Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo!!!

Well last Friday started like any other Friday, until I read my RSS feeds at about 11.45am and you hear rumours of Microsoft bidding to buy Yahoo. At first you can of think 'Yeah Right!' but the reality is that the bid has been tabled at $44.6 Billion. (How much!!)

The question then has to be asked as to will the deal actually happen? It looks like Yahoo will entertain it but I can imagine it will take some time to go through. But I bet the Yahoo share holders are hoping it does when it values the shares at just over 62% more than what they currently are. It is getting a lot of mixed opinions on the business side with the Fox business teams saying it is a really bad deal for Microsoft share holders and they are paying to much.



Business aside I have to bring this back to one area, if they combined how will this affect their search market share?? In the US Google will still be 56% and the combined Yahoo and Microsoft will only be 31.5%. This is in the US which is the market where they are at the closest as well. Imagine the UK it will be Google 79% and Yahoo-Microsoft combined still only around 14%. As a joint force can they grow the share or will they focus to areas of Technology or Mobile Search?

The only other area to consider is the name....will it be YaSoft? or Microhoo? Time will tell and I am sure there will be a lot more news and discussion about the deal next week.

Google is on the up!

I was reading and article today which to me is a stark reminder on how powerful the mighty Google really is. For years I have talked about Google market share and the dominant position they hold in the UK and generally globally but recent numbers published from JMP Securities analyst William Morrison's analysis of Comscore data, Google is still growing and at a frightening pace!

From July06 to July 07:

• worldwide users +20%
• US users +18% (now 22% of 552 million global total)
• time spent on sites +113%
• page views +56%
• Google Maps: blows past Yahoo to 682 million pageviews/mo +98% (vs. Yahoo's 397 million, +32%)

And even more amazing is that little thing called Youtube. It now accounts for 28% of total minutes spent on Google worldwide and an astounding 35% of global users time.

Yahoo One Search

I noticed the other day that Yahoo has started to push out commercials for the new yahoo Onesearch Mobile Platform. I think it looks really good and works very well but I guess the touch of irony is that i am posting it here for you to watch via Google's You Tube.

Come on Yahoo get the video package up to speed as well!!

Nothing like a good interview

While I was down at the Online Marketing Show last week doing a speaking session we decided to set up a series of interviews with some of the main search providers in the industry which I was able to sign up on the day and get them in front of the dreaded video camera.

We have just published interviews with Richard Firminger - Yahoo, Mel Carson - Microsoft, Ajay Syal - Yell and Steve Miller - IAB to the Latitude Website and Youtube.

Google will follow shortly as it is still getting signed off by their legal team, but it will be added as soon as I have it.

I decided to ask in general only two questions to them all:

1. What is the next big thing in search marketing in the next 12 months?
2. How do you see search developing in the future over say the next 3 to 4 years?

What was interesting to here is that generally everyone had a different opinion! Obviously they had to talk about products from their own organisations (who wouldn't!) but when you listen to their concepts in makes for great insight and a lot of different opinions.

I have put the interview with Richard Firminger - Yahoo Regional Sales Director Northern Europe below. But I recommend going and having a look at them all. You can see them at:

http://uk.youtube.com/user/latitudegroupvideos



Watch out for the Everyclick blue mouse putting in a guest appearance as well on the Yell.com interview. that mouse was everywhere for the whole 2 days at the show, you couldn't get away from him!