wow, people have talked about the possibility for years, but i never thought it would actually happen. personally, i don't think it's gonna make a difference, google is still gonna dominate the scene for years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-yahoo.html?ref=technology

2/1/2008 9:49:52 AM

...

i'll still use google and still hate yahoo
and microsoft

2/1/2008 10:10:45 AM

I find a shitload of dumbasses at work who use Yahoo! and have that fucking Yahoo! Toolbar on their work computers that can fuck shit up.

I think most computer savvy people use Google. Not sure what the obsession is with Yahoo! and some of these other shitty search engines.

2/1/2008 10:16:16 AM

shit I wish I had some Yahoo stock, its up 47% at the moment from yesterday

2/1/2008 10:20:18 AM

^ I was thinking the same thing.

2/1/2008 10:34:04 AM

I like Yahoo! for their webmail. IMO it's the best webmail anywhere at the moment. I use google for my web searching.

2/1/2008 10:51:18 AM

^ better than gmail? BLASPHEMY!

i don't care for it, personally...nothing beats gmail, IMO

2/1/2008 11:47:05 AM

^^wow. really? the interface sucks.

i <3 gmail. no clutter. easy to read.

2/1/2008 11:58:25 AM

Yahoo has several pretty awesome technologies without a real revenue backing:

Pipes,
Flickr,
Personals,
Geocities,
Weather,
YellowPages

Bunch of others too. Not to mention a really good talent pool of employees (probably even more of the reason for the offer)

2/1/2008 11:58:38 AM

^
i thought they made money with the ads on these pages?

similar to google's bunch of technologies

2/1/2008 12:32:16 PM

if this were just about technology, yahoo and microsoft would both be doing a lot better against google in the internet space. it's more about management, and both msft and yahoo have shown not a lot of competence in recent years. merging two large corporations' efforts into a unified and relevant strategy is going to take several years at least, if they can accomplish it at all. by then, the internet will have sprouted entirely new next-big-things and microsoft/yahoo will be playing catch up all over again

2/1/2008 12:36:47 PM

id argue against that point. its less to do about management as it is about having vested community applications.

Flickr is a good example. Microsoft cannot compete against it, because its a vested community. Same for youtube, and several of google's core properties (image search, mail, froogle).

In the search and collect space, being first to market with a core product almost guarantees you longterm domination, if not a major major headstart that's yours to lose.

MS is behind in areas because it chose to invest in other arenas, not so much because of mis-management in the areas its behind in. Adding a pool of resources like yahoo would allow MS to invest more heavily in more areas, without the wax/wane effect occuring across other products.

2/1/2008 1:03:45 PM

Yeah, I'm a big flickr fan, i actually pay for it

2/1/2008 3:41:37 PM

Quote :

" From: Steve Ballmer Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG) Subject: Proposed Acquisition of Yahoo! Today, I am very excited to announce that Microsoft has made a proposal to acquire Yahoo!. This announcement represents a big opportunity for Microsoft, and is the next major milestone in our companywide transformation to embrace online services, search, and advertising. By combining the strengths of our companies, we can deliver an efficient and highly competitive offering for our customers. Our complementary assets will give us increased talent and scale to compete in the markets of search and online advertising, and pioneer new innovations in the areas of video, mobile services, online commerce, and social media. This year, online advertising is a $40 billion business. It will grow to $80 billion by 2010 and will continue to increase in the years beyond. This market provides a significant growth opportunity for Microsoft—our ability to provide the best search and online experiences for consumers, and the best ad platform for publishers and advertisers, is the key to unlocking this opportunity. We are on a good path with our existing search and advertising product roadmaps. To date, we have made progress in our organic online services and advertising efforts, and by joining with Yahoo!, we will take the next step toward becoming a major search destination and social platform for consumers. The combined reach of our content properties and combined breadth of our tools for advertisers will enable us to provide an online advertising platform at scale. Together, we’ll create a company that is in a much better position to compete against an increasingly dominant player in this market. Through our recent acquisitions of aQuantive and Tellme, we understand what it takes to successfully integrate new talent, assets, and infrastructure into our company. Leaders from both Microsoft and Yahoo! will work together closely on the integration process to ensure that we are thoughtful about the questions we ask and the decisions we make. As we move forward, we’ll look carefully at how to bring our assets together to create the greatest value for customers, employees, and shareholders. During this transition period, I urge you to stay focused on your commitments and team goals. We are committed to communicating with you frequently as our leadership team works on bringing the two companies together. As I outlined in my quarterly strategy email last week, we grow by anticipating new areas where software has the greatest potential to create opportunities. The proposed acquisition of Yahoo! will transform our ability to compete as new opportunities in online services, search, and advertising emerge. I am very excited about today’s announcement and about the collective talent and energy we will bring to the industry. A great opportunity is in front of us to evolve how people and businesses create, find, and use information. Through today’s proposed acquisition, we can take our business to new levels of success and growth. Kevin Johnson, Chris Liddell, Ray Ozzie and I will host an employee web cast that can be viewed live beginning at 10:00am PST and will also be available on-demand. You can link to the web cast at http://msw/NewsEvents/StudioCasts/Pages/conferences.aspx Steve "

