Wikiasearch to End Google-Yahoo Search Domination-Jimmy Wales

Google has been threatened to be taken over in searching, but by whom????

Search any prominent name, event, organization, etc on Google and the top search results yields are from Wikipedia.

Yes you've guessed it right. Google has been warned by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales that Wikiasearch would takeover Google in the most widely used Internet search engine in near future.

Making an issue out of internet cartel like scenario because of only Two or Three Search engines he says that time has arrived for a creation of broader market for the users to get the maximum benefit.
Google and fellow titans Yahoo and Microsoft dominate the Internet search engine market which Wales said was already causing some worry among web users.

"Right now in the US in particular we have a really strong concentration of the industry," Wales said Thursday at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore.

Industry statistics showed over 90 percent of Internet searches in the United States are done through the three firms, he said.
Wales said Wikia Search will run on an open platform, similar to the principles behind Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia in which entries can be made and edited by anyone with an Internet connection.

Yahoo seeks Google's aid after Microsoft talks die

But after eluding Microsoft's grasp, Yahoo is now turning to Google to help squelch a rebellion among its shareholders who believe it should have accepted Microsoft's $47.5 billion buyout offer while it was still available last month.

Yahoo announced its decision to let Google handle some of its advertising sales late Thursday, just a few hours after revealing it unsuccessfully tried to persuade Microsoft to renew its previous offer of $33 per share. The snub caused Yahoo to conclude that there is no hope for any kind of deal with Microsoft.

Although Yahoo believes Google could help boost its annual revenue by $800 million, the advertising partnership wasn't enough to ease the disappointment of investors who had been holding out hope for a Microsoft deal.

Yahoo shares plunged $2.63, or 10.1 percent, to finish Thursday at $23.52 and shed another seven cents after the market closed.

Part of the problem for Yahoo is that antitrust concerns might prevent an alliance with Google.

Google already holds about 75 percent of the $11 billion search advertising market in the United States with Yahoo a distant second at 9 percent, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc.

Microsoft and a variety of consumer-interest groups already have signaled they will turn up the political heat in an attempt to prevent Google from working with Yahoo.

The outcry already has drawn the attention of U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights.

"The consequences for advertisers and consumers could be far-reaching and warrant careful review, and we plan to investigate the competitive and privacy implications of this deal further," said Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat.

Yahoo and Google have voluntarily agreed to wait until late September to begin working together to give the government adequate time to review the arrangement. If it isn't blocked, the partnership could last for the next decade.

The antitrust scrutiny appears to be the least of Yahoo's worries for now.

The Sunnyvale-based company also is trying to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn, who has vowed to replace the company's board because of the way the directors handled the Microsoft negotiations during the past 4 1/2 months.

But Icahn has been hoping to engineer a sale to Microsoft, so his campaign could be hurt by the perception that the software maker has lost all interest in buying Yahoo. Shareholders may be reluctant to support Icahn's attempted coup unless he can demonstrate his slate of directors has a better turnaround plan than the current board.

Icahn did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The fate of Yahoo's board is scheduled to be determined at the company's Aug. 1 annual meeting.

"If you are a Yahoo shareholder, you just have to be scratching your head right now," said Standard and Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler.

If Wall Street's backlash becomes severe enough, Kessler said he believes Yahoo might have to consider replacing co-founder Jerry Yang as its chief executive — something Icahn has already promised he will do if he wins control of the board.

After Yang took over the reins from Terry Semel a year ago, Yahoo's stock price fell from $28.12 to $19.18 at the time Microsoft launched its unsolicited takeover attempt in January.

Yang "has been slow to move, slow to act and it has cost shareholders as a result," Kessler said.

Many Yahoo shareholders blame Yang for letting his emotional attachment blur his judgment during the Microsoft negotiations.

Yahoo's board sent Yang and fellow co-founder David Filo to a pivotal May 3 meeting in Seattle to discuss Microsoft's oral offer to buy the company for $33 per share, up from its initial bid of $31 per share. After Yang demanded $37 per share, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer withdrew the offer.

In recent weeks, Ballmer has been trying to buy Yahoo's search engine instead.

Yahoo concluded that its search engine was too important to sell piecemeal.

Without explaining its logic, Microsoft said it believed a deal involving Yahoo's search engine would have been more valuable to Yahoo than if it had bought the entire company at $33 per share. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker said it remains open to buying Yahoo's search operations.

Yahoo's deal with Google includes an escape hatch should Microsoft or another suitor buy the company. If Yahoo is sold, Google would receive a termination fee of up to $250 million.

