Confirming earlier reports, Yahoo Wednesday named ex-News Corp. digital exec Ross Levinsohn as executive vice president of the Americas region. Levinsohn replaces Hilary Schneider in that key role, giving him responsibility for the company's media group, advertising sales and partnerships.
He will report directly to CEO Carol Bartz, but will be based in Yahoo's Santa Monica office rather than its Silicon Valley headquarters, according to the All Things Digital blog, which first reported Levinsohn's hiring. He previously served as the president of News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, where oversaw the unit's day-to-day business and was instrumental in its purchase of MySpace in 2005.
Levinsohn has also held management posts at early Internet portal AltaVista, CBS SportsLine and HBO. Prior to joining Yahoo, he was co-founder and managing director of Fuse Capital, an investment firm focused on digital media and communications companies.
"I am confident that Ross's strategic vision, in addition to his deep industry experience, will allow us to solidify our position as the largest digital media, content and communications business around the globe," said Bartz in a statement. The beleaguered Web portal will count on Levinsohn to help revitalize and expand its content offerings and boost its lackluster financial performance.
But it isn't the first time that Yahoo has turned to a high-profile media figure to help turn things around. The company in 2001 hired former Warner Bros. chairman and co-CEO Terry Semel as CEO and in 2004 brought on ex-ABC Entertainment Group Chairman Lloyd Braun to run the Yahoo Media Group.
Levinsohn's predecessor, Schneider, left Yahoo earlier this month in a high-level management shuffle that also saw the departures of former media group head Jimmy Pitaro and David Ko, who led Yahoo's mobile and audience units. Pitaro left to co-head Disney's interactive group while Ko went to lead the mobile business social game company Zynga.
by Mark Walsh
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Yahoo Revenue Falls Short Of Expectations
Weaker-than-expected revenue growth for Yahoo in the third quarter will not ease the pressure on CEO Carol Bartz to deliver improved results nearly two years after she was brought on to reverse the Web portal's sagging fortunes.
A reduced fourth-quarter revenue outlook from Yahoo won't help, either. Yahoo is projecting fourth-quarter revenue of $1.125 billion to $1.225 billion, falling below the analysts' forecast of $126 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
For the third quarter, Yahoo posted a profit of $396.1 million, or 29 cents a share -- more than double the 13 cents it reported a year ago. But its earnings got a 13-cent boost from the sale of its HotJobs classified site during the quarter. Analysts had expected profit of 15 cents a quarter.
Net revenue was $1.12 billion compared to $1.13 billion a year ago, and came in slightly below analysts' forecast of $1.13 billion. Yahoo's stagnant results and internal turmoil have led to a series of takeover and other rumors in recent weeks.
The Wall Street Journal earlier this month reported that AOL and several private equity firms were exploring making a bid to buy Yahoo in an effort to merge the two struggling Internet brands. Speculation has also arisen that if Bartz doesn't improve the company's performance soon, the Yahoo board may consider replacing her.
A Dow Jones report Monday, however, indicated that the board is committed to Bartz for the remaining two years of her four-year contract. In relation to the takeover rumors, Bartz declined to comment on the matter during Yahoo's third-quarter conference call Tuesday. "We like our strategy, we like our progress, and that's what we're focused on," she said.
Despite a 7% year-over-year drop in search ad revenue to $331 million, Bartz and Yahoo CFO Tim Morse emphasized that the implementation of its 2009 search partnership with Microsoft was on schedule and would begin to boost revenue growth next year.
Yahoo last month completed transitioning to Bing-powered natural search results in the U.S. and Canada and would do the same for paid results by the end of October. Bartz said 97% of premium accounts have switched to Microsoft's AdCenter and the company is more than halfway through shifting its search queries to AdCenter. "By Q2 next year, we expect the [search] marketplace to be fully tuned," she said.
In the meantime, the process of integrating search systems with Microsoft isn't helping Yahoo's top line, and starting next quarter Microsoft will take its 12% revenue share under the deal. Morse said that will amount to about $30 million in the fourth quarter.
Yahoo's core display business fared better, with revenue up 17% to $465 million from a year ago and roughly flat from the second quarter. Premium display revenue was up 20% and spending was up in seven of 10 industry categories Yahoo tracks, with retail and technology especially strong and telecom notably weak.
