GOOG-YouTube: YHOO Feels The Heat & Deal Atrophy; MSFT Gets A Chill

No small irony that I’m using Yahoo Finance to read AP’s look at how Google just surpassed its rivals. Yahoo continues to do many things well — and to make a healthy profit — but anything it accomplishes pales next to Google. Even an acquisition of Facebook at this point — which may make more sense for Yahoo than any of its rivals — will be viewed through the GOOG-YouTube lens. But Yahoo also has to know that if Google wants Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, in all likelihood, it will happen. (Whether Zuckerberg would want the sibling rivalry that could come with a move to Google is another question.) Google is on a role, even daring to make a megadeal with MySpace and turning around to acquire a competitor that News Corp. coveted.
As Scott Kessler, analyst, Standard & Poor’s, told AP, “It has been an amazing contrast. … Google seems to be out-executing and out-innovating Yahoo.” Well, certainly outspending them and out-flashing them. Google is exciting, a techno-starlet that hasn’t yet seen the wrinkles of maturity in the mirror. Even when a movie flops like the first version of Google Video or gets mixed reviews like the perfomance of Orkut, Google makes a great red carpet appearance.
Reading the Reuters take in a similar vein got me wondering if Zuckerburg owes Chad Hurley and Steve Chen a round of vintage champagne for pumping up his price. Revver CEO Steven Starr says, “We totally are not for sale,” Gosh, where have I heard that before? About that GOOG-YouTube lens: Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader told Reuters that deal is “unique” and icnonic while Yahoo, should it succeed with Facebook,will be “just adding another asset to the corporate portfolio.”
Meanwhile, Google has no trouble appearing to be more nimble than Microsoft, even when the latter does a better job with things like video. Former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble scolded the company for caring more about DIY than acquiring something like YouTube: “Looks like Microsoft thought the price was too high. That’s been the strategy lately. Don’t buy best-of-breed รข

Comments have been disabled for this post