Yahoo Follows Google's Purchase Of DoubleClick With Deal Of Its Own

from the right-back-at-you dept

After Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, it was widely assumed that many smaller online advertising firms were "in play". The fact that Microsoft was also a DoubleClick suitor combined with the fact that Google's rivals couldn't afford to fall too far behind meant it was only a matter of time before another deal was made. Hoping to provide an alternative to the growing Google behemoth, Yahoo has announced the purchase of privately held Right Media, a company in which it already has a 20% stake. Yahoo says that it will create an open ad marketplace, which sounds a lot like the idea that DoubleClick had cooking up before the Google purchase was announced. This isn't likely to be the last deal. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer recently said that his biggest regret was that the company has come late to the online advertising game, which suggests that the company will probably make a deal to play catch up. Now that its two chief rivals have made these purchases, the pressure on Microsoft to get a similar deal done has been ratcheted up.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    RandomThoughts, 30 Apr 2007 @ 12:47pm

    And in fact Microsoft is in talks with Atlas.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Rick, 30 Apr 2007 @ 1:16pm

    I'm still going to block them....LOL

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Craig Ferrante, 30 Apr 2007 @ 1:53pm

    better late than never

    I like having options on where to advertise the company i work for with google and doubleclick i didnt see a large change for me yet. yahoo is behind in there advertising system compared to msn and google. MSN may be the late arrival but i dont count them out yet!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    GoblinJuice, 30 Apr 2007 @ 2:09pm

    Too diversified?

    I'm not a Microsoft fanboy or hater, so take this for what it is - a complete outsider than doesn't have his heart in the fight.

    It seems, to me - maybe I'm wrong, that Microsoft is trying to do too damn much. It's trying to be The Only Tech Company.

    You've got Vista, Xbox, Zune, whatever the hell MSN is supposed to be, and now advertising? (I'm not even going to bother trying to list all of the other services/sectors MS is involved in. I couldn't, even if I wanted to.)

    I just can't see one company being #1 in all these fields. Or even #2.

    If I were Ballmer - I'm not and never will be, but I'd focus my attention on being #1 in a one or two or maybe three... not trying to conquer the friggin' galaxy and failing.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Nismoto, 30 Apr 2007 @ 5:03pm

    Re: Too diversified?

    Goblin,

    Really, who isn't trying to do "too much"?

    Google's doing the same.


    Yahoo! wants it all, too


    When any post starts off with "I'm not a xxx fanboy, but..." that's the first thing people think.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Xenohacker@hotmail.com, 30 Apr 2007 @ 6:57pm

    Squish...

    These companies are looking to squash each other. Good advertising is just one way in which this is done. Any bets on who will come out on top?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    GoblinJuice, 1 May 2007 @ 1:15pm

    Re: Re: Too diversified?

    @Nismoto - Ha! Good point! You're right. ;-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Iqbal Ahmad, 13 Jun 2007 @ 6:59am

    Google's Purchase Of DoubleClick

    Google's purchase of DoubleClick combines the two largest providers of online advertising delivery and is going to reduce substantially the market competition on which Web sites rely on to provide advertising and gives Google the power to control 80% of the online ad market. Microsoft and other companies are crying foul over the deal and hope to get government to look more closely at the deal.
    People increasingly compare Google to Microsoft in the mid-1990s—at the height of its power, arrogant at times. Is that a fair comparison?

    What is happening here happens in many industries. And thus the Internet moves into the real world. If one is selling consumer goods to retailers right now, you are complaining about Wal-Mart. In every industry's history there is this huge monster which develops that everyone has to deal with because it brings great efficiencies and lower margins due to scale. And, they also offer much lower return per unit and little or no flexibility
    Google’s business model is straightforward – attract as many users as possible to its site by providing what it considers to be “free” content, then monetize that content by selling ads. Google has “a hell of a business model – they’re going to take everything you create, for free, and sell advertising around it.

    So if this deal goes through & Google does indeed handle more than 80% of the ads served up after the acquisition, it seems more and more like a monopoly. Give away what others charge for to get them locked in to using your products. Analytics, free, optimizer, free, doubleclick PPC management, free?, doubleclick ad serving, free?
    It is also the same strategy Microsoft used to get everyone to use their products and put people out of business. But Google is a natural monopoly in online advertising industry. This is very much a monopolistic play. Microsoft may be the pot calling the kettle

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.