What If Microsoft (msft) Buys Yahoo (yhoo)? Options

[Lakshmi Narsimha...]

What are the consequences that the Web community has to face with this acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft?

I would think that the organic and paid search of Yahoo will only be with more fine tuned features. This will be competing with Google and we all will have to focus only on two rather than 3 Search Engines.

[Randy]

Those rumors have been going around for a few years now, and they've never led to anything at all. Not even an agreement to work together on smaller (say PPC) projects.

Frankly, I don't think it will ever happen. For lots of reasons, including the large duplication of services and the very different culture of the two (already very large) companies. Beyond the technical and business reasons, I doubt such a deal could ever pass Anti-Trust muster.

It's an interesting story every time it comes up. However there are so many challenges standing in the way I simply don't ever see it happening.

[donp]

Scares me, Yahoo has is much more on the ball, MSN, with a 5th place search engine in a 3 engine race will more than likely screw it up if they have any control whatever. Doubt it will happen, tho.

[Jbrookins]

This was originally printed in the New York Post...A gossip rag isn't my idea of a trustworthy source.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that would be a "smart buy". Neither engine appears to have anything figured out, so spending $50billion on another "problem" wouldn't particularly fix anything.

[Jill]

Seems like if it happened, it would be pretty much a non-event for SEOs. We still really only have 1 engine that brings traffic for the most part (Google). It's unfortunate, as it is nice to have a bunch of engines that bring traffic, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, and a buyout of Yahoo would only make it worse.

[Randy]

Right Jill. Which begs the question... (Sorry to go a bit off topic)

Why haven't Y! and M learned from how Google built their business. Sure they started out with what was a revolutionary concept at the time, but since then much of the additional stuff has come because they've been very active in watching the up-and-comers, buying them out and hiring the developers before it got too expensive to do so. My sense is they're not looking for code so much as they are looking for revolutionary creative thinking that adds significantly to their People bottom line.

If MSN really wanted to create a better search engine they should have been scouting for those Creative Thinking folks for the last several years. In fact they should be doing this sort of talent scouting now rather than paying far more to buy old technology. It just makes no business sense to me that they'd continue to play follow the Google if the goal was to beat Google. It would be like me starting a new site and simply following what my well established competitors were doing, but never doing anything more. I'd have no chance of competing with them on an even playing field. Even if my competitors somehow screwed up I'd gain no advantage, because I'd have already copied their screw up.

I just don't get it. If I and everybody else can see how Google does things why can't their competition?

[torka]

If I and everybody else can see how Google does things why can't their competition?

Maybe they can... but seeing it and acting on that vision are two different things. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Changing direction for a big company like that is like trying to steer a Brachiosaurus. One or two people can't do it on their own, no matter how determined or powerful they might think they are. The beast will simply squish them if they get in the way too much -- not out of malice, but because it simply doesn't see them there.

Even with a whole team, about the best you can hope for is to be able to influence. By and large, the creature's going to go where it wants to go no matter what you do. If you get enough people on board your team and you all try hard enough and long enough, eventually you may be able to swing it around to a new direction, but doing a complete 180 is going to take a long time and a lot of pushing and pulling. (But you already know this, Randy -- you've worked in telecom... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif) )

Not saying they can't ever adjust and adapt, but big corps like MSFT and YHOO generally aren't exactly what you'd call "nimble."

My (IMG:style_emoticons/default/penny.gif)

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)