Asked during the Q&A session with analysts about growing competition from Google in display, Bartz responded that Yahoo had a unique offering in its ability to deliver targeted, high-profile campaigns for large brand advertisers. "We're running very fast -- we're not going to give up this leadership in display very easily," she said.
Discussing a 4% drop in page views in the quarter, the Yahoo CEO did not directly explain the decline, but stressed the company was focused on upgrading its platforms for popular services like mail and news over the last year to facilitate increased user engagement. An outage of the Yahoo home page last week, however, did nothing to enhance the company's reputation for technical prowess.
Bartz also did not directly address a recent spate of high-level executive departures reminiscent of the management turmoil when she was hired, in part to quell after taking over from then-CEO Jerry Yang.
Hilary Schneider, the company's U.S. ad sales chief; David Ko, who led the mobile and local businesses; and Yahoo Media head Jimmy Pitaro have all exited in the last few weeks. Last spring, Yahoo hired former Microsoft executive Blake Irving as its chief product officer to bolster its content and ad offerings.
But in an apparent reference to the management changes, Bartz said: "Some people leave, some get promoted, and some good new people arrive. The most important thing is making sure the right person is in the right job at the right time."
That's something Yahoo's board is reportedly scrutinizing more closely when it comes to Bartz herself. But once Yahoo's search pact with Microsoft is fully up and running, and display continues steady growth, "we've got a completely new company here," she assured. Yahoo's shares were up 1% to $15.65 in after-hours trading Tuesday.
by Mark Walsh,
A reduced fourth-quarter revenue outlook from Yahoo won't help, either. Yahoo is projecting fourth-quarter revenue of $1.125 billion to $1.225 billion, falling below the analysts' forecast of $126 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
For the third quarter, Yahoo posted a profit of $396.1 million, or 29 cents a share -- more than double the 13 cents it reported a year ago. But its earnings got a 13-cent boost from the sale of its HotJobs classified site during the quarter. Analysts had expected profit of 15 cents a quarter.
Net revenue was $1.12 billion compared to $1.13 billion a year ago, and came in slightly below analysts' forecast of $1.13 billion. Yahoo's stagnant results and internal turmoil have led to a series of takeover and other rumors in recent weeks.
The Wall Street Journal earlier this month reported that AOL and several private equity firms were exploring making a bid to buy Yahoo in an effort to merge the two struggling Internet brands. Speculation has also arisen that if Bartz doesn't improve the company's performance soon, the Yahoo board may consider replacing her.
A Dow Jones report Monday, however, indicated that the board is committed to Bartz for the remaining two years of her four-year contract. In relation to the takeover rumors, Bartz declined to comment on the matter during Yahoo's third-quarter conference call Tuesday. "We like our strategy, we like our progress, and that's what we're focused on," she said.
Despite a 7% year-over-year drop in search ad revenue to $331 million, Bartz and Yahoo CFO Tim Morse emphasized that the implementation of its 2009 search partnership with Microsoft was on schedule and would begin to boost revenue growth next year.
Yahoo last month completed transitioning to Bing-powered natural search results in the U.S. and Canada and would do the same for paid results by the end of October. Bartz said 97% of premium accounts have switched to Microsoft's AdCenter and the company is more than halfway through shifting its search queries to AdCenter. "By Q2 next year, we expect the [search] marketplace to be fully tuned," she said.
In the meantime, the process of integrating search systems with Microsoft isn't helping Yahoo's top line, and starting next quarter Microsoft will take its 12% revenue share under the deal. Morse said that will amount to about $30 million in the fourth quarter.
Yahoo's core display business fared better, with revenue up 17% to $465 million from a year ago and roughly flat from the second quarter. Premium display revenue was up 20% and spending was up in seven of 10 industry categories Yahoo tracks, with retail and technology especially strong and telecom notably weak.
Asked during the Q&A session with analysts about growing competition from Google in display, Bartz responded that Yahoo had a unique offering in its ability to deliver targeted, high-profile campaigns for large brand advertisers. "We're running very fast -- we're not going to give up this leadership in display very easily," she said.
Discussing a 4% drop in page views in the quarter, the Yahoo CEO did not directly explain the decline, but stressed the company was focused on upgrading its platforms for popular services like mail and news over the last year to facilitate increased user engagement. An outage of the Yahoo home page last week, however, did nothing to enhance the company's reputation for technical prowess.
