Microsoft, Yahoo!, and eBay

Tony · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 12:09 pm

can you say "anti-trust"?

rumour has it that Microsoft wants to buy eBay. It seems that they are just out to buy _anything_ to merge into MSN to have it compete in the search market against Google.

Which I find to be quite odd - eBay doesn't do searches, though maybe it's an insanely expensive answer to Google's Classified?

The story relates to eBay's partnership with Yahoo! (I thought Microsoft had some partnerships with Yahoo! as well).

I found the following particularly interesting:

Quote:

he pair plan to develop "click-to-call" advertising technologies so punters can call advertisers direct.

Well... this explains eBay's purchase of Skype.

wtd · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 12:18 pm

eBay is very much tied into the search market.

Search is entirely about advertising. There's no other point to offering free search services. To effectively advertise you have to know what people want. How do you know what people want? Why, by knowing what they're looking for.

eBay's own internal search tell you a lot about what people are looking for. Chances are pretty good that what people are looking for on eBay, they're looking for elsewhere.

In the process of looking for stuff on eBay, a lot of content goes past the average user's face. Much of this will be noted without the user being conscious that they are taking note of it. This is extremely effective advertising.

Effective advertising space is worth more, and brings in more revenue.

Microsoft wants eBay and Yahoo! (which given those companies' newfound friendship, could be done in a single swipe) because it means a solid revenue stream which can subsidize other less profitable ventures.

rizzix · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 1:58 pm

No I belive yahoo declined the offer.. Microsoft did try to buy them off, but they couldn't Razz

Tony · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 2:19 pm

wtd wrote:

How do you know what people want? Why, by knowing what they're looking for.

well Microsoft already has an OS and a web browser with a whooping market share. It could collect all the same information without actually buying eBay and its survalence logs.

Yes, it's going to be crap to have spyware for an OS, but really - how is that any different from logging user's searches and bids for advertisement purposes?

wtd · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 4:46 pm

Because seeing where people go, and where they want to go are two different things. Smile

Amailer · **Posted:** Tue May 30, 2006 5:32 pm

Also popups annoy you even more than text-based ads o.O Seriously, why would anyone like spyware?

Either way, its just like Microsoft to buy out eBay and every other company that does well. Hopefully they won't kill the site by making everything ActiveX Smile

codemage · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 8:25 am

Tony wrote:

Microsoft already has an OS and a web browser with a whooping market share. It could collect all the same information without actually buying eBay and its survalence logs.

Um... it already does. It's called Alexa. It's MS spyware. It's on your computer by default.

Dan · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 5:07 pm

Alexa is only in IE and is only activated when you use the 'Related Links' featuter in IE. Also it was removed from IE in SP2 due to a masvie secuity hole that sent a litte to much information, lol.

Also you can remove it using spybot or other non-M$ anti-spy ware or you can simple edit the window regiestery to make it use google to get links.

What i whould be realy woried about is windows vista....

Guest · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 5:26 pm

People still use IE? Even my grandma uses Firefox...

Tony · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 5:30 pm

Hacker Dan wrote:

you can simple edit the window regiestery to make it use google to get links.

Yes Dan, because most people who use IE are aware of what's going on and how to edit their registry Laughing

I'd be worried about Vista too, but luckly I'm on a Mac Wink

Dan · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 5:43 pm

Well as long as they stay away from that one option in the registry witch is BSOD on ctrl-shift they should be ok Razz

. Tho there are some progmaes that will make the edit for you, but if you are going to download somthing why not FF?

I Just hope they do not start making games and applications that require you to have vista to use them....

Edit: Acuatly when vista comes out i am probly going to buy it and then go over it with packet siffers and hex editors for a few months to see what is realy going on...

Tony · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 6:14 pm

Hacker Dan wrote:

I Just hope they do not start making games and applications that require you to have vista to use them....

Kind of how IE7 will be XP/Vista only? Laughing

Dan · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 9:24 pm

Tony wrote:

Hacker Dan wrote:

I Just hope they do not start making games and applications that require you to have vista to use them....

Kind of how IE7 will be XP/Vista only? Laughing

LOL, they can keep that one....

The last reports i hured about the vista spyware was that it was being moved to the next verson. Tho who knows if this is ture and not just more of a cover up. The hole "safe computing" worrys me.

wtd · **Posted:** Wed May 31, 2006 10:20 pm

We'll find out in three years when Vista is actually available.

codemage · **Posted:** Thu Jun 01, 2006 8:37 am

Hacker Dan wrote:

I Just hope they do not start making games and applications that require you to have vista to use them....

Oh, you mean like how DirectX 10, Halo 2, ShadowRun, etc. require you to have vista to use them? Evil or Very Mad

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