[Search-l] NYTimes.com: Eyes on Google, Microsoft Bids $44 Billion for Yahoo

[Jason Pump]

Hey, you think after the dust settles maybe buy inktomi for $50k :)

Jason

On 2/5/08, John McCormac <jmcc at hackwatch.com> wrote:
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > John McCormac wrote:
> >
> >>It certainly makes the attempt to gain search marketshare a bit harder.
> >>Microsoft management and Yahoo search technology and expertise will be
> >>quite a threat to Google and others.
> >
> >
> > Hmm, I would argue the opposite.  I am not yet convinced that the merger
> > has any very interesting synergies to make the combination any more
> > interesting than the separate pieces were.
>
> That's one way of looking at it Jimbo,
> Yahoo and Microsoft combined are, in social search terms, data rich. And
>   as a merged operation, they have more social data than almost any
> other operation. While there are privacy concerns, it provides a lot of
> raw data for recommendations and search quality improvement. I think
> that Yahoo is already integrating del.icio.us into search results.
>
> > Yes, the existing user base of Yahoo / Microsoft is large, but it is no
> > larger after the merger than before.
>
> There may be an integration of the advertising platforms. The search is
> a problem - Microsoft's own search venture sucks because they really
> don't do search in the way that others do. Buying in some otherwise
> smart people and pointing them at search does not work. You need people
> with a special kind of mindset to compete at the Google level of search.
> If I had the option of working with Google or Microsoft/Yahoo, it would
> be a hard decision. With Google, it would be working with the market
> leader. With Microsoft/Yahoo, it would be a challenge to beat the best.
>
> > I think that the tie-up may be a boon for smaller competitors, as
> > consumers seek out alternatives.
>
> Possibly. But the search market has suddenly become a lot more
> interesting. It seems, to my limited economic knowledge, that markets
> tend to end up with a few major players dominating most of the market
> and a handful of smaller operators at the periphery of the market.
>
> Regards...jmcc
> --
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