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[thestreet.com...]
"The latest rumor has Yahoo! buying Overture for half a share plus $11, or about $24.70. Yahoo! was recently down 12 cents at $27.39. Representatives from both Overture and Yahoo! said it was their companies' policy not to comment on market speculation and rumors. "
That's what I would do, at least :)
What I love about these rumors is they always ignore some of the facts that all of us know here.
Yahoo! owns 10% or perhaps as much as 15% of Google. Why on Earth would they go out, and devalue that investment, when the Google IPO seems to be getting closer & closer...?
After Google goes public, sure - Yahoo might pull such a move. Till then, all this 'speculation' is just that, imho.
Yahoo won't do it. More likely, Microsoft would do it.
"One wild card in Yahoo's upcoming decision might lie in a stake that Yahoo is said to hold in Google. According to Fieler, Yahoo held an estimated 5 percent stake in the company at the time of its search deal with Google."
I still don't see Yahoo buying Overture. They have a pretty good game plan laid out with Inktomi and Google. Profits have been posted and so on. I can't see them dumping all that money on a search service that just purchased two search engines that need major major work. This will just put them in a pit again, imho.
All Yahoo has to do is toss out their own PPC service and they'll build a client DB in no time. They don't need to spend that much on Overture for something they can easily do themselves.
But like I said many times before....this industry is full of surprises...
So it seems they wouldn't really get anything but extra distribution & patents...something that Google has, aplenty.
The way I see it, a move by Yahoo to purchase Overture might lower people's estimation of the Google IPO value / and potential for growth.
Just my opinion though...
Technically speaking, this would be "illegal" :) Overture holds the patent on PPC search apparently and are in legal battles with Google and Findwhat regarding this. I find it amusing though that Overture has been copying Google for a while now with it's "matchdriver" thing that creates matches for more broader search terms, factors clickthrough in now, etc. Google should file a counter suit :)
And then their's AV's patent for crawling the web and indexing web pages. If Yahoo bought Overture and sucessfully sued them for infringement on PPC and crawling the web, they would swiftly kill the big G... not that I would like to see that happen. Of course I don't think they would do this until they sold their stake in Google first.
And imagine the benefit of crippling MSN's profits by robbing them of Overture PPC revenue sharing, they currently take 65% of all PPC revenue I believe.
>>>Yahoo has a stake in Google?
Yes, Yahoo got 10% when they first took on Google when it was just some college project. Apparently they got something else in a later deal which was undisclosed.
I'd be suprised if Yahoo moves on Overture though. In terms of consolidation it doesn't seem to make much sense, because the main power groups seem to have all the toys they want. Consider the portfolios owned by Yahoo (e.g. Inktomi), Overture (Fast, Altavista), Looksmart (Zeal, Wisenut etc) and Google (AdWords, Froogle, News). I'd say that what Yahoo! is missing is a decent search engine 100% under its belt.. Inktomi is interesting, but it's not quite PPC and it's not quite a proper SE.
perhaps people that were buying options on Overture stock & hoping to make a quick buck
Given that yesterday was options expiration (3rd Friday of the month), I believe this is the most likely reason behind the rumors and the runup in the stock.
Ted
The average website holder can not afford to bid at the ridiculous rates the are are going there.
You have to have a large bank roll to have any success with Overture in my opinion.
The average website holder can not afford to bid at the ridiculous rates the are are going there.
This is exactly what THEY want.
Make NO qualms about it, The Mom and Pop webmaster was purely a guinea pig, until the big Advertising agencies with Billions of $$$s in marketing spend accepted that they had to INCLUDE a certain % of their budget to the online arena.
Shak
There is a lot of preparation going on behind the scenes for the time that the big multi-million pound campaigns come online, I think Lloyds TSB struck a deal with Google for 7 figures, and that will be the shape of things to come in the future.
The beauty parade will shift from the providers of PPC to the purse holders soon enough and I think this was the driving force behind some of the purchases made (Overture buying the analytics company), (Google buying the blogging company).
There's a lot of wooing to come in the upcoming 12 months.