That clause could still raise hope that Icahn might be able to renew the Microsoft talks if he can win control of Yahoo's board.

The deal shapes up as a major victory for Mountain View-based Google, which didn't want Yahoo to fall into Microsoft's clutches.

"I am happy to be helping them to stay independent," Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in a Thursday interview.

With a Yahoo deal off the table, Microsoft could set its sights on a smaller acquisition that still might help its unprofitable Internet operations. Analysts have cited Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Internet software service provider Salesforce Inc. and leading online social networks, News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook Inc. as possible targets.

The Google partnership expands upon a two-week trial conducted in April while Yahoo was trying to pressure Microsoft into raising its bid. The tests confirmed Google's technology would generate more revenue for Yahoo than its own system, which cost more than $2 billion to acquire and improve.

Nevertheless, Yahoo still intends to use its own search engine to distribute some ads and process all search requests. Working with Google will give Yahoo "the best of both worlds," Yahoo President Sue Decker said a Thursday conference call.

Yahoo Wants Appraisal On Current Offer From Microsoft

Yahoo is not opposed to a deal with Microsoft but Microsoft should pay more than $31 a share if it wants to buy the company, Yahoo plans to say in a letter to Microsoft, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
n the letter to be sent on Monday, Yahoo is also expected to reject Microsoft's suggestion that its business is deteriorating, the person said.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in a letter to Yahoo's board on Saturday threatened to lower his company's bid and mount a proxy campaign if the Internet company does not agree to a deal in the next three weeks.

Yahoo details plans for new online ad sales system

Yahoo Inc on Sunday detailed plans for its forthcoming Web advertising management system that gives its ad sales-partners access to online ad space both on Yahoo and other major sites.

The widely anticipated system, known as AMP!, aims to simplify the process of buying and selling online ads for advertisers, ad agencies, fast-growing ad trading networks and Web site publishers.

The ad management system seeks to capitalize on Yahoo's strength as a Web site publisher that reaches 500 million Web users monthly and recent efforts to sell ads off of Yahoo through major partnerships or specialized ad-sales networks.

The planned advertising system, formerly code-named Apex, is the lynchpin of the company's strategy to reach outside its own base of users and increase its position as the "must buy" location for online advertisers.

While the strategy remains in its early stages, AMP! is one of the products which Yahoo management believes will help propel the Web pioneer's next wave of growth. It is also one factor behind Yahoo's reluctance to accept Microsoft Corp's unsolicited takeover bid currently valued at $42.4 billion, which executives believe undervalues the company's assets.

"This is really about creating a massively networked advertising ecosystem," Yahoo advertising executive Mike Walrath said in an interview. Walrath founded Right Media, an ad sales exchange, in 2003 and sold it to Yahoo last year.

AMP! will be introduced in stages starting in the third quarter of this year, Yahoo said. It aims to give individual sites the capacity to sell ads across the Web, replacing single-site systems that still use e-mail and even faxes.

The move also is a response to major competitors Google Inc and Microsoft Corp, which have each acquired major competitors in the market for sales of online display ads used by corporate brand marketers. Google closed its $3.4 billion acquisition of ad sales management firm DoubleClick last month. Microsoft paid $6 billion for aQuantive last May.

AMP! is a suite of tools that offers precise geographic, demographic, and interest-based targeting across a vast network of Yahoo sites and ad sales deals Yahoo has struck with more than 600 newspapers, Comcast and eBay Inc

It also includes niche Web sites such as WebMD, Forbes, the major ad networks, and thousands of smaller sites on the Web.

In its initial stages, AMP! is designed to expand the reach of dedicated sales forces at newspapers or sites such as WebMD to allow them to reach many times larger audiences outside of their own sites, where they can cross-sell their advertising.

Yahoo promises to 'amp' up ad platform

Yahoo Inc. believes it's poised to revolutionize online advertising after years of being outmaneuvered by rival Google Inc.

But the slumping Internet pioneer might not get the chance to show off the latest improvements to its online advertising platform unless it can convince increasingly impatient investors that the new approach will produce a bigger payoff than Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited offer to buy the Sunnyvale-based company for more than $40 billion.

Hoping to gain wiggle room, Yahoo is releasing more details about its effort to become a one-stop shop for selling and distributing online display ads — the Internet's equivalent of billboards.

The upgrade, called "Amp," won't be available until some time this summer, and then only on a limited basis among more than 600 newspaper publishers trying recover some of the revenue that the Internet has siphoned from their print editions.

