Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad GOOG?
Thursday, May 25th, 2006Hard to disagree with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who publicly takes the Yahoo-Ebay partnership in stride. “Its good for everybody on the Internet,” he said, according to eWeek.
Google’s stock still sits pretty, with a 1999-style inflated valuation but with a solid and admirably successful business plan.
The eBay/Yahoo “strategic partnership” is indeed a glowing green light for the internet boom survivors, and it means alot more than say, Google recent investment in 5% of AOL (TWX). eBay needs help with advertising to keep their listing prices from rising (as they have been) and Yahoo! gets to co-brand Skype and Paypal. Add that to Yahoo!’s stable of sky’s-the-limit goodies such as del.icio.us, Flickr, and upcoming, to mention a few outright purchases.
Both companies will reap the benefits of added page views (Yahoo is already #1 and eBay #9, according to Alexa). As the big papers are saying — its a sign of fear or its look out Ma Goog. (see also, Barry’s post @ Content Matters).
Rafat @ Paid Content sums it up from the market analysts perspective. Search Engine Lowdown sums up the tech value. Battelle calls it “Yahoo’s first major syndication win in years.”
