As we all know, a great deal has been said about last week's Microsoft and Yahoo! ten year partnership deal, but who is getting the best deal out of all of this?
I am a loyal and avid fan of Yahoo! and this news are a bit sad to me, but I completely understand the move as the company has been struggling for quite some time now and the these are desperate times!
Carol Bartz and Steven Ballmer's deal is not that surprising, as we all saw this coming since the last days of Jerry Jang. A deal of some sort was inevitable and granted this maybe have been the last chance Yahoo! would get from Microsoft. Even though Microsoft has been trying to re-invent itself with the launching and marketing campaign behind Bing, which has paid of for them, as their market share numbers have been boosted nicely. But, Yahoo's market place is much higher than Bing's, with an over 20% share in the search engine business, what is the benefit for Yahoo's brand to give this advantageous reach away to Microsoft?
Does this mean the end of Search business for Yahoo! and the take over of Bing in the field? It seems like it, as Yahoo's latest efforts seem to be focusing elsewhere--recent release of their new homepage and focus in more unique, compelling editorial content with deals with AP and other news sources--and has almost given up on the search business all together and not bother to compete with the giant in the space--GOOGLE--and this latest partnership is just giving Bing the credentials to go after Google with Yahoo's help.
It is very sad indeed to see the direction Yahoo! has decided to take, as it is clearly uncertain what is going to happen to the online pioneer and its name after this contract ends. I think Bing gets the better deal out of the picture. I hope Yahoo's plan works out well for them after all and the brand doesn't go the direction MySpace is going or worse, it is finally sold to Microsoft altogether. This way perhaps Bing may be able to stand more strongly against Google, who owns over 70% of the search business market share.
I read this great article this past week on Media Post Search Insider's Newsletter: But Enough About BingHoo, Let's Talk About BingHoo, which provides with an excellent analysis on this BingHoo deal as they call it and what Yahoo! should expect out of the deal.
But Enough About BingHoo, Let's Talk About BingHoo by Rob Garner , Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Bing-rise/Yahoo!-fall last week, which makes now as good as time as any to start thinking about what it really means in the broad scope of "search engine marketing" - for both paid and natural search. I personally spent the better part of last week talking about and reflecting on the change, and I've written numerous thoughts on the implications. Given that there has been a little bit of time to let the news sink in, here are a few additional thoughts on what this change means in the long term for the search industry:
Two years is a long, long time in the search business. With all of the hype around this partnership, it is important that both paid and natural search marketers don't to get too over-amped about the immediate impact to their campaigns. Once the deal passes U.S. government scrutiny (at least six months), it may be anywhere between 18 to 24 months before Bing results are rolled out into Yahoo! pages. If you are currently engaged with a search agency, or are involved in an enterprise search campaign, then you are as familiar as you need to be with Bing results, for the time being. But watch and monitor developments closely.
Yahoo!'s market share will inevitably erode before Bing results get implemented. With Yahoo! exposed as having given up on search for an extended period of time, users will flock over to alternatives, most likely Google. But ultimately Bing wins either way, as Yahoo! is effectively put out of business as a search provider, though what Bing gains from Yahoo! will be much less later on.
Google's share and domination will rise. As I have stated in previous columns, Google will continue to dominate , and I see them going to as high as 85 percent total share in the coming months. While Bing wins in this deal at the expense of Yahoo!, the category leader also reaps the benefits of such a tremendous shift in the landscape. Google also gets share from Yahoo!, and there is a case to be made that Google is also getting category lift from Bing's $100MM ad campaign .
Bing will have to prove the quality of its traffic in the Yahoo! network before budget share increases. Budget shift in paid media is not a given for Bing, and perhaps one of its greatest challenges will be scaling its existing performance into the Yahoo! network. Bing generally performs well across many different verticals, but there is just one problem for marketers: There has never been enough available traffic from it to shift a substantial share of budget. With increased reach through Yahoo!'s share of search, they now have that opportunity. But how these campaigns react in Yahoo!'s various ad distribution deals off of the search page remains to be seen, and how they perform will be directly proportional to how many marketers increase their budgets to Bing.
A search pioneer falls. Having been a longtime user of Yahoo! search, syndicating Bing results is somewhat of a return to their roots; like the days where Inktomi or Google supplied the results, long before pay-per-click became a primary aspect of the landing page. In the early-mid 2000's, Yahoo! managed to grab a hold of virtually every major search play still standing - including Overture, AltaVista, FAST/AllTheWeb, among others. Effectively, most of this search legacy will be completely wiped out with the replacement of Bing results (though Yahoo! managed to kill most of them on their own), and there is nothing to indicate that Microsoft will be adopting any of these technologies at any major scale anytime soon.
AOL, Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, which Search Engine/Portal do people choose?
