Yahoo and Google aren’t holding anything back in their effort to win our hearts minds in the search marketing war. Or rather, Yahoo’s surrender in that war as they prepare to include Google Adsense ads in their search results.
They had what amounted to a advertorial in the New York Times earlier this week. Google wrote not one but two blog posts on the matter, and launched a whole website with their side of the story. And today Yahoo President Sue Decker weighed in with a long blog post, with all the same arguments.
Microsoft, hoping to kill the deal, hasn’t been sitting quietly. They’ve got their own websites and have been lobbying the government for months to oppose the deal.
The deal allows but does not obligate Yahoo to place Google ads on their site instead of their own. Google and Yahoo stress that Yahoo is committed to keeping their own robust advertising platform to ensure long term competitiveness.
But the test results showed just how dramatically Yahoo can increase cash flow with Google ads. The more Google ads are shown, the more money Yahoo makes. And in a world where all that really matters is the financial results in your next fiscal quarter, the incentive to use more rather than fewer Google ads will be too large of a temptation.
Yahoo will be able to fine tune their financial results simply by turning up the volume on Google ads v. their own. Every time they do that they mortgage their future because they give more network power to Google’s ad system (advertisers want volume and will pay a premium for it). In other words, Yahoo will be making constant cost benefit decisions weighing short term cash flow v. long term competitiveness. Human nature and simple financial market psychology tells us unequivocally that cash will win and Yahoo’s ad network will lose.
Yahoo’s ad network will continue to erode further as they choose cash over competitiveness, creating a viscious downward cycle. As the fiscal quarters march relentlessly on, Yahoo will rely more and more on Google to make their revenue and earnings numbers.
There are three players in search today. In the long run the 80/20 rule is likely kick in unless a monopoly emerges. Microsoft needs to be that 20% player to keep the Internet healthy, just as AMD keeps Intel’s processor prices in check even though they don’t have much actual market share.
But if Google gets Yahoo, Microsoft won’t be able to be that counterbalance. And then Google will be free to charge monopoly prices to advertisers and share next to nothing of that revenue with publishers.
That’s why killing this deal is so important. It’s not about the share price of Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. It’s about maintaining a healthy Internet ecosystem that continues to let entrepreneurialism bloom.
My position on this has been steady since Microsoft first bid for Yahoo early this year. It’s destroyed my relationship with (the execs that remain at) Yahoo, and the chill is palpable during my few visits to Yahoo HQ these days. I can live with that, but what I don’t want to live with is an Internet where all the advertising revenue goes to one company. That sounds too much like the Windows/Office world of the 90s to me.
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If I remember correctly, a while back there was a post on techcrunch about the long tail, and how Yahoo would be wise to use Google ads on those properties in the long tail where the difference in profit between placing their ads and Google’s is greatest (not where the absolute amount made per ad is largest).
Perhaps the deal could be good for the internet as a whole if conditions were attached, such (a) that Yahoo may only use Google ads on such “long tail” property, thus not actually being able to make a killing out of the agreement, and (b) if Yahoo could somehow be obliged to invest all of the extra income into its search and ad network technology.
Dont think Googl is not scared about a consumer and business advertiser backlash. The second they feel it they will jump ship. There are so many stipulations in the contract for an easy separation than ones for a compact agreement. G should foster competive practices not monopolistic ones. Googl is becoming the Nextel search company of today. Manipulating the addense system always to there advantage, jacking prices at every turn and causing confusion about what businesses are getting for there money. We all seen what has happened nextel in the cellular arena.
This is a very exciting time for outside search companies especially the ones with a focus on strategic location based long tail niche offerings.
Search engine valuations will rise as companies, newspapers, consumers, businesses seek quality strategic economical location based search alternatives. Subscription based know your price ad models will also be popular.
Thank you TC for allowing me to hang out and express myself in my own locator language. This is a very exciting time for me
MyLocator.com-Natural Language Location.
Locator dude your comments used to make me not want to read comments on TC. Thankfully you got that stupid avatar so I can recognize your self promoting drivle before actually reading it. Thank You!
Speaking of avatars isn’t your avatar the international symbol for douche bag? If it wasn’t it soon will be.
