Yahoo reported today that the company had "entered into an exclusive, multi-year, partnership with O2 Germany to become the preferred partner for mobile search and services, displacing Google." Paid search results are reportedly part of the deal (and likely a revenue share as well). According to press materials: O2 users now have direct access to Yahoo!’s mobile-optimized search engine, which is specifically designed to provide quick and easily accessible answers for users on the go. Yahoo! most popular properties including Yahoo! Mail, News, Weather, Finance, Flickr, Eurosports and Soccer [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

I got two calls yesterday from people asking what I made of the Yahoo-Microsoft failure to meet their self-imposed search-deal deadline (October 27). I said it was probably just a case of needing more time to work through some of the details rather than a warning sign that the entire deal was in jeopardy. There's much at stake for both companies (somewhat less for Bing) in having committed to this deal. The market would punish both if the deal were to fall apart. It would be very hard for Yahoo to recover in the short term, having lost some of its best search people (many of whom are now wo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Bing | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

One of the factors behind the US Justice Department's (DOJ's) objection to the now-defunct Google-Yahoo search ads deal, which was far less sweeping than the pending Yahoo-Bing/Microsoft deal, was the objection of the powerful advertising trade organization the Association of National Advertisers. Now, another advertising trade organization, the "4As," or American Association of Advertising Agencies, has formally announced its support for the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal. Below is the full text of the letter, which was signed by 4As President and CEO Nancy Hill, along with the heads of the f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Microsoft: Partnerships | Yahoo: Partnerships

Bloomberg is reporting this morning that the US Department of Justice has decided to look more closely at the MicroHoo search deal. Microsoft and Yahoo are to provide more information on their "ad pricing and product plans, a person familiar with the matter said." This is not a surprise. The companies must convince regulators that the deal will not harm competition or adversely affect SEM pricing. They must also do a similar dance in Europe, where a parallel process will take place. In the end, however, it's likely the deal will be approved given broad US and EU concerns about Google's mark [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: General | Microsoft: Bing | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Those with BT broadband in the UK have noticed that the Yahoo/BT portal at bt.yahoo.com has a new search technology provider. You would guess that if Yahoo would replace their own search technology, it would be in exchange for Bing, in light of the recent news about the Bing & Yahoo deal. You would be wrong to think that because Google is now powering the search technology Yahoo/BT portal. Here is a screen capture of the search box that now says, "Powered by Google," taken from ConnectedInternet.co.uk, which tipped us to this: I know the Yahoo and Microsoft deal has not been s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Partnerships | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships

Danny and I had an opportunity to talk with Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi and Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider earlier this morning. Both were instrumental in the deal and will be deeply involved going forward. They characterized the parties' search integration as a long-term partnership, which implies ongoing cooperation and a high degree of collaboration. We had a limited time to get a range of questions out but we were able to get a bit more clarity than we had from just the conference call and press release this morning. Yahoo is going to be doing "premium search" sales. What is "premium searc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: APIs | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Top News | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

As expected, Microsoft and Yahoo have finally struck a deal, one that with regulatory approval, they hope will be in place by early 2010. Microsoft has issued a press release and created a minisite about the deal. A press conference is happening later today (which we'll live blog), and we'll have continuing coverage. The details so far: The term of the agreement is 10 years Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!'s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms [Note f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Partnerships | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

There are reports coming out of the Wall Street Journal and AllThingsD that a search/ads deal between Microsoft and Yahoo will be announced within the next 24 hours. According to the Journal's coverage: The likely deal, which has yet to be approved by either company and could still be delayed further, involves Yahoo agreeing to use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites. But in a shift from earlier discussions, Yahoo would handle selling the text ads that appear next to the search results for its sites and some Microsoft sites, say these people, boosting Yahoo's share of the search advert [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Partnerships | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

A report analyzing traffic and click-through rates from ad network Chikita finds that "Bing users are over 50% more likely to click an ad on your site than Google users." What this means, according to the post, is those who arrive at third party sites via Bing click more frequently on ads on those sites than those coming through Google. TechCrunch offers a bit more detail and speculation about why this might be (i.e., "the law of large numbers"). According to Chikita, the respective click rates are: Google: .97 percent Yahoo: 1.24 percent Bing: 1.5 percent Bing appears has made some [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Partnerships | Stats: Compete | Stats: comScore | Stats: General | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size | Top News | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search Ads

Microsoft reported worse-than-expected earnings yesterday. The company was about a billion dollars off analysts consensus expectations. According to the Microsoft release, the company had huge revenues but still missed: $13.10 billion for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009, a 17% decline from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $3.99 billion, $3.05 billion and $0.34 per share, which represented declines of 30%, 29% and 26%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period. For the full fiscal year reve [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees | Microsoft: Partnerships | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