2/1/2008 4:39:19 PM

AOL + Time Warner

2/1/2008 6:56:31 PM

what would gates do?

2/1/2008 7:20:15 PM

here we go again...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44790522/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/exclusive-microsoft-considers-bidding-yahoo/

Quote :

"NEW YORK — Microsoft Corp is considering a bid for Yahoo Inc, resurfacing as a potential buyer after a bitter and unsuccessful fight to take over the Internet company in 2008, sources close to the situation said on Wednesday. Microsoft joins a host of other companies looking at Yahoo, which has a market value of about $20 billion and is readying financial pitch books for potential buyers, they said. Those companies include buyout shops Providence Equity Partners, Hellman & Friedman and Silver Lake Partners, as well as Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Russian technology investment firm DST Global, the sources said. Yahoo shares jumped 10.1 percent on the news to close at $15.92 on Nasdaq, but fell back to $15.34 in after-hours trading. Microsoft shares ended 2.2 percent higher at $25.89. Microsoft may seek a partner to go after Yahoo, one of the sources said, without identifying any parties. No decision has been made and a bid may not materialize as there are internal divisions at the software company on whether it should pursue Yahoo again, a high-ranking Microsoft executive said. One camp inside Microsoft is hot for the deal, believing that it would obliterate AOL Inc as a competitor and create a strong Web portal that can offer better products to audiences, advertisers and end users, the executive said. However, another camp is against the deal, feeling that if Microsoft is going to invest billions of dollars in an acquisition it should be one that has more growth potential. Microsoft last tried buying Yahoo in 2008, offering to pay as much as $47.5 billion, or $33 per share. "Yahoo's value hasn't grown in years, and some executives feel we should buy something that is more forward-looking," said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Yahoo, Microsoft and the other potential buyers declined to comment. Any auction process for Yahoo is still in the early stages, and the company's financial advisers -- Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co -- are preparing to send financial information to potential bidders, sources have said previously. BIG BITE Shortly after ousting Carol Bartz as CEO in early September, Yahoo said it was exploring strategic alternatives after receiving "inbound interest" from a number of parties. The once-dominant Internet pioneer is pursuing parallel tracks, sounding out deal options as well as engaging in a search for a new CEO. Yahoo would be a big bite for any single private equity firm, especially at a time when financing markets for leveraged buyouts have dried up. Industry sources said private equity firms could take over the U.S. operations and sell Yahoo's Asian assets to a buyer such as Alibaba. "There are many reasons why this thing probably makes sense," said Sid Parakh, analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen. "If you strip out the variety of assets Yahoo owns, you are pretty much paying nothing for the core business." One Wall Street analyst recently valued Yahoo at just over $20 billion, with its core search and display advertising business worth $7.7 billion, its Asian assets worth $9.2 billion, plus $3.2 billion in cash. Yahoo owns about 40 percent of Alibaba as well as about 35 percent of Yahoo Japan. If Microsoft fully combined its Bing Internet search business with Yahoo's, it would give it more than 30 percent of the U.S. search market and make it a credible competitor to Google, said Parakh. Under a 10-year deal struck in 2009, Microsoft's Bing already powers Yahoo search, but it cedes 88 percent of resulting advertising revenue back to Yahoo. Microsoft, with a cash pile of $53 billion, could certainly afford a deal, but some doubted the world's largest software company would actually pursue it, given its previously failed bid and the existing Yahoo agreement. "I think it's unlikely because they (Microsoft) have been down this path before," said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Research. "In a lot of ways they've gotten what they want out of it already, with the (Yahoo) search deal. I could make a case for a lot of synergies. But it's certainly not a strategic priority in any way." Silicon Valley sources said Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba -- who last month expressed interest in buying Yahoo -- could team up with private equity to make a deal. Or it may make more sense for Ma to team up with Microsoft, said Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Herman Leung. "If Microsoft gets involved, then you don't need private equity," said Leung. "The problem for Jack Ma is capital. Microsoft has $53 billion in cash. Why have to deal with bondholders and all this stuff when Microsoft can make that all happen for you?" CULTURE CLASH Some also have expressed concerns about cultural fit and Microsoft's ability to manage such a large deal. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has had an antagonistic relationship with Yahoo, and the company has never successfully integrated a large acquisition. Microsoft's 2007 deal to buy online ad firm aQuantive for $6 billion was a flat-out failure. Its $8.5 billion deal to buy Internet phone service Skype has not yet been completed, so integration efforts have not yet begun. Microsoft is making slow progress in combating Google's dominance in search advertising. According to the latest figures from research firm comScore, Google has 64.8 percent of the U.S. search market, Yahoo has 16.3 pct and Microsoft 14.7 percent. But even with traffic from Yahoo, Microsoft still has not attracted enough advertising dollars and profitability in search is a long way off. Last quarter, Microsoft's online services unit -- which includes Bing and the MSN web portal -- lost $728 million. It has lost almost $6.5 billion over last three fiscal years."

