Marketing Pilgrim

CNET announced today that AOL has purchased two local-oriented sites: Patch and Going.com. As CNET pointed out, the acquisition of Patch isn’t a big surprise, as newly appointed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong founded and invested in Patch while working as Google’s sales chief. Armstrong believes that “Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today—there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily.”

He’s hoping that Going.com will give AOL another way to capitalize on that market. Going.com offers event and invitation services, along with ticketing and ways for locals to connect with one another. The goal of the acquisition is to build out AOL’s local services, but is it also insight into AOL’s new market strategy?

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Over sixteen months after Microsoft’s first offer to Yahoo, many people in the tech world are still watching them, waiting with bated breath. Will they or won’t they? Although Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has spent a lot of time lately downplaying the possibility, she stops short of saying there’s no possible deal with Microsoft in an interview with Fox Business (via paidContent) this week:

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Instead, she focuses on Yahoo’s strong properties that dominate their verticals—finance, sports, etc. She says that the social fragmentation of the has confused many users, and Yahoo is still a simple, centralized place for them to go for many different interest areas (not to mention email).

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Not so much a revelation, but more of tying-up a loose end. As expected, Time Warner’s board of directors have approved the spin-off of AOL–sans the dial-up division.

Time Warner hopes to conclude the spinoff, which requires an SEC review, by the end of the year. The company also expects to buy back Google’s 5 percent stake as part of completing this transaction but there is no confirmation that Google has agree to the terms or whether a agreed-upon valuation has taken place.

I’m sure AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is licking his chops at the news. Now we’ll get to see what he’s made of.

Stacy (YHOO) gazed at the single white rose. The diamond tennis bracelet. The silver Porsche 911 997 GT2 topped by a red bow and an oversized tag reading “I’M SORRY.” She turned to Brad (MSFT). “Oh, Brad,” she gushed, a tear in her eye. “It’s all so . . . meaningful.”

“Yes, Stacy.” Brad smiled and pulled out his PDA. “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

Yes, folks, we had to revive the award-winning* daytime drama*, the Young and the Profitless, for one last hurrah when sources tell BoomTown that talks between Yahoo and Microsoft have grown “meaningful.”

Last reported as “hot and heavy,” the merger talks between the two companies have continued to pick up. Another source says, like Brad, that it’s really not a question of if: “We’re finally talking about the how rather than the if.”

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As you can probably tell, I’ve always been kind of partial to Yahoo walking away from Microsoft’s overtures. I’ve seen what Microsoft has done so far online and despite the fact that their combined traffic might be the only entity that could keep Google from a total monopoly on the search market, I’m not convinced the alternative is much better for Yahoo. And now somebody else is there to back me up: Silicon Alley Insider.

The Insider’s Nicholas Carlson acknowledges that they’ve long said Yahoo should go for a Microsoft deal for three reasons:

• Like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, we believe that combining Yahoo’s bidders with Microsoft bidders for the same search keywords would drive up cost-per-click.
• Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali says outsourcing search infrastructure to Microsoft could save Yahoo $1 billion to $1.3 billion per year.

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Google has updated your smartphone shopping experience by adding Google Product Search results for iPhone and Android users.

…when you type a product query on Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser, you’ll get Google Product Search results nicely formatted for your phone. You can see online ratings, reviews, prices, and product details if you’re out and about, or just do some mobile web surfing from your couch.

Just in case the simplicity of this announcement escapes you, Rob here, will explain how it works:

Well, thanks Rob! But I have a question for you? Why did you search “bluetooth headset” and not the actual model you had picked up in the store? What’s that you say? Because when you search for an actual product model, say “motorola h710,” from your iPhone, NO product search results show up?

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It’s been slowly coming for a very long time. Google announced that they’d acquired FeedBurner back in May 2007. Only eleven months later (*eye roll*), in April 2008, the two finally began their integration. And now it’s complete.