PS: Spot on post Mike!
@douche
this is what makes TC great. Where else are you gonna find startups like me and clowns you in the same place sharing commentary. A sorta national inquirer/forbes/ meets myspace. Its called community engagement.
Douche maybe someday we can join hands and bury the hatchet like Mike and Jason did. Until then the show must go on.
“spot the post mike”. now that is funny. How could he miss this post with your first name and your cupid doll hairdo. Your gravatar and choice of words says alot about your character as a person. I think you have a secret crush on me or my business. I can see why. Im hot.
WomenLocator.com
Absolutely agree wit u Michael.. as a publisher i ve always felt the irk of just havin one ad network to deal wit and not havin a choice for my own inventory.. its not a rocket science to understand wat yahoo is loosin from this deal.. i wonder wat the so called intelligent ppl @ the board of YAHOO r ponderin over !!
Now congress realizes this too..
yes there is true.
Perhaps there’s a need for Hulu-PlatformA.com?! If Hulu can show a glimmer of hope that traditional media companies can take on YouTube. Then why can’t they get an advertising platform right too? I wonder if in 10 years, Google and Microsoft will themselves have stiffer competition from other players than people fear.
let them fall, don’t expect declining forces to compete with monopolies… look up for the only, really, massively, rising player that has potential to compete w/ GOOG one day - don’t think too long, answer’s easy.
Yeah! you got it! I was speaking of cuil.com of course!
I agree : “I don’t want to live with is an Internet where all the advertising revenue goes to one company. That sounds too much like the Windows/Office world of the 90s to me.”
I agree, too. This is going to kill all competition since Google+Yahoo will hold more than %85 of all online ad revenue. Currently i am spending tremendous amount of ad money on Google, and once they dominant the market, they are going to ask whatever they want. And i don’t want this to happen…
Mike: you’re right. Let’s hope that someone (at the end of the day, maybe the EC) will dismantle Google’s search monopoly. Or, that some new technology will completely change the business we’re all looking at today. However Microsoft have a PR problem of their own, and they need to build a momentum that is not based only on buying power. They need to appeal to (influential) geeks, I mean.
I’m not convinced of the validity of the comparison to the Microsoft monopoly (which, incidentally, is doing about the same as it was during the 90’s, i.e., quite well), nor the Intel (potential) monopoly. Most everyone buys computers, and most everyone buys Windows, so those monopolies impact a tremendous amount of people. However, a monopoly on internet advertising *directly* affects only internet advertisers, which is quite a small number of people.
Yes, you can argue that raising prices for that small number of people will eventually translate to higher prices for us all (’trickle-down economics’?), but that is far from certain.
In other words, if Microsoft decides tomorrow to charge another $100 for Windows, that is a tax on us all. If Google had a monopoly on online ads and did the same, online advertisers would absorb the $100 initially, and what effect that would have on the rest of us is not clear. The advertisers might absorb it silently, or be prodded into improving their efficiency, etc.
you’re missing a large part of the picture. This potential monopoly is much more serious and insidious than either Microsoft or Intel, and could literally give Google the power to decide what is shown and what is censored on the internet. This sort of abuse is being administered by Google right now. To be fair, They have every right to dictate what their own site shows, for instance, what listings are available on their search engine (if they want to blacklist a site on Google.com, so be it).
However, because of Google’s ‘Adsense’ program, their reach is going beyond google.com (and partners), to every joe schmoe website and blog that earns money from showing their ads. Not only do they dictate what is allowed on a publishers page such as no competing ads, certain types of content, etc… , but also where that publishers traffic is coming from, and whether it meets their ‘quality’ standards. To explain further, they have ruled out entire classes of referring websites that end up delivering visitors that register page views on the publishers page, but a low(er) impression to clickthru ratio on Google ads. If as a publisher, you are receiving visitors from these sites, you are deemed in violation of the publisher agreement and lose your account. Let me repeat, they may ban you for visitors clicking from a 3rd party site to your site. What business is that of theirs who and how visitors go to your site?
