It’s my Yahoo! and I’ll Cry if I Want To

Photo credit:Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

The Microsoft-Yahoo! soap, in its second week, was turning out to have more thrillers than a CAN2008 tournament. The actors remain the same, but some have made their presence felt more than others.

The protagonist has got to be Yahoo! itself whose fifteen minute of fame has been abused by now: like MTN, it’s everywhere you go (on the online world)—and not without good reason! The prospect of a “Microhoo” merger—too horrible to contemplate to some—has significant weight on the battlefield that is the online world.

It’s all about the money
Like I said last week, Microsoft, the antagonist, is suffering from delusions of grandeur: it would like to dominate both the online and software world. That we all have been speaking Microsoft Office for what seems like years is a testament of the computer-giant’s preponderant power. Never mind the fact that it has triggered anti-trust issues, Microsoft’s advantage is that it has presence, and none of us—no matter where we are—can avoid it.

But so do Yahoo! and Google. The thing, though, is that Yahoo!’s profits have been falling. This is why Microsoft has sought to capitalise on it. Yahoo! has, since last week, gotten a bit smarter in the sense that it is holding Microsoft back—on account of the money it’s offering. Microsoft’s offer of $44.6bn means that it is offering $31.00 per share. Yahoo! believes this is a no-no, and wholly insufficient for a company of this scale. The search-engine portal has smelt the coffee and woken up to possible strategies it can deploy to offset Microsoft.

Not that the third actor, which came riding through the sunset as Google, hasn’t tried upsetting Microsoft.

Beyond the search-engine giant’s both private and public castigation of Microsoft last week, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, has written on Google’s blog that: “the openness of the internet is what made Google—and Yahoo!—possible.” He continues that “a good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It’s what makes the internet,” he continues, “such an exciting place.” He finally goes on to say what the company has seen the move to be all-along—nothing more than a “hostile bid.”

If anything is clear, it is that the stage remains rife for a high-noon shootout among the usual suspects, especially with Yahoo!’s enlisting of America Online (AOL).The UK’s Times Online reports that Yahoo! and its team of advisers from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers—both investment banks—have spent the past week “evaluating possible tie-ups with media and technology firms that would save it from being swallowed by Microsoft.” It would be interesting to note that this very-same AOL has 5% of its stake owned by…no less than Google. It will certainly make for interesting times as the soap develops.

At the time of writing, reports have just come in indicating that Yahoo has well and truly rejected Microsoft’s offer on the grounds that the offer “substantially undervalues” its “global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments”.

While we leave the big players to play chess games among themselves, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the features that Yahoo! has that has so endeared us.

YahooMail
The UK’s Sunday Times reports that while Yahoo! and Microsoft lag behind Google in ad sales as well as internet search, they both have “a huge lead in email and instant messaging.” This must make sense to a lot of Ghanaians, for I have rarely come across a Ghanaian who does not have at least one email address that is not a Yahoo one. It is a shame that Yahoo never sought to establish a yahoo.gh domain, given the extent of patronage by Ghanaians. With Yahoo Mail’s capacity unlimited since May 2007, I can bet my bottom dollar that many migrated from Microsoft’s hotmail to the more reportedly-user-friendly Yahoo!

Yahoogroups
For as long as I have been aware of Yahoo, Yahoogroups has been around—making it easy for people to set up list-serves on any topic under the sun. Armed with your Yahoo! ID, it is a five-minute step-by-step process that you need to go through to create a name under http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

Yahoo Answers!
I happened upon this way back in February 2006. Apparently, it had been around a few months before, but only really hit it big in that year. In my view, Yahoo! Answers is one of the most effective real-time, 24/7 question-and-answer forums that enable you check questions similar to yours. It’s like having a permanent Agony Aunt! Best of all about this service is that you get 2 points each time you answer someone’s questions. When you answer a question that the questioner deems to be the “best answer”, you get ten points.

The questions, themselves, too, are manifold and in all categories, and you are sure to find any answer to a question you are looking for. If not, you can go ahead and create it yourself. The catch with asking is that you lose two points. Evidently, the idea behind it is to encourage you to answer as many questions as possible. Occasionally, you get a celebrity asking a question, and trying to elicit answers for a worthy cause. You can access the site by going to http://answers.yahoo.com.

Price of Liberty
Just so one does not feel that the online world is all doom-and-gloom, it is worth remembering the proverbial remonstration that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. In the virtual world, it could not be truer! Here’s one for keeps: a website on the UK-based Silicon.com chronicling so-called digital blunders.

You can access the page here: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/digitalblunders2/0,39024989,10005740,00.htm