The Biggest Loser This Election Week? It’s a Search Engine Called…
Yahoo! (Seriously)
The biggest loser this election week is none other than good old Yahoo Inc, which was left at the altar by Google on Wednesday.
Ironically, Google announced its decision just one day after it was reported that the Google and Yahoo were willing to reduce the scope of the agreement to appease antitrust regulators in Washington.
What was the deal?
Google was going to be in charge of the paid advertising on Yahoo in the United States and Canada. This meant that their ads would be distributed throughout the top 2 global search engines. In exchange, Yahoo had estimated the deal would bring them as much as $800 million.
Sleeping with the enemy!
Yahoo did not only sleep with enemy, but got married, bought a house, a car, and opened a joint bank account with its biggest rival. This deal gives a whole new meaning to the word surrender.
Google “keeping it real”
When you go around telling everyone you are so much better than the big bad wolf (Microsoft), your next move shouldn’t be partnering with your #2 rival and ending up being accused of having your own search engine monopoly. Smart as always, Google pulled out of the deal in time to save face, save time and – most of all – legal fees.
What about the Big Bad Wolf?
Today, Microsoft’s CEO offered the following perspective: “We made an offer, we made another offer, and it was clear that Yahoo didn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share.”
Yahoo shares fell $2.01 to $11.95 in morning trading on Friday (insert “sick burn” here). Yahoo rejecting the $33 per share offer made by Microsoft, seemingly not caring about their shareholders or other Yahoo well-wishers, seems like one of the worst search engine decisions of 2008.
The Big Wave Blog has been chronicling Yahoo’s troubles for a while.
It’s really sad to see one of our ex-favorite search engines turn into a car crash. I’m still loyal, for now. Yahoo has always been my home page…unless they outsource it to MSN?