Google doesn’t have to do this, they could easily adjust the commission payment structure for ‘less profitable’ origin of visitors, or even not count/pay for those impressions at all, but instead, it’s simpler for them to threaten with termination of the publishers account, because they can. At best, this shows they have no respect or desire to play well with other web properties with the existing domination they have already. At worst, It seems to me there is a serious legal issue here.
So is it a big deal? Well, more and more people have their own blogs, and with Google’s ‘enterprising’ nature, ex. buying Blogger with millions of registered users and prominently featuring an Adsense option (who wouldn’t want to earn money while they blog?) , an ever increase percentage of the population is publishing online and looking to get paid for it one way or another. For most websites, it’s necessary to make some sort of income, and online ads are their main staple for doing this. With a true Google monopoly and their track record outlined above, they can, and will literally shape the internet to whatever suits their pocketbook, and in the process stifling the organic growth that the internet is supposed to be about.
And so in that regard, Everybody suffers because the internet is no longer a place where ideas and endeavours are free to flourish in an open world wide web, but are subject to be squashed by the Google pocketbook filter…
Finally someone talking some sense. I’m sick of Google’s domination and, most of all, people saying how great google is. We need MSFT to keep the internet healthy, to (perhaps counter-intuitively) encourage innovation and to stop one company dominating the internet.
There is another possibility Michael which is that the very entrepreneurial spirit that you talk of will have the last laugh. Ten years ago the company that you are worried about being a monopoly (because it ultimately won a game that ultimately only Bill Gross of GoTO.com understood back then) had just been born as a company and nobody would have believed that it would grow up to win a monopolist. Yes, Google has won this game, just like Microsoft won the previous game..but perhaps there is another game that a company that has just been born will see that the incumbents do not see.
Interesting and optimistic viewpoint. I believe it is 20% technology and 80% about brand. Yahoo’s brand? Ruined. Microsoft’s brand? Ruined. AOL’s brand? Ruined.
Google and Apple have great brands. Amazon has very good brand too.
Yahoo has a huge re-branding effort ahead on the road to a comeback.
I absolutely agree. Seriously, anything that goes up has to crumble at some point, as sad as it is.
But is it really Google’s fault if people choose them over Microsoft or Yahoo? I don’t think so. They give what people want. Obviously people will go fluttering to them. And besides, what about Microsoft pretty much dominating the OS market? A majority don’t own Macs. And up until some years ago, an even larger majority used Internet Explorer. Yes, some have now turned to Firefox and Chrome and some of the other browsers, but I do believe that IE still dominates. If Microsoft wants to put a dent in Google’s rep, they need to be more innovative, put out some great things that will draw people to them.
Either way, it won’t be too long before something new will grab everyone’s attention, as Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed had. Perhaps a seed for a new (and dare I say better) search has been planted, and it’s just a matter of time before people start noticing it’s bloom.
friendfeed lmao that alone kills your whole post
nice try but you failed
I disagree on this being Microsoft’s fault for not having better products. The majority of Joe Schmo internet users have no idea Live Search exists, and that’s due to Google’s enormous popularity (Google is now a verb, much like Photoshop, another unrecognized monopoly).
I prefer by far Live’s image search to Google’s any day. Live Video Search is also much better (IMO) than Google’s (video previews, search over various online video sites, etc).
When it comes to popularity, the quality of the product is usually secondary to the name/brand attached to it.
Not to bash on Google, as they definitely have some really good products, but I have to disagree with you if you say quality is the definitive benchmark by which consumers judge a product.
i konw this is true..i saw this again before
cuiL ?? your kidding me.
Gigablast is the only decent SE in town ,
liberta-togo.com
I like the scrogle scraper.
Your premise assumes that Yahoo! has all but given up trying to be a player in search advertising. You’re taking the extremist view that Yahoo! will ultimately give up on improving their search ad system and just move over to Google for the easy, short-term profits.
While I’m no fan of the way Yahoo! has been managed of late, I don’t subscribe to your point of view. Yahoo! is ultimately an advertising company that uses it’s properties to create inventory. But what makes the money is the advertising. I’m pretty sure they realize that if the company is to have any success they need to become a much better advertising partner.
