Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is most likely looking to shed hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs next week, as the company reports Q4 earnings. Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang will seek to appease short-termers (i.e., Wall Street) by making moves to cut expenses, but will that really help the company move forward in its battle against the competition? After all, can Yahoo! ever catch-up to competitor Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), regardless of the actions it takes?

Yahoo! is certainly profitable -- just not nearly as much as Google is. The shining star of both companies right now is advertising. Yahoo! has a great non-search ad revenue stream coming in, while Google receives almost all of its cash from text search advertising. With Google garnering so much profit-heavy revenue, I would assume Yahoo! would also want to grow rather than shrink. Yahoo! is not in any profit trouble -- it just seems that way since Google outshines it at every possibly juncture. What could Yahoo! do to grow more? Well, isn't the modus operandi of many corporate leaders wanting instant gratification growth by acquisition or merger?

What could Yahoo! do instead of taking out employee costs to raise its profit profile? How about putting some muscle into the recent acquisitions of BlueLithium and Right Media. Yang says that Yahoo! must find out what people do during the day and ensure the My Yahoo! homepage ties into those activities. Exactly what did former CEO Terry Semel do for years, must I wonder? If it's 2008 and Yahoo! still does not know what its customers do while on its properties, then the only way it will grow will be to turn those acquisitions into cash cows, since it apparently does not have a firm line on why its customers use its sites.