The chess game continues...
So it looks like the predicted Microsoft-Yahoo deal will happen finally. This is waaaaay overdue - it should have happened back when MSN decided to leave Overture and pursue its own performance-based ad platform. The day that happened (sometime in 2003 as far as I remember) created 2 losing platforms.
I love the timing of this announcement. Looks like Microsoft were sitting on this waiting for Google's stock to dissapoint, and then hand it a beautifully timed 1-2 blow. Cool.
(on a side note - it's really great to see Google's stock crash from $750 to $525 within 3 months... healthy reminder that Google does not have exclusive rights to the world's wisdom and shareholder value)
Seems like the next natural move will be for Time-Warner to spin off AOL (disclosure: I co-founded Quigo which is now part of AOL), and sell it to Google (~$25B?...). The game is advertising, and the key is distribution. There are more ad $'s flowing to the internet every day, and not enough high quality distribution to meet that demand. With Yahoo out of the game, AOL will now be the #1 biggest player with available ad inventory (both on its own properties as well as on its huge platform-A). In a 2-player race, Google will not be able to afford losing AOL to the MS/Yahoo combo and will have to make this move (not to mention that it already owns ~5% of the company). Interesting days...
if Google will indeed end up buying AOL, there won't be many posts you can write without a disclaimer... ;-)
Posted by: Synonyms.net | February 04, 2008 at 08:56 AM
disclosure, that is... (now I've got two links in place).
Posted by: Definitions.net | February 05, 2008 at 04:17 PM
Hey - push your luck and I'll move you to the banned commenters list... ;-)
Posted by: Yaron Galai | February 05, 2008 at 07:17 PM
Okay, sorry, won't happen again... ;-)
Posted by: Abbr.com | February 06, 2008 at 10:59 AM