Surprise…surprise…Yahoo’s troubles aren’t over. Although not enough for Microsoft, they’ve rallied around Carl Icahn to lead the charge to acquire the number two search engine. But while this theoretically could create a powerful competitor to Google, Yahoo’s board of directors are claiming that they might be better off trying to survive on their own. So far they seem to be making some major plays in the Internet world with the most recent reported in a New York Times article that listed an interesting partnership between Yahoo and WPP.
I’m not saying that all of the decisions made by Yahoo have been the smartest, in my opinion, but this one might give them some leverage in raising their profitability and market share when it comes to advertising. Google’s big strength is allowing the average Joe the capability to run their own campaigns and why Google AdWords is a widely used tool. However, Panama was rumored to be really good for Yahoo, but seems to have failed to make a dent in the search engine advertising market. But, the partnership between Yahoo and WPP may make up for it.
Basically, WPP (a huge advertising conglomerate in the world) is doing most of the work in measuring and selling. They will tag their client’s site with a cookie that will monitor the activity of what the user searches when reaching similar sites. Now before you start screaming “Big Brother”, this has the potential of being much more accurate in figuring out what keywords to select. WPP’s online media arm, 24/7 Real Media, will measure the activity. Benefit to Yahoo?
Under the deal, the thousands of Web publishers that use Yahoo’s advertising auction service to sell space on their sites will get more direct access to WPP’s clients. Those clients, in turn, will be able to funnel their messages to Web site visitors who might be particularly receptive, using technology from an ad-targeting division of WPP called 24/7 Real Media.
WPP’s clients will also benefit from the extra information the agency will be able to collect about the behavior and demographic profile of people who visit sites on the Yahoo auction service, which is called Right Media. Those details will enhance the database that GroupM, which is WPP’s flagship planning and buying agency, collects about customer behavior.
Source: New York Times
Can Yahoo continue to survive using these means? I sure think so. They are going after where the advertisers are. Unfortunately, they didn’t disclose the financial terms, but I think that Yahoo needs to also re-examine its capabilities for small businesses to utilize their network. It also seems to me that they’re always one step behind everyone else. Just today, Yahoo announced as well that they’ve release SearchMonkey that will allow developers to create more semantic information when it comes to rankings. I’m sure that’s great for users, but isn’t that what OpenSocial and Google are doing to help evolve web 2.0 to 3.0?
Like I said, not all the ideas from Yahoo will be good, but I’m glad that they’re not giving up without a fight.
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