How the Microsoft / Yahoo Merger Could Affect Google Socially
Posted to: Blogger, Google, IM/Chat/Talk, News Stories, Picasa, Yahoo
No doubt by now you have heard the unsolicited bid that Microsoft has made of $45 billion for Yahoo. Should Google be worried? Certainly, Microsoft/Yahoo will be a formidable opponent, but let’s examine what this means for the social media landscape:
Social Bookmarking
Yahoo already owns del.icio.us, the most popular social bookmarking service out there. Google can counter this with Google Reader shared stories and Google Bookmarks, but del.icio.us is more flexible and made for bookmarking purposes.
Photo Sharing
Yahoo also has Flickr, arguably the largest photo sharing platform out there. True that Google has Picasa, but its adoption rate is far smaller.
Blogging
Windows Live Spaces was once reported to be the largest blogging platform, and Yahoo 360 is also notable in the space. Google already has the widely used Blogger platform. Lately though, Wordpress is really the one to beat in this market, especially with their latest round of funding lead by the New York Times.
Social Networking / News
You might think that Microsoft doesn’t have a part in social media, but don’t forget that they have a notable stake in Facebook, and have been rumored to be interested in buying Digg, the world’s leading social news site. Should this merger come to pass, Google will have to focus on the prize, as competition will be more fierce. Google has Google Dice, still a far cry of traffic as compared to the likes of Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, and StumbleUpon.
Instant Messaging
An interesting spot to think about here is the convergence of instant messaging in the social media space. As people need to communicate and collaborate at a faster rate, instant messaging becomes highly important. Enter Microsoft/Yahoo: Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger already have a much higher penetration than Google Talk, and the potential merger will allow them to further dominate in this space. Look for interesting activity here, perhaps even a larger position in microblogging.
Bottom Line
Will this merger make Microsoft and Yahooo stronger together? Perhaps. But the sheer size of both of these companies and all sorts of competing technologies makes this sound very challenging to integrate. This should give Google an advantage to gear up while the two companies get organized.
A Yahoo and MS merge would be insane and no doubt could give Google a run for their money, but it’s too early to predict. I just hope I can keep my email and mybloglog
@Fat Kid Unleashed:
Yes, this would be quite a landmark merger. I’m sure they’ll let you keep your email though, what a mess that would be otherwise.
I think its what they do with these formidable properties that will be most interesting … will they somehow integrate them into search?
@Jeff Quipp
Thanks for stopping in. How a Microsoft/Yahoo merge would integrate search with all the social properties is very hard to say. Lots at stake here and would need to be planned carefully.
I think it is definitely social search where a Yahoo/microsoft can have the greatest impact on Google.Yahoo’s been testing its results with del.icio.us results already.Google hasnt been very clear about its social search strategy..However at the same time a search market share of above 58% does give it time to integrate social media into the same
@Robin Jacob Abraham
Good point, social search will become very interesting in time to come and is still in its early stages. MS/Yahoo could definitely try to work towards Google’s lion’s share of the search market.
Well, I feel quite a bit concerned about this elephant merger idea. Acutally all the concerns about social search did not come to my mind in first place.
I was expecting that Google would advance it’s online office, online storin, operating system and all the other helpful networking developments to produce a more efficient online society. I gave up outlook and tried to implement most of the features with gmail and calendar hoping that these would improve in a faster pace.
It would be a real challenge to Google to keep up, although I am convinced, that the above mentioned points are of vital importance to stay alive
I am praying for Google
Indeed this would be quite an interesting merger if it happens. Yahoo has recently been pretty strong in the social computing space and that’s what Microsoft wants in their internet-based social computing portfolio. The online-ads sector is growing strong and that’s what Microsoft wants most.
@Terence Cackett:
With the amount of anti-trust MicroYahoo would need to get rid of, I would imagine that Google would have a head start to stay competitive.
@Ken Ng:
yes, the merger definitely sounds mutually beneficial. Online ads also play into social sites as they are traffic monsters, so the outcome should be very interesting.