{"id":11038,"date":"2008-02-04T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/04\/yahoo-microsoft-vs-google-et-al\/"},"modified":"2010-08-03T13:38:14","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T11:38:14","slug":"yahoo-microsoft-vs-google-et-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/04\/yahoo-microsoft-vs-google-et-al\/","title":{"rendered":"Yahoo + Microsoft vs. Google et al"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>The big news of last week were of yet another attempt by Microsoft to buy Yahoo.\u00c2\u00a0 If you missed all the buzz, <a href=\"http:\/\/webworkerdaily.com\/\">Web Worker Daily<\/a> has <a title=\"Microsoft-Yahoo News Roundup\" href=\"http:\/\/webworkerdaily.com\/2008\/02\/03\/microsoft-yahoo-news-roundup\/\">a really nice round-up<\/a> with separate links to facts (read: press releases) and opinions (read: speculations).\u00c2\u00a0 If that&#8217;s not enough for you, you can always find more with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/\">Google<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/slashdot.org\">Slashdot<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/digg.com\">Digg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many online news sources continue to be completely dominated by discussion of Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hostile bid to acquire Yahoo! And no wonder: a deal of this magnitude has the potential to touch the lives of pretty much everyone living and working online. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a rare web worker indeed who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use something from one or another of those two companies in their daily lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, first, can it affect me personally?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t use any Microsoft\/MSN\/Live services, but I can&#8217;t live without <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\">Flickr<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\">del.icio.us<\/a>, both of which belong to Yahoo now.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, I do occasionally use <a href=\"http:\/\/upcoming.org\">Upcoming<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, what do I think about this whole thing?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, I think it shows how desperate Microsoft is.\u00c2\u00a0 The general trend is towards the web, not the desktop, where they still rule.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of their own web services turned out to be pretty lousy.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to get online, and they are willing to pay a lot of money to get their fast.\u00c2\u00a0 Mostly, of course, this is a war for a place under the advertising sun.<\/p>\n<p>From the Microsoft view point (I think), Yahoo looks to be online.\u00c2\u00a0 More than so.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo is the second most important company online after Google.\u00c2\u00a0 And Google is giving Yahoo some rough time.\u00c2\u00a0 And Microsoft realizes it clearly, that Google is partially to blame for this whole trend towards the web.\u00c2\u00a0 And it also realizes that if it is serious about moving online, it&#8217;ll have to compete with Google in one area or another.\u00c2\u00a0 So it makes even more sense to acquire Yahoo.\u00c2\u00a0 From the Microsoft point of view (again, I think), Yahoo appears to know what they are doing.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s where I see their biggest mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo is indeed the second most important company on the web after Google.\u00c2\u00a0 But it struggles to be there, and it struggles even more to keep Google in sight.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it is falling pretty far behind.<\/p>\n<p>A little side note: I think there is a war of concepts between Google and Yahoo. It&#8217;s bigger than just advertising space or anything else.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yahoo started off with a directory of links, which was better than many at a time because it was moderated by humans.\u00c2\u00a0 Google started off with bringing huge improvements to machine based indexing and searching.\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>Yahoo:Google &#8211; 0:1<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Google brought this whole concept of clean user interfaces and simplicity for the end user.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo stayed and expanded on the old idea of portals, which bring all possible and impossible to the front page of the site.\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>Yahoo:Google &#8211; 0:2<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Google made a stake on the brilliance of its people &#8211; if the service is properly done, it&#8217;ll grow by itself and bring in more users.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo played it safe, trying to purchase web services that already have momentum.\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>Yahoo:Google &#8211; 1:2<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>End of side note.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I think that <strong>this is a bad move<\/strong> on Microsoft part.\u00c2\u00a0 If the acquisition will happen, I think, it&#8217;ll damage both companies, and, maybe even, drive at least one of them into the ground (eventually, not immediately).\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo, being at the position it is now, needs more flexibility.\u00c2\u00a0 The online space is getting more and more competitive.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s where you need to move fast.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo made some really good acquisitions before, and I&#8217;d say that they have some sense in this area, but they need more speed with integration of their acquisitions into their backbone.\u00c2\u00a0 With Microsoft on board, I&#8217;m afraid, everything will get a lot slower.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I think that Yahoo won&#8217;t win much from this acquisition.