An unhappy Yahoo, unsatisfied Microsoft, and a happy Google

Finally, after weeks and weeks of chaos and confusion, it’s been officially announced that Microsoft – Yahoo deal is not going to happen. Microsoft is fuming at a lost opportunity and Yahoo is having a hard time convincing its shareholders. In the midst of all this, one company is beaming. It goes by the name Google.

If you remember, a lot of bloggers, including yours truly, had predicted what could happen to Google’s dominance if the much hyped Microsoft-Yahoo deal were to materialize. It didn’t happen and now I have my foot firmly in my mouth.

Now, let’s take a look at the situation of all three entities involved – Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google.

Yahoo is perhaps the worst sufferer right now. While Jerry Yang was never interested in Microsoft’s offer, Yahoo’s stockholders thought otherwise. They wanted the deal to go through and salvage the stock price of Yahoo. It didn’t happen and you can already see the effect in its tumbling stock prices.

Microsoft is actually wondering what went wrong with their offer. They offered what was considered a very good price per stock and when Yahoo was not interested, they even raised their offer. But then, Yahoo was not convinced. Microsoft wanted this deal to go through more than anything else, as it would help them grab a significant share of the search engine market. Now, Microsoft has to settle for companies like AOL to form strategic alliances with.

Google is the real winner now, as it’s always been. First, it outbid Microsoft and acquired DoubleClick Inc. Then, it got the FCC to make it mandatory for the winner to open its network to all devices. And now, it has got its biggest competitors Yahoo and Microsoft exactly where it wants. Google is about to get into an ad-partnership with Yahoo wherein it can place its ads in Yahoo’s search engine while Microsoft is left in the lurch.

At the end of the day, Google’s number one position in online search market is safe and now it can continue to concentrate on its new venture of mobile advertising. Initially, Yahoo was going great guns in the mobile world with lots of partnerships and deals that even Google was slightly threatened about its place in the mobile world. Now, Yahoo has lots of business to take care of in its own backyard, Microsoft is not in a position to dominate either the online search or the mobile market, and Google can dutifully work on its Android platform and make it big in the mobile market too.

Given the current position of Yahoo and Microsoft, I don’t think they would be able to challenge Google either in the online search market or in the mobile search and advertising market. In other words, Google’s dominance will continue and there is not a thing Jerry Yang or Steve Ballmer can do about it.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Google, All things mobile phones, Yahoo, Microsoft.

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Internet giants prepare for mobile phone advertising

Three of the biggest names in the internet industry, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have come up with their own interfaces which are developed exclusively for mobile phone screens. Gee; if this does not explain the potential of cell phone advertising, what else could?

Google has already eyed the market and has come up with its own streamlined system for mobile search, which is immensely popular with people.

Yahoo’s interface oneSearch is becoming increasingly popular, thanks to its unique features. Sample this – you search for England and you get images of England from the internet, Wikipedia results for England, latest headlines from England, and even sports updates on David Beckham. Sounds interesting; doesn’t it? Yahoo is also trying to expand oneSearch’s territory by signing up with telecommunication giants in Asia. So far, big names from countries like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Philippines have signed up with Yahoo.

Microsoft’s new interface is called Deepfish, which is developed exclusively for mobile phone screens. One of its catchy features is that it allows users to zoom in on pages they see in their mobile phone screen to help them navigate through the pages easier.

And here is an interesting statistics to finish this post. If things go the right way for mobile phone advertising, then we can expect up to 25% of the entire internet advertising getting shifted to mobile phone. Now; is that cool or what?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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