Am I the only one who is confused by the action to sign an agreement with Google by Ebay less than three months after being acknowledged on stage at the Yahoo! annual shareholders meeting? Is this a result of the recent Yahoo! platform delay? What is really going on here?
To refresh your memory, you will recall that Yahoo! announced a partnership with Ebay in May…
Yahoo!, eBay Enter Partnership To Expand Searches, Advertising
(Extracted from the Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2006) Yahoo! and eBay have announced a strategic partnership for Internet searches, advertising, online payments and a co-branded toolbar. “This partnership with eBay provides us with a great opportunity to further extend our sponsored search and graphical advertising reach to one of the largest and most active communities on the Web,” Yahoo! Chief Executive Terry Semel said in a statement. The two companies said Yahoo! will become the exclusive third-party provider of all graphical advertisements throughout the eBay site as well as so-called sponsored-search ads — a potential blow to Google, which is Yahoo!’s fiercest rival in that category of business. The companies will also develop “click to call” advertising technologies, in which consumers can use a link included inside an advertisement to directly call that advertiser.
Then yesterday Ebay announces an agreement with Google…
MOUNTAIN VIEW and SAN JOSE, Calif., August 28, 2006 – Google Inc.
(Nasdaq: GOOG) and eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced a
multi-year agreement to benefit both companies’ collective communities
of users, merchants, and advertisers around the globe. The agreement
consists of two primary components involving text-based advertising and
“click-to-call” advertising functionality.
Specifically, Google will become the exclusive text-based advertising
provider for eBay outside the United States. In addition, eBay and
Google plan to integrate and launch “click-to-call” advertising
functionality that leverage both Skype and Google Talk globally in each
company’s respective shopping and search platforms. The companies said
the financial terms for certain components of the deal involve revenue
sharing, but did not disclose specific details.
nope – it warped my brain too.
Upon digging a little I’ve read theories surrounding Google’s reach outside the US and Google Talk + Skype because of the PPCall angle (does Yahoo have a phone function?).
This can’t leave Yahoo very comfortable though. Or MSN for that matter…
To me it looks more like Yahoo didnt want to do the deal outside of the US, so Skype searched for someone else to do that, i.e. Google. There is no real rivalry, its all just business.