I just hope that however any of this falls out, Flickr survives and starts to see some attention. I really, really like Flickr (pay for it even) and don't want to see it die. I actively dislike the competitors in the social photo uploading space (cannot stand Picassa's UI, and Facebook is, well Facebook. Photos are not the primary function there). Flickr suits my needs just perfectly.
Agreed. Picassa sucks. SmugMug is a bit better for professional photographers, but I haven't seen any photo site (500px included) that beats Flickr if you're looking for a large community of photographers with lots of sharing.
While I agree that Picasa's UI is pretty bland, I still love it because it so easy to upload and sync and share photo albums, which is basically all I do with it.
Anyone trying to meaningfully compete with Google will need to both buy and build their way into contention. MS has the money to do both but so far the build side of the equation has been a bit lacking.
Don't get me wrong-MS has some very (technically) cool products and projects out there (WP7, win8, Xbox to name a few) , but none of them are giving them the halo that Google (or Apple) has. It will take years of marketing and [m/b]illions of dollars to move them out of the funk that they've built up for themselves over the years. American car makers faced similar marketing challenges in the late 90's-00's and are only recently turning heads again.
I'm not sure it's really possible to meaningfully compete with Google, at least in the US search market. They're synonymous with search, as evidenced by the neologism "just google it". As much as Microsoft wishes it, no one actually says "just Bing it" if they aren't being paid to do so. The amount of mindshare Google has at this point seems insurmountable, no matter how many technically impressive tricks Microsoft can cook up.
I really hope (for Yahoo's sake) this happens. About half a year before I left, Yahoo turned down the offer from Microsoft that was in the $30/share range. I couldn't believe it.
Agreed with this comments. but I am not sure what is that worth. is not like people spend a lot of time on any of those networks, ie not monetizable, and amount of utility they provide vs. FB is diminishing
I'll agree with the adcenter, but Bing itself is a perfectly fine search engine. I consider it a drop in replacement for Google these days.
Yes i'm sure someone is now scrambling to find some edge case where Google is better, but you can do the same thing with Bing, and frankly all search engines have issues somewhere. I use a few search engines which have their own index such as DDG, Gigablast and Blekko.
I really find it amazing that people aren't cheering on some competition in the space. If Bing folded we would only have 3 players with their own index (that im aware of).
Purely subjective but I find Bings results page much clearer then Googles these days.
The CPM Yahoo gets are about 10x Microsoft gest on any of its MSN properties. They would be buying high CPMs and plug a HUGE hole in their online biz P&L
no, they buy Yahoo! so that a competitor doesn't replace Bing as the search which powers Yahoo!. The Y! brand will continue to exist for a long-time. I don't think this is a case of Microsoft buying them and shutting them down. The dollar value of Yahoo to Bing is significant, and only by having those users, is MS able to improve on Bing and get some revenue from it.
[+] [-] cowpewter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JosephHatfield|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timerickson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misterbwong|14 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong-MS has some very (technically) cool products and projects out there (WP7, win8, Xbox to name a few) , but none of them are giving them the halo that Google (or Apple) has. It will take years of marketing and [m/b]illions of dollars to move them out of the funk that they've built up for themselves over the years. American car makers faced similar marketing challenges in the late 90's-00's and are only recently turning heads again.
[+] [-] Tossrock|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jzawodn|14 years ago|reply
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-01cor...
Yahoo was bleeding then and has been bleeding ever since, still trying to be too many things to too many people--none of them well.
Hopefully MSFT can clean house, invest where it's needed, and put things on track.
[+] [-] ChrisLTD|14 years ago|reply
And the things they did do well (Flickr, Delicious) have been abandoned or left to rot.
[+] [-] int3rnaut|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjzedalis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medinism|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkassis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heyrhett|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clobber|14 years ago|reply
How is this even possible and how is buying Yahoo going to plug the holes? Bing search is horrible and their adcenter product is even worse.
[+] [-] boyter|14 years ago|reply
Yes i'm sure someone is now scrambling to find some edge case where Google is better, but you can do the same thing with Bing, and frankly all search engines have issues somewhere. I use a few search engines which have their own index such as DDG, Gigablast and Blekko.
I really find it amazing that people aren't cheering on some competition in the space. If Bing folded we would only have 3 players with their own index (that im aware of).
Purely subjective but I find Bings results page much clearer then Googles these days.
[+] [-] medinism|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgrove|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixtofour|14 years ago|reply
Volume.
[+] [-] wavephorm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb|14 years ago|reply
yeah, makes a lot of sense.
[+] [-] pedalpete|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahi|14 years ago|reply