|
COMPANY |
DATE |
BUSINESS AREA |
GOOD/BAD |
|
Net Controls |
September 1997 |
Software development |
Mixed (A news ticker developer was their first acquisition. It is good in that it was originally considered a ‘killer app’, but bad in the sense didn’t really offer anything to Yahoo in business terms that couldn’t be easily developed) |
|
Four11 |
October 1997 |
Rocketmail |
Good (Rocketmail became Yahoo Mail and is widely used today to keep people on Yahoo branded properties) |
|
Classic Games |
March 1998 |
Video Games |
Good (freebie video games went hand-in-hand with the Yahoo Mail…this definitely shows their focus on capturing eyeballs) |
|
ViaWeb |
June 1998 |
Online storefront |
Mixed (it was good at the time for Yahoo to provide a solution, but lack of innovation on this product gives it a bad score…much more could have been done with the Yahoo stores to turn it into a de facto standard) |
|
WebCal |
July 1998 |
Software development |
Mixed (a calendar solution is good to have, but purchase of one that could be easily developed makes it a bad purchase, given that it didn’t help to capture and retain eyeballs) |
|
Yoyodyne |
December 1998 |
Direct Marketing |
Mixed (Good talent purchased with the promise of prominent entertainment sites for their media empire, but what happened with it? Bad) |
|
Sportasy |
December 1998 |
Fantasy Sports |
Bad (They basically just bought out a partner with a website as a way to remove competition, when that competitor wasn’t established. Yahoo fantasy sports has room for increasing eyeballs, but they didn’t need to buy anyone to do this) |
|
Hyperparellel |
January 1999 |
Data mining |
Good (A CRM system to help understand the consumer only adds to core knowledge base) |
|
Log-Me-On |
February 1999 |
Bookmark manager |
Bad (Bookmarks at the time were managed more at the browser level than an external software solution; little has changed) |
|
GeoCities |
May 1999 |
Personal websites |
Mixed (Good in that this property held more promise than Google’s Blogger purchase. Bad in that it was never made a priority and exists side by side yahoo 360) |
|
Encompass |
May 1999 |
Registration automation |
Bad (there was no reason to spend $130M to help people register their hardware, then or now – it was supposed to help people get online, but that was never a focus for Yahoo) |
|
Online Anywhere |
June 1999 |
Content reformatting |
Bad (Yahoo was never in the browser business and this was a browser solution) |
|
Broadcast.com |
July 1999 |
Streaming audio/video |
Good (The cost was high, but for a “media” company, this represents an important purchase in terms of playing in a future channel) |
|
MyQuest |
November 1999 |
Telecommunications |
Mixed (bad in terms of unknown value due to lack of info; good in that it appears to be for audio/video data store that would tie into the broadcast purchase) |
|
Arthas.com |
March 2000 |
Payment solutions |
Mixed (Payment solutions would have been interesting to offer on the Yahoo stores; bad since it clearly failed and is now regulated to a parking page) |
|
eGroups |
August 2000 |
Groups |
Good (It is now a part of Yahoo Groups, but this is almost a “mixed” purchase since the Groups project has been largely neglected) |
|
Kimo |
November 2000 |
Asia |
Good (Yahoo intelligently made a foray into the Chinese and Japanese markets before many other online firms; their share is still strong in Japan) |
|
Sold.com |
April 2001 |
Auctions |
Mixed (Good in the sense of offering auctions, but the idea failed, and now it redirects to a real estate site) |
|
Launch Media |
June 2001 |
Music |
Good (Yahoo Music has been a useful product for the media company, in retaining eyeballs and eardrums) |
|
Hotjobs |
January 2002 |
Jobs |
Mixed (At the time, Hotjobs as a strong competitor to Monster; since then hotjobs and Yahoo Jobs have taken a back seat innovation-wise) |
|
Inktomi |
December 2002 |
Search |
Good (Yahoo needed its own search technology in order to compete against Google) |
|
Overture |
October 2003 |
PPC |
Good (Yahoo’s best purchase, profit wise, but still wasn’t given the attention it needed…and now is second fiddle to Adwords) |
|
3721 Internet Assistant |
January 2004 |
Spyware |
Bad (It should be obvious that this just isn’t a good thing for Yahoo to be doing, but still…it likely made them money) |
|
Kelkoo |
April 2004 |
Price comparisons |
