At least, what I believe in. Unless you have your homepage set to Paris Hilton's MySpace account, you must have heard about Microsoft's US$44.6 billion bid for Yahoo! Forget about the deal itself for a second and think about the over-sized gargantuan corporation that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo could be. With its tentacles firmly wrapped around the software market and its teeth sunk even more deeply into the web (yes this creature has both tentacles and teeth - you can't get more evil than that), it would get about to crush competitors with squish.wav playing as background music. And because shares speak louder than words, let's have a quick look at what's been going on with NASDAQ:YHOO for the past few weeks.
Click on the image to enlarge. Rest assured, there are no pop-up ads attached. Source: Google Finance.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?
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?
4 comments:
Taaarrr Bebert!
Hey, Rowan. I am glad to see you are still around and blogging. I have to apologise if you wondered about my sudden disappearing act! I had a few major changes happen in my life, one involving moving to a whole new state.
I was going through my old e-mails and I still have the ones we used to send to each other. Anyway, if you're curious, I managed to get my website back up and running again but I had to change it as my previous domain was bought out by someone when I ceased payment.
If you ever want to continue reading (as I plan on beginning to write frequently again), you can visit Untamed Sanctions at http://www.flickeringcolours.net/vittra/
PS. I think Microsoft envy a lot of other people's success. It's too bad for them, really because everyone else's success comes from Microsoft trying something first and another person profiting on Microsoft's downfall.
wa bebert, ki li dir?
strictly mauritius on da baz!
Hey, you left out the DoubleClick sale. Google took it to the utter despair of Microsoft and the rest.
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