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Yahoo takeover rumours abound

Jen — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:22:22 +0000

Search experts Yahoo have hit the headlines this week, following a series of rumours surrounding news of an alleged takeover bid being in the pipeline. The company have seen their share prices climb by nearly six percent to almost $18 when trading commenced in New York, prior to them dropping to a two percent increase by the end of business.

A number of unconfirmed reports in the media are suggesting that Yahoo bosses are in negotiation for a takeover deal that would see the company move from a public to private firm. Although there is little firm evidence to actually back up these claims, the share prices have reaped the benefits of the rumour-mongering. The deal is said to be being prepared by investment firms in order to change the status of the search company.

When media leaders contacted the e-commerce specialists Alibaba over the rumours, they declined to comment. The New York Post has reported that KKR, the private equity organisation in the US has expressed an interest in financing a deal to make Yahoo in to a private company, and AOL have been reported to be interested in striking a deal. The rival web company have been purchasing a number of organisations recently, apparently in a bid to strengthen their position as a specialist in online content.

Steve Weinstein, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities has pointed out that Yahoo only recently rejected an offer from Microsoft for a takeover, and it is unlikely that the organisation would be looking to alter their status soon after rejecting the bid from their rival search company.

Yahoo themselves have stated that they have no comment with regard to the rumours doing the technological rounds relating to a takeover bid, and industry experts are expressing their doubt that any such deal is currently under negotiation for the firm.

Yahoo! agree deal with famous football stars for exclusive content

James Oliver — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:00:15 +0000

Yahoo! has managed to boost their association with football even further by convincing some of the biggest names in world football to provide content for them during the upcoming World Cup.

After securing the rights to next seasons Premier League highlights in April the internet giants are undertaking plans to make the Yahoo brand synonymous with football whilst at the same time increasing their share of the display advertising market.

It has been reported that Yahoo! has managed to sign up well known football personalities David Beckham, Didier Droga and Arsene Wenger to provide them with analysis and predictions during the World Cup through articles and videos that will be aggregated through Yahoo! sites.

James Tipple, EMEA VP of marketing at Yahoo! commented:

“Securing David Beckham’s image rights for our advertising was a core part of the deal as he has appeal in both the US and here.

“If you add that he has a huge Asian following, it’s key to our global advertising strategy.”

Mr Tipple went on to explain that deals such as this will only serve to boost Yahoo!’s global presence as one of the leading content providers on the web, stating: “When we relaunched our brand last September we said content would be at the core of what we offer. So we need deals like this.”

He also said the company will continue to seek out “any relevant deals to bring new content to Yahoo.”

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz recently forecast that the company’s display advertising revenue will grow by between 13 and 16 per cent each year until 2013, however she did admit that search ad revenues are still important for Yahoo!’s strategy.

“Search is fundamental to our business, as shown by our search deal with Microsoft,” he said

Yahoo and Facebook push integration even further

James Oliver — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 11:36:59 +0000

Yahoo! is set to launch new features that will push the integration of Yahoo.com and Yahoo! Mail with Facebook, the main aim behind the new features will be to encourage users to post actions taken on Yahoo! sites and other associated services – such as photography favourite Flickr – onto their Facebook wall.

It has also been reported that Yahoo! will also be upgrading its Yahoo! Profiles service to include tabs that will take users to various social networks. Under an all new name ‘Yahoo! Pulse’, users will be able to switch between these networks and access updates from their Yahoo! or Facebook profiles without having to use the services separately.

These new features are slowly strengthening the extended partnership between Yahoo! and Facebook that has been growing since last December, as Yahoo! really pushes its goal of becoming a more social site in order to hold the attention of its visitors.

Although Yahoo! sites already currently receive hundreds of millions of visitors from around the world each month, studies have shown that many of them do not hang around after viewing news stories or checking their email – instead heading over to social networking sites such as Facebook to spend more time networking with friends.

In a statement, a Yahoo! spokesperson explained that its partnership with Facebook was an effort “to give people one simple, trusted place to share information and connect. We think this offers great benefit to people across the Web, and it’s key to helping Yahoo! extend our reach and increase engagement.”

