“Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp and AOL Inc have set up an advertising partnership as Google and Facebook’s online ad dominance grows,” Reuters reports.
“The alliance, announced on Tuesday, allows each of the companies to sell each other’s unsold premium advertising inventory — known as display ads — by early next year,” Reuters reports. “While the companies are striking a partnership, they still actively competing with each other for both advertiser spending and publisher partners, as well as maintain their own set of controls.”
Reuters reports, “Both Facebook and Google Inc are expected to increase their share of online display advertising in the United States in 2011 by 9.3 percent and 16.3 percent respectively, according to estimates from research firm eMarketer. Meanwhile, AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo are forecast to loose [sic] share, with Facebook expected to surpass Yahoo for the first time this year.”
Read more in the full article here.
Skating to where the puck used to be. Wow, Apple really has them squabbling with each other and missing the obvious, elephant-sized threat in the room. In 5 years, on-line ads will be much less relevant and not worth as much investment by these companies. They will be scratching their heads and wonder how they got so blind-sided…
Like a couple of nerds fighting over the ugly girl with an STD. There’s a new girl in town and her name is Siri. Freeing my hands from search, Siri allows me to use them for what they do best – pick my nose.
How much less relevant can Microsoft get?
Yes, while the rocks labeled “Microsoft”, “AOL” and “Yahoo” will sink in water on their own, tying them together will surely allow them to float.
…what?
In the business, it is a known fact that half of all advertising is a waste of money.
The problem is that they don’t know which half is wasteful.
What, AOL still exists? 😉
And wasn’t Microsoft and Yahoo on the verge of merging several years ago? This is step one of trying that again. 3 wrongs don’t make a right…