EightBlack.

The games are about to begin. David Drummond, Google’s most respected legal eagle, fired the first shot across the bow regarding the hostile takeover offer for Yahoo! by the software giant, Microsoft.

Microsoft are well versed in anti-trust laws. They’ve been battling it out in Europe and the US for years now. And they are hardly to be intimidated by momentum in the blogosphere or mainstream press. Nor will they care what Drummond has to say.

The lawyers and Public Relations folks must be salivating like Pavlovs dog right about now. They will be the clear winners. The consumer - well, I’m not too sure.

I still think the deal will get done, if and its a big if, the regulators allow it.

About 5 years ago, we discovered Google AdWords. More importantly, we met Perry Marshall, a guy who I still regard as the world’s leading authority in the pay per click space. He’s got an interesting take on the Yahoo! and Microsoft gig. There’s a link at the very bottom of this post to a 60 minute interview with another highly respected web authority - Ken McCarthy. And I’ve copied an extract of an email Perry sent to his list over the weekend. The email is worth a read. And the audio is true content. Have a listen. All the details are right below.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave, you know that Microsoft now intends to acquire Yahoo so together they can make up the ground they’ve lost against Google.

Let me be very clear that even though my books, coaching programs, etc. are about Google AdWords, nobody would be happier than me for the world to have a really good alternative to Google AdWords for buying clicks. I’m ALL for competition. I would LOVE for Yahoo Search Marketing to be a formidable opponent to Google. (It’s useful, but I sure wouldn’t pretend it’s formidable at this point.)

I would LOVE for MSN AdCenter to be super-cool and powerful, but… alas, it’s not. It’s anemic. And I’m being kind.

Yes, I would love for Microsoft and Yahoo together to be able to kick Google’s butt. Nothing is better for you and me than serious competition for our ad dollars.

Unfortunately…. In My Humble Opinion, expecting Microsoft and Yahoo to be better than Google by getting together is like pairing up two people each with an IQ of 75 and putting them in a spelling bee and hoping that together they’re a 150 genius.

NOT. They’ll just argue with each other about how to mis-spell everything.

For the record, I do hope I’m wrong.

So anyway… how did Google beat Yahoo at its own game? After all, Overture (the former company that was acquired by Yahoo) had a 3-4 year start on Google. At one time they were king. Now they’re scrambling to hang onto a distant 2nd place.

Ken McCarthy and I talk about that very question on this MP3. I describe what it was that pulled Google into the lead, and more importantly, how YOU use exactly the same principles to dominate in YOUR market:

Perry Marshall Interview

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.