\u00c2\u00a0 Surely, some money will come their way, but it&#8217;s not always a good thing.\u00c2\u00a0 And I don&#8217;t think that it&#8217;s good in this particular case and at this particular time.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I believe it would do much more good for Yahoo to get smaller, faster, and &#8220;hungrier&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Hunger (think: limited resources) makes one&#8217;s mind sharper.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s exactly what they need now.\u00c2\u00a0 Not more &#8220;fat&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>As for Microsoft, I think there strategy should be more directed towards entertainment.\u00c2\u00a0 If they really want to buy something, they should buy some entertainment companies.\u00c2\u00a0 Those that produce content.\u00c2\u00a0 Disney studios maybe? Or some sort of a deal with AOL\/Time Warner (they had a few frictions in the past, but they seem to managed to work out a solution together).\u00c2\u00a0 With more and easily accessible content they can reinforce end users interest in their Windows desktop, as well as their gaming platform (Xbox thing), and their mobile platform (Windows Mobile).\u00c2\u00a0 And, entertainment content by itself is a rather popular thing among the end users, which makes advertising much easier.\u00c2\u00a0 And rich advertising too &#8211; not just text-based relevant web ads, but audio and video media.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think about all this?<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>The big news of last week were of yet another attempt by Microsoft to buy Yahoo.\u00c2\u00a0 If you missed all the buzz, Web Worker Daily has a really nice round-up with separate links to facts (read: press releases) and opinions (read: speculations).\u00c2\u00a0 If that&#8217;s not enough for you, you can always find more with Google, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/04\/yahoo-microsoft-vs-google-et-al\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Yahoo + Microsoft vs. Google et al<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62],"tags":[1210,918,2402,1968,2068,2076,186,751,124,842],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-11038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","tag-acquisitions","tag-announcements","tag-aol","tag-business","tag-google","tag-microsoft","tag-news","tag-opinions","tag-web","tag-yahoo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11059,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/13\/follow-up-on-yahoo-and-microsoft\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":0},"title":"Follow-up on Yahoo and Microsoft","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The other day I wrote a post about possible Yahoo acquisition by Microsoft. There have been some developments to the story. If you haven't followed it elsewhere, here is a brief summary for you: Microsoft decided to buy Yahoo (again) Yahoo said \"No\" (again) Microsoft insists in very aggressive ways\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10986,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/18\/2008-will-be-the-year-of-the-web-worker-because\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":1},"title":"2008 will be the year of the web worker because &#8230;","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Web Worker Daily has published the results and some of the submissions for their \"2008 will be the year of the web worker because ...\" contest.\u00c2\u00a0 It's an interesting read. To some, those postings could sound like a bunch of nonsense from a few lunatics.\u00c2\u00a0 And to be honest with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10440,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/31\/on-google-and-microsoft\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":2},"title":"On Google and Microsoft","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I can easily live (and work) through a day without touching anything of Microsoft. In fact, I do so for a few years now. But there's no way I can say the same about Google. It all started with a better search engine (I used to use Yahoo and Altavista\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10908,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/15\/social-network-through-the-email\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":3},"title":"Social network through the email","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Slashdot runs the \"Turning E-Mail into a Social Network\" post, which links to this article about Google and Yahoo approach: Ignore Orkut, OpenSocial, Yahoo Mash and Yahoo 360. Google and Yahoo have come up with new and very similar plans to respond to the challenge from MySpace and Facebook: They\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11014,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/08\/yahoo-life-anybody\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":4},"title":"Yahoo Life! anybody?","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"(Side note: punctuation in product names sure makes headlines confusing) Mashable has a post about upcoming Yahoo Life! The premise is this: take Yahoo Mail, and make it the hub of your daily online activities; turn e-mail addresses into social profiles; connect e-mail to other services, and use the info\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10913,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/16\/keep-it-simple-stupid\/","url_meta":{"origin":11038,"position":5},"title":"Keep it simple, stupid","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It is sometimes amazing how people behave.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when they buy something and they get a choice of what they can get for their money.\u00c2\u00a0 Given the freedom to \"get anything they want\", they often won't stick with what they need, they won't usually know what they want, and so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11038"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=11038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}