Microsoft looking to buy Yahoo again

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/microsoft-signs-a-nondisclosure-agreement-with-yahoo/?smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&seid=auto

by fufulabs • 15 years ago

49 38 15 years ago

dealbook.nytimes.com

gcb3• 15 years ago

So, they want to buy Yahoo just because they can't hire sales people?

yeah, makes a lot of sense.

pedalpete• 15 years ago

no, they buy Yahoo! so that a competitor doesn't replace Bing as the search which powers Yahoo!. The Y! brand will continue to exist for a long-time. I don't think this is a case of Microsoft buying them and shutting them down. The dollar value of Yahoo to Bing is significant, and only by having those users, is MS able to improve on Bing and get some revenue from it.

robryan• 15 years ago

I'd be very surprised if that actually happened, seems like it has been a lengthy integration process that isn't yet complete in all locales.

gcb3• 15 years ago

that's a very good point. never though about it that way.

yahoo should just raise the price for the next round of the deal instead of selling then.

ahi• 15 years ago

Last I checked their adCenter required Windows and threw up a complaint about nonstandards compliant browsers (like Chrome). They are completely lost.

tomwalsham• 15 years ago

adCenter blocks non-IE browsers, but ludicrously doesn't actually use any proprietary MSIE code - a simple user-agent spoof gets it working 100% in Firefox.

mgkimsal• 15 years ago

I just used it a month ago from FF6 on OSX and it worked fine. Well... as fine as adcenter works. I found it a little confusing at first, and often times clicks seemed to take a while to register. UI on it isn't great, but it certainly functioned.

gcb3• 15 years ago

and buying yahoo helps that how? most yahoo customers are being redirected to adcenter anyway.

misterbwong2• 15 years ago

Anyone trying to meaningfully compete with Google will need to both buy and build their way into contention. MS has the money to do both but so far the build side of the equation has been a bit lacking.

Don't get me wrong-MS has some very (technically) cool products and projects out there (WP7, win8, Xbox to name a few) , but none of them are giving them the halo that Google (or Apple) has. It will take years of marketing and [m/b]illions of dollars to move them out of the funk that they've built up for themselves over the years. American car makers faced similar marketing challenges in the late 90's-00's and are only recently turning heads again.

Tossrock• 15 years ago

I'm not sure it's really possible to meaningfully compete with Google, at least in the US search market. They're synonymous with search, as evidenced by the neologism "just google it". As much as Microsoft wishes it, no one actually says "just Bing it" if they aren't being paid to do so. The amount of mindshare Google has at this point seems insurmountable, no matter how many technically impressive tricks Microsoft can cook up.

misterbwong2• 15 years ago

True, Google could be so intertwined with "search" that they are unbeatable. To me, that just means MS (or any other competitor) will need to elevate rather than evolve our current incarnation of search. Create a new "google it", so to speak.

ChrisLTD2• 15 years ago

As long as there continues to be very little cost for switching from Google, they will always be vulnerable to a competitor who does search significantly better, mindshare or not.

The good thing for Google is that no one is providing a compelling case for switching. Bing and Google look like the same product and return similar results. So why should anyone switch?

potatolicious• 15 years ago

I also ask people if they have some "Kleenex", even though I don't think I've run into an actual box of Kleenex-brand tissues for a while now.

The fact that Google is a household word doesn't mean their hold on the market can't be challenged.

int3rnaut• 15 years ago

The fall of the iconic SF Yahoo billboard seems to have done some major foreshadowing-- it really does look like it's an end of an era for Yahoo.

jzawodn• 15 years ago

I really hope (for Yahoo's sake) this happens. About half a year before I left, Yahoo turned down the offer from Microsoft that was in the $30/share range. I couldn't believe it.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-01cor...

Yahoo was bleeding then and has been bleeding ever since, still trying to be too many things to too many people--none of them well.

Hopefully MSFT can clean house, invest where it's needed, and put things on track.

ChrisLTD2• 15 years ago

"[Yahoo is] still trying to be too many things to too many people--none of them well."

And the things they did do well (Flickr, Delicious) have been abandoned or left to rot.

clobber2• 15 years ago

Since 2009, Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion on Bing and is losing $1 billion every quarter.

