Microsoft and Yahoo reached a long-awaited partnership Wednesday in a bid to challenge Google's dominance in online search. Under the 10-year deal, Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing." Yahoo, in turn, will be responsible for attracting premium advertisers. Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo's sites. Microsoft will also have the rights to integrate Yahoo's search technology into its own existing Web search platforms. Yahoo said the agreement will modestly decrease its overall revenue but increase its operating income by about $500 million annually. Shares of Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) tanked 12% on the news, as investors expected Microsoft to pay the company up to $1 billion in cash up front for the deal, albeit with a more modest revenue-sharing figure. Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) shares rose about 1%, and search leader Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) stock price fell 1%. The deal is expected to close in early 2010. U.S. users will start to see the change three months later and users around the world will see the full effect within two years.
"This deal is really about scale," said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz on a conference call. "By combining the ... technology of both companies, we can create a real, viable alternative for advertisers." Microsoft said the transition will cost the company "several hundreds of millions of dollars," but it will benefit in the long run from the ability to charge advertisers more for its service, because the deal will improve the relevance of search results. Microsoft said it also expects to benefit from Yahoo's expertise, acknowledging that its new partner has more ad sales experience. "This really is a win-win agreement both for Microsoft and for Yahoo," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. "Consumers will get better products, and it will help the industry as a whole to prosper through our shared vision and shared values." Bartz said that some Yahoo employees will eventually move over to Microsoft and that some search personnel would be laid off. But she added that the transition will occur over time, so virtually nothing will change at least until the deal is inked next year.
Google. Both Microsoft and Yahoo -- but especially Microsoft's Ballmer -- used their joint statement and conference call to offer several digs at search market leader Google. In a joint statement, the companies said that "advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70% of all search." Ballmer argued that the search advertising market, as it is currently constructed, unfairly favors Google because of its dominance. He said many advertisers choose to enter into exclusive deals with leader Google to avoid the laborious process of entering into negotiations with three different companies. But the new partnership will simplify that process, and "advertisers will know now that is is clearly the second place to work," said Ballmer. He said he fully anticipates Google will launch an antitrust complaint against the partnership. "We'll likely face issues from 'the' competitor who may not like the competition," said Ballmer. "But our argument is we'll provide more competition, not less." Google disagreed, saying in an emailed statement that, "There has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users. We're interested to learn more about the deal." Microsoft and Yahoo will head to Capitol Hill and Brussels next week to begin the American and European regulatory processes for the deal. An 18-month odyssey. It was a partnership that was a long time in the making.
Microsoft's search market share has been slipping for more than two years, and the company has struggled to make its online advertising unit profitable. Meanwhile, Yahoo, once the search market leader, dropped to a distant second place behind leader Google by 2007. The dealings between the two companies began Feb. 1, 2008, when Microsoft made an unsolicited $44.6 billion cash and stock bid for Yahoo. A week later, Yahoo rejected the bid, saying the offer "massively undervalues" the company. In June of last year, Microsoft said it was no longer interested in acquiring Yahoo outright, but would like to enter a deal for Yahoo's search advertisement business. Bartz and Ballmer said those preliminary discussions involved more cash up front for Yahoo but a less revenue sharing. Bartz said Yahoo insisted on a higher revenue number so it could invest in its long-term projects like its core online media businesses. Though many analysts speculated that Microsoft's immediate success with its Bing search engine, unveiled last month, was the final nail in the coffin, Bartz said there was no one thing that pushed the deal through. "It was the understanding and trust that we could have a partnership, and that takes time," said Bartz. "Finally the comfort level was there, and the proverbial snowball went down the hill. Once we reached a point in which it was clear that a deal was advantageous to both companies, we moved forward." Ballmer said, for Microsoft, the deal wasn't better than the original revenue-sharing proposal, "just different. CNN Money
Google plunged into the world of social networking on Tuesday, melding pieces of Facebook and Twitter into a new feature, Google Buzz.
Buzz, which will work through the popular Gmail service, will allow users to post status updates, photos and links to members of their network -- as well as pull in their activity on other sites like Twitter, Flickr and Picasa.
Google spokesman Bradley Horowitz said the service, which was rolling out to some Gmail users Tuesday afternoon and should be available to all in the next couple of days, aims to weed out what he called the clutter of other networking sites.
With networking sites, "there's obviously value there," he said. "It's a phenomenon that's real, but it's increasingly becoming harder and harder to make sense and find the signal in the noise."
By letting users post photos, links and updates openly, the tool would mimic Twitter's micro-blogging format. But users also will be able to make their content available to "friends only," more closely following the Facebook model.
At an event at the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters, Google also seemed poised to take a poke at the AOL Instant Messenger service, saying Buzz will be offered to companies as a tool for interoffice communication.
"It will change the way businesses communicate around the world," Horowitz said.
Despite the inevitable comparisons, Google spokesmen said they didn't set out to tread on anyone else's turf.