Yahoo! is not the only side benefiting from the deal, however, as these new features will also aid Facebook in as they seek to encourage more sites to link to its services, achieving founder Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a more social web, extending user profiles across more major hubs and sites.

Director of the Facebook Developer Network, Ethan Beard, had this to say about the partnership:

“By integrating with Facebook on a global scale, Yahoo! is building upon an already valuable brand to give people easy ways to share the content they enjoy on Yahoo! with their friends on Facebook.”

Yahoo! and Nokia team up in mobile web deal

Andre — Wed, 26 May 2010 09:00:02 +0000

Nokia and Yahoo! announced on Monday a strategic alliance around e-mail, mapping and instant messaging services.

The deal will see Nokia become the exclusive global provider of Yahoo’s maps and navigation services, under the branding ‘powered by Ovi’ that many users have probably seen on TV adverts.

Yahoo will similarly power Nokia’s Ovi chat and Ovi mail services with its own messenger and mail products.

Nokia chief executive Olli-Petska Kallusvuo said in a statement that the alliance was primarily intended to span mobile and online markets and to let Yahoo customers in areas such as North America, an area that has been a notoriously difficult market for Nokia, discover the unique and varied capabilities that Ovi maps can bring.

As part of the agreement between the companies Nokia and Yahoo said that they are planning to work on ID federation between their services.

The first signs of the coalition will allow users to log in to Yahoo services using their Ovi users id’s.

Speaking at a press conference to announce the partnership, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz revealed: “Many of you know we haven’t been focused a lot on our maps platform. This changes that.

“By using Nokia’s maps and Navteq services, it will be a much richer experience for users.”

“For us, this alliance has an especially important application in the developing world,” Bartz said.

“Nokia has by far the strongest track record in these markets and now Yahoo! gets to leverage that position.”

The companies have both stated that some of the co-branded services will become available in the second half of this year whilst the rest o the world will be targeted next year.

Yahoo! announce purchase of Associated Content news service

Andre — Sat, 22 May 2010 13:31:59 +0000

After adding significant numbers to its news staff in the last few months, Yahoo! News is now looking to further solidify its dominance as number one location for online news, in a massive signal of intent Yahoo! have acquired freelance news website Associated Content.

Yahoo! announced the deal on Tuesday of this week, and the New York Times has reported that “the purchase will be followed by the search and news giant supplementing its own articles with content produced independently by the website, on topics not generally covered by mainstream channels.”

According to recent figures published by comScore, the month of April saw 16 million internet users visit the Associated Content website, which relies on a freelance staff of nearly 400,000 writers who contribute articles and news stories on a variety of different topics.

Yahoo! has maintained that it will continue to publish articles from its own dedicated team of news writing staff, as well as continuing to employ those from other media outlets and they have confirmed that they will be integrating the Associated Content articles throughout its sections where they deem it to be appropriate.

The acquisition “gives us more local gravitas,” Yahoo! CEO Carol A Bartz explained following the announcement last week.

Whilst Yahoo! has made some gains on search engine market leaders Google as of late, the company has suffered an overall loss in money made from advertising in the past few years due to the growing popularity of social networking site Facebook and Google’s on going expansion and dominance.

However, as Yahoo! was announced as the top online news outlet in terms of the visitors, it seems inevitable that they will be devoting more time and money to strengthening this position as they aim to remain in the top spot.

Yahoo! and Bing gain more ground on Google

Andre — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:00:21 +0000

New figures released by ComScore have revealed that Yahoo! and Bing have had a good month of April as both companies have gained some ground on Google in the search engine war.

Yahoo’s market share increased by nearly 1 percent whilst Microsoft’s Bing continued to rise for the 11th month in succession.

There has been an ongoing debate amongst market analysts as to whether the rise shows the effects of the recent search deal between the two former rivals is now being felt or whether Yahoo’s gain was a result of the new features they have released for their news service.

According to tech analysts AFP, the new feature of Yahoo! News, which registers each view of a photo slideshow as a separate search query is the main reason behind the turnaround for Yahoo! as their share has rise by 0.8 percent in the last month, meaning that they now account for 17.7 percent of the lucrative search market.

ComScore, however, confirmed that these clicks are still valid as the Yahoo! News feature meets its “established criticism for counting search queries”.

