some reason still bears a Beta tag) is the hub for Yahoo’s original video content which runs the gamut from Morgan Spurlock’s serial drama “The Failure Club” to “Chow Ciao,” hosted by a former “Top Chef” contestant. The quality is inconsistent and while the viewing numbers are good (CFO Tim Morse says one in six Americans has watched a Yahoo original show) there’s no innovative path for monetization and Yahoo history with original content is somewhat unstable (remember Lloyd Braun?)

Thompson also spoke of balance several times. Primarily, he says, the balance for Yahoo is to be both a technology company and a media company. Not one or the other—both. This is a mantra that Carol Bartz struggled with in both painting a picture of what such an enterprise would look like but also what magical alchemy would result in this modern corporate blend. In the meantime, Apple (whose finances soon could qualify them for EU member status) is actually creating the blueprint for a media-technology company. Apple’s recent e-textbook event in New York unveiled an end to end ecosystem for creating, marketing, selling and consuming e-textbooks Sure sounds like a media-technology company to me.

Does Yahoo need to become Apple to become successful? Does Scott Thompson need to go on a Steve Jobs-like spiritual journey to an ashram to see the future? The answer to both questions is no. Yahoo lost its way when it decided it wanted to be like everyone else and lost sight of Jerry and David’s original vision of adding a layer of discovery on top of the unwieldy World Wide Web. It’s corny and off base to say Yahoo needs to return to its roots—that ship has sailed. What Yahoo needs is to distill its future vision into an elevator pitch that, like a perfect prism, can be viewed by different constituencies in a way that makes sense to them. Is Thompson the right guy for the job? We’ll be watching.

Bartz’s dismissal is not a major shock to Yahoo watchers as her departure has been speculated for more than a year, but the timing of the action comes as a surprise. Yahoo has a major client event in mid-September and a change in leadership as the company enters a generally strong fourth quarter is curious. While not easily confirmed, reports add to the mystery around Bartz’s dismissal by saying it took place over the phone. Bartz had another 15 months left on her contract.

Neither the micro nor macro view of Yahoo’s performance since Bartz took over in January 2009 paint a pretty picture. The big picture shows that the Microsoft-Yahoo search alliance has not gone to either party’s satisfaction and that Yahoo has lost a number of key executives and was caught so short staffed is pointed to being undermanned as a reason for a disappointing Q2. Yahoo still calls itself a media-technology company but has a leader at the helm that had neither media nor web technology chops. At the micro level, Yahoo many of the company’s headline projects such as Connected TV and Livestand seem to be moving at a snail’s pace and its social media strategy is and has been a work in progress at best.

The conundrum for Yahoo in recent years has been its inability to develop an identity and sell that to employees, advertisers, partners and consumers. Yahoo has some great piece parts—messaging used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide; a sports brand that stands apart from other web properties and strong content plays in news and finance. Yahoo has yet to find a leader who has the vision to frame those pieces into cogent opportunity that would lead a transformation resulting in a 21st century media-technology power.

Morse is not likely to be more than a short-term solution. No successful media company in recent memory has been helmed by a finance guy. The company could look inward to EVP Ross Levinsohn former President of Fox Interactive or could begin the challenging search for a rare Steve Jobs-like leader who can spin the dials of the Yahoo Rubik’s Cube and revive this once-iconic brand.

From its new search mantra, Yahoo aims to take algo results from Microsoft/Bing and add value. In this case, the value is filtering the firehouse with a sense of style and perspective. And then there’s the matter of voice. I wonder aloud whether Upshot will have a voice (Huff Post snarky, Onion blasphemous). Maybe Upshot will have several voices representing a cross-section of views or maybe it will attempt to be as neutral as possible leaving commentary to its regular blogger contributors.

I have a few nits, day one. I’d like to see bios of the reporters so I know that so-and-so actually has a news background. Also, I’d like to see the recco/sharing tools at the blurb level, not forcing me to click through to the entire story in order to share. I also suspect that the folks who give us Shine and OMG will offer a better look than we see at launch. And while we’re on the topics of reporters, I’d caution the regular Upshot staff to avoid citing bloggers as sources. I may not be Woodward or Bernstein, but shaky sources make for bad reporting.

