So I Was Way Off

Ok, I'll admit it. My prediction that Yahoo would eventually succumb to MSN's bid would have been a lousy bet to lose. I don't know if the news of the Google and Yahoo agreement (I like to call it Goohoo) is a good thing or bad thing. I just know Google always gets the best of both worlds. Today, Reuters posted an article saying that Microsoft won't be making other troublesome internet acquisitions anytime soon. This has to be the quote of the week from Chief Executive Steve Balmer: "People don't under understand what they're talking about. At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications". Right on, Steve. But it still looks like Microsoft is hanging on to position #3 behind Google and Yahoo. Better shape up or ship out!

Digital Download 6/16/08

MSN AND YAHOO ARE OFFICIALLY OVER

Yahoo signed an agreement with Google just hours after its very last talk with MSN this past Thursday . With Yahoo’s finally farewell to negotiations with MSN, Google comes out on top (as usual) with the 10 year agreement that will have Yahoo serving its search ads on its portal. This means big bucks in the future for Google who could gain up to $1 billion from the ad pack. What does this mean for advertiser? The positives include a more convenient and manageable search campaign as well as access to a much larger search-ad inventory. The downsides include higher bidding prices, antitrust questions and one less option for marketers to choose another search provider.

DADS CAN GET SOCIAL WITH THEIR KIDS TOO

Just in time for Father’s Day, the new beta social network for dads called Odadeo was announced last week. It’s currently in private beta mode and it serves to help patriarchs keep in touch with their children, get parenting tips from fellow dads, and build blogs about their kids with photo and video sharing capabilities. Stef Lewandowski is one of the service’s founders and believe Odadeo is a great social channel for parents, specifically fathers, to communicate and connect closer with their children as well as other families who may share the same interests and hobbies.

HAVE ONLINE GUIDE, WILL TRAVEL

A new beta site called TravelMuse will sure to be plenty of competition for Travelocity, Expedia and TripAdvisor. It’s a new online portal that blends travel planning tools with quality editorial content topped off with a weekly theme or destination. TravelMuse is a one stop destination for reviews, trip planning and travel booking service. This site is perfect for those travelers who are not sure of where to go and like to see where others have enjoyed recent travels and what recommendations are popular. This goes for product purchases as well as global journeys. They present new feature destinations on a routine basis, plus the requisite tips, tricks, and specials like book reviews and ecotourist picks. In addition, TravelMuse users can transfer bookmarklets to their browsers to collect third-party data to keep in one cloud-based location. This option can prove very convenient if one’s itinerary becomes rather elaborate.

PLURK IS RUFFLING TWITTER’S FEATHERS

Plurk is another new microblogging site that has seen plenty of traffic in the past month due to Twitter’s constant problems and errors. Plurk offers a very similar service to Twitter, but throws in a curve ball with its horizontal timeline of updates, extended freedom of conversation, and “karma” points for avid users. It’s similarity to Twitter attracts Twitter users, it’s unique layout intrigues those who are looking for something “different,” and now, third party applications will promote widespread activity. The experience is similar to reading comments on FriendFeed, however, the layout of the site only creates unnecessary confusion. Regardless, many internet users (mostly Twitter fanatics) have visited Plurk enough to quadruple the site’s number of visits this month.

LEAVE YOUR MARK WITH RETAGGR

Welcome the new way to pass on your business card. Retaggr is a new site that lets you compile all your online activities into one interactive profile. The result is a virtual business card that acts as a widget wherever your name appears on blogs or other Retaggr-enabled sites. You can use Retaggr to let people see your photo, twitter status, a link to your blog, and links to other social sites like Facebook. You can add any web widget to your Profile Card including Gtalk, Flickr, Youtube, Tumblr and more. What’s great about Retaggr is that it acts as the ultimate business card 2.0 for internet users who want to let people know who they are on the web as well as expand their personal brand. Likewise, Retaggr works as an ideal tool for bloggers who want their community of readers to get to know each other and participate more frequently. Names now become links that expand the Profile Card widget and showcase each owner’s virtual information without ever having to leave the site. Plus, blogs and sites that use Retaggr also get the photo tagging functionality which is similar to Facebook and Flickr, but takes it further by letting you see the names and Profile Cards of people in a picture all at one time.

Digital Download 5/5/08

Hope you all enjoyed the spectacular weather we had this weekend.
Here’s this week’s digital download and don’t forget to have a cerveza in honor of Cinco De Mayo!

WHAT IS YAHOO TO DO NOW?



For those who have been keeping up with the Microsoft/Yahoo saga, shocking news came last Saturday when Microsoft announced its bid withdrawal. Apparently Microsoft’s increased offer of $33 per share wasn’t good enough for Yahoo’s $37 per share minimum. Some experts have speculated that this is just another one of Microsoft's tactics to have Yahoo eventually come crawling back. Others say, Yahoo is now scrambling to make a deal with Google despite its weakened negotiation leverage. The backlash of the weekend news has Yahoo shares trading around $23 this morning which equates to about $14 billion that was left on the table. The progress of social and digital media is largely influenced upon Yahoo’s future.