Last night, FeedBurner was the same website. Today, feedburner.com redirects (with masking) to google.com and www.feedburner.com gives the Google login:

Once you sign in, however, you find the old FeedBurner layout. If you’re a FeedBurner user, you’ve probably seen the promptings to migrate your feeds to Google. As the above screenshot assures you, there’s still time. In fact, the front-page–only change may just be a ploy to reluctant or lazy users to migrate faster.

Have you seen this change?

With the confirmation that Yahoo and Microsoft have renewed their potential partnership discussions, analysts have taken a look at the new potential deals—and they say that Yahoo stands to benefit in several scenarios. And that’s a good thing, since Yahoo is looking to make its first layoffs since Carol Bartz became CEO in January.

Many analysts are basing their numbers on the terms set forth over the last year of negotiations between the two companies. However, I’m thinking if Carol Bartz were interested in any of those deals, she probably would have come to Ballmer sooner. I think that they’re looking at an entirely different kind of deal, rather than a potential merger or selling off their search division, as the stories went last year.

According to CNET, Jefferies & Co analyst Youssef Squali mentions the $2+ billion search business offer from last summer, but also notes that an advertising partnership would net Yahoo some much-needed cash, too:

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Well, stop the presses, folks! Skype may have failed in its efforts to buy itself away from eBay, but that doesn’t mean the online auction site is going to be holding onto the telephony service in the long term. Today, eBay announces that they will spin Skype off with an IPO next year. Scheduled for the first half of the year, the exact timing will depend on market conditions.

Back in 2005, eBay bought Skype for $1.3B in cash and $1.3B in stock. The deal could actually pay out even more (for a maximum total of $4B), provided the telephony service met certain goals by 2008.

However, by Q307, eBay took a $1.4B impairment charge on Skype. Rumors have long circulated that eBay would sell the site, which never seemed to align with its strategy in the first place.

In a statement, eBay CEO Jeff Donahoe noted:

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Nope, this isn’t just a super confusing rehash of yesterday’s story about StumbleUpon buying itself back from eBay—turns out the online auction site’s other confusing acquisition has also been seeking to free itself from its parent and reestablish itself as an independent company.

The WSJ reports that eBay welcomed Skype’s effort to raise its independent funding:

Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis originally approached Ebay about repurchasing Skype, which acquired the service for $2.6 billion in 2005. Ebay encouraged them to make an offer, and the Scandinavian billionaires rounded up a group of private-equity firms to back them, the person familiar with the bid said. . . .

The proposal involved private-equity firms contributing some $1 billion to the deal, according to people familiar with the situation, though a full deal price could not be learned. The transaction also involved Ebay providing financing for the deal.

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First there were the acquisition rumors, then the acquisition. Then there were the sale rumors. Now, eBay has sold StumbleUpon—to the social discovery app (and its funders) itself.

In May 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon at $75 million, to much confusion in the blogosphere. At the time, eBay was taking a “wait and see” approach before integrating any of its holdings with the sharing and discovery toolbar. Just under two years later, with the help of well-known VCs, the service is returning to its roots as an independent start up, including bringing the founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, back.

Camp, who will take the CEO role, said in the release:

We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths

*forehead smack*

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No, I haven’t gotten confused about what year it is—Yahoo and Microsoft are once again discussing a search proposal. Well, color me so-freakin-tired-of-this-story.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, here’s a quick rundown of why this story is soooooooooooooooo old. Last February, Microsoft made an offer to buy out the company, and considerable drama then ensued. Ultimately, a Yang Yahoo rejected the offer. This February, MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer was stunned that Yahoo’s new CEO, Carol Bartz, wasn’t interested in a deal.

But now, according to AllThingsD, things have changed, and the two companies have been in talks for weeks, culminating in a face-to-face meeting with Bartz and Ballmer:

According to a variety of sources, the talks between the pair and also other execs at both companies are preliminary and also wide-ranging, focused on what kinds of commercial relationship Yahoo and Microsoft could have in the future.

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