The Google deal was put in place primarily to dissuade a Microsoft acquisition. But now that it’s in place, Yahoo! can use it as a stop-gap to create some short term financial gains, and it allows Yahoo! to gather some pragmatic bucket test data about how ads perform on the two systems. If they truly are giving up on the ads market, investors will notice quickly enough, the stock will tank, and Microsoft can come back and buy them for a discount.
In either case, I don’t see a viable #2 to Google going away anytime soon.
YaHoO is Google’s beyotch..lol
Oh horseshit. Getting the government involved is letting the camel’s nose into the tent.
The government never has succeeded when they tried to run business.
Let the market decide.
If GooYoo charges advertisers too much, a viable competitor with evolve.
Google wouldn’t have a monopoly on internet advertising, just internet search advertising, and there is a lot more to internet advertising then searching. And there still are competitors too… if Microsoft’s ad service is that much cheaper per click, many advertisers are just going to go to it anyways even if there are less users… there probably are still enough on it. If google does in fact raise the price, it could also provide a boost to other ad companies and give them whats needed to start competing with other ads… just let the deal go through, yahoo provides a lot of content and if it doesn’t go through, yahoo is dead meat and all of yahoo is going to be in trouble. And I don’t want a Microsoft owned Yahoo, they’ve screwed up enough of my online stuff already.
As far as I can tell there already is a monopoly at play. I have the choice of GYM and then who? Google Yahoo and Microsoft (GYM) all work the same from a marketing reach view with google having the furthest reach. But want I want is the most targeted reach and I just don’t see that with any off them. Facebook and Myspace is a great place to sell zit cream but they still don’t offer the targeted marketing I want.
New players will emerge. New technologies will be introduced. People will start using new services. And one day online ads will grow up. Look 3-5 years ahead somthing will be there to change the game. Because GYM may be the only player but game isn’t the one I want to put my ad dollars into.
“And then Google will be free to charge monopoly prices to advertisers”
Google is not a price-setter and never will be. Prices are set by an auction-based model, so if prices go up, it is because advertisers are willing to pay more for better value and conversion rates.
I don’t see how this hurts advertisers because of the network effects, but there will definitely be a stunting of competition in innovation.
in just the span of a few years, it’s fascinating how Google has gone from beloved to not-so-beloved, and MSFT is now viewed as a ’savior’.
let’s say the auction starts at .01cent, but google moves the min bidding price for the first page to 10cents. They are somewhat controlling the prices even if in an auction.
This post sucks.. too much of BS.. Yahoo! will get better with this deal. your post is BS.
Your argument isn’t very compelling
what happens to overture if yahoo partners with google?
Call me pedantic, but they aren’t placing “AdSense” ads next to Yahoo search results. AdSense serves Google’s Content Network. This is an extension of Google’s Search Network.
Michael,
I completly disagree, people in this country forgot the simple concept of free markets and capitalism, Microsoft (or any other company) shouldn’t be allowed to lobby in the first place and Google and yahoo should be able to make their own decision on what their future of their company will be its their company and they made those amazing products available in the first place, if Michaels right and by making this decision Google will become a monopoly and charge high prices (which i don’t think it will) then what will happen is what always happened to monopolies in this country (read history) a smaller better, cheaper competitor will come and win over the market or force Google to become more competitive.
Could people in this country open a history book or an economic book and learn capitalism please I am soo sick of this whole country forgetting about what ACTUALLY creates competition and opportunities for small and big companies.
Enjoy your weekend
a frustrated capitalist:(
Hi Abehsera,
I totally agree with you and the post made me think if this is being written by a person in China or Russia. You can only make the things worse when you get Government involved in business. Don’t we already see what happened to the financial market. Monopolies are only created in where you have Government regulations and never in a free market economy. I am sure someone out there is working to disrupt Google and this only makes the incentive bigger.
@Harbir, Abehsera:
Ha ha. Sure, someone will disupt Google…in a hundred years. This notion that a free market will cure all is a pipe dream. Nice “romantic” theory about the invisible hand fixing everything but the devil’s in the details. Don’t discount the massive resources that Google has and will use in order to maintain its lead. It will only get easier if there is less regulation. This Yahoo deal is just one example of Google using its might to grow its position in the marketplace. Has anyone disrupted Microsoft by the way?
