Mike’s been busy this week, breaking the news of the Yahoo/Google deal and then expressing one or two opinions on Yahoo’s business judgment as well.
If you’re still unsure about how he feels about the deal, check out the clip below where he talks to Gabriel Slate on local San Francisco station KRON4.
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This deal simply should not be allowed to be completed. The price difference between Google and Yahoo on many of our search terms is enormous. Though we spend over $500,000/year on search, that budget is still small enough to be entirely consumed by Yahoo, thus removing any need to rely on Google despite their dominance.
As such, I can only imagine how many thousands of other search marketers would be adversely affected by Goohoo.
Kill the deal and make Yahoo compete.
Regards,
The Greek
Mike, great analysis.
You’re pretty much a local celebrity now.
That’s a pretty snazzy weatherman green screen.
KRON 4 is not the NBC affiliate in Silicon Valley. NBC11 is the O&O station in San Jose. KRON 4 is an independent station in San Francisco.
What Karl said.
“KRON began broadcasting from San Francisco on November 15, 1949 as an NBC affiliate. Since January 1, 2002, KRON has been an independent station serving over 2 million TV homes in 11 Bay Area counties.”
Google is already a search monopoly by itself. I don’t see how that could be augmented by providing ads and or results on Yahoo.
BTW, Mike looks pretty bad against a blue screen.
I thought Mike’s analysis was excellent, except for his opening statement, where I had no idea what he was trying to say.
And while some might think, ‘hysterical overreaction’, others might just think ‘incessant whining’.
For my part, I think it’s fairly clear that if the federales don’t step-in to stop this crime against the internet, then the internet will be forever badly not working ever again.
Or something.
Oh yeah. Jerry Yang sucks. Bill Gates is my hero. etc.
@2 ryan, you are a complete and utter ass kisser. Just stop it. What did you even add to the conversation?
O’Reilly’s rebuttal to Arrington’s original post was quite strong. no wonder there was no response.
Oh well, maybe O’Reilly just doesn’t know what he is talking about when it comes to this web stuff…..o_O
Mike,
I hope you’re right since a very powerful player that controls everything is not desirable for both businesses and consumers. And don’t forget how many lawyers and experience with monopoly lawsuits Microsoft brings to the table.
Arrington is looking a bit like Uncle Fester.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....fester.JPG
@9 Frank Church,
There was no ass kissing there. I really enjoyed his analysis as I had no idea about some of the details he talked about the video. Is it so wrong to compliment him on his analysis?
Get over yourself.
Arrington, get some sleep and hit the gym a few times a week. You look like crap. Tech news is not a good reason to ruin your health.
Even Rob Enderle thinks the Yahoo/Google deal is legitimate but that the M$ FUD machine will be able to fool regulators. How shameful. As for the other deal, Microsoft has earned it’s bad reputation as a business partner.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.....3002351958
KNTV is the NBC affiliate in the Silicon Valley
Chris said…
Google is already a search monopoly by itself.
Google deserved that status and it has to be applauded. If it is Microsoft , then they too deserved it, same as any other entrepreneur out there, be it IBM, Sun Microsystem or anyone else. Why ? (See the link at the end of this message).
Well, well people, lets focus on logic and reason here. Anti-trust law is unconstitutional (see link below at the end) and legislators (Justice Department) has no right whatsoever to tell private property owners (Google & Yahoo) what they can or can’t do with what is theirs. The issue here, is not about monopoly, anti-competitive and blah, blah, blah, but it is about one self’s right to his/her own property, and therefore Google & Yahoo have every right to do a deal, whatever it may seem to be in the face of the law, which is unconstitutional, so the State Department has to butt out from interference in the decision making of private property owners.
The sooner Congress kills this unconstitutional law, the better for businesses and entrepreneurs out there to get on with what they’re good at, and that is producing.
Drop the antitrust case against Microsoft
I hope that readers on this thread must see the commonsense & reason described in the article I’ve quoted above.
@15,
“Our mission is to establish Microsoft’s platforms as the de facto standards throughout the computer industry…. Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s”
http://www.groklaw.net/article.....3002351958
I knew this was the case, to have a document flat out say it is vindicating.
The fact that they see other software companies as an enemy truly shows how out of touch with reality they really are.
@17, I strongly disagree with you. You would not want to live in a world of absolute industry trusts. The govt is bad enough.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Look what Google said about Microsoft/Yahoo 3 months ago.
“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies…”
Isn’t Google trying to do almost the same thing?
Nice speech Mike! You’re looking great and dashing!!
Yea Erick, i love it how techcrunch calls out other people/companies for lying/stretching the truth. ur making mike sound all cool by saying he was giving his opinions on nbc..lol…it’s kron 4. no one watches kron 4!
good stuff though.
No, Google is most certainly not trying to do the same thing, and the idea that they are, or that they are unhealthy for the internet is the height of ignorance.
The internet was not built by business models, by venture capitalists, by crap 2.0 startups. It was built first and foremost by hackers, academics, and enthusiasts. The carpetbaggers came later, (of which Arrington is a great example) and only a select few made any fundamental changes (e.g. Netscape)
Look at what Google is doing. Debranding Gears, releasing source for everything, developing specs in the open with community collaboration, hiring the luminaries of open source projects as company advocates. If Arrington was as “connected” as he thinks he is, he’d know that Google employees by and large, do things because they think they are doing the right thing, that they are making the web better, and not because of cold blooded marketing calculus. Does Arrington know any Google PMs? It seems not. Google didn’t choose to be “open” as a gimmick, they’ve been fairly transparent from the start, right down to their IPO being more egalitarian than any in history.
