Will There Ever Be A Yahoo – Google Partnership?
Guest Post by Dan Chaney
Before Google dominated the search engine market, the #1 place to go for information on anything was Yahoo. No one could go outside or watch TV without seeing one of their ads each day. Today, Yahoo is not in good shape. Some internet users either think it’s dead or have no idea what it is. At one point, a few companies tried to buy the company but the execs and shareholders refused the offers. However, no one has thought of a partnership. Will Yahoo ever do such a thing with Google or someone else? The short answer is maybe.
Yahoo could use some help in some form or another. Their net income is at $228.5 million according to their Q2 2012 earnings report, which has been in decline for some time. They’ve also had many of their top-level execs either leave or have been let go over the past six years. Add on the fact that they’re having to compete for business with two juggernaut-sized companies (Google and Microsoft) and it becomes clear that Yahoo has a massive hill to climb if they wish to stay open.
A partnership of some could work in their favor, but it depends on what the other party would offer them. The first thing they need is more people using their search engine. Without that, there’s not much of a reason to visit except to check e-mail and read the news. Original content would also help. If Yahoo offers something people want to see or read that can’t be found elsewhere, there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to convince users and investors to give them a second look. In short, they’d have to utilize multiple services from one company or team up with multiple companies to remain afloat.
At some point, Yahoo will have to do something big to attract the attention of internet users and businesses alike. If they can’t offer better services and content than its competition, it’ll have to put itself up for sale and hope for the best. A partnership with Google would help, but only if it’ll convince people to come to their site on a regular basis aside from checking and sending email. Also, it’ll depend on which services the partnership will improve. Otherwise, the deal may turn out to be an expensive waste of time for all parties involved.
One way or another, Yahoo needs to get its house in order. Will that include a partnership of some kind? Only time will tell. Given the history they’ve had when it comes to being bought up, the folks in charge may choose to do things on their own until all of their efforts fall flat before striking a deal with anyone.
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Dan Chaney is a blogger for HirePulse advertising with a background in social media and marketing.
Read MoreWhen a microblog stands in for a real blog…
Anyone who follows me on Twitter (if you don’t yet – what’s your excuse?) could see that I was more than making up for my lack of internet on my laptop by tweeting notes from the sessions I was in. I strained one of my fingers on my dominant right hand Sunday night bowling with the folks from GTO Management, and even taking traditional written notes was a challenge.
So before I kick off all the notes I took at the sessions (it was lighter this conference than I have in the past), here’s all the tidbits of knowledge I tweeted while attending sessions at Affiliate Summit West 09.
From the Buy.at Party at Moon:
- http://twitpic.com/11sw2 – Tear the roof off at Moon buy.at party
- http://twitpic.com/11t7v – From the roof of the palms
From The Ultimate Pitching Guide Session:
- @skydiver just said re pitches on twitter “if u can’t pitch in 140 char u need 2 work on brevity anyway”
- Twitter has replaced focus groups- @skydiver
From the ShareASale Under the Star’s 80’s themed party:
- http://twitpic.com/1243s – Jon levine @ sas party
- http://twitpic.com/124e8 – Gettin’ down at SAS party
From Affiliate Videos: Where do they work best? Session:
- Video session: Youtube is larger than Microsoft in search engines- 77mil uniques
- u don’t have to have a professional prod studio to develop video
- .tv traffic increasing but still nowhere near as high as .com
- very brand & vertical specific video creative is the most requested
- People buy from people – at the end of the day video is the most effective medium for that. Amen!
- I love @andrewwee for bringing up ShamWOW in his question!
- get out there & try it!
From the Pinnacle Awards Gala:
- Nice touch on the tux & beer @shawncollins
- Right on for Train Signals donating $10k for Breast Cancer Research- squish a boob save a life!
- Mike Allen – Affiliate of the Year
- AM of the yr- @djambazov Angel
- pinnacle award exceptional merchant CelebrateExpress.com
- pinnacle award Affiliate Mktg Advocate @mellies! Melanie Seery
- pinnacle award Best Blogger @jangro! Scott Jangro
- affiliate marketing legend – congrats to Kellie Stevens!
- congrats to thew winners!
From Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages Session:
- 2% avg conversion rate: 2009 year of conversion optimization
- test everything assume nothing
- Lisa Crossly Hunter: what are your affiliates doing that your search team can borrow from?
- start now, but don’t start without a plan. And test.
- gen rule of thumb- at least 100 conversions for at least a week (per element you change, I forgot to include that in the tweet)
From the Affiliate Triathalon:
- http://twitpic.com/12mj4 – #asw09 Brian Littleton of SAS @ Affiliate Triathalon
Of course if you’re REALLY bored you can just go to Twitter Search and enter in “#asw09 trishalyn” and see EVERYTHING I tweeted while at the conference 😀
Read MoreCribbed Content for June 27th
Surprisingly enough, this week is flying by for me. It seems like a slow summer week, but at the same time I’ve been awfully busy with some new projects at work and some thoughts circling in my head about a new website I may tackle soon. The idea is all there, but I have to flesh it out and, really, decide if I have time to do it! Here are your links for this week – the word around the campfire in online business.
- Once again, the affiliate marketing industry attacked as douchebags. And by people who call themselves professionals, no less. Shawn Collins did all the lashing out necessary in his blog Consultants Can Fix Affiliate Marketing.
- Congratulations to Lisa Picarille & Revenue Magazine for winning the Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate Golden Link award at this week’s Linkshare Symposium. It was worth is for her to be able to say “Sorry, Jangro”. If you don’t get the reference, go to www.SorryJangro.com
- Just yesterday on the heels of Google partnering with Yahoo and more talk of a potential Microsoft bid on the company, Yahoo officially announced their reorganization plans. In laymens terms, they’re taking some time to get their shit together 🙂
- More confusion is being perpetrated about the PMA by Shoemoney. Try doing some research next time before declaring something is a scam with shady intentions. Affiliate Classroom is NOT running it, they’re just providing a website and vehicle for it. Other companies are providing resources as well.