“Both Yahoo! sites and Microsoft sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels,” the internet research company explained.

“These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content.”

Google are still leading the pack of course as they hold a 64.4 percent share of the market.

But Google will be worried about the five year search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! as they have been losing ground against their closest rivals at an accelerating rate, dropping by 0.7 percent last month and 0.4 percent in February.

Yahoo! gains exclusive Premier League Highlights

Matt Thomas — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:31:06 +0000

Yahoo! have scored a major coup in their battle with Google and Microsoft by landing an exclusive deal with the Premier League to feature highlights of the games online in a deal that will run for customary 3 year period until 2013.

Under the terms of their agreement Yahoo! will feature 5 minute highlight reels of each match on their UK website Yahoo.co.uk, the company will also have the rights to syndicate the content to other parties.

The deal is a major coup for the company as it puts them right at the epicentre of online football content in the UK, an extremely lucrative marker that puts Yahoo! in a rather enviable position.

The search engine based company will also be able to create targeted advertisement packages when they are distributing their content to major brands.

European Managing Director for Yahoo!, Rich Riley, stated: “The acquisition of Premier League rights shows how serious Yahoo! is about providing the best in video content for our both our users and advertisers.

“Sport is a passion for our target audiences and the Premier League rights are a key part of our efforts to build on Yahoo!’s reputation for engaging, original content.”

The agreement should push Yahoo! to further their online presence and capitalise on their recent profitability.

The deal will end BSKYB’s recent three year deal with the Premier League that proved to be a great success for the company, Yahoo! hope to achieve a similar sort of popularity with their version of the highlights.

Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, commented: “The way fans access Barclays Premier League action is growing ever more diverse and sophisticated. The online highlights package is an important medium for supporters of all our clubs to be able to follow match action.

“Yahoo! has a great reputation and presence in new media and we are pleased to welcome them as a Premier League rights holder. I am sure they will do a fantastic job in reaching the widest possible online audience over the next three seasons.”

Along with their recent announcement of a healthy profit for the year so far, this announcement would appear to have put Yahoo! on course for a very good year.

Major profits for Apple and Yahoo!

James Oliver — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:13:15 +0000

Apple has revealed that their profits gave almost doubled after huge sales of the iPhone in the last year.

Apple was joined somewhat surprisingly by Yahoo! as both companies posted major boosts in performance last week.

Net profit at Apple rose to £1.99billion, a big jump from the £1.05 billion that was posted in the same quarter just a year ago. Whilst this was indeed an impressive jump the second quarter witnessed an even bigger fluctuation as profits increased to £8.78 billion from £5.90 a year prior. This huge jump in profit is thought to be mainly down to the popularity of the iPhone.

According to Apple, sales of their Mac computers rose by 33% but the real success story was inevitably the iPhone which sole 8.75 million in the same quarter up 131% in total.

The company also sold 10.89million iPods which was down just 1% which isn’t too bad considering that it seems as though everyone has one already.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs summed up the companies delight:

“We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49% percent and profits up 90%,” said

“We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year,” Jobs added.

Wall Street journalists received a shock meanwhile as Yahoo! said that its first quarter net profit had doubled to £201million. A surprise figure to many as Yahoo! has been seen to be lagging quite far behind its main rivals.

The total sales increase at Yahoo! stood at 1% to £1billon during the first quarter.

“We had a good quarter, delivering income from operations higher than our outlook,” Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz said in a statement.

Facebook status updates added to Yahoo mail

Andre — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:37:51 +0000

The injection of social networking services into their own products seems to be a common theme amongst the internet’s big players. The integration of these kinds of services has become more and more common this year as ‘the big three’ (Yahoo, Microsoft and Google) all look to reach out to the burgeoning social networking community.

As of this week Yahoo mail users will be able to update their Facebook status from their Yahoo mail-inbox (as opposed to just going to the Facebook site and doing it there). They will also have the privilege of logging into their Facebook account from the Yahoo mail homepage, this will allow them to click through to their profiles or those of their friends.

This latest update should prove to be beneficial both for Yahoo and Facebook. Yahoo mail is the most popular and widely used e-mail client on the internet according to statistics fanatics Comscore. Therefore all those people that cannot seem to get enough of Facebook will be able to access and keep an eye on it whilst checking their e-mails meaning more time spent on Yahoo and more click-through’s from Yahoo to Facebook.

