Why would Microsoft pay such a premium for Yahoo, given slowing growth in display advertising? The Nielsen Norman Group’s Jakob Nielsen has an idea or two. Here’s one of them: Web-mail-associated searches.
When they want to search, a lot of users go for the nearest ‘type-in place’ they can find. So if a search box is visible on the current page, that site will often get the query, and the ensuing bountiful revenues. Many users don’t even know how to get to the homepage of their favorite search engine.
“Thus, if Microsoft took over the email accounts currently served by Yahoo, it would get many of the searches done after people check their email (something that’s very sticky–users are reluctant to abandon their email addresses).
“The question, of course, is whether such accidental use of a search engine is as valuable as searches by more-determined users who go straight to their favorite search engine. Yahoo would know, since they serve both kinds of searches, but the numbers are surely kept as a state secret.”
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size. 11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
