Bob Caswell

Leaving aside whether or not the potential Microsoft takeover of Yahoo is a good idea (strategically), I’m surprised the whole idea hasn’t caused more analysis on how Wall Street works (or doesn’t). The fact is, Microsoft’s first offer back in January was a 62% premium on the market valuation of Yahoo. It only went up from there, but Yahoo never took the offer.

Juxtapose that fact with another fact that according to Wall Street / business schools / the financial system, corporations are expected to maximize shareholder value, and we have a problem with the current example. Even if Yahoo is able to create enough value at some point in the future to meet the value offered by Microsoft in January, it would not be enough. This is because of the “time value of money” concept that Wall Street loves. Without diving into detailed examples, let’s just say that one dollar today is worth more than one dollar at some point in the future.

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The title of this post was originally going to be “Delicious: A Review from a Late Adopter.” But that was four months ago and only a few days after I started using social bookmarking site Delicious. At the time, I found it useful even if lacking in a few areas.

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TechConsumer has had its fair share of Digg coverage lately. But for those of us who remember what Digg was back in the glory days, we can’t help but draw attention to its flaws in the here and now.

First, we had our April 1st interview with Digg’s founders discussing priorities and progress and how Digg is just a game. Second, we discussed the Digg paradox and how getting rid of the editor/gatekeeper just creates new gatekeepers.

But today’s topic, for me at least, feels like the most interesting twist on the story of where Digg started as compared to what Digg has become:

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) just broke the story that Yahoo’s board plans to reject Microsoft $44.6 billion offer, citing our favorite source: “a person familiar with the situation.” Apparently, $31 per share “massively undervalues” Yahoo, according to the same source. The logic is that the offer doesn’t take into account risks Yahoo would go through (that is, if regulators overturned the deal) by entering into an agreement with Microsoft.

Accordingly, Yahoo’s board will send a letter to Microsoft on Monday explaining the situation. This article comes just hours after another WSJ article quotes several investment bankers who basically say that “investors have lost confidence in Yahoo management’s ability to reverse the company’s fortunes on its own.” Nevertheless, here’s Yahoo’s reasoning for rejecting the offer:

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Given the rumor that today is the day for Yahoo to speak on the pending Microsoft take over, I thought I’d revisit the question I originally asked a year ago. Of the big three, what services do you use from each?

But first, I feel compelled to point out that at this same time last year, Google was being cited as Yahoo’s major obstacle. Now, of course, a partnership with Google is Yahoo’s theoretical last chance at avoiding Microsoft as its new owner.

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I have a sister who, over the weekend, pointed out a major shortcoming of search engines. It’s so obvious that I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it first. And keep in mind that this is my sister, which arguably boosts the creditability of this anecdotal story. That is, this isn’t some nerd’s dream come true; rather, she’s fairly representative of “regular” people trying to utilize the Internet practically. So here it is:

Why can’t you organize your results by date? And why don’t the search results themselves include the date each entry was published/updated?

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The rumors of this kind of deal have been around for a while but never seemed to materialize. Microsoft will hold a conference call to discuss the details of the proposal, though CEO Steve Ballmer has already laid it out pretty clearly in his public letter to Yahoo (see below for full text). One aspect of the letter to note:

“Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.”

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Amazon today has announced plans to take its DRM-free MP3 music store to countries beyond the United States. In the U.S., at least, Amazon MP3 is already the online music store of choice.

It’s hard to compete with the largest library (3.3 million songs from 270,000 artists) of restriction free music, much of which is priced lower than the going rate of $0.99/track. And it integrates seamlessly with iTunes (or other desktop music applications) plus works with pretty much any digital music player available.

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