May 25th, 2006
Yahoo! and eBay Form a Mega-Alliance
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Can’t beat ‘em and can’t join ‘em? Join someone else. Today Yahoo and eBay announced a multiyear deal that will form a partnership which leverages the strengths of both companies, aligned squarely against rivals Google and Microsoft.
Under their partnership, Yahoo will become the exclusive provider of graphical advertising throughout eBay’s Web site and will provide some search-generated ads, as well. Yahoo’s brand and search engine will also be blended into an eBay toolbar that has been downloaded by 4 million users so far.
Ebay’s PayPal service will become the preferred payment provider for purchases made on Yahoo’s site, which provides a wide array of shopping, auctions and subscription services.
EBay’s Skype Internet telephone service will be used to explore building another marketing vehicle that would allow advertisers to connect with prospective customers on the phone instead of through their Web sites. If the experiment works, it would mark Yahoo’s entrance into “click-to-call” advertising, something that AOL already offers and a service that Google has been exploring, too. Source: AP via SFGate
We Say: We’ll have to see how this all shakes out. This is a major alliance. On the other hand, with the possible exception of Yahoo’s new email beta, nothing I’ve seen from Yahoo has impressed me as much as anything Google has debuted. However, eBay is a whole ‘nother beast, in a different sector. Google Base has likely given eBay something to worry about. eBay stressed that it will continue to buy ads through Google’s network (of course, as it wouldn’t make much sense to drop the major player, right?).
steve says:
Title is messed up.
May 25th, 2006 at 9:30 am
ed3 says:
> Ebay’s PayPal service will become the preferred payment provider for
> purchases made on Yahoo’s site, which provides a wide array of shopping,
> auctions and subscription services.
Note, Paypal keeps track of all credit cards you associated with an account even if you close your account. Credit cards formerly associated with a Paypal account will not work on any site that uses Paypal for credit card transactions until the card is re-associated with an account.
Or until you have your credit card provider issue you a new account number…
May 25th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
OffBeatMammal says:
woohoo!
the worlds largest garage sale gets access to a trailer park.
Yahoo! seemed to be onto some good things… at least with their aquisitions (certainly not their own internal stuff) but this really looks like a shotgun wedding to try and stem the tide that it Google and the evolving MS Live platform.
While I have no strong feelings either for or against Yahoo! I think eBay really is the pits. Totally apathetic customer service, a corporate culture of not giving a damn about their users and probably the worst designed major site out there. Couple that with Paypal who, while they’ve never hurt me personally have a less than shiny reputation and Skype (rhymes with hype) who have a VOIP product that’s neither unique nor compelling and doesn’t even play well with other IM clients….80% of my contacts use Messenger and when I feel the need to talk to them (rather than type) it does okay… and LiveMessenger8 includes VOIP and callout capabilities so why swap.
Maybe if they also snap up YouTube and a couple of the other Web2.0 sites they’ll have a buzzword complaint portfolio that’ll keep them relevant for a couple more years but…. they need to start innovating and making their core product(s) compelling rather than turning into a beast so big it can’t keep track of what it’s good at….
May 26th, 2006 at 4:15 am