On the back of Google’s positive Q1 announcement, we had some good news from Yahoo! when they announced a much better than expected Q1. Seeking Alpha has a good breakdown of both Google and Yahoo but interesting points are that Google’s International revenue (51%) was higher than US and that Yahoo! was bolstered (understatement for $401 million padding) by it’s stake in Alibaba.
Other news is that WSJ reports that the Google/Yahoo AdWords trial has gone well and could find Yahoo an additional $1 billion annually. Though taking this kind of thinking to it’s logical comparison of what Google has done for AOL and it must be tempting to consider, but once upon a time AOL had 30% of the share market and is now below 5%!
April 23, 2008
It’s heating up to end game as there’s plenty of moves on the potential purchase of Yahoo! by Microsoft.
To AdViking the way Yahoo is going about it is a reminder of Wargames and at this point Jerry Yang is making sure that no-one will win, especially his shareholders which they can’t be happy about.
The big three moves are:
- WSJ reports that Time Warner and Yahoo are close to making a deal for AOL (minus the access business) to join Yahoo
- Yahoo have announced they are going to run a two week trial to run AdSense ads
- New York Times reports that News Corp. may have flopped over to joining the Microsoft bid
AdViking thinks the last one as being the most interesting. If you have a combined Yahoo, News Corp and Microsoft then you have a truly viable alternative to Google in the digital ad space and this then creates opportunities through out the digital advertising ecosystem. e.g.: for technologies like OpenX; indy ad networks like adconion; or indy publisher networks like Federated Media.
April 10, 2008
A couple of interesting items about the proposed deal by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo! came out over the last couple of days.
Analysts Give the Thumbs Up to the deal
Reuters provided details on a poll they ran against the Wall Street analysts who cover Microsoft and Yahoo! Some breakout of the numbers given:
- 28 of the 30 respondents say the deal will be done
- 1 of the nay, holds out hopes for AOL
- 1 of the nay, thinks it will be blocked by regulators
- 14 expect MSFT to close the deal at the initial offer
- 4 expect MSFT to convert the deal to all cash
- 12 expect MSFT to raise the price between 413.50 & $35 per share
The full story was in the iht on Sunday.
Exec Meet & Greet
WSJ and others have reported that on Monday, Senior Execs from Microsoft and Yahoo! met so that Microsoft could outline what the vision for what a post-merger entity would look like. The agenda for the meeting was similar to those that Yahoo! held with AOL and News Corp. What’s interesting is that this is the first time the companies have spent some face time together since the unsolicited bid was announced.
Is Yahoo! being tactical by playing nice before Ballmer gets hostile ahead of the Yahoo! board meeting or is Jerry Yang realising that in the face of a hardening economy, he should probably shake hands on this one before it’s too late.
March 18, 2008