As we all may know three of the "Big 4" are suffering tremendously the squeeze of the current financial times, online trends and ultimately people's choice. AOL, MSN and Yahoo! are not longer the big guys there once were in online search and as online top destinations. With the arrival of Social Media networks like Facebook and Twitter, and the solid consistent growth over the years of Google; AOL, MSN and Yahoo! must reinvent themselves. There has been a lot of buzz for the last couple of years whether or not Yahoo! will sell to Microsoft or AOL to become what it was once the top online destination and really compete with Google, but with all the changes at Yahoo! taking place and their financial struggle, as well as AOL's--massive layoffs--and Microsoft new plans, this may no longer be an option.
Recently Microsoft re-launched its search engine with a new name: "Bing", to make it catchier and compete more directly with Google. Microsoft is certainly going through an identity crisis, as it was first called MSN, then Live.com and now it' s "Bing" for search--MSN is still their online portal. "Bing" launched a couple of weeks ago with a pretty big marketing campaign online and TV called: Search Overload, aiming to relieve that and provide with a new engine/tool to the user with qualitative results in a more organized and sleek way. This campaign seems to be working, as it has raised some eyebrows from Google and they have taking notice thus far.
According to Comscore, "Bing" has continued its market share over the last two weeks after it launched. Microsoft's search share hit 12.1 percent from 9.1 before "Bing" launched, giving Microsoft a BIG boost and putting it in second place, after Google and dethroning Yahoo! from it! Pretty good gain and effort from Microsoft, but will it be enough?
I checked out "Bing" when it first launched and I think it's pretty good, much better than Live or MSN, so I used it for a day or so, but old habits are hard to overcome and I returned to my choice: Yahoo! and sometimes Google. There have been some hiccups over the last two weeks with "Bing" that include some down time and maintenance issues, which has cost them some additional traffic that they could have claimed had their system been optimized and ready for any issues like that. Something that is worth noting on the marketing side of "Bing" is their Search Overload approach to their campaign, which is interesting, as several weeks prior Xerox came up with their own online marketing campaign with a humorous video that addresses and seeks to overcome Information Overload Syndrome today. Microsoft's series of Search Overload themed videos and approach is sort of an imitation/copy of Xerox humorous take on IOS, sowouldn't this be considered plagiarism on Microsoft's part--just food for thought? Check them out and you tell me your thoughts... XEROX - IOS
BING - SO
In any case, I think that "Bing" will be able to do the trick for Microsoft for now, until something bigger comes...until the day when Yahoo! decides to join forces with them to try to beat Google.
AOL on the other hand is the weakest of the "big 4" and with Time Warner's decision to legally and structurally separate from AOL, their future is grimmer! With massive layoffs, dropping traffic numbers and archaic and non-effective ways of going forward in the business, AOL must come up wit something BIG and unique to really become what it once was: one of the pioneers. So, let's wait and see what happens with American Global Internet--formerly America Online.
On the Yahoo! front, I think that things are not as bad as AOL's, but not much better than or equal to Microsoft's positioning and place in the online space these days. With Carol Barz at the helm of the company since early 2009, Yahoo! seeks to become what once was: the true pioneer of the internet! But to be able to maintain that claim the fame and directly compete with Google and Microsoft, Yahoo! must deal with the many challenges it faces wisely. This financial recession is not helping them at all, so the company is going of a selling spree of properties and domains that they don't use or no longer work or are profitable to them. Some examples are: Yahoo! 360, the auctioning of domains like Candy.com, Toys.com and more recently Contests.com for a meager quarter of a million dollar, as Tech Crunch recently reported.
Additionally, Bartz is not focusing so much on Yahoo! search's capability and doesn't seem to care about "Bing's" threat or Google's for that matter. So, many people are not really using Yahoo! for search and as she has said: "we are more of an all around destination/portal that offers editorial content to the public with search capabilities", insinuating that search is not their focus, which is unfortunate because in able for Yahoo! to keep up and compete with the others it must be good and strong in all levels!
Granted, I am a true/avid fan and follower of Yahoo! since day one and I will always be loyal to them, but sometimes I find myself using Google for things that require more in depth results and updated features like Google search and Google maps, so Yahoo! please do work on improving these and be cutting edge like Google manages to often be!
Nevertheless, Yahoo! manages to be a better rounded destination/portal for online users, offering: news, reviews, video, social networks, mobile, search, etc...While Google is more focused on search and video now with its acquisition from a few years ago of YouTube. And this is something Yahoo! can learn from acquiring new strategic online properties to become a bigger competitor...did anyone say Twitter, perhaps! And Google, I don't think that there is much left to say, you are the WINNER, who takes it all! To be on top you have proven to be cutting edge, revolutionary, consistent, fresh, fast and so on; thus, your place as the number one in the online space in terms of traffic, popularity, choice, market share, etc. But, one thing Google, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo! should always remember is that even though defection of fans is critical, true fans can also be loyal and stick with what they know and is familiar and those habits can be hard to change! Take me for instance, I will always be a Yahoo! fan until then end and until that happens I will not defect and fully convert to anyone else...I mean, I will try something and use it for a while or once in a while and go back and forth, but not fully commit to "Bing", Google or AOL!
So, after this dissection of the "big 4", what are your thoughts...who do you prefer and choose to be your search engine and online portal?
Please share your thoughts on this and what your liking is...
