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Market Watch Article [marketwatch.com]
[edited by: werty at 3:21 am (utc) on April 10, 2008]
[edit reason] Turned link into hyperlink to fix side scrolling [/edit]
The online edition of The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo is in talks with Google about handling the serving of its search ads, a market where Google has solidly trounced its rivals. The companies would undertake the tests in order to evaluate the potential of a broader outsourcing arrangement...
The previous thread was speculation. This appears to be a report based on more solid information from someone involved in the talks. Announcement pending.
It's funny, though, because just a few days ago, Yahoo was saying it was going to revolutionize online ads--'Just give us more time.'
Well, it wasn't that long ago that Yahoo search itself was "Powered by Google." So why not its Ads?
This would be horrendous for Microsoft if a Google+Yahoo deal breaks in the next three weeks. Maybe the ultimatum will backfire. A lot of pride at Yahoo could scuttle the hostile takeover attitude. Wasn't impressed with Steve Balmer's letter. Yahoo, too?!
p/g
yahoo! has 1Q earnings in 2 weeks. i just think this is a desparate attempt to get microsoft to raise their bid to acquire them. if google ads start showing on yahoo!....this will raise several anti-trust eyebrows. a couple senators are looking at this one already.
Short term, if I was holding Yahoo stock right now, I'd be concerned and probably looking to sell at today's prices. Microsoft will split the company in all directions by forcing a proxy fight while sending its agents out to buy up shares in stealth mode.
All of a sudden, there will be Balmer with 5-7% of the stock, whipsawing the BOD. Microsoft's original offer was better than Yahoo deserved and they're going to end up taking less. The company is currently 20-30% overvalued (closed at 27.77). Microsoft could end up owning it, or a very large portion of it, for less than 22.
Besides, if Google's ads began to appear all over Yahoo's properties, the Justice Department would have no choice but to begin an anti-trust investigation (though this DOJ is pretty much worthless). Might have to wait until next January for that. By that time, Yahoo may be trading in the teens for all we know.
Yahoo gets a second-to-few load of very high quality traffic, but they don't sell ads well. They just don't. Plus, they have these great news pages which everyone I know (not a lot of people, but diverse) uses. Yahoo has great content, even their search is good. People spend a LOT of time on their pages.
Great content deserves ads. EVERYONE in the web biz right now is trying to figure out how to sell ads. This network and that network is being created, while others are going out of business. It's weird.
And now, this. Very weird.
Walkman, they will not be so much "dividing the ad money" as they will be providing more content inventory.
Look at this from the ad buyer's perspective--Google is their one-stop shop.
Selling ads is 1) expensive and 2) not fun. Still, it's odd that Yahoo would turn over this much of their revenue aspect of your biz to someone else. But, hey, everyone is outsourcing these days. CBS News is outsourcing some of it news gathering to CNN.
Jerry Yang is either an idiot or a genius. We're about to find out.
Google is hijacking its takeover attempt
MS engineered this all by themselves by offering Yahoo far too little thus inspiring them to look at ways to improve revenue. Google was a natural choice.
Yahoo is just playing naughty for better price. All Microsoft has to do, is make Yahoo take the deal with Google, and then take away the takeover bid. Next let Yahoo share collapse, and silently buy out the shares out through proxy in six months.
“Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands...."
Link [microsoft.com]
Yahoo and Google, the world's two biggest search engines, have announced a two week experiment that will see them share advertising space.
During the pilot, Google will be able to place ads alongside 3% of search results on Yahoo's website.
Analysts say the move is designed to frustrate Microsoft, which has offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.6bn), or extract a higher offer.
How do I go about analyzing the impact of this on my campaigns (if any)....
Don't worry. 3% of Yahoo traffic will not even be trackable. :-)
- Merge with MS
- Find someone that can run the company
- Slowly crumble
Before the offer from MS, Yahoo was trading at less than $20 per share - now it's at $27. At the time of offer MS was willing to pay $31 per share.
As a MS shareholder I HOPE this deal falls through because Yahoo is worth less than $20 per share, not the $31 offered. On the plus side, if the deal falls through the shareholders will oust Jerry because YHOO will fall below $18.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is in talks with Microsoft about joining in its contested bid for Yahoo, according to people involved in the discussions. The combination, which would join Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and News Corporation’s MySpace, would create a behemoth that would upend the Internet landscape.
NYTimes [nytimes.com]
All Yahoo has to do is sign an agreement to have Goog sell ads for 10 years and the takeover attempt is over :)
Smart, because they (some of them, e.g. Jerry) do not want to sell to MSFT. By striking a long-term, hard-to-break ad contract with Google, they will just kill MSFT's proposal. Which is what they (YHOO) apparently want.
Stupid, because that ad deal with Google will decrease the value of YHOO in MSFT's eyes. In fact, the second YHOO announces the deal (not the negotiations), MSFT will call the deal off, and YHOO's stock will drop to the $15 range or so, maybe even lower. Not exactly what I call "creating shareholder value".
Go, Jerry, go! Deflate YHOO stock now. Why wait?
now it's at $27
Yahoo (and Microsoft and...) knew that Yahoo shares had a lot of room to rebound after the drop.
It seems to me that the price climbing back up to $27 so quickly in the current market makes a pretty good case that Yahoo has been making good decisions in response to MS.
seems to me that the price climbing back up to $27 so quickly in the current market makes a pretty good case
YHOO stock closed +0.25% after hours yesterday. I'd say 'holding pattern', at best. Watch the stock plummet should MSFT call the deal off.
And any rumours of a AOL-Yahoo! deal appears to be sooo funny, it's incredible. How in the world could AOL support Yahoo!, and vice versa? AOL is struggling for themselves for a future. Separated from TWX they are nothing more than a "has been" with a couple of million subscribers. (And their mysterious "Platform A" seems to be still a sketch on the drawing board, rather than 'a product'.)
I think that this is Yahoo's version of the "poison pill" gambit!...KF
A poison pill is designed to make your flesh taste bitter so the sharks won't eat you. If you make it too strong, you might die from the medicine, not from the attack.
Microsoft and News Corp are discussing making a joint bid for Yahoo, according to the New York Times.The idea would be to combine three of the world's most visited websites: MySpace, Yahoo and MSN.com.
Interesting. MSN/Yahoo/NewCorp would have a huge amount of web real estate in one company there...
Yahoo is showing its desperation now...although it should increase search revenues in the short term...
I guess this only applies to the US at the moment, and will fill in inventory that Yahoo cannot sell...