Bartz also did not directly address a recent spate of high-level executive departures reminiscent of the management turmoil when she was hired, in part to quell after taking over from then-CEO Jerry Yang.
Hilary Schneider, the company's U.S. ad sales chief; David Ko, who led the mobile and local businesses; and Yahoo Media head Jimmy Pitaro have all exited in the last few weeks. Last spring, Yahoo hired former Microsoft executive Blake Irving as its chief product officer to bolster its content and ad offerings.
But in an apparent reference to the management changes, Bartz said: "Some people leave, some get promoted, and some good new people arrive. The most important thing is making sure the right person is in the right job at the right time."
That's something Yahoo's board is reportedly scrutinizing more closely when it comes to Bartz herself. But once Yahoo's search pact with Microsoft is fully up and running, and display continues steady growth, "we've got a completely new company here," she assured. Yahoo's shares were up 1% to $15.65 in after-hours trading Tuesday.
by Mark Walsh,
Monday, October 18, 2010
Yahoo Advertising Blog Switches To FeedBlitz
The Yahoo Advertising Blog has switched from FeedBurner to FeedBlitz for new email subscriptions. To have a client like Yahoo! is great, but for everyone who isn't (yet) a public megacorporation take a look at how they're aggressively growing their list. As well as the email icon on the right, above the fold, in the subscriptions area, they also have house "ads" below each post asking the reader to subscribe. Simple text, clear call to action, big fat button. Awesome!
The blog carries good commentary beyond Yahoo's own services, so if you're a social media marketer, PR maven or online advertiser it's well worth following.
Sign Up Now
The blog carries good commentary beyond Yahoo's own services, so if you're a social media marketer, PR maven or online advertiser it's well worth following.
Sign Up Now
Thursday, October 14, 2010
AOL Bid For Yahoo Explored
AOL Inc. and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges.
Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own, these people said. They added that at least two or three other firms could be interested in participating if a formal buyout proposal is drawn up.
The people familiar with the matter cautioned that these discussions—involving private-equity firms, AOL executives and financial advisers—are preliminary and don't yet involve Yahoo. The conversations may not lead to an approach given the complexities in structuring a proposal, the people said.
Spokeswomen for Yahoo and AOL declined to comment.
AOL, which spun off from Time Warner Inc. in late 2009, currently has a market capitalization of $2.68 billion, far smaller than Yahoo's $20.56 billion market value.
Shares of Yahoo jumped 13% to $17.23 in after-hours trading Wednesday, after rising 5.7% to $15.25 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock traded 49.6 million shares in the regular session, compared with an average of 17 million shares a day so far this month. It was one of the best-performing tech stocks of the day.
One of the scenarios under discussion among the buyout firms is a complex deal in which China's Alibaba Group would buy back Yahoo's roughly 40% stake in Alibaba, the people said.
Some of Yahoo's other assets would also be sold off to interested media or technology companies, and the remaining company would be of a much smaller valuation that private-equity firms could get financing for, one of the people said.
Another scenario involves AOL combining its operations with Yahoo in a reverse merger after Yahoo disposes of the Alibaba stake, the people said. It is unclear if the resulting entity would be listed publicly.
Alibaba Chief Executive Jack Ma has expressed interest in repurchasing Yahoo's stake in his company, which analysts value at about $10 billion. A big chunk of Yahoo's current market value comes from its Alibaba stake.
Separately, AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong has also talked privately about the idea that Yahoo could buy AOL, according to a person familiar with the matter. Another person familiar with the matter said private-equity firms may also look to partner with media companies to buy Yahoo.
A combined Yahoo-AOL would have greater scale to compete in online advertising against industry juggernaut Google Inc. While both companies draw huge amounts of users, their advertising businesses have struggled as they've faced competition from a range of websites. The scenarios being discussed are similar to ones financial firms have discussed before. Yahoo and AOL discussed a merger in 2008, as Yahoo weighed a $45 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. Microsoft eventually pulled its bid.
While private-equity firms have long contemplated a deal for Yahoo, talks have heated up in recent weeks as several senior Yahoo employees have left the company, intensifying pressure on Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz to prove she can turn the company around, the people familiar with the matter said.
