Even my mom (who discovered the joys of right-clicking a few days ago) has heard about the bid - and has her own personal opinion: it's actually a secret deal to merge Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. No mom, it's not about email. The only company who seems to be making money out of email is Google, thanks to its innate ability to display ads everywhere.
No, this deal isn't about email, nor about search engines. Microsoft already owns MSN, and it's currently the 5th most visited domain on the internet (source:
wikipedia). With its revamped AJAX-driven search baby and its widely popular instant messaging application, the set of services that the Microsoft Network offers is respectable enough to be called a Yahoo competitor. They already have everything Yahoo has - well, almost everything, if it weren't for... something else.
Remember a few years ago, when
Microsoft placed a bid for Google? Did they want their search engine technology? Probably so, but I think what MSFT really had its eyes on was Google's advertising business. Yes, for the last few years,
Microsoft has been more than enthusiastic about advertising, filing numerous advertising patents (each one more big-brotherly and making less sense than the other). And in my humble opinion, the Yahoo! deal has been placed on the table because of one single thing: and that is yahoo's penetration in the online advertising market.
If yer' can't get marry the princess, try your luck with her gran-ma'.Microsoft couldn't get Google. Larry and Sergey were smarter than that. Now it's Jerry's turn to be courted - will he and his board agree to the deal? The sudden sharp rise in the share price of Yahoo speaks for itself - the board is divided, and by the looks of it, the deal has high a high probability of being closed. What does it mean for us, little insignificant internet surfers? It means that we will be farmed into online and offline PPC clicking beasts, with billions of dollars slowly being milked out of our mouse clicks. That's what the future looks like. Corporations fighting over our clicks.
One question still remains unanswered though - can my mom keep her yahoo email address?