Mixed (Good in that it has been profitable since 2002, but bad in the since it never really made sense for Yahoo to own and hasn’t been integrated) |
|
Oddpost |
July 2004 |
E-mail |
Good (Paid e-mail was good at the time for premium services, but now all those features are largely free) |
|
The All-Seeing Eye |
September 2004 |
videogame server browsing application & service |
Good (this was helpful in integrating with the Yahoo Games) |
|
MusicMatch |
October 2004 |
Music |
Good (complimentary purchase to expand the Yahoo Music brand) |
|
Stata Labs |
October 2004 |
E-mail |
Good (This would have mixed about a year ago, but the features from the “outlook killer” were finally integrated into Yahoo Mail) |
|
WUF Networks |
November 2004 |
Content control |
Good (this allows for controls and access to a variety of multimedia, which a media firm should be good at handling) |
|
Verdisoft |
February 2005 |
software development |
Bad (it was intended to help mobile customers keep in synch with data, specifically Yahoo data. Again, this was not a ‘Yahoo’ issue though, but a device issue) |
|
Ludicorp Research |
March 2005 |
Flickr |
Mixed (Good in that it is a very strong social image brand, bad in that they haven’t integrated it yet into Yahoo. They really need to get better at the integration piece) |
|
Stadeon |
March 2005 |
cross-platform gaming technology |
Mixed (multi-platform gaming could have been an intriguing fit for Yahoo Games, should that have been their primary focus. With Yahoo though, focus is an after thought, so as far as we know, it died) |
|
TeRespondo |
April 2005 |
Brazilian performance-based advertising network |
Good (Any performance-based advertising is key to Yahoo’s success) |
|
Dialpad |
June 2005 |
Voice |
Good (Yahoo Voice could become the next Vonage, provided they support and nourish its growth) |
|
Blo.gs |
June 2005 |
Blogroll |
Mixed (This was a great idea for a purchase, in terms of aggregating content from a media control perspective, but again they didn’t do much other than throw a feature on My Yahoo) |
|
Konfabulator |
July 2005 |
Widgets |
Good (This is still listed as good since it could be useful for Yahoo’s insanely large and diverse web empire, but given they went and purchased mybloglog that shows the tech was never really used much) |
|
Alibaba |
October 2005 |
Search |
Good (Yahoo needs all the help they can get promoting search as a brand, and Alibaba may eventually have intellectual capital in the area that exceeds Yahoo’s) |
|
Upcoming.org |
October 2005 |
Social Calendars |
Mixed (Another social media site is great if truly integrated, but it isn’t…again) |
|
Whereonearth |
October 2005 |
Search |
Good (Geolocational search will be very valuable as consumers demand localized results) |
|
del.icio.us |
December 2005 |
Social bookmarking |
Mixed (This is a very promising social bookmarking site that is heavily used, but if Yahoo doesn’t allow it to keep innovating and doesn’t share data with it from other social media sources, what will happen?) |
|
SearchFox, WebJay |
January 2006 |
RSS |
Bad (A RSS reader was already purchased by Yahoo; this one also fell apart) |
|
Meedio |
April 2006 |
Digital Media Management |
Good (Yahoo’s core is media, so managing media is a helpful compliment) |
|
Jumpcut.com |
September 2006 |
Video |
Good (Video editing and hosting could be a good rival to Youtube, if it ever is given internal capital from Yahoo) |
|
AdInterax |
October 2006 |
Rich Media creation |
Good (An apparently compliment to Jumpcut, and possibly a future compliment to Overture and Right Media) |
|
Kenet Works |
November 2006 |
Social mobile |
Good (Another social concept, with a mobile focus; the same questions remain given Yahoo’s non-integration) |
|
Bix.com |
November 2006 |
Video |
Good (Yahoo’s answer to Youtube? Still too early, and practically no buzz) |
|
Wretch |
December 2006 |
Social Taiwan |
Good (Another community, another question of integration) |
|
MyBlogLog |
January 2007 |
Blog widget |
Bad ($10M for a widget that is slowly made into a heavily spammed social networking tool?) |
|
Right Media |
April 2007 |
Advertising platform |
Mixed (Good that Yahoo decided to expand their performance-based advertising presence…bad that it only happened after Google bought Doubleclick and was followed by Microsoft’s monster purchase of Adquantive) |