Ms. Bartz has improved Yahoo's profitability by cutting costs, but revenue hasn't grown much and the company faces other problems. The Internet pioneer, for example, has shown fewer benefits than competitors from a broad recovery in display advertising—an area where it faces increasing competition from Google and Facebook Inc.
The company, which reports third-quarter earnings next week, claims that more than 600 million people use its home page, email service or other sites every month. But the number of Yahoo pages viewed by its users, known as "user engagement," began shrinking in the second quarter. Yahoo also has seen a drop in the value of advertising against content that Yahoo pulls from other sources.
Ms. Bartz said in a recent interview she needed more time to pull off a turnaround.
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO And ANUPREETA DAS
—Amir Efrati contributed to this article.
Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own, these people said. They added that at least two or three other firms could be interested in participating if a formal buyout proposal is drawn up.
The people familiar with the matter cautioned that these discussions—involving private-equity firms, AOL executives and financial advisers—are preliminary and don't yet involve Yahoo. The conversations may not lead to an approach given the complexities in structuring a proposal, the people said.
Spokeswomen for Yahoo and AOL declined to comment.
AOL, which spun off from Time Warner Inc. in late 2009, currently has a market capitalization of $2.68 billion, far smaller than Yahoo's $20.56 billion market value.
Shares of Yahoo jumped 13% to $17.23 in after-hours trading Wednesday, after rising 5.7% to $15.25 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock traded 49.6 million shares in the regular session, compared with an average of 17 million shares a day so far this month. It was one of the best-performing tech stocks of the day.
One of the scenarios under discussion among the buyout firms is a complex deal in which China's Alibaba Group would buy back Yahoo's roughly 40% stake in Alibaba, the people said.
Some of Yahoo's other assets would also be sold off to interested media or technology companies, and the remaining company would be of a much smaller valuation that private-equity firms could get financing for, one of the people said.
Another scenario involves AOL combining its operations with Yahoo in a reverse merger after Yahoo disposes of the Alibaba stake, the people said. It is unclear if the resulting entity would be listed publicly.
Alibaba Chief Executive Jack Ma has expressed interest in repurchasing Yahoo's stake in his company, which analysts value at about $10 billion. A big chunk of Yahoo's current market value comes from its Alibaba stake.
Separately, AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong has also talked privately about the idea that Yahoo could buy AOL, according to a person familiar with the matter. Another person familiar with the matter said private-equity firms may also look to partner with media companies to buy Yahoo.
A combined Yahoo-AOL would have greater scale to compete in online advertising against industry juggernaut Google Inc. While both companies draw huge amounts of users, their advertising businesses have struggled as they've faced competition from a range of websites. The scenarios being discussed are similar to ones financial firms have discussed before. Yahoo and AOL discussed a merger in 2008, as Yahoo weighed a $45 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. Microsoft eventually pulled its bid.
While private-equity firms have long contemplated a deal for Yahoo, talks have heated up in recent weeks as several senior Yahoo employees have left the company, intensifying pressure on Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz to prove she can turn the company around, the people familiar with the matter said.
Ms. Bartz has improved Yahoo's profitability by cutting costs, but revenue hasn't grown much and the company faces other problems. The Internet pioneer, for example, has shown fewer benefits than competitors from a broad recovery in display advertising—an area where it faces increasing competition from Google and Facebook Inc.
The company, which reports third-quarter earnings next week, claims that more than 600 million people use its home page, email service or other sites every month. But the number of Yahoo pages viewed by its users, known as "user engagement," began shrinking in the second quarter. Yahoo also has seen a drop in the value of advertising against content that Yahoo pulls from other sources.
Ms. Bartz said in a recent interview she needed more time to pull off a turnaround.
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO And ANUPREETA DAS
—Amir Efrati contributed to this article.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Yahoo Snaps Up Ad Firm Dapper
Yahoo said Tuesday it acquired ad technology firm Dapper to bolster its core display advertising business. The company's technology allows marketers to assemble display ad creative on the fly -- and, it says, show the right ad or offer to the right audience at the right time. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Yahoo has already been working with Dapper under a program the Web portal launched last year to partner with outside ad technology providers to bolster its Smart Ads platform and to extend the customized display ad format to mobile phones.