10/5/2011 11:06:41 PM

yahoo will always be around due to two words: fantasy football

10/6/2011 12:03:08 AM

^yahoo email (#1 internet email), yahoo finance (#1 stocks/investing), yahoo news (#1 internet news) are no slouch either. They're also the 4th most popular site on the net, #3 in the USA.

Nor should we forget flikr , mapquest, del.icio.us either. They may not have apple-like charisma, but they still pull in a dumptruck load of cash and traffic.

[Edited on October 6, 2011 at 12:28 AM. Reason : those last 3 are owned by yahoo - forgot to mention.]

10/6/2011 12:27:16 AM

delicious got spun off recently fyi

10/6/2011 12:37:37 AM

Does yahoo seriously have more email accounts than Google? Maybe its due to my age demograohic, but i can think of two people I know with yahoo email. Both admitted needing to migrate to gmail.

10/6/2011 1:08:08 AM

i have a yahoo account, but it's my spam magnet.


I do like yahoo finance better than google finance.

10/6/2011 9:12:51 AM

^^^^ yahoo also makes the widget platform for tv's with internet connections

10/6/2011 9:46:47 AM

Quote :

"Does yahoo seriously have more email accounts than Google?"

You mean

Does yahoo seriously have more email accounts than Google Hotmail?

Gmail is relatively recent, and is dominated by the young and/or tech-conscious people. What do you think is used by the 100s of millions of older and/or lay people around the world, those who have had accounts for nearly a decade or just under? Yahoo Mail and Hotmail.

But I seriously thought Hotmail would have the most users.

10/11/2011 6:41:07 AM

I thought hotmail was still #1 in the U.S.?

And I laugh at hotmail/yahoo users. I still have accounts at both, but don't use them. Gmail FTMFW

10/11/2011 9:02:26 AM

http://www.labnol.org/internet/top-webmail-providers/19897/

Quote :

"The last public stats, released by Comscore in September 2010, suggested that Hotmail had 362 million users, Yahoo! Mail had 273 million while Google’s Gmail was a distant third with 193 million users."

A quick search returned this result ... but their Comscore link does not link correctly. However, these numbers are what I've seen elsewhere and I'm not searching further.

10/11/2011 9:56:41 AM