GROW YOUR AUDIENCE WITH MOBILE INTERNET


According to a new cross-platform Internet measurement Nielsen report, Mobile Internet extends the audience reach of many leading Internet sites by an average of 13% over home PC traffic alone. The particular categories of weather and entertainment can have a greater, extended reach. Take AccuWeather.com for example: the site received a 43% audience lift from mobile Internet users. “The data demonstrate that the mobile Internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a web site, but also grow the overall size of the pie,” said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Mobile Media for Nielsen Mobile. “Publishers can now monetize their total cross-platform audience, and advertisers will better understand the efficiency and incremental value of mobile Web traffic.”

BRINGING MIXTAPES BACK TO MUSIC LOVERS


Bring back the spirit of the 80’s with that mixtape madness and make your own personalized compilations to share and compare your music taste. This time around, you can do it all online. Muxtape is a free service which allows any user to upload songs in order to create a sharable, online digital 'mix tape.' The mixes aren’t embeddable, but the links can be shared with anyone, and muxtapes are available for public access. The only downsides to this service are that users aren’t allowed to upload multiple songs from the same album, artist, or songs they don’t have permission to let Muxtape use. Are there legal issues involved? Kinda. In using muxtape’s service, you’re acknowledging that muxtape has permission to use the songs you upload. And, you can only create one muxtape.

YOONO, YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK AGGREGATOR


Yoono, a social bookmarking tool which already boasts 1 million users, is coming out of private beta and offering only a few invites to the public. Yoono acts as a browser add-on that lets you chat and share items with friends instantly, offers recommendations as you browse the web and enables you to update your status across various networks and bookmark items. Yoono has a sophisticated capability that allows users to dig down into his or her friends’ content across networks and stream content. Yoono’s widget compiles all updates from Twitter, Facebook, Piczo, Flickr, and Friendfeed, and displays them in a scrollable list. The most useful is “Discoveries”, a widget that analyzes the pages you visit and presents a number of relevant tags and related sites, along with a list of Yoono users who share similar interests. “Web Notes” acts as a collaboration tool that lets you drag images, text, and video into the side bar for future reference or sharing with friends.

AP BRINGS LOCAL NEWS TO IPHONES



Today, the Associated Press launched location-targeted mobile news for the iPhone. Several big news corporations are on board with the new AP service that promises to deliver local news from participating member newspapers and national and international news which will be organized by zip code. AP’s global product development director, Jeffrey Litvack says the Mobile News Network would offer easier access to local news stories than Google or Yahoo’s mobile news services.

Wow, Microsoft Walks Away

I was blown away from yesterday's news of the status of Microsoft/Yahoo's bidding war. I have been predicting over the past few months that Yahoo would put aside its pride and see the benefits of a merge with Microsoft and succumb to its offer. Apparently, even after Microsoft raised its bid to $33 a share (which in itself was not was predicted) Yahoo's CEO Yang wouldn't accept less than $37. Come on, does $4/share make that much of a deal breaker? I guess it does enough for Yahoo to stubbornly hold ground and Microsoft to pout and withdraw its bid.

Some experts have speculated that this is just another one of Microsoft's tactics to have Yahoo eventually come crawling back. Others say, Yahoo is now scrambling to make a deal with Google despite its weakened negotiation leverage. The shareholders are fuming mad since most were more than happy to settle for Microsoft's $33/share offer. What is the fate of Yahoo? Whatever they decide to do, there's little chance they'll have the opportunity again to be in a respectful power of position as a major competitor.

Yahoo's Up To Serve: Part 2

In my previous post of "Yahoo's Up to Serve" a couple of months ago, I predicted Yahoo would eventually succumb to Microsoft's bid. In an email from Microsoft's CEO to Yahoo's Board of Directors yesterday, it seems apparent that match point is near. There is no mention of a bid increase or a proposed Yahoo board slate. Yahoo is supposed to release their Q1 earnings in the next two weeks and there's some buzz that a negotiation might be made prior to their announcement. Other commenters say this is Microsoft's way of saving face prior to the cancellation of the deal. Either way, be on the look out for major changes within the next coming weeks that will rock the digital media industry. 

Yahoo's Up to Serve

For a while now, I've been holding my breath around the discussion of Microsoft and Yahoo's tiff. But with Microsoft's announcement today of its proxy battle authorization for the company that snubbed its bid last week (a move that will prove cheaper than raising its original bid), my curiosity grows and the drama just keeps getting better. The ball's in Yahoo's court now.

Many people wonder, did Yahoo make a mistake by rejecting the Microsoft offer? It is said in other reports that Yahoo's board could be vulnerable in this proxy fight since all of its directors are up for nomination this year, and in accordance with its bylaws they're elected by a plurality of votes cast in a contested election. Supposedly the senior executives at News Corporation don't expect anything to happen with their discussions with Yahoo over a possible merger and Time Warner seems to be skeptical.

With Google somewhat rooting for Yahoo from the stands, it would still prove to be hard times for Yahoo if they announced a deal with the internet Giant. It's unlikely the shareholders would believe that the money from search alone would be enough to back Yahoo's reasoning for turning down Microsoft.

My two cents is Yahoo's putting up a fight it won't win. Either Microsoft is going to get its way or Yahoo will have to settle for less which would be less than ideal to the prior. I'm grateful everyday I didn't get that job offer from Yahoo back in 2007 and wish the best for its employees in the coming months.