Nevertheless, Yahoo will begin promoting Amp on Monday with an online video demonstration of a system that the Sunnyvale-based company promises will make it easier for advertisers to aim their messages at specific demographic groups across scores of Web sites.

"This is a revolutionary approach that will allow marketers and publishers to deliver a more compelling experience for consumers," said Hilary Schneider, Yahoo's executive vice president of global partner solutions.

Those remarks echo similar boasts that Yahoo's top two executives, Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, made at an online advertising conference in late February. At that time, the new system was still operating under the code name "Apex," short hand for Advertiser Publisher Exchange.

Amp will rely heavily on data that Yahoo collects about people's preferences at its own Web site as well as other online destinations. The practice, known as "behavioral targeting," has raised privacy concerns, but Yahoo — like rivals using similar tracking technology — believes consumers will appreciate seeing more ads tailored to their individual interests.

Yahoo's new platform will be competing against similar technology recently acquired by Google and Microsoft. Google bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion primarily so it would have a better vehicle for selling display ads. The same objective drove Microsoft's $6 billion purchase of aQuantive.

Amp didn't cost Yahoo nearly as much. Besides relying on engineering developed by its own engineers, Amp draws on technology that Yahoo picked up by buying online ad service Right Media and Blue Lithium last year for a total of $781 million.

Selling advertisers on Amp may prove to be easier than convincing Yahoo's shareholders that the new platform is a better bet than selling to Microsoft, whose unsolicited takeover offer was initially valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.

Yahoo maintains its franchise is worth a lot more, partly because of promising new advertising ideas like Amp.

But investors have reason to doubt Yahoo's judgment after two years of disappointing results.

"They have a little bit of a credibility problem right now," Jupiter Research analyst David Card said.

In a sign of the skepticism dogging Yahoo, Wall Street hasn't embraced the bullish optimistic outlook that the company released last month to illustrate why its board of directors rebuffed Microsoft's bid.

Yahoo projected its 2009 revenue, after subtracting ad commission, will total $7.1 billion, up 25 percent from this year. The company expects its 2010 revenue to climb another 25 percent to $8.8 billion.

Analysts have much lower expectations, with their average revenue estimates standing at $6.4 billion for 2009 and $7.4 billion for 2010.

Amp isn't the first advertising upgrade that Yahoo has touted as a financial catalyst. Last year, the company rolled out a much ballyhooed formula called "Panama" that was designed to do a better job of displaying text-based ads alongside online search results.

Although most advertisers applauded Panama as an improvement over the previous system, it wasn't enough to lift Yahoo out of the financial doldrums that have depressed its profits since 2005. The downturn opened the door for Microsoft's bid.

Just how much longer Yahoo can fend off Microsoft remains uncertain.

On Saturday, Microsoft said that if a deal was not reached by April 26, it would launch a hostile takeover at a less attractive price. If Microsoft pursues that option, Yahoo's annual shareholders meeting will be the most likely forum for the showdown. Yahoo must hold the meeting by July 12, right around the time Amp is supposed to debut.

Battling To Survive, Yahoo acquires Maven Networks

Undeterred by the threat of a hostile takeover, slumping Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc. completed an acquisition of its own Tuesday by buying online video service Maven Networks Inc. for $160 million.
The deal marks Yahoo's latest attempt to expand its online advertising network and snap out of a two-year financial funk that has culminated in unsolicited takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo's board rejected the bid Monday, prompting Microsoft to raise the possibility of taking its offer — originally valued at $44.6 billion or $31 per share — directly to shareholders.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo thinks it's worth more, an opinion echoed by its second largest shareholder in a letter released Tuesday.

"We think (Microsoft) will have to enhance its offer if it wants to complete a deal," wrote Bill Miller, a respected fund manager for Legg Mason Inc., which owns more than 80 million Yahoo shares.

Like many other industry analysts, Miller predicted Yahoo ultimately will end up in Microsoft's clutches.

"We think it will be hard for (Yahoo) to come up with alternatives that deliver more value than (Microsoft) will ultimately be willing to pay," he wrote.

Miller also wrote that he has already met with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, and spoken to Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO and co-founder, to share his views.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft so far has indicated it's not budging from its original offer, calling the proposal "full and fair." Analysts believe the tense mating dance will last at least a few more weeks.

In the meantime, Yahoo continues to work on a long-promised turnaround.

The talks to buy Cambridge, Mass.-based Maven began before Microsoft announced its bid Feb. 1, said Tim Cadogan, Yahoo's senior vice president of marketing products.

Maven helps television and movie studios find Web sites to show their videos and manage the accompanying advertisements. The six-year-old startup works with a wide range of media outlets, including CBS Sports, Gannett Co., News Corp., Hearst Corp. and Sony Pictures.

