Dare is wrong because Yahoo didn't pay very much for the startups it bought. Flickr went for about $30 million. That's a rounding error on its books. And Yahoo got a LOT of value out of owning these small companies like Flickr, Del.icio.us, Upcoming. The problem with Yahoo is it lost its leadership in search. If it still had that leadership it would have no sin. - Robert Scoble
@scobleizer Yahoo! lost search because they employed a portal and online media company strategy under Semel. - Lou Paglia
@Dare the problem with Yahoo's acquisition strategy is that they did nothing more than integrate their login service and didn't integrate them into a larger strategy - Lou Paglia
Yahoo! has three broad categories of Internet businesses; search, content and social applications. My tweet was specifically about the third. Buying MyBlogLog, Flickr, Delicious, Upcoming, etc didn't really move the needle on their social application strategy. Flickr has been a massive success purchased at a bargain but it's success hasn't been leveraged by the rest of Yahoo! except as an excuse to shut down Yahoo! Photos. The rest of the acquisitions have been a waste of time. - Dare Obasanjo
Dare, I agree with Scoble that they were smart purchases (for the value of each entity) but I agree with you more based on how they leveraged them for synergy with their social media strategy - Lou Paglia
I do think there is value in building all web properties in-house and I once said so. Here: http://tinyurl.com/6zak39 - Jamie
delicious could have been massively important to search. they just bungled it. - Kevin
Jamie, I'm not sure where build vs. buy comes in. Some of the most successful products at Microsoft and Google came through acquisition. However given the amount of purchases Y! made during the height of it's startup buying binge it is somewhat sad that Flickr is the only real success story and they couldn't leverage it across all of Y! - Dare Obasanjo
Sure. But I do think there is value in rolling your own as opposed to attempting to munge 2 disparate things together. Its useful to have a common code base if nothing else. Granted there are of course times when aquisition is the best way forward. Ouch these fence posts hurt. - Jamie
@Louis: I sincerely hope that you are joking (oh wait, there's a smiley there!) ;) - Yuvi
burning your cash is better value than buying Technorati imo - DC Crowley
Heheh, Louis, any list that has me zooming past Huffington is funny (for me) but not very accurate. Another way to look at it, any blogger list that doesn't have Louis on it isn't worth being on. - Robert Scoble
Diablo Cody is rank 6th, yet her blog no longer exists. Hmm. - Colby Olson
I think this explains the supposed disparity: We count Live Search web searches for movie stars, musicians, and other famous people. Then, we compile our findings into an insightful ranking formula that tells you who the world is searching for most. (http://help.live.com/help.aspx...) In other words, they don't compile the chart in the same way that (e.g.) technorati do. - Jamie
Another thing subsequently hit me - Arrington has two brands, one being his name, the other being TechCrunch. If the blog had been called ArringtonCrunch, he would have scored much higher. He's not the only person facing this issue, since many bloggers are well known both by their own names/aliases (e.g. Corvida) and by separate brand names (e.g. SheGeeks). Ariana Huffington is one exception that comes to mind. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Is it creepy that Microsoft is going to drastically change the meaning of "attach photo to email"? This is an interesting feature, but only if it is opt in and very well explained, not generally a Microsoft strength... - felix
I'm one of the 320m but I dont really buy into windows live yet - something is not quite right.. whatever it is its not enough for me to use it more than rarely. I don't really like Google but I am using more and more of their services - that says something. - riaz
I'm not sure how many people use Gmail but I'd say its a level up from the typical Hotmail & Messenger user. Google already has all that and more in place with Picasa, Gtalk, Jaiku, Grand Central, Reader, Docs, Open Social and Friend Connect. Microsoft is having to play catch up again like they did with the browser and I think this time around it just isn't going to happen. I think many of us would quickly refer a friend to Google for stuff over Hotmail or Messenger. - Scott Cropper
Scott: very few people use Gmail when compared to Hotmail. I'll try to get accurate numbers, but Google isn't claiming anything close to 320 million active users. - Robert Scoble
Of course I forgot about my one exception - I'm still an active Messenger user.. it is huge in Europe.. everyone I know uses it here - weird how everyone I know in the states use AIM. - riaz
I'm one of the 320 million as well, but I have only logged in once in the past 30 days, where as with Google, I log in everyday with multiple accounts for multiple services. - Snay Trivedi
Everyone here(India (and Everyone excludes Geeks)) uses Yahoo. Mail and IM. Yep - Yuvi
Good point from Snay above. Hotmail is poor compared to Gmail. MSN is hideous. IM/Messenger is a disaster. Microsoft Web apps are fundamentally 2nd rate. Everyone's a member, but a great many people use a different technology for minute-to-minute/day-to-day - john conroy
I think geeks uses Google Service every now and then.. Microsoft gets an edge because non-geeks (or semi-geeks whose profession is not Computers related..) have subscription with Microsoft Live services and they dont care for a similar new google service! may be because microsoft gives them what they want.. - Jigar Mehta via bTT
"IM/Messenger is a disaster" I don't understand this comment from John Conroy. Do you use Messenger regularly John? What is disasterous about it? It works and it works well. That's it. What on earth is wrong with it? I dont get that opinion. MSN/Hotmail...yeah, they have some way to go. But Messenger is fine. - Jamie