I can’t believe there aren’t other SE’s in development now that will overtake both Yahoo! and Google in functionality. What about semantic search? Image search? etc? This is NOT the end of the Internet. Searching and advertising will simply take different turns and different partners will emerge.
There is! The way to beat them is to offer natural language location based custom strategic niche offerings for users and businesses. Custom email, Custom subsites, Custom results layout. The internet has a long way to go and the ones that will lead are the ones that focus on the strategic niche offerings. The elimination of cyberfat algorithim search results is inevitable. The internet breeds efficiency and allows the best to always float to the top (naturally).
So much for Yahoo and Google. We all know that Yahoo is Google’s sidekick. Time for the next post….lol
@ Phd Economics,
Nobody cares whether the price is set with an auction or with an Excel spreadsheet offline.
Prices on Google are higher because Google has more volume. After the deal Google will have more volume and prices will be even higher. The more we transfer clicks from Yahoo to Google, the more we increase prices in the market. This happens with almost zero benefit to advertisers.
I know Google might have better algorithms, but you know that’s marginal here. If you have ever used AdWords, you have seen the cost difference between any position #1 and #10… that’s just volume, my friend.
This is so true. Michael, great job voicing us out.
The biggest reason Microsoft doesn’t like this deal is because they think it will hurt themselves. Don’t think for one second that they care about the average person. That being said, while right now it is a small step - only a few more ads on search pages - it might be a slippery slope for the future of a yagoogle (trademarked by me) search engine that will monopolize the search market.
http://www.SchoolShift.com
No one said you had to go through school alone.
Check out my post at my blog:
http://www.dankalmar.com/2008/.....ogled.html
N O
Big no
Dumb Ballmer could have saved us from all this by buying Yahoo when he had a chance. He balked over few billion dollars when he was spending $44 Billion already. SILLY! Now each month, MS search is fading more and more.
I always wondered where Martin Taylor went after Microsoft fired him.
Get the Facts about Google.
Michael,
Thanks for posting this on the weekend when all the YHOO PR flacks are offline. It has significantly cleared the comments of tenuous “rah-rah YHOO” posts.
I love how all talk of Cuil just disappeared right after their launch.
Google search is not perfect by any means, it’s just a bit better than the other ones. It is entirely feasible that mcst and yahoo can improve their results or come up with an interesting twist and that will make a difference. Do not discount either.
joseph davidovic
Mike, how can either Yahoo or Microsoft gain 20% of search marketing dollars if they do not have 20% or more of search query volume? Without the increase in $$$ from this deal, in a position to increase volume? No. They will be worse off. It will mean fewer dollars to R&D, and probably less leverage with which to make acquisitions. The alternative I suppose is to force Yahoo into Microsoft’s arms. Maybe that is better for the overall market. But if you’re an exec at Yahoo, this deal at least gets you a better price for that deal. At best it helps you increase query share if you’re to remain independent.
In short, your desired outcome is probably correct: prevent Google monopoly. But what you lay out to prevent it falls short on specifics to make that happen. Unless you literally force MSN/Yahoo deal, keeping these dollars away from Yahoo weakens Yahoo more than it weakens Google.
