It’s official: Yelp has now turned away more suitors than Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus.

In December, the blogosphere reeled at the announcement that Google was stepping-up to buy restaurant-review site for a cool $500 million. Not bad for Yelp, considering it brief history as a startup, nor for Google, considering its botched [...]]]>

It’s official: Yelp has now turned away more suitors than Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus.

In December, the blogosphere reeled at the announcement that Google was stepping-up to buy restaurant-review site for a cool $500 million. Not bad for Yelp, considering it brief history as a startup, nor for Google, considering its botched attempts to dominate the local review market.

Observers did a double-take a few days later when it was announced that Yelp had walked away from the offer, citing fiduciary duty. It was further disclosed that an unnamed suitor was willing to pay more than 50% above Google’s offer price. Some observers correctly predicted that the only company desperate enough to make such an offer was Microsoft, which has never balked at paying excessive prices for a piece of the social networking pie. We now know that it was, indeed, Microsoft, which approached Yelp with an offer north of $700 million.

Which Yelp rejected.

Founder Jeremy Stoppleman is now sharing more details about his vision for the company, including a distant IPO:

Yelp “will definitely not go public this year,” he said. “2011, who knows? But why rush out the door if I can avoid it?”

This disclosure suggests at least a couple of things–

1. Yelp has enough cash in the bank to make it for a while, to which its recent injection of $100 million from private equity-shop Elevation Partners certainly attests.
2. Yelp estimates its true value north of $1 billion.
3. Yelp expects the IPO market for tech startups will significantly improve after 2010.

Time will tell if Yelp’s holdout strategy will work. It is a risky business, however, considering how quickly the market can turn against review sites.

Just ask CitySearch.

Yelp CEO Doesn’t See An IPO Anytime Soon.

Google, which has been on a buying spree for the past year, is in advanced talks to purchase Yelp for at least $500 million.

This is a smart move for Google in many ways. It had tried to usurp the world of local reviews earlier this year with its Place Pages– mini-sites that would [...]]]>

Google, which has been on a buying spree for the past year, is in advanced talks to purchase Yelp for at least $500 million.

This is a smart move for Google in many ways. It had tried to usurp the world of local reviews earlier this year with its Place Pages– mini-sites that would show up at the front of search results pages and provide you with everything from the establishment’s address, phone number, location via Google Map, and user reviews. It would appear that, rather than reinvent the wheel, Mountain View has decided to pick up Yelp while the price is still relatively low. Doing so allows Google’s engineering team to focus on other areas; this price tag is largely about the value of Yelp’s user content.

This move by Google definitely serves as a shot across the bow to Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) IAC, whose CitySearch directory has been dying on the vine for the past seven years. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds.

Yelp has raised about $30 million across its four rounds of venture capital, and TechCrunch estimates the company’s value at $200 million.

Congrats to everyone at Yelp!

Google In Discussions To Acquire Yelp For A Half Billion Dollars Or More.

The Financial Times reported today that Microsoft is offering to pay News Corp to remove its content from Google’s search engine. This has become Microsoft’s preferred marketing approach: pay people to use your stuff… or, in this case, to not use someone else’s. We saw it with Bing Shopping’s double cashback earlier this [...]]]>

The Financial Times reported today that Microsoft is offering to pay News Corp to remove its content from Google’s search engine. This has become Microsoft’s preferred marketing approach: pay people to use your stuff… or, in this case, to not use someone else’s. We saw it with Bing Shopping’s double cashback earlier this year, and we’re seeing it again now.

That’s what a $25 billion war chest lets you do.

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch, meanwhile, has been taking his own hard line against Google, stating that he would use legal methods to stop Google from “stealing stories” from News Corp properties such as The Wall Street Journal. The puzzling thing with this approach is that no one is forcing publishers to have their content indexed by Google. It’s really quite simple: put a robots.txt file on your site, and– bam! –Google will no longer index your content.

Of course, you’d also be committing digital seppuku in the process, as Google probably drives the majority of your traffic, but hey.

via FT.com / Media – Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact.

Based upon its recent performance, I’d say the odds of this happening by the end of 2010 are pretty strong:

Apparently, Barclays also [...]]]> According to Doug Anmuth of Barclays, Yahoo will start losing incremental EBITA from its partnership with Microsoft if its search share drops beneath 11% at any point in the next three years.

Based upon its recent performance, I’d say the odds of this happening by the end of 2010 are pretty strong:

Apparently, Barclays also sees this possibility, as evidenced in its scenarios for Yahoo’s share–

Every 100 bps of market share is equal to roughly $60 – $80 million of annual gross revenue and $35 – $50 million of annual EBITDA for Yahoo!.

Our Baseline scenario represents our current estimates and assumes share declines to 16.8% in 2012.

Our Moderate share loss scenario assumes share falls to 14% in 2012 resulting in revenue and EBITDA that is $77 million and $69 million lower than our current projections.