Yahoo is taking dead aim at building a new vision for creating and distributing content. Certainly acquiring Associated Content was a major part of that mission. Yahoo must be careful to deploy a master plan on how its varied efforts will hang together so that its news brand actually becomes…well..a brand.

Far more interesting, and certainly more bloggable, is the topic of the pending Yahoo shopping spree. The company has in excess of four billion in cash and securities and knows it is well advised to spend some of its war chest to bolster some weaker areas as well as move in new directions.

Alas, the kid in the candy store. Bartz said the focus in acquisitions will be in three key areas: small to medium sized companies in which Yahoo buys technology and talent; companies with assets in the content and community space and companies that add to or strengthen Yahoo’s geographic footprint. There certainly will be a show of hands of companies looking to be acquired, but here are some thoughts on judicious sending of that four billion.

Mobile: Despite its claims, Yahoo lags in mobile. Yes, its content is available on a variety of Smartphones, but that’s not something to add to the brag book. Yahoo needs to get far closer to the device/hardware manufacturers where it offers the same sort of platform (Connected TV) it offers TV manufacturers. On this front, it may be too little too late, so caution is urged.

Content: Yahoo is a leader is many content verticals, but it could learn a lesson from AOL (Yes, I said AOL) in exploring some larger niche areas. Yahoo should acquire the assets of content providers who specialize in serving the African-American, Hispanic and Gay/Lesbian communities. Yahoo may also want to consider an acquisition of a virtual studio similar to AOL’s recent acquisition of StudioNow. Such a buy would give Yahoo content czar Jimmy Pitaro the infrastructure he needs to produce more monetizable video.

Miscellaneous: Note to Hilary Schneider: I have no good name for this, but I would love to see Yahoo really step up its game in working with newspaper publishers. The consortium is a nice start but the effort is sorely lacking in firepower. Why not take on the role of content management for newspapers acting as their “cloud,” hence offloading some of the costly IT and distribution costs, allowing publishers to focus on editorial products. The window to excel in this space is limited; Google has this one figured out with Google Editions but may lack the goodwill to convince newspapers of its good intentions. Yahoo, on the other hand, already has demonstrated its desire to assist newspaper thus giving it a leg up on the competition.

Well, far be it for me to tell someone how to spend his money, but a few good buys and Yahoo may be less reliant on external forces to succeed and far more self reliant.

If this report is true, then I suspect Yahoo’s newspaper consortium will lose much of its momentum if not outright come to an end; there are more than 600 newspapers in the consortium and HotJobs is one of the key services Yahoo provides its partners. Based on Microsoft/Bing’s desire to work with newspapers (well, at least News Corp.) and Google’s recent efforts to attract newspaper publishers (Living Stories, search blocking), two companies are eager to take over what Yahoo started.

I fail to see the wow. The primary change on the home page is a customizable rail/column that allows the consumer to add his or her favorite pages/sites/social networks to provide a one-stop panoramic snapshot of everything that’s important in one’s world. The truth is, customization works best if those sites you want to add are either Yahoo properties or those (such as All Things Digital) who have formatted their content for customizable viewing. The “apps,” as they are called, are in three flavors: Yahoo sites, partner sites (or perhaps those who have worked to make their content suited for preview) and your favorites. A box allows individuals to add their favorites to the front page, but adding my blog and Twitter resulted in a major fail as these personalized add-ons failed to load previews. Adding Facebook, which looks to be pre-programmed, kept giving me a message to log in, but even after logging in, it didn’t work. Makes me wonder if others are having the same issue.

Beyond the customizable issues, why can’t the search box at the top of the page be customized so I can focus on the categories I search most: videos, blogs, news. I’d like to move image search off the main window and add one of my own preferences. And what’s with that little box at the top next to my name that asks for my status? Who sees that, and how do I see others in my network? And, lastly, if Bartz says that video is important to Yahoo, why isn’t there a single video window on the new homepage?

There’s wow and then there’s WOW. In the case of Yahoo’s new homepage, I think it falls short of both.