Netscape once had a 90% browser market share, and people were whining that they were too dominant, they were going to kill the desktop PC with the networked PC, and look how fast that eroded. Why? Switching cost was trivial for browsers, but going from PC to NetPC was costly. No tech company except for Intel and Microsoft had continued to have complete dominance for so long. The hysteria over Google’s current dominance is completely irrational.
The switching cost for changing ad networks or search engines is way way way lower than switching CPUs or corporate/enduser operating systems. Microsoft’s continue dominance is FAR more dangerous to tech than Googles.
Allowing Yahoo to be acquired by Microsoft is much much much more dangerous than Google running ads for them. Arrington doesn’t grok open standards, that the health of the web, of the entire entrepreneurial community he holds dear, is very much tied to the openness of the web, yet he consistently backs companies that are prone to sabotage this openness.
We’re lucky to have Google, they’re pretty much the only thing that prevented total and complete dominance by MS in all sectors (even Sony appears to be losing now to MS)
By narrowing and foolishly focusing on the search advertising market, Arrington overlooks everything else.
Who’s the mentioned “technology analyst” in the video?
Tech blogger != tech analyst!
great analysis. but Michael, you look pale~ get more rest
I believe KRON4 lost its affiliation with NBC several years ago. NBC is now NBC 11.
Seriously Michael, you really do look like you need some sleep
I made some changes to the post to remove the NBC references. I have no idea who they’re affiliated with, if anyone. But I like their coverage.
Stuck with my 256 KBPS connection.
Rajeev
http://tekno-world.blogspot.com
Did this reporter say that Yahoo’s search results will be served by yahoo? I thought only google ads were going to be shown alongside yahoo results? Was that a mistake in this report?
great analysis.
Michael:
Why don’t you just stick to your startup coverage? Are you trying to be a financial analyst now? Or was it any opportunity to get 2 mins of fame.. and that also mainly by putting the video on your blog… who sees this station anyways.
So what if Yahoo decides to sell their search company? Or just stop doing web search entirely?
Sooner or later a good competitor has to appear to challenge Google. Google may be quick and to the point, which is why a lot of users like it, but it still branched out and has many other apps, all trying to be linked from on the homepage.
Surely a back to basics approach would work to compete. Do search, and search only, fast, highly relevant and very easy to read results.
I guess the relevancy bit plays a big part in wanting to compete as who can provide more relevant results and keep on top of it like Google does?
Just thinking out aloud as I try and decide whether Google really is an unstoppable monopoly in search.
Chris said…
You would not want to live in a world of absolute industry trusts.
I want to live in the world of respecting property rights. Look at what is happening to Zimbabwe under thugs like Robert Mugabe? The land grab (stealing) of white farmers property, led to the blundering of the economy of that country, which used to be a bread winner in Africa. That’s is what I want , for everyone to respect other people’s right to their own without interference from others or legislators.
The other point is, since industry are mostly private owned, the consumers (including you) , have no right whatsoever to what is theirs. I suspect that this is what you mean, not to trust the industry. There is a fault in you logic, in thinking that the industry owes the consumers therefore they need to be regulated. Consumers are not entitle to others property, they have opportunity to trade with others/producers, but it doesn’t mean that they have rights to the producers goods and services. So, the producers of services or goods don’t owe consumers, their only concern is the market forces work in their favour in a free market.
Chris said…
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Chris, from my last post, I explained myself very clearly (in a logical manner) and you replied that I have no idea what I am talking about. Actually you have offered no counter-argument at all, just offered a meaningless obfuscating line.
Have you read the well reasoned article that I linked to in my previous post? Here it is again.
Drop the antitrust case against Microsoft
Now, how about you try to refute, put a counter-argument up or at least pick apart the excellent points made by the author of the article shown above , heh?
I think this is a prime example of businesses failing to adequately do their homework prior to making a large-scale public announcement.
Multimillion dollar deals can easily tank if public, media, and governmental opinions are not correctly identified and anticipated. You see it happen all the time.
While I respect that it is exceedingly difficult to try to pin this down, it’s definitely worth the time and money to try.
eric, the “congressman kohl” arrington refers to - is he perhaps referring to “senator” kohl? duh.
In my opinion this deal should never go through. There has to be a fair balance even in the web advertising world.
@9, Frank Church: Arrington assumes he knows more than O’Reilly because he keeps getting leaked memos and gossip from his pal Brad Garlinghouse, the douche Arrington is shilling for as the next Y! big man.
Great publicity for Techcrunch…
Please can we start seeing some transcripts to videos posted on Techcrunch; as it is, it’s not very accessible for deaf visitors and also makes it hard for people with good hearing to view the content at work.
This is all well and good, but where’s the due diligence from KRON vis-a-vis whistle tips?
Michael are you okay? Get some sleep man. Those bags under your eyes are not good. Your health is important. Don’t go down that dangerous road, take care of yourself. The pursuit of money and fame is second to your health.
Take care of yourself son.
Michael, do you think this will take out Yahoo (in the long term)? or right about now?
For those who like the topic, here’s another interesting debate regarding the big three - and why Google and Apple are heading through the road MS built