Online video advertising is steadily climbing as more people watch news and entertainment online. The amount spent on Internet video ads annually is expected to triple during the next three years to $4.3 billion in 2011, estimated research firm eMarketer Inc.

"We think video is going to become the third leg of the advertising stool," said Cadogan. Ads tied to search requests is currently the Internet's biggest moneymaker, followed by so-called display ads featuring photos, illustrations and other images.

Yahoo has been discussing a search advertising partnership with the market leader, Google Inc., as a way to boost its profits and thwart Microsoft's bid. But a deal between Google and Yahoo would face significant antitrust hurdles because it would meld the two largest search advertising networks, causing more analysts to conclude an alliance is unlikely.

As in search, Yahoo is trying to catch up to rival Google in Internet video.

As of December, Yahoo held a 3.4 percent share of the U.S. online video market, lagging far behind Google, whose ownership of industry leader YouTube.com gave it nearly one-third of the market, according to comScore Inc.

Yahoo plans to retain Maven's roughly 70 employees even as it completes plans to lay off 1,000 workers in other divisions as part of a plan announced two days before Microsoft's bid.

Employees affected by the job cuts reportedly began receiving layoff notices Tuesday. Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment.

Based on a previous mid-February timeline established by management, Yahoo is expected to release additional details about the layoffs late this week or early next week.

Yahoo shares fell 1 percent, or 30 cents, to $29.57 Tuesday while Microsoft shares rose 13 cents to close at $28.34.

T-Mobile Replaces Google By Yahoo in Europe

Yahoo Inc ousted archrival Google Inc as T-Mobile's top Internet partner in Europe as it unveiled a service to squeeze social Web connections on to cell phone screens, a day after rebuffing a $41.6 billion takeover bid from Microsoft Corp.

The deal, announced at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair on Tuesday, puts Yahoo on a strong footing with carriers in Europe, building on deals it has closed with operators in the Americas and Asia, as it seeks to make up in mobile the ground it has lost to Google in computer-based Web search.

Yahoo now has access to 600 million potential users through its carrier partners worldwide, and Marco Boerries -- the executive leading Yahoo's mobile push -- told Reuters he aimed to reach 1 billion by the end of 2009.

"Europe is now wide open," he said in an interview at the trade fair. "For the rest of Europe, let the games begin."

Yahoo's new service, called oneConnect, creates a single contacts list for users that draws on all their Web connections -- regardless of whether those connections were made through instant messaging services, email or online social networks.

Users can then see -- to the extent that their contacts allow them to -- their friends' availability, activities and messages, without the bother of trying to navigate between Web sites and inboxes on a mobile phone.

"Today, most people have too many forms of communications," said Boerries, executive vice president of Yahoo's Connected Life division. "To keep in touch with all of them you have to go to all of these different Web sites."

Once the free service becomes established, Yahoo plans to introduce discreet advertising on parts of oneConnect, sharing the revenues with phone operator partners.

RACE FOR HEADLINES

Google and Nokia briefly grabbed the headlines at the Barcelona wireless fair on Tuesday, announcing a deal to integrate Google Search into Nokia's own search engine it preinstalls on dozens of its handset models.

Nokia, which makes 40 percent of cell phones sold in the world, will add Google to the Microsoft and Yahoo search options it already includes.

The race between companies wanting to put their own stamp on consumers' experience of the mobile Internet -- and gather information critical to advertising strategies -- has made rivals of parties once happy to mind their own business.

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Nokia have been outdoing each other with mobile Web-related news at the fair this week.

Yahoo's deal on Tuesday with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile division trumped the excitement that broke out around Microsoft's announcement late on Monday that it had agreed to buy Danger, a company best known for the software that drives the Sidekick mobile Web browser.

Before the fair, a buzz had built up around anticipated sightings of prototypes of phones based on Google's new Android software platform -- a buzz that quickly subsided as it became apparent that the working models on display bore little resemblance to anything that might appear in shops.

But the struggle for influence over the mobile Web need not have a single or even just a few winners, said the head of Microsoft's mobile communications division, Pieter Knoock, pointing out that the market was growing fast but still tiny.

Just 123 million of the 1.1 billion phones sold last year were so-called smartphones, cell phones with computer-like capabilities like e-mail and Web browsing, and business models are still being developed for mobile advertising.

"There's a lot of opportunity," Knoock said in an interview. "Mobile advertising is a greenfield site, and PC advertising expertise doesn't necessarily help."

"The question is who's going to win in which services."