Yahoo! announced an agreement to tap into Google Search and image ads as part of its ongoing quest to deliver results that ‘don’t suck’. Yahoo! will determine which queries to send to Bing (that agreement still stands) and which to send to Google. Each will then bump the query against their own algorithms to deliver the best ads. Essentially, Yahoo! gets the best of both worlds.
I think this is an great agreement on Yahoo’s part. They’ll never beat Google, and Bing will be there to give them options. Meanwhile, Yahoo! will continue to work on its core content and mobile strategies, which is where it’s future lies.
This past weekend, Yahoo streamed the Bills / Jaguars game ($17M for the right to do so), as it explores streaming pro sports and looks at more content across Yahoo properties.
At the same time we are told that Yahoo is also looking to develop mobile search, which is much more influenced by localization. This may be another case of Yahoo! going head to head with Google only to end up falling back and leveraging someone else’s (Google’s) technology down the road. Not so long ago Yahoo! was hot into desktop search. Those of us in the game for a while remember when they came to us and sold us on the platform that was essentially a google me-to. It will be interesting to see how far Yahoo! can take it’s mobile play.