"Yahoo currently partners with Dapper, along with others in this space, and owning this technology will help the company deliver innovative solutions to an even broader range of advertisers and integrate dynamic ad serving into key Yahoo properties," read the company's statement about the acquisition, expected to close by year's end.
Dapper's solution promises to let marketers use creative elements pulled from their own Web site, product inventory data, or database of marketing offers to automatically tailor display ads according to each impression delivered. The company also helps marketers buy display ad impressions on exchanges via real-time bidding.
Online weather service Weather Underground, among others, has used Dapper to generate dynamic ads with creative drawn from advertisers' product catalogs, Web sites and inventory systems. A fashion retailer, for instance, could then associate each item in its catalog with a particular weather condition so a user would see only apparel suitable to the local climate.
The San Francisco-based startup, which had raised $3 million in venture funding since 2006, hired ex-Efficient Frontier CEO James Beriker as chief executive. Beriker was quoted applauding the deal in the Yahoo statement, but the company did not indicate what role he would play following the acquisition or whether Dapper would be maintained as a separate brand.
For Yahoo, the acquisition amounts to playing to its traditional strength in display advertising rather than expansion into a new area. Yahoo increased profit 50% in the second quarter, but revenue grew only slightly as the company saw little gain from the gradual recovery in display advertising. While display ad revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, it fell short of the 20% growth rate in the first quarter.
In a research note, RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler said the Dapper deal makes sense for Yahoo, especially in light of Google's widening push into display advertising through properties like YouTube, DoubleClick, the Adx display ad exchange, and Teracent. "The deal should eventually help Yahoo offer advertisers better tools and technologies, and ultimately, to increase the value of its own un-sold display inventory through better ad targeting," he wrote.
Dapper competes with Teracent, which Google acquired in November 2009, as well as ad companies like Tumri and Adready, which Yahoo has also partnered with.
Yahoo has also continued to suffer from executive turnover, with U.S. operations head Hilary Schneider, U.S. audience chief David Ko, and vice president of media Jimmy Pitaro all exiting the company in the last week. The company will report third-quarter earnings Oct. 19.
By Mark Walsh
Yahoo has already been working with Dapper under a program the Web portal launched last year to partner with outside ad technology providers to bolster its Smart Ads platform and to extend the customized display ad format to mobile phones.
"Yahoo currently partners with Dapper, along with others in this space, and owning this technology will help the company deliver innovative solutions to an even broader range of advertisers and integrate dynamic ad serving into key Yahoo properties," read the company's statement about the acquisition, expected to close by year's end.
Dapper's solution promises to let marketers use creative elements pulled from their own Web site, product inventory data, or database of marketing offers to automatically tailor display ads according to each impression delivered. The company also helps marketers buy display ad impressions on exchanges via real-time bidding.
Online weather service Weather Underground, among others, has used Dapper to generate dynamic ads with creative drawn from advertisers' product catalogs, Web sites and inventory systems. A fashion retailer, for instance, could then associate each item in its catalog with a particular weather condition so a user would see only apparel suitable to the local climate.
The San Francisco-based startup, which had raised $3 million in venture funding since 2006, hired ex-Efficient Frontier CEO James Beriker as chief executive. Beriker was quoted applauding the deal in the Yahoo statement, but the company did not indicate what role he would play following the acquisition or whether Dapper would be maintained as a separate brand.
For Yahoo, the acquisition amounts to playing to its traditional strength in display advertising rather than expansion into a new area. Yahoo increased profit 50% in the second quarter, but revenue grew only slightly as the company saw little gain from the gradual recovery in display advertising. While display ad revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, it fell short of the 20% growth rate in the first quarter.
In a research note, RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler said the Dapper deal makes sense for Yahoo, especially in light of Google's widening push into display advertising through properties like YouTube, DoubleClick, the Adx display ad exchange, and Teracent. "The deal should eventually help Yahoo offer advertisers better tools and technologies, and ultimately, to increase the value of its own un-sold display inventory through better ad targeting," he wrote.
Dapper competes with Teracent, which Google acquired in November 2009, as well as ad companies like Tumri and Adready, which Yahoo has also partnered with.
