Category: Yahoo

Breaking: Microsoft & Yahoo Considering Merger

May 4, 2007August 31, 2008 Bob Caswell 8 Comments

Quoting our favorite source of “people familiar with the situation,” the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) claims that executives at Microsoft and Yahoo are in early-stage discussions about merging the two companies to take on Google. Investors seem to be taking this seriously, as Yahoo shares surged in overseas trading because of this news. The company’s market value is now close to $38 billion up from $32 billion earlier this week. So if you want to quantify this rumor, there you have it: the world thinks its worth $6 billion dollars.

Google, Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Just How Digg-Like Are They? Chart Comparing New Sites by Yahoo, Microsoft & Dell

February 19, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 1 Comment

Digglogo2 The Yahoo Suggestion Board, Dell IdeaStorm, and MSN Reporter were all released last week and were all at least, shall we say, “Digg Inspired.” But should we call them Digg clones? How similar are they? Let’s take a closer look and compare things like purpose, voting/bury style, uniqueness, algorithm, login, default view, etc. See the chart below.

Computers, Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Yahoo vs. Digg: Is Yahoo’s Move As Innocent As It Looks?

February 15, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell No Comments

So Yahoo today released a Digg-like voting system as the backbone of the Yahoo Suggestion Board. Even though the Yahoo announcement credited Digg, the Digg crowd is not pleased. The new suggestion system was first implemented for Yahoo Autos and of the top 5 “suggestions,” 3 have nothing to do with autos (see screenshot below).

My initial thoughts echoed what Michael Arrington said, “It’s an excellent way for Yahoo to gauge the popularity of suggestions, and is in no way competitive with Digg.” But then, what stops Yahoo from easily implementing this new Digg-like system elsewhere on the site? Answer: nothing.

Even then, if Yahoo competes with Digg down the road, what would that mean? Should I be upset for some reason? Digg has a good thing going, to be sure, I’m a huge fan. But I just can’t think of a good reason for Yahoo’s move to bother me.

Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

What’s Your Google / Microsoft / Yahoo Usage Breakdown?

January 23, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 2 Comments

So Yahoo released earnings info today, which was followed by mildly negative even if hopeful commentary. Google, of course, being cited as the major obstacle. It got me thinking about the fact that I don’t use any of Yahoo’s major offerings (meaning: search, email, or advertising). I don’t do this on purpose; it’s just the way my online habits have evolved, I suppose.

Amazon, Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Online Ad Wars: Who will win in 2007? Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft?

December 26, 2006August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell No Comments

Here it is the day after Christmas and major publications plus the blogosphere are already making predictions as to the state of online advertising in 2007. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) discusses Microsoft’s Adcenter and how it is way ahead of its time, the New York Times explains how online ad pricing is rising or falling depending on the specificity of ad placement, BusinessWeek points out why Yahoo’s ad-delivery technology falls short, and Techcrunch adds that the real advertising war is set to begin in 2007 when Google may be forced to cut back on its way-to-high revenue share.

Google, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

The Easiest Way for Google to Improve Search

November 24, 2006August 19, 2008 Bob Caswell 1 Comment

The tech blogosphere is excited by the findings of Andy Boyd. He has a screen shot of a Google search that shows the search results giving up space for a separate section of blog results (see picture below). Among others, Techcrunch and Google Blogoscoped have their own take on what this means and where it could go.

Here’s my question: Why hasn’t Google done this already? And not only for blog searches but perhaps even for news, pictures, and/or video. The big three, for me at least, would be regular search results, blog posts, and news. I’d say that over half of my searches I do three times. Why not put in my search query once and get the top 10 results from each category on the same page?

Google, Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Did Microsoft & Google Switch Places?

November 10, 2006August 31, 2008 Bob Caswell 5 Comments

Microsoft_logo_2 Googlelogo_2 Is it just me, or did these two giants start adopting each other’s more classic tactics?

Google, Microsoft, Web 2.0, Yahoo