Much like Microsoft, Yahoo had been pushing users to use their service as a platform for social networking but the popularity of Facebook has negated this and they are both now integrating external social networking companies into their services.

Social media is evidently a priority for Yahoo in 2010 and they have promised to unveil even more features later on in the year.

Two new Apps released for the iPhone by Yahoo

James Oliver — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:55:45 +0000

Apple rivals Yahoo have this week released two brand new Apps for the iPhone. No prizes for guessing that they are both search related applications that will of course compete with similar offerings from Google and Microsoft.

The first app released was the standard ‘Yahoo search’ which will act as Yahoo’s mobile version of their often forgotten search engine. The app will allow its users to retrieve information from Yahoo, much like the Google search, it will be packed with features including sports, news, maps and stock quotes.

Whereas in the past anyone that had a preference for using Yahoo as a search tool on an iPhone would have had to do it through the browser which could sometimes be a somewhat clumsy and awkward experience, this new app presents a clear and very easy to read iPhone optimised layout.

Voice integrated search is also included much like the Bing and Google apps; it will be interesting to see if it works better than its competitors.

The second app released is a much more interesting and innovative app known as ‘Yahoo Sketch-a-Search’. This application presents the user with a map of their current location (via the inbuilt GPRS), they can then draw a shape (presumably a circle) around an entire area of their choosing and the app will bring up all of the local restaurants in that area. The user will then be able to select any of the restaurants found and the app will give them details including contact information and opening times.

Both of these apps are free from the iPhone’s app store and are compatible with any version of the iPod Touch or iPhone running the 3.0 operating system or later.

Bing gains a market share as Yahoo continues to flounder

James Oliver — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:08:38 +0000

It would appear that Microsoft’s relentless marketing of its Bing search engine is beginning to pay off at the expense of Yahoo. The last couple of months have seen Microsoft release a number of advertisements in the UK as well as a lucrative sponsorship deal with The Simpsons on Channel 4 in the hope of increasing the number of users flocking to Bing.

Microsoft stated that although they were no where near the market share that Google harboured their plan was to at least catch up to Yahoo who sit second place in the short list of search engine market leaders. Slowly but surely they appear to be delivering on their mission statement as Bing has managed to gain an improved market share in the last few months.

According to web analytics company ComScore, the search engine has reported a positive improvement in their total search share in February 2010. Bing’s share of the market has increased from 11.3% in January to 11.5% in February, although this is in actual fact their slowest growth since September 2009.

The Bing effect seems to have had a negative impact on Yahoo who continue to be in proverbial freefall as they have dropped from 17% in January to a market share of 16.8% in February.

So while it looks like Microsoft’s Bing will continue to make headway in its battle for second spot with Yahoo, the market leaders Google continue to coast along in relative comfort as they are still left with a healthy 65.5% share of the market. This is an improvement from January for them albeit by 0.1%, it would seem that every fraction counts as the search engine market looks set for a competitive 2010.

Yahoo reveal list of top online news searches

Matt Thomas — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:00:44 +0000

Everyone enjoys a good top 10 list, there is just something about them that inspires interest. Yahoo, habitual list makers have released an interesting list of the top 10 news searches made online in the last 15 years.

No prizes for guessing that the number one most searched for news story was arguably the biggest news event of the last few decades in 9/11. This was followed somewhat surprisingly by ‘cloning’ and then by the Iraq war.

Just as interesting as the results of the study, however were the figures that it presented. It was revealed that the number of websites registered on the internet has grown by a staggering amount in 15 years. In 1995 there were approximately 18,000 websites compared with 2010 where there are an estimated 200 million, showcasing the massive growth and influence of the internet in the last decade and a half.

Inevitably the amount of websites is going to be proportional to the amount of users and the study threw up some interesting figures in regards to this also. Yahoo found that the number of users has increased from 10 million worldwide (less then 0.33% of the world population) in 1995 to 1.6 billion (25% of the population) in 2010, basically a 25% rise in 15 years.

Jerry Yang and David Filo founders of Yahoo said: ”These numbers are astonishing, but even more important and more exciting is the impact that the internet is having on so many people around the world.