Hi, my name is Stephanie - I was a co-founder of GoTo.com/Overture, which Yahoo bought in 2003. Here is what I want to know. What the hell did Yahoo do with the paid search engine that invented paid search that they paid $1.6 bn for? They got a bargain at the time, and they bought GoTo precisely to compete with Google and improve their monetization of search. Yet I understand from folks that were still there that they let it lie fallow and unattended to for years, there in Pasadena, while Google crawled up their back, until one day they woke up and realized Google had eaten their lunch. Not to mention a little known fact that GoTo was actually in a patent infringement lawsuit with Google at the time for their blatant theft of our business model, a lawsuit which Yahoo inherited and which they resolved in exchange for Google stock - which made them a couple hundred million dollars in one year but created a monster (no licensing agreement, royalty, nothing)? This is a matter of public record - in their public filings - I was in fact no longer at GoTo/Overture at the time of Yahoo’s acquisition but am a small Yahoo shareholder still as a consequence and have kept up with Yahoo’s activities. The fact that Yahoo will make significantly more money outsourcing search to Google than they will with their own internal paid search machinery (ie. GoTo/Overture) says a lot about how they blew it in applying their talent and resources to optimize their acquisition of GoTo/Overture - because we know that Google is also making a lot in this rev share distribution deal - which says to me that Google has evolved AdWords and AdSense to create at least 4X revenue per search than Yahoo did with the original offering that they bought in 2003 and then didn’t do anything with. So now, to survive, Yahoo must sell their soul, contribute to the monopoly of Google who they literally gave the business model to, and give away revenue that they could have been generating for themselves if they had only focused on the incredible asset that we built and they bought. As a shareholder, I think Yahoo and Jerry Yang should be sued for this atrocious destruction of value - both killing GoTo and not accepting the Microsoft deal for his own vain ego. We all held on to our stock because we felt there was just NO WAY Yahoo wouldn’t accept this deal. I continue to this day to be mortified.
Is it only me or does anyone else feel that the core of the problem as so clearly detailed above is the pressure of Yahoo-owned cash over the quality of Yahoo-owned search.
So if cash is more important than search, Yahoo will get cash, not search.
Also note that one important cause is, among others, the “ever-increasing revenue” demand of a publicly traded technology company. Seems to me that Yahoo managers slept without innovating. That’s dangerous on the web. So many will agree. The bailout - Yahoo needs a share in the bailout!
Just kidding, but I think a part of the problem is there too - a design defect in many ways.
There are other things that aren’t written on blogs and newspapers that cause some other innovative solutions to be blocked. Design defect #2.
Two reasons why I don’t buy the argument in the post:
* The short-term versus long-term balance is an issue that most companies have to deal with, and are generally successful at. For example, Google could show many more ads on search pages, driving their revenue up in the short term but decreasing the value of those ads to customers and thus hurting themselves in the long term. Aren’t the same “human nature and simple market psychology” forces at work there? Yet their very existence doesn’t seem to mandate that Google succumb to them. The whole argument here is based on Arrington’s assumption that Yahoo!’s management is not only stupid, but stupider than that at most companies, and will inevitably kill the company if given any ability to do so; therefore they must not be given that ability; and then “stupid” is repackaged as some sort of “inevitable market outcome” when it clearly is not.
* If, as the title of the post suggests, the alternative is “death to Yahoo!”, I don’t see why there is anything to lost by letting Yahoo! take the deal. If the concern is Google being the only player in the advertising market, isn’t “no Yahoo!” worse than any other possible outcome? I’m reminded of “we had to destroy the village in order to save it”.
google > yahoo
http://cashtutor.blogspot.com
This is simply the AOL-zation of Yahoo.
Get used to it. Sit back. Laugh your ass off.
Within 2 months of the deal’s implementation expect all sorts of crap on Yahoo’s SERP in an effort to wring-out any short term value… advertiser’s icons in the listings, advertisers owning a keyword, and other crap that’ll add a few million $ for the quarter but ultimately will drive user away from Yahoo search and into the arms of Google.
It happened with AOL. It’ll happen with Yahoo.
Check yo self before ya wreck yo self (even more) Yahoo.
How can you say Google is a publisher’s only choice? The huge majority of ads served on TechCrunch are NOT Google ads. It seems like every other week TechCrunch is writing up some new ad network or ad optimization system. Web publishers have lots of places to go to get ads on their site.
TC, you obviously don’t run a site.
I share the same view and already see my ad cost increases yet conversions and leads do not follow the trend. Google’s ambition to control ALL advertising assets is very dangerous. Businesses and consumers alike should realize this before it’s too late.
Webmob-ad, is a new start-up that just came out . It is a pioneer in the automation of mobile and web advertsing by creating the only self serve and fully automated marketplace for CPC and CPM advertising . It supports all types text ads, banners and video ads. PUBLISHERS EARN THE HIGHEST SPLIT OF THE EARNINGS. Register is FREE. Please check it out : http://www.webmob-ad.com.
