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The Microsoft-Yahoo Merger From A User Point Of View

Robert Scoble — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:00:38 +0000

I’ve stayed out of the Microsoft attempted merger of Yahoo so far. But EVERYONE seems to be talking about it from all sorts of angles.

Me? I take the user’s point of view and that’s one I haven’t seen discussed much yet.

Will Yahoo moving to Microsoft be a good thing for users? Let’s take a tour.

Yahoo Messenger users and MSN Messenger users. Wash to bad things for Yahoo’s messenger. They already work together and I doubt that having two huge teams with two huge user bases of hundreds of millions of people trying to work together will bring much new. At worst case the Yahoo team will leave and so Yahoo’s Messenger will stop seeing new features.

Yahoo Mail and Hotmail users. Wash to bad things for Yahoo’s Mail. Same as with the messenger side of things. Eventually I can see Yahoo’s Mail get frozen and so bugs and things won’t get fixed on Yahoo’s side and I can see pressure (advertising, etc) to pull people off of Yahoo and put them on Hotmail or whatever they are calling it now (Microsoft Windows Live Mail).

Flickr. The users of Flickr are very scared of what a Microsoft purchase might mean. But here Microsoft has no significant player, so they’ll probably try to keep the development team intact. Plus, there are a lot of smart people at Microsoft who are into photography (Ansel Adams’ son Michael was at Microsoft Researcher Curtis Wong’s wedding, for instance) So, good things could happen here for Flickr’s users.

Delicious? No real Microsoft competitor and tons of Microsofties love Delicious, so good things ahead, just like Flickr.

Yahoo Maps and Live Maps? I like Microsoft’s Maps better, but there’s some tricks that Yahoo does better. So, if these teams get along we’d probably see an improved version of both services, although I doubt they’d remain separate code bases.

Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search? Microsoft is already gaining on relevancy, so that tells me there are still a few smart people at Microsoft working on search. They just don’t have a brand name worth s**t. So, Yahoo’s brand name on top of Microsoft’s search will help Microsoft out a lot. I doubt that we’ll see a Google killer out of the joining of these two companies, though. The sales teams will be joined and will prove profitable for Microsoft. For users, though? I doubt we’ll see anything for years in terms of dramatically better search.

Developer tools and such? Microsoft isn’t threatened by anything Yahoo is doing, although the Pipes and Fire Eagle and other Yahoo teams will probably love working at Microsoft. For users? Join those tools into Ray Ozzie’s new Mesh and we could see some cool new stuff.

Portals? Yahoo’s has more users, more respect, and more features. I don’t see anything major for users either way there.

Finance and Personals sites? I doubt users will see much change there.

So, for users, there’s some negatives, and some positives.

How do you see the Yahoo/Microsoft merger affecting users?

As to Microsoft employee morale? That’ll end up a positive in this deal. After all, Microsoft employees will see their stock go up, not down. That drives morale more than anything.

For board members? Marc Andreessen covers that.

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Yahoo and JetBlue’s Arrangement

Pat McCarthy — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:46:07 +0000

The announcement that Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger are partnering with Jet Blue to offer lightweight wifi services on flights is both extremely cool, and kind of sad at the same time for me.

Being that I’m traveling a lot now for work it becomes readily apparent when I’m in the air that it’d be nice to be able to connect to the web in order to get work done and communicate with colleagues, friends, and family.

However, in a weird way I also treasure those few hours of internet-free time to read documents or get stuff done that is harder to focus on with connectivity distractions. It’s also a good time to just relax on occasion by reading a book or watching a movie. I guess as connectivity hits the friendly skies it will just be another place I’ll have to learn to block out distractions to relax or be extremely productive.

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Yahoo Messenger Adds Vista Support

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:07:14 +0000

An updated version of Yahoo Messenger arrived in a pre-beta preview for Vista users, who can install it in parallel with their existing Yahoo Messenger client.

Developers at Yahoo built the Messenger client for Vista with the new operating system’s capabilities in mind, particularly the look and feel of Vista.

The Yahoo Messenger blog noted this preview release sports an entirely new interface. This draws from the Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft’s graphics subsystem in use with Vista.

The user interface and core functionality represent the areas of focus Yahoo centered on in building the client. Tab organization, enhanced emoticons, and the ability to skin individual IM windows list among the features.

As with other versions of Yahoo Messenger, this client can IM Windows Live Messenger clients. People can drag and drop contacts from Yahoo Messenger to the Windows Sidebar gadget and track them from there.

Plenty of work remains for Yahoo to do with the Vista version of Messenger. 64-bit support is on the list of future developments, along with almost every multimedia and messaging feature that isn’t a direct IM to another IM client.

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Impending Recession for Paid Search?

Andrew Goodman — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:42:40 +0000

How did I miss this post by Steve Rubel? Tired of doomsaying in the Web 2.0 bubble realm, he recently predicted an impending recession for poor old Google, based on several factors.

I’d like to address these as best as I can. While I don’t disagree that any market can peak, I find it pretty funny to note how rapidly Google’s revenues grew in the era *after* everyone started closely measuring their performance and *after* they began more carefully filtering click fraud and weak content partners. That rapid growth in 2004-7 came after many thought they saw click prices "leveling off."

The psychological reasons for these predictions are relatively simple: many people wish paid search would just go away. It’s troubling to observers who don’t like new things and want to turn the conversations back to older ad models. It’s also troubling to people who, since the free lunch of organic search referrals and the odd viral success began, do not think marketers should pay for anything. (In this regard, see Godin’s post of yesterday, Who Pays the Messenger?, which is a sensible reminder that bargains on marketing costs are for the rare few. The rest have to pony up.)

Rubel’s recession factors are as follows, with my responses:

Clutter. Does Rubel understand search beyond his own reaction to a single SERP? Google monetizes less than 60% of all queries, and has a consistent place they slot ads: in the top premium spot and right-hand margin. By and large, users have been trained to see the sponsored results as commercially-oriented, and organic listings as, well, something else. The consistency of this method is such that users have been seeing fairly similar screen layouts for more than five years. Why call clutter on Google now? If it’s a relevant listing, tailored to a potential searcher’s needs, it isn’t clutter.

The Traffic Has to Convert. Again, for more than five years, my firm and firms like mine have actively worked with clients to measure paid search performance, shaping the "cost per click" priced medium into a de facto cost per action medium. Part of that effort involves working with clients so that they "work backwards" – in fact in my "what’s new with paid search" presentation, recently I’ve put that slide first on the deck. You don’t have to "convert everything over" to cost per action. I’ll argue that this will *never* happen en masse because it would shut down all big media players and eliminate their leverage and reasons for being in business, in essence making them pay-for-performance affiliates of increasingly lazy marketers. The onus has to be partly on the advertiser to shape and refine their use of targeted media so that they can acquire customers via direct marketing, at rates below their cost per action thresholds (if this is how they measure). The minority of advertisers are sending traffic to nonconverting pages. None of this has any impact on click prices because the majority are measuring and paying for clicks with eyes wide open.

Rising Costs. Rubel cites a Forrester study that shows CPC’s rising 33% year-over-year from ’06 to ’07. That sounds like it might be in the ballpark. There’s no disputing that many advertisers aren’t getting any bargains, and in some industries, some players are priced out. So? It’s an extremely granular situation, with the markets for certain keyword searches still finding their level. Yes, eventually the ceiling is reached. But how many advertisers have I talked to who are still getting a 10X ROAS? Cut that in half, and half again (in other words, double CPC’s, and double them again), and they still wouldn’t quit the auction. Growth will slow eventually. That’s inevitable and pretty much a truism.

Marketers are Trying Other Things. People are discovering the online world beyond search. As they should. Whether this means money flees search (when the ROAS is locked in and screams "profit" to decisionmakers — they’re making money, not "spending" it) is an extremely dubious proposition. Likely this would be more than made up for by the declines in wasteful television, print, and other traditional, sometimes overpriced media.

Search Ads Are Untrustworthy? Trust and credibility. Indeed, that’s Job 1. If you’ve had a front-row seat, though, you’ve probably noticed the incredible efforts Google’s poured into challenging low-trust advertisers with poor quality scores and prohibitively high bids. Affiliate ads, false claims, arbitrage, hype, cheesy business models, etc. are all finding it harder and harder to advertise on Google. The standards bar is being raised month over month by a proactive, large scale initiative at Google that Yahoo and Microsoft are no doubt studying closely. That’s a trend that isn’t going away.

Search advertising is not a fad. It’s hard-wired to results and amenable to intense scrutiny and analysis. That’s why it thrived out of the gate in 2001-2004, while advertisers shunned the rest of the online advertising that had burned them so badly by not performing in the first bubble.

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Microsoft Confirms New Messenger for Mac

Nathan Weinberg — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:13:47 +0000

Microsoft has confirmed that a new version of its Messenger instant messaging software will ship with and when Mac Office 2008 hits stores.

While we don’t know anything about features, or even if it’ll be named Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger (presumably the new name, though), at least Mac fans are getting a new version.

Not only that, but work is already going on for Messenger 7, which will be the first Mac version with audio/video capabilities.

(via Digg)

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Adding Windows Live Messenger To Your Blog

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:57:58 +0000

If you’d like to make it easier for people to contact you via your blog (or MySpace or whereever you can post code), Windows Live Messenger has a site where you can create a nice-looking button in seconds that will get them in touch with your Live Messenger screen name.

You could even add the button to your email or forum signature, and there are multiple button designs, colors and taglines available to customize it for your needs.

I don’t like that the button’s source code exposes your Live ID, and thus your Hotmail email address, with no effort by Microsoft to obfuscate the email. That’s the kind of mistake Google makes every time it launches a product, and I expect smarter moves from Microsoft. As a result, clicking the button up there will launch an IM window, but you’ll be talking to my good friend joeyjoejoejunior5@hotmail.com, not me.

(via LiveSide)

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Yahoo Messenger Adds Social Features

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:34:21 +0000

Yahoo said today that it is adding new features to its instant messaging service.

Yahoo Messenger 9.0 in beta has added features that make the service more social in nature. There is now extra room to post a picture or other image next to contact names and users can share video or photos in the message screen. Users can also forward messages to their mobile phones when they are away from their computers.

Sabrina Ellis, vice president of Yahoo Messenger commented on the new social features saying, "In some ways, if you look at it Yahoo Messenger is a social network in that people have actually defined who their friends are and these are people they communicate with," she told IDG News.

Last month Yahoo Messenger had 94. 3 million unique users, an increase of almost 30 percent from September 2006 and second globally to Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger with 227 million users according to comScore.

On the overall integration of social features into Yahoo Messenger Ellis said, " This makes it easier fro people to stay connected and grow their friendships. We added several personalization features. We think a lot of the media- sharing will really help."

Bebo, Microsoft Partner

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:54:12 +0000

Social networking site Bebo and Microsoft have partnered to bring Windows Live Messenger to Bebo users.

The deal is the first time Microsoft has partnered with a social network for instant messaging and contacts.

The interface will allow Bebo users who use Windows Live Messenger to display their Messenger presence and IM with their friends on the Bebo network. The partnership includes the use of the Windows Live Contacts API. The API allows users to import and export their contacts.

Bebo users with Windows Live Messenger can add an "IM Me" icon which will be displayed on their profile page. By displaying their presence users will be able to have an IM conversation.

Joanna Shields, President, International at Bebo said, "Social networking is emerging as the new form of self-expression, allowing people to communicate their passions and express their identity to one another."

"Our agreement with Microsoft Windows Live delivers a powerful, new way to instantly update and keep in touch with friends and serves to make the Bebo user experience even more compelling and interactive."

Brian Hall, General Manager, Windows Live said," We’re excited to be working with Bebo to provide an innovative communication feature to one of the world’s leading social networking services.

Yahoo Messenger Webcam Zero-Day Exposed

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 22:57:24 +0000

Online chatter about a vulnerability in Yahoo Messenger has proven accurate, as a flaw in the service’s Webcam capabilities can be exploited.

Yahoo Messenger Webcam Zero-Day Exposed

Security firm McAfee revealed today that hackers in China had been discussing a zero-day exploit available for Yahoo Messenger. McAfee confirmed the exploit existed, and notified Yahoo of their findings.

A malicious webcam invite can trigger a heap overflow in Yahoo Messenger. Heap overflows have been a very common exploit condition in all kinds of software over the years.

Until Yahoo provides a fix for the problem, McAfee recommended that Yahoo Messenger users avoid accepting webcam invites from untrusted sources until this flaw has been patched. For further security, those who can block outbound traffic on TCP port 5100 should do so while Yahoo bashes out a patch.

Yahoo’s Webcam function also suffered from a problem with its ActiveX Controls back in June 2007. This new problem being discussed in China is not related to the June issue, which has been patched, McAfee said in its post.

Get Hot & Fresh Google Results

Andy Beal — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:08:18 +0000

How would you like to search Google only for pages that were updated in the last 3 months? Well, thanks to Matt Cutts – ok, so maybe he’s just the messenger – you can use Google’s advanced search options to restrict your search to the newest results.

Previously, I believe Google estimated the age of a url as the last time that we fetched that page. Given how quickly Google refreshes its main index, that didn?t mean quite as much recently. Now for date-based search, Google estimates url ages by the first date that we saw a url.

Here’s an example of the before…

And here’s the same search restricted to the last three months…

Hat-tip.

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