Yahoo Provokes Microsoft With Google AdSense For Search Trial

April 9th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

The Daily Show had a small segment yesterday called “Dick Move,” this definitely calls for the purple penis. This is quite a kick in the face to Microsoft.

April 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Yahoo: “What did the five fingers, SAY TO THE FACE!?”

Pretty much sums it up.

http://www.miscgarbage.com

April 9th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Quirky!

April 9th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

Frankly at this point, I kinda wish Yahoo would just buckle already, because it isn’t doing anything truly productive it seems. All its moves are purely to frustrate microsoft, which is only helping Google to do even better, which may or may not be bad depending who you talk to, I kinda think it would be neat to see the buyout. I feel bad for the people who would all be displaced, but I’m sure many are jumping ship already anyhow.

April 9th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Not sure why use someone else product if you going to compete with them. Why not develop your own.

Also with microsoft takeover, I think Yahoo just want to see how far there can push it and microsoft is trying to bully Yahoo into selling. The new dead line microsoft set is part of bluff and I am sure there will renogotiate. I am sure after the deadline, Yahoo will counter offer.

YouYap.com

April 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

@mike - you’ve got it right my friend! That’s it for Yahoo!

April 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

This proves Yahoo is not a tech company but a mere publisher. Secondly, you guys are f’n laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate to the party on this story.

April 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I think that it is very strange for competitors to deal…
And Yahoo is a different company in comparison to Google..

http://funnyhack.blogspot.com

April 9th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

This is an excellent tactical move.

Yahoo is going to get a lot of information about the depth of Google’s ad inventory, and very detailed information about Adwords performance. This could help show where their own system is lacking, and also reveal weaknesses in Google ad serving.

At the same time, they find out how much more they could be making if they used Google’s ad inventory. Panama’s smaller ad inventory limits their potential advertising revenue, and using Google’s revenue numbers will help in bargaining with Microsoft for a better price.

Microsoft are going for the “stuff money down your throat” technique; it’s only fair that Yahoo should respond appropriately.

April 9th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

@sina

If Google’s stupid enough to let Yahoo have access to any information that could hurt Google if Microsoft eventually buys Yahoo, or if Yahoo decides to go away and revamp it’s system, then we should all short Google right now!

April 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

@hyloka

If the ads are being posted on the Yahoo site, I imagine Yahoo would be able to find out some way to get some pretty revealing data on Ad usage behavior. And I’m sure Google would be prepared to share some data if it could lead to Yahoo switching to their platform.

And I don’t think Google mind too much if Microsoft see the data. Adwords is so popular because it was first, I think Google knows that it will be very, very difficult for Microsoft to try and catch up. And adwords doesn’t “beta” many new features - I’m sure Google have more innovations around the corner that their existing ad data would reveal nothing about.

Or, if Google were really shrewd, they could use a dated or simplistic algorithm for ads displaying the Yahoo sites. That way there would still be a significant increase in revenue because of the larger ad inventory, but it wouldn’t reveal any information about their latest ad-serving algorithms. Though I doubt they’d feel the need to go that far.

April 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

I posted this story last week.

The IPO market is heavily leveraged to a strong market, and IPO’s will routinely get delayed when the stock market is showing weakness. So, in that instance, this is possibly too short a time horizon to look at.

The M&A valuations are more troubling, but two things:

1) A weak market can cause more friction between the acquiring and acquired companies. See Microsoft & Yahoo.
2) Investors losing money and compressed valuations is inevitable when you consider the herd mentality of VC investing. TC constantly charts the copycat competitors within a space - Green investing, mobile ad networks, thin-client instant messaging, casual gaming, etc. Many of these companies will become empty vessels for which larger companies will buy the software but pay no premium for an installed base of users or strong brand.

April 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

I think this is a smart move. It buys them time and gets them a short term revenue bump. What they really need to bank on is getting their own system in place and ramping it up to get to 90% of what Google can do; if they’re partnered with Google, they can demand granular data and swap out Google’s ads for Yahoo ads to measure monetization on different types of queries. If they can get their own monetization systems working well enough on search they can replace Google in a few years.

Also, don’t forget that display ads, content ads, branding ads, and other non-search ads are still a huge opportunity and in many ways very different from search advertising. Google’s strength there may make it open to attack in non-search advertising. Yahoo could have a great position in the marketplace if it can use Google to monetize its search and secure the #1 position in non-search, content, media, and social media oriented sorts of advertising.

There are still a lot of very smart people at Yahoo and they still have a shot in the long term if they avoid the Microsoft takeover.

April 9th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

I think this is a good move by Yahoo! There is nothing wrong in weighing things up. Lets see what happens after the trial period.

April 9th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

It’s becoming quite obvious that Yahoo wants to sell if the price is right but ONLY if the buyer is not Microsoft. Now they’re just taunting them to gain additional press attention. Maybe gain the interest of another buyer.