In a recent interview with The Telegraph Foursquare’s co-founder Dennis Crowley revealed that his company was in talks with the likes of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft about a data partnership. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo’
Why Use Bing and Yahoo! for PPC Advertising?
Friday, February 5th, 2010 by Gerard HarrisSo the real question here is what does Google offer PPC marketers that it’s competitors don’t? Well unless you have been in hiding for the last ten years you will know of the US giant’s dominance of search engines in the majority of the core markets across the world. Let us steer clear of the debate surrounding Google’s presence in China for now! This is a hugely competitive industry and with Microsoft’s new branding campaign, Bing , taking off in June last year, it was going to be an interesting few months for market share.
Yahoo! and Microsoft join forces
Thursday, July 30th, 2009 by Rachel KneenIt has been suspected for some time that there was a proposition in the pipeline for these two search giants to join forces in a bid to be able to seriously compete with Google. This week the deal was made public and the two have thrashed out details of an agreement to suit both parties, in a move comes more than a year after Microsoft’s failed bid for it’s competitor.
The crux of the deal: Microsoft will power the search platform whilst Yahoo! will be the sales force for premium search advertisers.
By combining the services of both it is hoped that users will receive results faster whilst being more relevant. The partnership, which has been agreed for 10 years is to give Bing the ability to " more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results." according to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer.
Still with Google estimated to have over 70% of the market share the new partnership will have some serious work to do in order to recover some of this ground.
This does raise some interesting questions from a PPC agency perspective. Will they combine the backend admin? Will we be billed 1 invoice? Will we lose our Microsoft rep whilst our Yahoo! Rep is trained up on the full offering?
Watch this space…
Yahoo! Upgrades with a new look
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 by Rachel KneenOver the past few weeks (and even months) we have heard an awful lot about Google and Microsoft’s Bing! Some may argue that we have in fact neglected the familiar Yahoo! Today though Yahoo! made their own announcement that they are having a re-design of their home page. The page is now to have 3rd party links – what this means to you and me is that we will be able to customise the panel down the left hand side of the pages and we can visit these sites without leaving the Yahoo! homepage.
You can also customise the news section for stories that will be more relevant to your interests. You may also chose to have search queries filtered and only display results from limited sites such as Wikipedia or Amazon. Yahoo! have promised fewer of their own products will be displayed.
The changes were rolled out yesterday in the US and throughout the rest of the international sites during the coming week. The launch has been brought forward some months as it was initially scheduled for later in the year. Could this be the result of the ongoing negotiations between Yahoo and Microsoft over integrating their services?
I doubt very much it will be such a dramatic change as we saw with Bing but I may be pleasantly surprised.
Microsoft & Yahoo deal?
Monday, December 8th, 2008 by Matthew PhelanSteve Ballmer, Chief Executive of Microsoft, has rejected claims of a fresh bid to take over Internet site Yahoo! The search engine giant have recently experienced a slump in shares and seen their market value plummet , Microsoft’s bid to take them over in early 2008 seemed to come at just the right time but Yahoo! surprisingly rejected this offer.
Speculation was once again rife this week with yet more claims that a US Technology Company were trying to reignite Microsoft’s takeover bid with a new make-up. Reports have subsequently dismissed these claims, insisting that Microsoft have no such intentions.
Speaking to Fox Business Network Ballmer explained that: "You certainly shouldn’t think that we’ll go back after Yahoo! We may try to do other kinds of partnerships with them, but acquisition is a thing of the past" bringing fresh speculation that the Chief executive is still keen to work in some form with Yahoo! Microsoft have since, proposed to Yahoo a search deal that would mean Microsoft having control of its search engine and search ad business in return for an upfront payment and a cut of any future ad revenues. Bullmer believes the best time for the companies to unite will be during their management transitional stages.
Ballmer speaking to the Financial Times still believes in the quality of Microsoft’s initial offer but is undoubtedly aware of the promise of the subsequent proposed deal "We had a deal on the table that they didn’t choose to take, but I still think that makes sense. For us, the value to the customer, the value to the advertiser, all gets created around the search partnership".
4Ps marketing will continue to monitor the situation as any merger will impact on our SEM strategies.