Now that Microhoo’s not going to happen, Yahoo’s options may lie in working with, not against, the competition.

Sure, stock prices may have taken a plunge since the cancelled acquisition. But to be perfectly honest, would Yahoo really be a good fit within the Microsoft framework?

Badly-thought buyouts  are things Yahoo should be familiar with - anyone remember Geocities? The free webhosting service was once the reigning free site provider, back when Blogger was a novel but struggling new website. After Yahoo’s purchase, Geocities has basically disappeared into the annals of Web history, with none of its former clout.

Nowadays, it’s perfectly respectable to have a Blogspot account in lieu of your own domain. Right now, if you were hosting your site on Geocities, you’d probably be a laughing stock.

Google made the first move to easily integrate advertising into the social medium we now call blogging. Setting up AdSense on Blogspot is virtually idiot-proof and now Yahoo’s beginning to realize that there really is no point trying to compete with an advertising juggernaut who got there first, is doing it better and who would, for a fee, even help its competition out in the ad-front.

What does Microsoft bring to the table? Its annoying Windows Live single login network - not to mention Live Spaces still hasn’t caught on. Yahoo’s Mail is still widely used and its various portals are noteworthy for original, high-subscriber content.Yahoo! Music and Finance, for example, receive good corporate backing while still pulling in the viewers.

Perhaps Yahoo’s finally smartening up and realizing that it isn’t good business sense to offer up a similar, yet inferior alternative to your competition.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pm under Google, Opinion, Yahoo!.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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