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Now that Microsoft didn’t buy Yahoo and isn’t going to do so in the future, it is considering new ways to gain share in web search. The company is going to sort of buy share by offering users cash as part of its Cashback program for using its Live.com search engine:
Search for cashback deals at Live Search cashback. Each time you click a Live Search cashback listing, you’ll find great deals on the product you chose. Your results will clearly list the cashback savings you’ll receive off the store price, and your final bottom-line price that includes tax and shipping costs. Also look for this icon (omitted) when you search for a product on Live Search to find great cashback deals.
Compare and sort products by the bottom-line price. Click the best deal to go to the store. Everything you buy during that store visit will be eligible for Live Search cashback. On your first time using Live Search cashback, we will ask you for an email address so we can tell you how to quickly set up your free cashback account.
Keep saving money each time you use Live Search cashback. Every time you make a qualifying purchase, we’ll send you an email to confirm your Live Search cashback savings. When your cashback account reaches a balance of at least $5, you can claim your cold, hard cash.
This is an innovative approach to growing insofar that no other competitor in the search engine market has taken this road before, as far as I can tell. But I’m not convinced that Live Search Cashback will actually work out in the long run and help Microsoft close the gap between Live.com and Google.com. The software giant certainly can afford to give money away to its users, it is sitting on a big pile of cash. The question is, however, whether the incentives offered through Cashback will result in sustainable growth.
I remain skeptical, because I believe Microsoft will need innovative search products in addition to innovative marketing if it wants to seriously compete with the world’s number one search engine Google.
I’ve read two interesting interviews involving Guy Kawasaki today. The first one is a discussion about blogging with Guy interviewing Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net, in the other one Guy is interviewed by Lee Odden of the Online Marketing Blog, also on the subject of blogging and social media:
Excerpt from first interview:
Question: How much can a blogger, assuming she is working hard and creating good content, really make?
Answer: The vast majority of those who blog don’t even consider the idea of making money from their blogs. They blog for fun, to keep in touch with family and friends, as a hobby and as a result making money doesn’t enter their minds (and in most cases it shouldn’t because making money from personal blogs is an uphill battle).
When it comes to bloggers who are in it for the money, the sad reality is that most don’t make a lot. Last time I surveyed my readers at ProBlogger about their monthly earnings the majority were earning very little (49% said that they earned under $100 a month). Many of these are new bloggers (ProBlogger has a very large percentage of it’s readers in their first months of blogging) but unfortunately even many mare experienced bloggers don’t earn much despite working hard and writing good content. …
You’re no stranger to marketing and promotion and the “brand of Guy Kawasaki” is known world wide. What tips do you have for online marketers that want to stand out from the crowd?
The only tip that really matters is this: “Market something good.” That’s the secret. It’s very hard to market a piece of crap. It’s very easy to market something good. I believe all marketing is based on good products and services.
Yahoo has seen many ups and downs in the past weeks. After Carl Icahn launched a proxy campaign against the search engine company last week, it seems that Yahoo gets a chance to get back up again:
Reuters reports that Microsoft has proposed an alternative deal to Yahoo. Apparently, MSFT is not interested in a full acquisition of YHOO anymore, but there might be other ways to work together. Many believe a search advertising joint venture to be a likely alternative, because both companies are looking to gain on market leader Google. At least, a partnership could help Yahoo fight off Icahn’s proxy battle.
However, Reuters quotes an anonymous source saying that the announcement of a possible Microsoft/Yahoo partnership could possibly provoke quite a contrary reaction:
The software giant’s move on Sunday was likely to prompt the billionaire investor to press Yahoo to further pursue a possible alliance with Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the source said.
“Microsoft is trying to get the milk without buying the cow, and if you look at Icahn’s history, he has never been used that way,” said this person. “He does not want to see Yahoo pushed into some joint venture with Microsoft and is not going to be used to push Yahoo into it.”
News of CBS Corp. going to acquire CNet Networks Inc. came as a surprise, but the $1.8 billion deal has not been closed yet. Quite the contrary, because CNet could get a modified go-shop provision into its merger agreement with CBS. A go-shop provision allows the company that is to be bought to go out and look for higher bidders for a limited period of time, usually no longer than 60 days after the merger agreement has been signed.
As reported by AdAge, online advertising revenue reached $21.1 billion in 2007. This marks a 26% increase over 2006, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau’s and PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ annual report of ad spending.
This big jump in revenue pushed web ad spending past radio and, more surprisingly, cable. Cable ad revenue was “only” $20.9 billion. The often cited migration of advertising dollars to the Internet will continue in the future, possibly at an increased rate.
Yesterday Google added some new features to YouTube Insight, the free video analytics tool available to YouTube publishers. The most interesting feature is the demographics tool, which can display the view count broken down by age, gender and geographic location. This allows publishers to better analyze who is watching their videos, hence allowing them to create more compelling content to meet their viewers’ needs.
Just watched an interesting video post from ProBlogger on the future of blogging. ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse was asked what he thought would be emerging trends in blogging. He said that there were five important trends he had been observing, namely:
Multiple-author blogs
Multi-topic blogs
Blogs converging with other types of sites
Portal-like design
Indirect monetization
As you will see, the bigger domain industry blogs are already following some of these trends. For example, DomainNews.com and DomainNameNews.com are multi-author blogs, most domain blogs are converging with web 2.0 sites too, and a couple of bloggers are indirectly monetizing their blogs by offering their own services and expertise to readers.
Only a few days after BPHG Media launched the project for its one-word generic domain Prices.com, another company is planning to bring its domain to the next level. Time Inc. is going to relaunch its Health.com portal on Monday. The site was not much more than a so-called brochure site before, which means that it was barely more than the online destination of a Time Inc. health magazine and it did not feature enough original online content or web 2.0 features to compete with other popular websites in the lucrative health sector.
IAC/Ask.com is buying Lexico Publishing Group, which is the owner of generic domains and online businesses Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. This will get Ask a great pile of additional unique traffic and make it the ninth biggest destination on the web in terms of the number of visits.
CBS Corp. said it was going to acquire CNet Networks Inc. for about $1.8 billion or $11.50 per share, which represents a 45 percent premium to its closing price on Wednesday. With this timely acquisition CBS wants to expand its reach across the Internet. I have always wondered why CNet has not been acquired earlier, taking into account their top-notch domain portfolio. The company owns many valuable generic domain names such as News.com, MP3.com, TV.com and Search.com inter alia, as well as established websites and online businesses. The acquisition has still to be approved by CNet’s shareholders.
Only a few days after Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) was reportedly raising its bid for Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) to $33 per share the company now decided to withdraw the offer, according to news by Reuters. The reason being that Yahoo was looking for $37 per share.
“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer,” Ballmer said in a statement.
“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.
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