The Yahoo buzz..
There’s a perception that Yahoo is losing quite a bit of the buzz, especially on its search front. Quite true, in fact and not totally surprising either considering a statement made several months ago admitting that it has given up on the number one position in search.
While things may have been relatively quiet on the search front (at least publicly), Yahoo has been upto quite a bit recently. All of which kind of validate that Yahoo’s strength is not (and never was) search. It is a savvy content publisher/ aggregator that is good at making money from its various advertising streams. Its strategy seems to be of enhancing and building up vertical niches and integrating one with the other, such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Some recent examples:
a) First up, Yahoo’s acquisition of FareChase and integrating the host of features and functions the travel search engine had with some of its own. FareChase is now out of beta and it is very much an integral part of Yahoo; a clear attempt to enhance its travel vertical. More on the FareChase integration here.
b) Secondly, Yahoo just launched a consumer technology site that aims to “making technology easy for all Yahoo! users, especially those without a deep understanding of technology and gadgets”. This site will integrate a lot of Yahoo’s features including results from its shopping engine.
c) Yahoo introduced a fixed rate model for featured listings in its Local Listings– a new initiative from the pay-per-click model adopted for listings. It is continuing to use the PPC lisitngs as well; however, the fixed rate model is probably targeted at smaller advertisers who do not have the resources or the inclination to maintain and monitor a PPC campaign.
d) Lastly, and this is most relevant from a UK marketer’s perspective, Yahoo Search Marketing is now working with OMG to to distribute results from the Kelkoo site as well as its sponsored listings and directory listings. Affiliates can opt into this program. The company has the Yahoo Publisher Network program already (equivalent to Google AdSense) and this seems to be very much like inviting websites to be part of the publisher network. The interesting aspect is its leveraging an affiliate network to enhance its distribution.
All in all, the buzz may not be quite there, but there’s certainly not a lull at Yahoo either..
May 8th, 2006 at 9:10 am
[…] Last week, I wrote about how Yahoo has been up to a lot of activity without causing too many ripples. In the meantime, everything that Microsoft is doing is under the microscope (including the rumored take over of Yahoo). […]