Yahoo has also continued to suffer from executive turnover, with U.S. operations head Hilary Schneider, U.S. audience chief David Ko, and vice president of media Jimmy Pitaro all exiting the company in the last week. The company will report third-quarter earnings Oct. 19.
By Mark Walsh
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Yahoo-AOL Merger A No Brainer?
We kid you not, some top investors and industry watchers are suggesting that Yahoo and AOL -- which has mixed experience with mega-mergers -- should combine immediately.
"Big investors" want Yahoo and AOL to merge, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to become CEO of the combined company, and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to become Chairman, according to BoomTown's Kara Swisher.
"Armstrong," sources tell Swisher, "has not shied away from the idea."
Certainly, the imminent departure of Yahoo's U.S. head Hilary Schneider, -- along with two other top execs -- a stagnant stock price, and weak growth are creating pressure on CEO Carol Bartz (and Yahoo's board) to do something dramatic.
Under the headline, "Game over, Carol Bartz," Fortune writes: "Yahoo's stock price is abysmal, employee morale is low, and top-level executives are fleeing. What's left? An Internet property slowly limping to its death and a mouthy CEO with no vision. [Bartz's] days are numbered."
"It's ridiculous that they haven't already," Business Insider's Henry Blodget says of the would-be merger.
"Yahoo and AOL are both in the same business, and it is a business that benefits greatly from scale. Yahoo and AOL are both basically media companies. They both use technology extensively, but their core competency is producing content to attract an audience and then selling display ads against that audience."
Adds Blodget, "They also both operate duplicative mail, instant-messaging, sports, finance, news, maps, and other services, all of which currently compete with each other. That is senseless. By combining, Yahoo and AOL would achieve greater scale and reduce duplication."
And Swisher notes, however, New Corp. could potentially give Yahoo some competition if it were to go after AOL. "The reason is that its own digital efforts, especially at the MySpace social networking site, have gone sideways," she writes.
"And there's history: News Corp. tried to facilitate a merger of MySpace, MSN and Yahoo into a company codenamed 'TrafficCo' at the time Microsoft was attempting a takeover of Yahoo."
Meanwhile, "AOL is affordable, even for Yahoo," according to Blodget. "AOL's enterprise value is about $2.4 billion. Yahoo's is $16 billion. Yahoo could probably get AOL for $3 billion, maybe $3.5 billion. That's only 20% dilution."
By Gavin O'Malley
"Big investors" want Yahoo and AOL to merge, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to become CEO of the combined company, and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to become Chairman, according to BoomTown's Kara Swisher.
"Armstrong," sources tell Swisher, "has not shied away from the idea."
Certainly, the imminent departure of Yahoo's U.S. head Hilary Schneider, -- along with two other top execs -- a stagnant stock price, and weak growth are creating pressure on CEO Carol Bartz (and Yahoo's board) to do something dramatic.
Under the headline, "Game over, Carol Bartz," Fortune writes: "Yahoo's stock price is abysmal, employee morale is low, and top-level executives are fleeing. What's left? An Internet property slowly limping to its death and a mouthy CEO with no vision. [Bartz's] days are numbered."
"It's ridiculous that they haven't already," Business Insider's Henry Blodget says of the would-be merger.
"Yahoo and AOL are both in the same business, and it is a business that benefits greatly from scale. Yahoo and AOL are both basically media companies. They both use technology extensively, but their core competency is producing content to attract an audience and then selling display ads against that audience."
Adds Blodget, "They also both operate duplicative mail, instant-messaging, sports, finance, news, maps, and other services, all of which currently compete with each other. That is senseless. By combining, Yahoo and AOL would achieve greater scale and reduce duplication."
And Swisher notes, however, New Corp. could potentially give Yahoo some competition if it were to go after AOL. "The reason is that its own digital efforts, especially at the MySpace social networking site, have gone sideways," she writes.
"And there's history: News Corp. tried to facilitate a merger of MySpace, MSN and Yahoo into a company codenamed 'TrafficCo' at the time Microsoft was attempting a takeover of Yahoo."
Meanwhile, "AOL is affordable, even for Yahoo," according to Blodget. "AOL's enterprise value is about $2.4 billion. Yahoo's is $16 billion. Yahoo could probably get AOL for $3 billion, maybe $3.5 billion. That's only 20% dilution."
By Gavin O'Malley
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