"We try not to pay too much attention to competitors," Gmail product manager Todd Jackson said. "We try to listen to users."
Horowitz said Google Buzz will automatically make "friends" out of the people a user e-mails or chats with the most on Gmail.
See CNNmoney's report on reaction from some Google competitors.
Comments on posts will appear in real time. And comments by other users will be weighted, similar to how Google's search engine weighs results, to "collapse bad buzz and recommend the good buzz," Jackson said.
The hands-down leader in the search engine world, Google has been branching out on projects that include its Nexus One smartphone, the company's first foray into hardware marketing.
Late last month, Google announced that people could tweak their accounts to make results related to friends, co-workers and other members of their social networks appear above all other results.
The Social Search feature was introduced to a limited number of Google users last year and was made available to everyone in beta status on January 28.
The change came with a hint of more things to come.
"This is just a first step in our ongoing effort to ensure that Google Web search is always as social as the Web itself," the company said in an instructional video posted to its official blog.
Google Buzz probably won't be able to bring in status updates and other materials from Facebook for the same reason that Social Search doesn't.
Because most Facebook users set their information to be viewed only by friends, Google's search engine can't collect that information in the same way it can from Twitter and, obviously, Google-owned sites like YouTube.
Buzz also will have a mobile component, operating on most major wireless operating systems with features that include voice-recognition posting and a GPS-enabled ability to attach the user's location to posts.
The Web-based mobile application, which can be used by iPhones despite not going through Apple's online store, can also be set to pick up posts to Buzz being made near the user's location.
Changes to the tool could be coming quickly, too. Google officials say they're already studying possible expansions. They include allowing Buzz updates by phone, letting users post to their Twitter account through the tool and linking Buzz with the still-emerging Google Wave system.
"We're just getting started," Horowitz said. "We're not launching this today because we think we're done. We don't think that's how a product like this is built. CNN.com"
1.Dream on! Hum?? Dreams give hope to people. Many big things start with small dreams. Have you ever had a great dream that you felt was real. You told people about it, it got you excited and it gave you new hope but it never became real because you never took the next step. Time moves on and dreams are forgotten. Tips: Keep a piece of paper and a pen by your bed, each time you get a new idea or dream, write it down. Everything begins with dreams and then becomes vision. ‘Dreams without action are only sweet dreams.’
2.Vision? ‘My vision is not good I need to get my eyes checked.’ Having a vision is the beginning of a true challenge. Now you must change the vision to actuality. It is the steepest step in a short climb. To make the vision actuality you need a plan. Break your vision down into goals.
3.Goooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllll!!!!Having a goal for success is like the air we breathe, we cannot live without it. Without a goal you will not achieve success in your lifetime. Ok, now what? Let me give you a hint. Think about what you want to achieve in your life, think about your dreams. Think where you want to go in your life. I don’t like to think about the past but think about what you always wanted to achieve but you never did. Write short-term and long-term goals. Let’s start with a short-term goal, how about skydiving? Are you crazy?! Ok, what about reading a book? The Secret.A long-term goal might be buying a home or starting a business. The second most important thing about goals is to have a goal that is achievable. Now here is the hard part, anyone can come up with a goal but what you do after you have a goal is the big question. Ok, so this is what you need, first you need to put your goals down on a piece of paper; this is the first most important step in the process of changing your dreams to actuality. Your first goal will be to write your goals on a piece of paper. Ok, before you go any further, stop and go grab a piece of paper!
4.Now you have your goals in writing. Wow! I achieved my first goal! This will be the most important piece of paper in your life, it will be like your new birth certificate; you will use these goals to start your new way of life.
5.Take a hike! Great, I will! You should walk (I prefer to run) at least 30 minutes each day, early morning is really good because you begin your day with a fresh start and it’s the best time to think about new ideas and plan how you can achieve your goals. Tips: You should write you’re your ideas and plans on paper and use these to put together a timeline for each of your goal.
6.Achieving your goals will take discipline and hard work. So now you have your goals, you’ve written them on a piece of paper and you have the plan to achieve them. Now you need to just achieve them, but how? The question is not how, its when. I use a variety of techniques to help me achieve my goals. First, I post my goals in plain sight where I can see them over and over during the day. Another thing I do is have a necklace that has my most important goal on it and I wear that necklace everyday. This helps remind me and keeps me focused on my goal and the finish line. As I mentioned before, a timeline is important to keep my goals in check. You must keep checking the progress of your goals and make sure you have a realistic action plan in place to achieve them. Your goals are not going to be done by themselves, I wish they would! Everyone has a different way to achieve their goals; it’s important that you remain focused and do what keeps you motivated.
The joy you get from achieving your first goal is indescribable. I never had the right words but let me sum it up in two words: I rule! By achieving your goals you become a different person. You will see life in a positive way and you can live life to the fullest.Yes, I can!