Yesterday on the Yahoo Q2 earnings call, CEO Carol Bartz spent time talking about local and small business (SMB) advertising. She said that these overlapping segments were increasingly important to Yahoo and she announced a new deal with AT&T (to sell display ads on Yahoo to SMBs). She added that between AT&T's yellow pages sales force and the company's newspaper consortium partners Yahoo effectively had "13,000 sales reps" in local markets around the US. Here's the relevant verbatim Bartz quote from the earnings call transcript: We also know that local relevance of both content an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Other | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Publisher Network

After an apparently successful limited trial, Yahoo is rolling out a program that targets small businesses (SMBs) for self-service display advertising on its network and through RightMedia, its ad exchange. The DIY portal is a collaboration between Yahoo and AdReady, which supplies the back end and the ad templates. (Google earlier introduced a similar, though less elaborate product.) The templates can be sorted by best performing (CTRs are exposed), most used and newest. Advertisers can use their own ads as well. Ads can be targeted by geo, content category or Yahoo property. They show on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Publisher Network | Yahoo: Search Ads

Here's a change of pace: Some newspapers are making money online and crediting a search engine with making it happen. AdAge writes about the Yahoo-Newspaper consortium, and cites multiple cases where individual papers or newspaper groups are using Yahoo's ad targeting technology to increase online-only ad sales. The consortium has sold an estimated $50 million in Yahoo inventory so far, with about 150 papers using the platform and 350 more on the way. But what's most impressive is some of the individual reports from happy newspaper people: Scripps newspapers report a 30% jump in online [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Partnerships

We've known for some time, based on a number of studies from Microsoft, Yahoo, SEM firms and ad networks, that an online ad campaign that includes both display and search performs better than one that features only display or search. In another version of that same theme, Yahoo recently said that it was using search queries as part of its larger behavioral targeting efforts across its display network. In other words, search queries become part of the targeting data that inform what display ads are shown to users thereafter. Display advertising has been battered in this recession despite ple [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: SmartAds

The Wall Street Journal reports that the loss of two agreements with computer makers could cost Yahoo as much as 15% of its search traffic in the next 12-18 months. Early this year, HP made Live Search the default search toolbar on its computers. And back in October, the WSJ says, Acer switched from Yahoo to Google as its primary search provider. The WSJ cites an unnamed industry insider who says this could cost Yahoo three percentage points of U.S. search market share, or about 15% of its search traffic. Yahoo currently has an estimated 15-20% of overall U.S. searches, depending on which [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

When the Yahoo-Newspaper consortium was announced in early 2007 both Yahoo and the newspaper industry were stronger and in better shape than they are today. (That's certainly true for newspapers.) Since that time Yahoo has suffered through the MicroHoo episode, gone through a couple reorgs, laid off a meaningful chunk of its workforce and gained a new CEO. The newspapers, for their part are mired in a well-publicized crisis, with ad revenues falling precipitously and major publishers making dramatic newsroom cuts, some declaring bankruptcy and even shutting down publications entirely. Now c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Partnerships

In Barcelona at the GSMA Mobile World Congress event, which has been mostly about new handsets so far, Yahoo announced what it's calling "Yahoo Mobile." I haven't yet been able to talk to anyone at Yahoo about this, but it appears to be mostly a rebranding and repackaging of existing Yahoo mobile assets, with a few new things in the mix. Yahoo Go, the company's downloadable mobile client, appears to be deemphasized or is being phased out (Yahoo will correct me if I'm wrong). There also appears to be a new effort to create more correspondence between the mobile Web and mobile applications. A [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships

As the MicroHoo dance continues, here's a wacky idea that just occurred to me: why doesn't Nokia invest in or acquire Yahoo? It's partly suggested by this Fortune article that discusses the challenges that the world's leading handset maker faces in penetrating North America. Nokia has added a bunch of online services that try and bridge the internet and mobile. Indeed, Nokia is trying to position itself as an internet company of sorts. And mobile search will be a big ad-revenue driver in the medium term. It's already a critical element of an overall mobile offering. Yahoo, obviously, is [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

India is something of a parallel universe in terms of search and internet activity. It's a massive and incredibly dynamic market but distinct from the US and Europe in important ways. All the major engines are competing there and it's also often a testing ground for new products. For example Yahoo's "Glue Pages" were released and tried there before coming to the US. Now Yahoo has bought a 30 percent stake in a local information database and directory assistance provider in the market: Info Network Management Company, which runs the Call Ezee service. Seen as a way to secure local data and prov [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Outside US | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Yahoo's oneSearch will be the "default" search engine on T-Mobile's new Web2Go portal. Yahoo has such a relationship with T-Mobile in Europe already. In the US, Yahoo also provides mobile search to AT&T. Verizon and Google are battling for similar "default" status on Verizon handsets. Both Google and Microsoft have a relationship with Sprint. This brings to more than 80 the carrier relationships that Yahoo has cultivated around the world. It means that Yahoo has the capacity to reach approxiately 850 million people through those deals. In the US mobile search market share looks simi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships