After spending almost nearly a year spent rejecting then seeking alternatives to Microsoft’s buyout offers, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang said yesterday he believes a deal between the two is still the best option for the Yahoo.
Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit hours after Google ditched its search advertising partnership with Yahoo, Yang said he remains open to selling the Internet company to Microsoft, at the right price.
Yang also said he remains “open-minded” about selling Yahoo’s search business to Microsoft, but added was no “new news” on talks between the two companies.
Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo’s search business after withdrawing an offer for the whole company in May.
Yahoo shares surged on Wednesday after a rumor posted on a blog said Yahoo and Microsoft were in advanced talks to sell the company for between $17 and $19 a share. The blog also reported that Yang would step down from his CEO position.
Yahoo officials later said the report was untrue.
As you all know this year Yahoo’s turned down Microsoft’s $31 a share offer, as well as an increase $33 offer as well as Microsoft’s $2 Billion dollar offer for the search business.
Yang also declined to comment on Yahoo’s discussions with Time Warner Inc about buying its AOL division.
I think we can all look to this chain of events and feel better about ever bad decision we have made.
Thanks for the info – lets see what will come out in the near future.
In business, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. – Chester L. Karrass
You’re being very polite in your editorial comments, MHB! Case studies will be written about the incompetence of Yang/Yahoo, resulting in the loss of billions of shareholder value.
Now Yahoo is useless as a company.
In negotiations with Microsoft I’m sure they shared some proprietary information with Microsoft who surely sucked it up like a sponge (they have a long history of stealing/borrowing/buying/using other people’s technology.
Also, I would imagine that Yahoo gave similar proprietary information away to Google who now knows LOTS more about its competitor than it did before.
Now Yahoo is the ugly girl at the dance and Microsoft or Yahoo no longer have any interest.
Maybe Yahoo and AOL can get together and ride off in the sunset together while other better companies eat into their marketshare.
With evolanding, domain embarking and whypark I have/had high search engine rankings in Yahoo and it was meaningless.
Who uses Yahoo for search anymore? Really?
So they are a portal? Big deal.
So they have advertisers that Google and Microsoft want? Maybe but they can be enticed away from Yahoo and then what does Yahoo have?
Not much from what I can see.
I’ve had many girlfriends like Jerry Yang. They don’t know what they have until… they lose it.
Jerry Yang and found of Facebook should get together and count how many billions they’ve walked away from. We as domainers should support Yahoo with all we got. Bcuz if Yahoo goes so does the rest of the domain industry down the fuckin toilet .
FX,
Time to put on your wet suit. Even if we domainers were united it would still only amount to a tiny issue for Yahoo.
I am VERY bullish about domains, the Internet and online advertising but unfortunately I am bearish about getting my share via PPC revenue.
Developed sites are going to get the direct advertiser revenue and parked domains will get the crumbs.
So, with or without Yahoo, plan for the worst.
Here is my development plan:
Develop one niche site with adsense, affiliates and direct advertisers then point in all related domains so they land on this optimized domain/website.
So, I guess I can call it a “funnel” plan for development and I will stay on this path until I am confident that parking revenue is rising.
I agree with FX. Plus, Yahoo pays better.
Domain traffic makes up 10% of Yahoo’s traffic ….at least that is what I read. So, we could have some influence. It’s not tiny. For Google it is about 3% which is somewhat tiny.
Domainers need to come together and form our own network and sell our own ads…..after all we have the best traffic there is.
I also sometimes wonder if Marchex will open themselves to us one day……they sell their own ads. It could be mutually beneficial.