Russia’s biggest internet firm Yandex plans to raise up to US$2 billion in an initial public offering that would give the company a public valuation of US$5 billion according to Reuters.

Yandex topped both Yahoo! and Microsoft with 528 million search queries (or 2.2 percent of European searches) in March 2008, according to comScore. Yandex reaches over 62% of Russian internet audience with more than 47% of all searches conducted in Russia, followed by Google, Rambler, More»

Labels: mail.ru, rambler, Search, Yahoo, yandex

From: Kevin JohnsonSent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 1:30 PMTo: Platforms & Services Division; APSP FTE - Adv & Pub Solutions Platform; Employees.all.corp.adf@main.corp; Employees.all.adf@main.corpSubject: Online Services Strategy Update

We have been executing against the core strategy I first presented at our Financial Analyst Meeting in July 2007 to go after the growing opportunity in online services and advertising. Four pillars have formed the basis of our strategy:
1. Consolidate ad platform and win in display2. Innovate and disrupt in More»

Labels: displace advertising, Microsoft, Online Advertising, Search, social media, user experience, Yahoo

After Yahoo spurned their initial offer Microsoft said they were no longer in the game to aquire Yahoo. However corporate raider Carl Icahn entered the fray last week with a proposal that would force Yahoo into Microsoft’s arms, netting Icahn a huge payday if Microsoft ponied up the $33+ they were clearly willing to pay before.
As if this deal was not already complicated enough, Microsoft is now proposing to Yahoo some form of collaboration on search, presumably a deal where Microsoft and Yahoo search teams would team up against Google.
We’ll have to wait for more to critique the plan but More»

Labels: Microsoft, msft, Yahoo, YHOO

Blog Maverick - Mark Cuban has added his voice to the chorus on beating Google. Cuban presents a plausible argument. He argues that in essence, its no different that any other content aggregation play. Its paying for content. Here it is:
Is there anything more fun than sitting around, growing your hair, drinking a Bud while listening to Jethro Tull and pondering how to change the balance of power in the search world and unseat Google?
Better search? Too subjective. Better monetization? More»

Labels: Microsoft, Online Advertising, Yahoo

Carl Icahn has notified the Yahoo board that he’ll be leading a takeover of the company. The letter below was his notification to Yahoo, and included his intention to buy 2.5 billion in stock. Presumably Icahn has already confirmed that Microsoft is still interested in a takeover, and given Steve Ballmer’s legendary temperament I’m guessing that he is giddy at the prospect of ultimately winning the battle he walked away from a few weeks ago.
I think Icahns prospects of losing this are small, and would guess he’s in for one of the biggest paydays in corporate history. More»

Labels: icahn, Microsoft, msft, Yahoo, YHOO

Acccording to comScore unique visitors on Yahoo! Buzz surpassed Digg in April for the first time. Buzz got nearly 7 million U.S. unique visitors which is 74% growth over March.
Buzz, is a social news service by Yahoo! that is similar to Digg. These site can drive a large amount of traffic and comments to websites.
The following graph shows that, for the first time, Buzz’s traffic surpassing Digg’s in unique visitors per month.
What’s more, about 51% of Yahoo! Buzz users are More»

Labels: digg.com, web marketing, Yahoo

Billionaire takeover strategist Carl Icahn is looking at a possible play to force Yahoo back to the table with Microsoft to sell the company at a big profit. The news today sent Yahoo up about 1.30 and YHOO is still rising in after market trading.
Given that the prevailing stock price of Yahoo is well below Microsoft’s top offer of $33 per share, this play has only one key challenge - making sure you can get Microsoft back to the table. Frankly I think that is not much of a hurdle to overcome as I More»

Labels: google, icahn, Microsoft, msft, Yahoo, YHOO

Microsoft’s proposed bid for Yahoo was its fastest way to gain the scale necessary to compete against Google for online advertising dollars. Even before pulling the Yahoo offer, the company he had begun laying the groundwork for a strategy to compete with Google in online advertising. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is convinced that online advertising is crucial to its future. So much so that he sees online advertising making up as much as 25% of the company’s business within a few years. Google generates approximately US$ 22 billion versus Microsoft’s US$ 3.3 billion from online More»

Labels: displace advertising, Microsoft, Online Advertising, web applications, Yahoo

Yahoo shares opened this morning at $23.02, down $5.65 from yesterday’s close. However Yahoo has bounced back a bit to just under $25 per share at 1pm, perhaps reflecting investor’s optimism that a deal will still be struck with Microsoft after what some - including me - think was a case of MS CEO Ballmer calling Yahoo’s high price bluff.
Jerry Yang wrote investors and the public today at the Yahoo Andecdotal blog in a post titled “OK, so now what? There he writes:
We’ll continue to execute on our plan — making your Internet experience as personal, relevant, open and More»

Labels: Microsoft, msft, Yahoo, YHOO

Both in the mainstream TV news and online there seems to be a lot more noise than signal about the Yahoo Microsoft merger situation. I still think that Microsoft plans to acquire Yahoo and that they will find a way to make it happen over the next few months.
This view seems to put me in the minority because many are saying the deal is “dead”. That is technically true of course - Microsoft withdrew their offer yesterday - but Ballmer’s letter made it very clear that he was still open to a sale, and I More»

Labels: Microsoft, Yahoo, yang, YHOO