Yahoo have some good ideas but their web searching is poor, it lacks the power of Google and Microsoft are a threat to the freedom, inventiveness and openness that the internet stands for.

What Google has done in bringing the internet to people for free, Microsoft seek to undo for profit.

My name is Leyton Jay. But people always spell it wrong, they spell it Layton Jay. Recently I added this mis-spelling to my website meta description to try and show up in results for the mispelling. On Google I got nowhere because it knows the mispelling doesnt appear in my actual content, it knows thats not my name.

Yahoo! on the other hand swallowed it hook line and sinker. It’s search algorithms just accepted the meta description at face value and my site comes out top for that search.

This shows that Google have spend time and money bringing us honest, representative results. Yahoo! either unwilling or unable to spend the time and money on their algorithms just believed me at face value.

Since Microsoft made the offer Google have stepped up their crawling, for months Google accounted for around 60%-62% on my site’s non-human traffic. As soon as the offer was announced it began to rise and its now around 82%, leaving both MSN and Yahoo! for dust.

Check out my live stats –> http://www.leytonjay.co.uk/statistics/

Microsoft announces they buy Yahoo! at a premium, and the details in terms of cash and stock are announced. If the deal eventually goes through, the cheapest way at that moment to obtain a given share of Microsoft is to own Yahoo! shares and get the Microsoft share upon the consumation of the merger.

Knowing this, the arbitragers jump in with billions in trading capital and place trades where they simultaneously go long (buy) Yahoo! and go short (borrow then sell) Microsoft. By doing this, they guarantee themselves a riskless spread. In other words, they’ve sold $30-ish Microsoft shares through their short sale and bought $25-ish Microsoft shares through their purchase of Yahoo!

These trades can lose money if the deal fails to go through. The spread between the implied price of a share of Microsoft obtained by owning Yahoo! and the current price of a Microsoft share reflects the market’s estimate of the probability the deal succeeds. Little spread means the market thinks the deal goes through. A remaining spread means the market is discounting the probability of the deal.

Microsoft’s stock has thus been the subject of intense short selling since the deal was announced. These short sales can occur regardless of whether any holder of Microsoft actually sells shares, since the shares sold short are borrowed through securities lending programs run by major custodians like State Street Bank.

This is utterly normal and indicates little about whether Microsoft’s shareholders “like the deal.”

Muddabir
http://www.xoerts.net.pk

But when you don’t have the traction, you need to be three times as good before anybody notices.

It would be useful if someone came up with a somewhat objective test of search quality. In the pre-internet days there were standardized databases you could use, where humans would choose the best results by hand to compare to the search engine’s results. I think the details of such a test would need to be either kept secret or changed between tests to avoid gaming.

I was involved in a search engine years ago that got some good press simply because we studied up on various journalists’ prior articles, and then hardcoded in good results for their pet search terms into our engine.

The context of what most of you relate to is search with GOOG being the 900 pound gorilla and affecting YHOO MSFT etc etc. Since when was MSFT’s key earnings is search?? How many properties do YHOO have outside of search?? Do any of you guys know anything beyond what’s happening in USA? Have a peek at Asia, I don’t know the exact numbers but the chinese population certainly outnumbered the other countries and go ask anyone in Taiwan, Korea or China… many would define internet as YHOO.

If I’m working in MSFT’s ad services, online component… I will be worried at the moment because the bid basically says, what we have in MSN/Live is pretty much crap. It certainly raises questions about their confidence in their own department.

The last bit is my speculation but the rest are just facts

I’ve given you and your writers grief in comments in the past, for some lousy posts, and I wanted to apologize.

Your comments about Yahoo’s upcoming layoffs inspired me to buy their stock, and benefit from this bid. Can’t beat the free money… I think I owe ya!

I really don’t think Yahoo will plummet tomorrow. If it does, I’m buying more! Microsoft will win this if they want it, and I’m sure nothing has happened that hasn’t been anticipated. Doesn’t it always go this way? Big company bids. Little company’s stock jumps, big company’s stock falls. Little company turns down the bid. Big company bids more.

I see Yahoo’s rejection of the offer as an indication that it’s negotiating. Which means that the $20 stock that I bought will soon be worth $35. If it goes to $15, I’ll buy another 2000 shares. Because it WILL go to $35.

Thanks for the tip. Got any more?

The less the competitors, the more we suffer

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) just broke the story that Yahoo’s board plans to reject Microsoft $44.6 billion offer, citing our favorite source: “a person familiar with the situation.” Apparently, $31 per share &#822…

MSFT isn’t stupid. They don’t buy crap companies. To all the Yahoo haters, do you really think MSFT would blow more than half their life savings on crap?! Get real.

Yahoo clearly has something neither Google, MSFT nor AOL has been able to accomplish despite their best efforts over the last few years (which is ages in web time). They are #1, 2 or 3 in many key areas. Clearly YHOO is not the crap you all say they are.

I share @52’s opinion. Google search results aren’t as good as the hype. The results IMHO are becoming a commodity (@22). You never seem to hear this from TC or the media. The media isn’t really doing its job of informing the consumer.

Also note that a poison pill has rarely actually been triggered. As the matter of fact, I don’t know the last time that happened. What happened was, many times the target companies *adopted* the poison pill plan. When that happens, the bidder would either raise its bid or run far away.

Bill Gates, if you’re reading this: I hope you’re Yahoo adventure ruins you, you global prick.

P.S. The website I referenced isn’t online yet, but it should be in a few days. I’m sure Bill Gates will enjoy it.

Hotmail / Yahoo! Email
Live Search / Yahoo.Com Search
News / News
On and on…

Yahoo! offers only a few things MSFT doesn’t already have with MSN and I think $40b could be much better spent teaming up and/or acquiring a few other companies, hiring top talent and beefing up marketing and product development.

Mike

A. When a stock goes down the company doesn’t loose or spend that money, it just goes to money heaven. Claiming otherwise is stupid.

B. Why the H would MS raise its bid? There is nobody bidding against them. So lets say Yahoo instead gets into a search deal with Google (only alternative) - Google would have the justice department all over it and all of a sudden loose its warm fuzzy feeling look and turn into an Orwellian bad guy - and since Search is the only money maker at Google, crap! MS wins!

C. The synergies with MS/Yahoo combo are great, and although everyone says the cultures are different, Money is still green even if you work at Yahoo or Microsoft.

MS is going to get the deal done, because they have something that yahoo doesn’t have: TIME. Google’s market share worldwide is stagnant or slightly shrinking. MS has massive cashflows ~ $20-$25B per year. Yang, for god’s sake - take the DEAL

http://www.infosupply.com