How is this even possible and how is buying Yahoo going to plug the holes? Bing search is horrible and their adcenter product is even worse.

boyter3• 15 years ago

I'll agree with the adcenter, but Bing itself is a perfectly fine search engine. I consider it a drop in replacement for Google these days.

Yes i'm sure someone is now scrambling to find some edge case where Google is better, but you can do the same thing with Bing, and frankly all search engines have issues somewhere. I use a few search engines which have their own index such as DDG, Gigablast and Blekko.

I really find it amazing that people aren't cheering on some competition in the space. If Bing folded we would only have 3 players with their own index (that im aware of).

Purely subjective but I find Bings results page much clearer then Googles these days.

clobber2• 15 years ago

Agree with you on the results pages. I've found that Google's become much more cluttered since the "instant results" redesign and add in of the Google+ and preview buttons. I feel like the page even seems clunkier.

Regarding quality of results though, wasn't Google accusing Bing of directly copying search results somehow?

sixtofour• 15 years ago

"how is buying Yahoo going to plug the holes?"

Volume.

rgrove• 15 years ago

For one thing, Yahoo! Search makes money.

medinism2• 15 years ago

The CPM Yahoo gets are about 10x Microsoft gest on any of its MSN properties. They would be buying high CPMs and plug a HUGE hole in their online biz P&L

cowpewter3• 15 years ago

I just hope that however any of this falls out, Flickr survives and starts to see some attention. I really, really like Flickr (pay for it even) and don't want to see it die. I actively dislike the competitors in the social photo uploading space (cannot stand Picassa's UI, and Facebook is, well Facebook. Photos are not the primary function there). Flickr suits my needs just perfectly.

timerickson• 15 years ago

Have you tried 500px.com?

cowpewter3• 15 years ago

No, this is the first I've heard of it. I'll take a look over the weekend. First glance it actually looks a little more...artist-geared? than what I use Flickr for. I'm not even close to a professional or advanced amateur photographer. My Flickr feed is a mishmash of things taken with my phone, my point 'n shoot, some photos I've put effort into and some that I've not.

I like the community on Flickr (there are a lot of other people in the asian ball-jointed doll hobby there, and probably a good 75%+ of my photos are of my dolls), and the ease of just uploading handfuls of photos at a time and grabbing the BBCode to post them on forums without having to host the images myself.

I like that I can feel like I can throw anything up on my Flickr stream, and then selectively share the ones I think are good with related groups, and not have to overly curate what I upload to only my "best" shots.

The only thing I really feel I'm missing from Flickr is more advanced permissions. The 'guest pass' thing never seems to quite work for me when I want to share a photo only with specific people. I usually wind up marking the photo private and sending the person a direct image link.

JosephHatfield• 15 years ago

Agreed. Picassa sucks. SmugMug is a bit better for professional photographers, but I haven't seen any photo site (500px included) that beats Flickr if you're looking for a large community of photographers with lots of sharing.

jxi• 15 years ago

While I agree that Picasa's UI is pretty bland, I still love it because it so easy to upload and sync and share photo albums, which is basically all I do with it.

heyrhett• 15 years ago

Yahoo really needs to enlist Shpigler the Shark this time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=650U4-9CPew

bane• 15 years ago

At this point I wish it'd go through so somebody could put Yahoo out of its misery.

nkassis• 15 years ago

I hope the YUI team can find a new home (and some other good teams like them) at least before that happens. Maybe google could buy the whole team ?

pjzedalis2• 15 years ago

Everyone is missing the point. If Microsoft buys Yahoo they now control three very large IM networks: Windows Live (MSN), Yahoo, and Skype.

medinism2• 15 years ago

Agreed with this comments. but I am not sure what is that worth. is not like people spend a lot of time on any of those networks, ie not monetizable, and amount of utility they provide vs. FB is diminishing

pjzedalis2• 15 years ago

Remember that Microsoft has part ownership of Facebook and Skype video chat is integrated into Facebook.

wavephorm• 15 years ago

Microsoft doesn't have enough money to buy a better reputation. I'm not sure how buying Yahoo helps at all.

Microsoft looking to buy Yahoo again

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