Making it appear in Messenger would be quality, I already have a Facebook tab in Messenger so it would be the natural progression! - Joe Dawson
@jamie: okay, disaster is too strong a word. I primarily dislike the big (huuuge) load screen/advertisement that you get when you log in. Also, the fact that it loads on boot as default, and unless you disable this adds to your boot time. As with most Microsoft products, I think it is needlessly big/resource consuming. But it does work fine when you're actually using it. I used to use it quite a bit, in fact - john conroy
Jamie: I have to agree.. though the Yahoo Messenger/Google Talk deal is making me consider checking out yahoo messenger again. Hopefully Microsoft will announce a deal with Google soon and save me the trouble. - riaz
You can never count Microsoft out - 100% true. It may have been not having the best of times, it still has a HUGE pool of talent that it can bank upon and the number of users of these services completes the other end of the equation. @Yuvi Too general a statement; I don't use either; and I know large number of users on Messenger. @john adding to what @jamie already said; Wallop is another case in point. - Parth Awasthi via twhirl
I think people are missing the point about consumer behaviors: no matter how hard I try, I have failed to teach my mom how to upload photos to Flickr and then email the URL. However, she's perfectly comfortable with sending photos in an email. The same goes for IM'ing versus Twittering. Microsoft has a great opportunity to "bridge the gap" between these old habits and new ways of sharing and communicating, and making the transition painless. - Carter Rabasa
Robert, I like your statement, "What did I take away from our visit to Microsoft? You can never count these guys out. They always have the potential to change the marketplace because of how many users still are engaged with their stuff." YEP! The sheer volume of 320 million users in Windows Live and Hotmail is staggering...wow! That's quite a base from which they could build a plethora of social network applications and tools. - Susan Beebe
Well said Carter. Consumer behavior is the "norm", not the way we tech savvy (read geeks) behave. As much as we do not want to admit it, we are the minority on the Internet. In the past, we referred to the majority as n00bs or other semi-derogatory words, but the truth is the vast majority do not have the desire or time and a company that recognizes and caters to them will always be around. - Joel Gray
MSFT are stiil all powerful simply becos they have corporates wrapped up - Sally Church via Alert Thingy
@john conroy Gotcha John. Just re-read my earlier comment. it came on a bit strong - sorry about that! - Jamie
OK, 320m hotmail users and 320m messenger users. I assume they're not all the same but I'm sure there's a huge overlap. So, given MSFT have 430m active Live IDs, what are all the other 50-100m doing? And I wonder how many more they'll get when Mesh hits the bigtime. Questions questions....!!! - Jamie
Remember one thing, hotmail or Live addedses are still used to log into all of microsofts online portals. This includes managing your emails from msft, product registration, Connect betas etc and so on. This could be turned into a hugly useful social network with all the information that msft associates with that login. But ive not actually signed into mail for a while so it makes me wonder about the total number of logins currently being used by all of msfts services. - Roberto Bonini
@Roberto, its 320m ACTIVE users i.e. people that have logged in in the past month. - Jamie
I get that. But how many email address total are registered in Microsofts database ( that is over and above the 320m that logged in, in the last week)? - Roberto Bonini
Yep,320m.But Impression that Microsoft become detached from Main Web Trend - Igor Poltavskiy
They already have what you are asking Zuck to create. They call it Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication. - Jamie
I heard this exact same argument all the time when I was working at Yahoo! - the secret weapon is the hundreds of millions of Yahoo! Mail users. It's no good just saying you have the users; you need to execute well as well. I have yet to see evidence of Microsoft executing effectively on the web. It's 2008 and they still don't even know how to design a decent URL! - Simon Willison
Microsoft has more than just users - it has a wide, smart and deep developer pool. The work on hosted exchange / sharepoint and the stuff with Mesh and silverlight lets us know they "get it". MS Turns slow - but it DOES turn. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
@Carter You're dead on. Consumers want to send photos using email. They're comfortable with it and get it. - Derek Del Conte
@Carter, did you try to teach her to open Picasa and click large Upload button? May work.. - Ihar Mahaniok
I've had a Hotmail account since the days before it was MS owned and hardly use it because it fills up with spam so quickly. I prefer Google's offering with the other services integrated so well without the ghastly flash ads. But that's just my personal opinion. Messenger I haven't used in donkey's years. - Sally Church
@Scobleizer: "What did I take away from our visit to Microsoft? **** You can never count these guys out. They always have the potential to change the marketplace because of how many users still are engaged with their stuff.**** "
Me: So, if that's true, then why not give Yahoo the same benefit of the doubt? After all, they have actually made money as an Internet company, something which MSFT has yet to figure out how to do. I would agree that Jerry has to majorly deliver now, but Y! has as good a chance... - Alex Schleber
... to hit one out of the park as anyone else. E.g. turn Yahoo into a true social network with innovative features from the inside out... right now of course their social projects have been floundering, probably in part due to the Micro-hoo distraction. Hope that all of Y! mgmt just had the crap scared out of them and that they will be hungry once again. Rebuild that rotting empire (well, same could be said for MSFT). - Alex Schleber