Our Accelerated loss—or worst case—scenario assumes Yahoo!’s share falls from ~18% today to 10% share in 2012, impacting Yahoo!’s total revenue by 6.5% ($427 million) and EBITDA by 13.8% ($317 million) relative to our current estimates, more than offsetting the benefits of the MSFT Partnership. [Which are ~$275 M]

via Why Yahoo Cant Let Search Share Keep Slipping MSFT, YHOO.

As the picture suggests, the first partner onboard is LinkedIn, but I expect other social nets to take notice. Despite [...]]]> Microsoft has just launched a new feature to Office 2010 called Outlook Social Connector. Whenever someone sends an email to your Outlook, that person’s social networking profile will be displayed along with their message:

As the picture suggests, the first partner onboard is LinkedIn, but I expect other social nets to take notice. Despite its shortcomings, Outlook is still the 800-lb gorilla in the world of client email. Of course, this is a frontal assault on Xobni, which functions as a plug-in to, er, Outlook, and ‘ports in your friends’ social graph whenever they send you an email. Interesting that Microsoft chose to roll its own here, rather than simply acquire Xobni outright.

Think we’ll see Facebook soon? With Microsoft’s 1.6% stake in the social networking giant, I’d count on it.

via Microsoft Outlook to Connect LinkedIn to Your Inbox.

Consume at your own risk; [...]]]> I would say this is farcical, but that would be a misuse of the word. Let’s just say it’s really, really bad. If this is Microsoft’s secret weapon against Apple (whose stores offer some of the highest revenue-per-square-foot to be found anywhere), I’d say Steven Jobs can sleep well at night.

Consume at your own risk; I disavow responsibility.

It’s heading in the wrong direction — toward zero. Yahoo represented 18% of the U.S. search market in October, according to comScore — an all-time low. Meanwhile, Google reached an all-time high at [...]]]> In a discovery that will surprise no one, Yahoo is continuing to lose share in the search marketing arena to Google and Bing:

It’s heading in the wrong direction — toward zero. Yahoo represented 18% of the U.S. search market in October, according to comScore — an all-time low. Meanwhile, Google reached an all-time high at 65.4% of the market. And Microsoft’s Bing gained half a percentage point to 9.9%.

The picture really says it all.

Well, maybe not all. For starters, what will Yahoo do about this state of affairs? Some have suggested that it intends to get out of the search marketing business altogether– a sentiment seemingly reinforced by Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’ recent comment that Yahoo wasn’t really a search engine. Others argue that given the size of the market, maintaining even a foothold is better than nothing, and certainly is worth Yahoo’s cost of doing business.

When these charts start to include Ask.com and Cuil, you’ll know it has become very, very bad for Yahoo.

via CHART OF THE DAY: Yahoo’s Search Business Is Toast (YHOO, GOOG, MSFT).

Google launched a new product called Google Places last week, a mini-profile page for local business listings that aggregates  address, phone number, site URL, maps, directions, photos and reviews all on one page. The problem is that Google quietly began indexing these aggregator pages. The risk is that, because this content resides within [...]]]>

Google launched a new product called Google Places last week, a mini-profile page for local business listings that aggregates  address, phone number, site URL, maps, directions, photos and reviews all on one page. The problem is that Google quietly began indexing these aggregator pages. The risk is that, because this content resides within Google, it can prefer them in its search results pages over non-Google content (think: Yelp, CitySearch, YellowPages, etc.).

In a literal sense, your search for that restaurant and movie need never involve a non-Google page:

When you click on a pin for a local business or place of interest on Google Maps a bubble will open up, and if you click “more info” sometimes it will take you to the Google Places page. So far, so good. Google Places is simply making Google Maps better, right?

The concerns arise, however, back on Google’s main search page, where Google is indexing these Places pages. Since Google controls its own search index, it can push Google Places more prominently if it so desires. There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence that Google is doing this yet, but the mere fact that Google is indexing these Places pages has the SEO world in a tizzy.

Google has since added disallow tags to these pages to remove them from its search index, and has confirmed that it did not intend for these pages to appear in organic search results. While reassuring, this shows just how vulnerable all sites have become on the decisions made within the Googleplex. It is in this context that the rise of alternate search engines like Microsoft’s Bing is a welcome sign that competition may be returning to search. If true, this can only benefit businesses who do not want their economic future determined solely by the actions of a single player.

via With Google Places, Concerns Rise That Google Just Wants To Link To Its Own Content .

Yes, you read that right.

Just in case you have trouble understanding what on earth you’re supposed to do at a Windows 7 launch party, Microsoft has kindly created a video to [...]]]> In a move which further blurs the line between farce and fiction, Microsoft is encouraging people to throw Windows 7 launch parties at their homes.

Yes, you read that right.

Just in case you have trouble understanding what on earth you’re supposed to do at a Windows 7 launch party, Microsoft has kindly created a video to help you out.

Warning: this makes the Jerry Seinfeld videos look clever by comparison.

Key takeaways:

1. Microsoft’s marketing is truly lost in the wilderness of bad ideas. Very, very bad ideas.
2. See #1.