This morning, Yahoo will officially announce an acquisition of Right Media which rival's Google's acquisition of DoubleClick. Danny discussed the purchase on Search Engine Land, saying that they purchased these outside companies because their own internal ad networks weren't good enough:
Both moves to me underscore how neither players' own existing ad networks have apparently been good enough for their display ambitions.
In the Search Engine Land article, Danny walks through why DoubleClick was a good match for Google: a large user base, an ad exchange network, and possible competition. Yahoo's acquisition is a "democratic move for ad sales."
A DigitalPoint Forums post references the New York Times article that also broke the story. DigitalPoint members wonder what will be expected of Microsoft, especially since they recently challenged Google for its DoubleClick acquisition. Interestingly, Yahoo! responded with an acquisition of its own, but Microsoft only asked the government to examine the purchase. I think that the strategic acquisition was the way to go here.
On WebmasterWorld, however, members question the leadership of Terry Semel and believe that Yahoo! is going to continually do worse. Again, I think that if you compare Yahoo to Microsoft, Yahoo took lemons and made lemonade. Microsoft just stared at the lemons and brought them to the government for review.
Discussion continues at DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld.
