Thompson May 13 and Ross Levinsohn, who had been serving as Yahoo's head of global media, stepped in as interim CEO. It's the second time in eight months that the company has been without a permanent CEO.

Now is the time for Yahoo to do something impressive and get users thinking about a Yahoo success instead of trouble, analysts said.

"If they can pull this off, it could help put them back on the map," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "I think it is the best idea I've seen out of them in nearly a decade."

Yahoo saw a niche it could take advantage of and then executed on it, said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy.

"With Google owning generic and mobile search, and Bing in the position to own social search, Yahoo needed something that distinguished itself from the pack," he said.