”From socio-economic opportunities to more accessible healthcare to educating the next generation and beyond, the internet has changed the way we live, work and learn.”

The full list compiled by Yahoo is shown below:

1. September 11
2. Cloning
3. Iraq war
4. Saddam Hussein
5. Harry Potter book releases
6. Michael Jackson death
7. Steve Irwin death
8. Tsunami
9. Enron scandal
10. The Millennium

Yahoo and Sainsburys in advertising deal

Matt Thomas — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:00:27 +0000

After you have purchased your shopping at Sainsbury’s and the cashier habitually asks you “do you have a Nectar card”?. Have you ever found yourself wondering what the actual point of them is? Or whether or not the so called ‘benefits’ are worth the hassle of filling out a form or shuffling around your bag/wallet looking for the card?

Well Yahoo and Nectar (Sainsbury’s loyalty card) have agreed on a deal that may well answer the question as to whether or not the Nectar card is a worthwhile investment.

It is primarily an advertising deal that will allow online advertisers to target high-street shoppers based on their purchases. Under the opt-in scheme, Yahoo would be provided with detailed historical data on the purchases made by shoppers. Once this information has been provided by Nectar it can be linked to their Yahoo login details in order to tailor specific advertisements to for each unique user on any of Yahoo’s sites.

These results could then be monitored by Nectar and enable them to show “return on investment data. Amazingly there are 16.8million Nectar card holders and 2000 of these have already decided to opt into the scheme.

This venture could be seen by many as a bit of an invasion of privacy, details of every item that you have purchased on your shopping trip being passed around may not be that appealing. Although if I am going to be forced to have online adverts pop up during my internet surfing time I would rather they be specifically tailored to my every desire.

The campaign known as ‘Consumer Connect’ is going to be used by Yahoo in the hope that it will attract household brands that may have in the past been reluctant to partake in online advertisement.

Cadbury, recently taken over by US cheese company Kraft, have been using a similar service for the last seven years, and have agreed to be part of the scheme.
“The service is a silver bullet to improve brand building,” said Mark Rabe, Yahoo’s UK managing director. “For the first time, UK advertisers will have a simple way to track offline sales from online advertising campaigns, driving accountability all the way through to return on investment.”

David Buckingham, commercial director at Nectar’s insight and communication division, said: “It allows FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] brands to serve up highly targeted adverts online to an extremely relevant audience.

“We can prove to them what the effect of the advertising was.”

Microsoft and Yahoo deal approved by regulators

Jenny Sanderson — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:58 +0000

A deal struck by two online superpowers, Microsoft and Yahoo has been cleared by European Union and US regulators. First announced in July 2009, clearance by regulators will see Microsoft allowed to buy Yahoo’s internet search and search advertisement business. This move comes as Microsoft attempt to increase their share in the Google dominated online search engine market.

The EU commission gave Microsoft their backing and stated that the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition”.

As it stands Microsoft and Yahoo share 10% of the online search market in the EU where as Google control around 90% of it. Just how big an effect this deal will have is set to be interesting as it is difficult to see how Microsoft will wrestle any of that 90% away from Google who have coined the internet search phrase “Google it”.

Chris Green, technology analyst at DMG Europe doesn’t provide a positive outlook for Microsoft:

“This deal gives Microsoft a bigger slice of the internet advertising business, but it is still miles and miles behind Google,” he said.

“Microsoft’s Bing is technically a very good search engine, but no-one uses it, and it doesn’t currently make a profit.
“The deal with Yahoo should turn it into a not-too-shabby and profitable world number two search engine. But still no Google.”

The ten year deal will see Microsoft’s Bing search engine used by the Yahoo site with the respective companies sharing the revenue. Yahoo will be providing the main advertisement sales team for Bing.

Now lets talk figures, under the term of the deal Microsoft will keep 12% of the search engine revenue garnered by Yahoo for the first five years of the agreement whilst paying Yahoo the remaining 88%.

The deal is set to be implemented in the next few days and comes off the back of other significant deals for both companies, Microsoft with Facebook and Yahoo with Nectar, it looks as though we may see some interesting collaborations in the online world this year.