Webmob-ad, is a new start-up that just came out . It is a pioneer in the automation of mobile and web advertsing by creating the only self serve and fully automated marketplace for CPC and CPM advertising . It supports all types text ads, banners and video ads. PUBLISHERS EARN THE HIGHEST SPLIT OF THE EARNINGS. Register is FREE. Please check it out : http://www.webmob-ad.com.
I was very apprehensive too with the placing of ads in Yahoo! site. But come to think of it, Google already beaten Yahoo! in the search arena since Google have almost 70%. But still Google needs publishers to serve their ads because you can’t put all the ads on the search engine pages itself. The same thing as Yahoo! even if Yahoo! place adsense ads on it’s search pages. Besides, we are not sure if the quality of traffic coming from Yahoo! is profitable because I read in a blog about the comparison of Google traffic vs. Yahoo traffic. It was said that most traffic that really “buys” are coming from Google and those “speculators” are coming from Yahoo! for more info visit this site >> http://www.yugatech.com/blog/g.....se-google/
At the most basic, I see a conflict in Yahoo’s business model. The Yahoo website is attractively designed for you to spend the most time there, (and generate pageviews ad inventory which they sell) and meanwhile search is designed for you to leave the search page and go to the search results.
I think if yahoo made a standalone search page (without it being part of a portal), it would have a better chance of competing with Google.
Search being part of a portal prevents yahoo from serving search to all the countries where yahoo doesnt have a portal. Eg. I bet yahoo is not used at all except the 30 or so countries where yahoo has portals. Thats 150 countries missed opportunity,
Eg. I am writing from Slovenia in EU where no one ever uses yahoo search (why should we, yahoo doesnt have local language portal here because its a small country) whereas google.si (local google version) rules. Because it just takes google to translate 10 or so words on their spartan interface to make a local google version (google.si.google.hr, etc) they do it remotely, whereas yahoo being a publisher needs a whole local effort to serve a market.
Same situation is in mail, where everyone uses gmail around the world because it has inteface in every local language translation. and yahoomail doesnt.
Microsoft faces the same problem with live.com whatever, doesnt have a standalone search page.
The way I see it is that on a basic level yahoo and MSFT businessmodel is not scalable because they need to setup local language portals to be able to serve search to a country population, whereas google plays its game remotely, so more scalable. and you can guess the trickle down effect with local language blogs displaying adsense, and so on, which helps up in grabbing mindshare and respect.
I think yahoo/MSFT should first make their business model scalable for the whole world using a simple standalone search page, and since they both realize that there is much more money and long term future in being search leader than a portal pageviews leader, I wonder why they didnt do it already. And then deliver good search results. The they have a fighting chance. Otherwise no amount of grumbling from them or users in going to help them in this fight.
And I dont see google losing any money/sleep over monopoly lawsuits (until they do something really anti privacy in future) As their system stands now, they are a beautiful monopoly because majority users go to them, and not because of any buldling of services etc (MSFT/IE saga), and this is not illegal in any market
Well if Yahoo is killed, than Google will be only there hence creating a monopoly.
I’m confused with the dumb heading of this post:
What do you mean by the heading?
We can’t afford a monopoly in search, even if it kills you [by not doing the deal] OR
We can’t afford a monopoly in search, even if [the deal] kills you
Either way you are saying that Yahoo! will be dead, which creates a monopoly anyway. (which is the point made by the previous reader). This is a dumb post that only Michael Arrington can post. The heading almost suggests that you want the company to be dead and have an agenda.
Deal MUST NOT HAPPEN! Google is well on its way to be the next microsoft !!
This “deal” could make stuff better or worse no one really knows all are after their own interests almost certain is that yahoo ads will die and deteriorate, still there are other non major league ads but they re in corner and getting advertising predators together in hunt means a lot of mind jobs for publishers and their competitors.
Not really sure of outcome time will tell if they go together but am certain that it s going to be hard to stop them because is cynical ethic yahoo is getting to be publisher for google adsense and showing ads to their traffic.
weird world