The AdWords War - How Yahoo can dodge the Microsoft bullet

[abbottsys]

Marketing is War!

Now that Yahoo has become a Google Search Partner (at least in "test" mode) it fuels some wild ideas about their motives.

Let's suppose for a moment that they honestly do *not* want to be swallowed by Microsoft. How do they dodge this bullet? Well, perhaps Yahoo is way more sophisticated than we all think.

They do it by putting their major asset out of bounds of the wolf. Their major asset is their ad base. So they merge their ad base with Google!! A total merge. And this "test" is just a prelude to that strategy. Testing the revenues.

Then, with a merged ad pool, served across two engines (Google and Yahoo) Microsoft finds that the #1 asset they were after has been totally diluted. They cannot get their hands on it. So they back off.

This is a bold and dangerous strategy. But it's also a brilliant one. In warefare its called retreat and burn. So your enemy is forced to advance through a ravaged wasteland. And let's face it, this is war. It's an AdWords war.

Thoughts?

[Kevin Heisler]

Brilliant strategy, abbottsys. I think you've ID'ed a major component of Yahoo's maneuvering away from the Microsoft deal.

There's lots of speculation that the test won't convince Microsoft to raise its offer. Yahoo would likely be satisfied with outsourcing if the trial goes well.

Yahoo Panama may have had limited success but it's still an unproven algorithm in a high-volume search marketplace.

[Marcia]

Absolutely beautiful!!

6th Century classic:

The Art of War at Wikipedia

Free download at Gutenberg Library

A black hat I used to know used to refer to this book all the time; I think it was his life-skills and work manual. There's also one with this title by Macchiavelli, another classic author with a deviously brilliant mind.

[Mel66]

I think this is exactly what's happening. Google and Yahoo together can bury Microsoft. I bet Ballmer is throwing chairs left and right.....

[abbottsys]

Many thanks for your feedback.

My big fear is that Google may get sucked into an ego play and make a counter bid for Yahoo. That would be a *massive, massive* mistake.

Google does not need to shell out money to buy Yahoo, all they need to do is sign an "ad pooling" deal.

The only company that needs to shell out major dollars for Yahoo is Microsoft. Because Microsoft is still playing by their old rulebook - wait and wait until a market has matured, get almost nowhere, but then suddenly buy your way in.

Microsoft's strategy is incredibly expensive. Now, with the internet, it's also showing its age - it's broken, decrepid and lacks any semblance of creativity.

[Discovery]

In war you have to aggressively pursue clearly defined objectives, which sometimes make for strange partnerships. Eh Comrade?

I understand the premise ASys suggests, however I don’t fully understand the resistance to a Microsoft acquisition.

Yes, I understand the emotional, opinionated views of consumers; stay away from big bad evil Microsoft. But we all know these moves are not based on emotions, they are based on assessments of their current strategy and objectives, and the tools they have in place to achieve these objectives. Yahoo has to believe it can compete alone and directly against Google if they are going to shun Microsoft. They have shown however, over the past few years including the introduction of Panama that they can’t compete, they are slipping away. And with all the turmoil (overture, panama, takeovers) employees are scared, they are losing talent, losing investors, losing confidence in their company and brand. This is not a bright future, continue to try and beat Google by offering and doing the same thing they are doing?

MS brings to the table a diverse and talented pool of developers and strategists with a lot of money to support them. They also have a HUGE customer base and possibly the worlds largest demo and geo targeting data sets. MS is lacking "cool" - creativity, a feeling for a true internet driven company engaging a matured internet audience. Yahoo is lacking core real world applications, development strategies, users and they have little data to leverage their ad platform with.

Maybe, just maybe together they would create a nice blend of an Internet company with attitude and creativity with a traditional software dev company with deep pockets and users that would give Google a run for their money.

In my view it would be a better play to join with Microsoft than going it alone.

Discovery

[Discovery]

Holy Sheep Dung.. I just posted a post that Microsoft was not evil.. and the post number was


666

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[abbottsys]

Originally Posted by Discovery

Holy Sheep Dung.. I just posted a post that Microsoft was not evil.. and the post number was
666
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Don't worry, it simply means that the entire universe is against you. Regard it as a challenge