Yahoo and Google have agreed to delay their online search ad partnership to give the Justice Department more time to evaluate the deal.

Spokesmen from both Yahoo and Google confirmed the delay.

Although Google execs have been especially adamant that the arrangement was going forward no matter what, the move is not surprising, given the increasing opposition to the deal involving the No. 1 and No. 2 online search leaders.

Read More »

About 10 days ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt opined in a press conference about the growing financial crisis: “My guess is that the drama is in New York and not here.”

Bad guess, as it turned out. Really bad guess, actually.

Yesterday, Google–one of many tech companies hammered after the House rejected the bailout plan–got slammed badly, along with Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and many others.

Today, most of those stocks made back a lot of what they gave up.

But the experience should have given Silicon Valley a bracing wake-up call that it is in no way immune to the situation and that its businesses will likely suffer along with media and all sorts of other consumer companies if the credit crunch is not assuaged relatively soon.

Read More »

It must have been the space cakes here in Amsterdam–otherwise how could we miss mentioning a new Web site that Google has put up about its controversial search advertising outsourcing deal?

Even as the Justice Department drills down on the deal, a very helpful Google PR guy sent information about the site, which is designed to convince critics of the benefits of the Yahoogle partnership.

But, curiously, the site touts the deal by using a woefully-out-of-context quote from a piece I did last week.

Apparently, I support it! (Actually, I do not.)

Read More »

Yesterday, BoomTown took a rather strong stand against Google and its recent aggressive efforts to defend its outsourcing deal to sell some of Yahoo’s search ads.

Given that the pair have a more than 80 percent combined market share in the search business, I and many others–advertisers, publishers and state and federal regulators–are a bit nervous about further concentration of market power in one set of hands, even if they are such Googley hands.

But in the interest of fairness and because I like to argue with myself, here is a counterpoint with three key reasons why Google and Yahoo might hold firm in launching the partnership, which sources said is likely to start on Oct. 9.

Read More »

It used to be, many years ago, that longtime Silicon Valley tech exec Eric Schmidt could work up a very significant head of steam when talking about the thuggish monopolistic practices of Microsoft and its negative impact on the tech industry.

And, for the most part, Schmidt was dead right.

Thus, BoomTown is both gobsmacked and a bit in awe that Schmidt–now sitting atop at the high-tech pig pile as CEO of the powerful search giant, Google–can, with a straight face, make the argument that everyone is wrong to be nervous about its deal with Yahoo to serve some of its search ads, even though the pair make up more than 80 percent of the search market.

Still, at a press conference yesterday, Schmidt went on the offensive to defend the Yahoo deal, which is set to begin in a few weeks, in a most peculiar way.

Read More »

Ben Ling–the high-profile Facebook platform exec who came from Google less than a year ago and then up and left the social-networking site earlier this week–is heading back to Google, this time taking a job leading monetization efforts at YouTube, according to sources.

On Tuesday, it was reported here that Ling was leaving his job at Facebook, where he has been director of platform product marketing.

It is a move that will surely spur many to rev up the Facebook-versus-Google stories, given that several Google execs have been recruited by Facebook over the last year.

Apparently, the Empire does strike back.

Read More »

Starting Tuesday this week, all the major players in the Yahoo-Microsoft-Everyone-And-Their-Mother circus will line their private jets up in Sun Valley for the high-powered 26th annual Allen & Co. confab of tech and media moguls.

That would be Microsoft, Yahoo, News Corp., Time Warner (which owns AOL), as well as Google.

It could be like that five families sitdown in the “Godfather” movies, except none of the parties can even seem to metaphorically whack each other, as the Yahoo saga drags on interminably.

Read More »

So why is Yahoo’s board holding out for a higher price than Microsoft wants to offer to raise it?

According to sources close to Yahoo, one of the more important reasons Yahoo wants a higher price has a lot to do with worries about the domination of the email and communications market if a merger with Microsoft took place and the threat of regulatory action that would force the companies to divest those assets.

Sources said that Yahoo wants a large cushion in case the government finds the combination of Yahoo Mail and Hotmail too much.

Read More »

Drummond wrote: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet
2/03/2008 11:45:00 AM
Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Translation: Please excuse the extreme tone of self-righteousness tinged by the sweet, sweet irony of this egregious attempt by the most powerful Internet company ever to play victim, which is only possible when our foe is the Death Star from Redmond.

Sergey and Larry totally foisted the brass knuckles on me, since they had to go kite surfing in Mauritius. Also, I am posting this on Super Bowl Sunday, as a form of geekish counter-programming. Lastly, I am not implying here that Yahoo is the future of the Internet. We are, obviously, but its distress will work well for our self-interested purposes.

Read More »

I will admit it–I thought Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman would go over like a lead balloon with the D5 audience, given the media giant had just sued Google–the digital arena’s biggest power of late–for $1 billion for alleged copyright violations at its YouTube subsidiary.
While not everyone in the tech space is cheering for the search [...]

Read More »

Now, in living color, the entire historic joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of Apple.
D: All Things Digital, the annual tech and media conference Walt Mossberg and I host, has been sold out with a long wait list every year we have put it on.
That has meant only a few hundred people [...]

Read More »

Starting Monday, we’ll be posting all of the interviews from D5 in their entirety. I will be posting and commenting on each interview here in this blog, but the videos will also reside in our video player.
While we have already posted the joint interview of Microsoft’s Bill Gates-Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as a solo [...]

Read More »

Another week, another legal battle for YouTube.
This time, the National Music Publishers Association is adding its name to an existing lawsuit over whether the video-sharing site–big surprise–violated copyright laws. The group owns copyrights to lyrics and melodies for songs, rather than the songs themselves, which are mostly owned by record labels.
And while the four [...]

Read More »

Of course they’re doing a phone.

So let’s just all agree to suspend the will-they-or-won’t-they speculation over the much rumored GPhone from Google.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Delaney and Amol Sharma wrote a nice wrap-up yesterday of the plans by the search giant to create a mobile handset.
And why not, especially since a lot of [...]

Read More »

Which is just what I–the Amazing Kreskin–predicted would happen in a post on Yahoo on Monday.

“At least Yahoo shares, which have remained lackluster, are not likely to be impacted, as the disappointment is already baked in, ” I wrote. “In Google’s case, most are waiting to see if it blows away estimates–which would not [...]

Read More »