Last week I spoke to Richard Dalton from Newsday and gave him my thoughts on Microsoft and Yahoo coming together for a story he was doing. The article ran in today’s paper and can be seen here. Here are my thoughts from the piece:

Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, an Internet marketing company based in Fleetwood, agreed that neither Microsoft nor Yahoo can effectively compete individually against Google.

Microsoft’s search capability is a few year’s behind Google’s, while Yahoo’s search engine is good but lags Google’s as well, he said.

“Personally, I would much rather have two really strong options than just one really good option and then two OK ones.”

Rich ends the article with the most recent news about Yahoo! turning Microsoft down (for now): Even though Yahoo’s board has rejected Microsoft’s initial offer, some experts believe Microsoft will inevitably work out a deal to obtain the company – and then deal with an issue the software giant is familiar with – antitrust.

This will definitely be an interesting story to watch as I believe it is far from over….

Check out the full article here @ Yahoo-Microsoft merger could benefit Web users.

And as always don’t forget to subscribe to the 10e20 RSS Feed!

Sexy start-ups seem to love Microsoft lately. At least that’s the way it seems on the heels of the latest report that Microsoft has signed an agreement to sell advertisements from outside the U.S. on Facebook and will acquire a minority stake in the company. Seemingly as important as actually inking the deal is the fact they beat Google in this closely watched contest.

Here’s the terms of the deal:

* Microsoft will invest up to $250 million for a minority stake in Facebook (people are saying that the valuations being discussed for Facebook are as high as $15 BILLION)

* This deal now expands on their previous advertising agreement (which was solely for the US) and focuses on international versions of the Facebook service. Microsoft will be able to run ads on those sites.

Minority stake and basically complete control over advertising on one of the hottest sites on the Net? Not a bad day at all for Microsoft…

Don’t forget to subscribe to the 10e20 RSS Feed!

Microsoft’s approach to Facebook in recent weeks with proposals to invest in the fast-growing site is part of the software giant’s effort to catch up with the Internet rival Google. If successful, Microsoft’s talks with Facebook could give it an up-to-5% stake in the closely-held startup—a stake potentially valued at roughly $300 million to $500 million, the people familiar with those talks said.

The article states that this is likely to lead to another battle with Google, who has also expressed interest in Facebook.

Last year, Microsoft and Facebook signed an exclusive advertising deal that allows Microsoft to serve ads on Facebook. That agreement covers only the U.S. and expires in 2011, but the companies are discussing whether to extend it for a longer period and expand it beyond the U.S. sources said.

In July, Microsoft signed an exclusive advertising deal with Digg, another hot social network. Google was the previous provider for Digg and this was looked at as a “win” for Microsoft.

One question that needs to be asked here is: Where is Yahoo in all of this? A year ago they were looked at as the front-runner to acquire Facebook for between $800 million and $1 billion but the talks broke down. And now there is no mention of Yahoo which seems to be the norm lately….

Don’t forget to subscribe to the 10e20 RSS Feed!

Hey everyone – I wanted to give you a heads-up before the official announcement is made later today. We’ve signed on Microsoft as our new partner to sell and serve the ads on Digg. It’s a deal similar to the one Facebook signed with Microsoft last year.

Kevin compares the deal last year that Facebook signed with Microsoft. A refresher from last August:

Facebook and Microsoft Corp. today announced a strategic alliance in which the two companies will collaborate to bring relevant advertising to the more than 9 million registered users of Facebook, the Internet’s leading social directory. Microsoft’s advanced advertising technology and Facebook’s unique social network make possible the multiyear collaboration grounded in the two companies’ commitment to technological innovation.

This follows Digg’s decision to add a Microsoft category to the site back in February. I was always wondering why there was no Google one added as well considering the amount of Google stories on the site…

Any way you look at this – its a big score for Microsoft and a blow to Google, maybe not in terms of huge ad dollars but in terms of a high profile defection.

Should be fun to follow the comments here on Digg

Don’t forget to subscribe to the 10e20 RSS Feed!

….just Thursday, ad agency WPP Group agreed to buy 24/7 Media, another ad services company, for $650 million. Microsoft had been rumored to be mulling its own acquisitions of DoubleClick and 24/7. Shares of ValueClick, another online ad firm, rose more than 13% Friday before closing up 7.6%.

“The amazing thing about this is that it makes Google look smart,” said Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, a search marketing firm.

What I was referring to was Google’s recent acquisition of DoubleClick for about half the price. When the news of that deal first came out, a lot of people were a bit surprised at how much Google paid but now it looks (on the surface) like they got a steal compared to the $6 billion Microsoft just shelled out. Good discussion at ThreadWatch on the issue.

On a side-note, congrats to my friend Chris Boggs who works for RazorFish, which is part of aQuantive and now a part of Microsoft.

Check out the online version of Investor’s Business Daily article here: Microsoft Purchase Adds Up To A Test For Google, Yahoo

Could a potential Microsoft/Yahoo deal solve the freefall?

Short answer: no. Long answer: Internet analysts say it couldn’t hurt.

“Overnight, MSN and Yahoo’s market share doubles,” says Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, a New York firm that helps businesses set up search marketing campaigns. “They still aren’t as strong as Google, but they are healthier together than apart.”

My thoughts on this deal are simple. In a perfect world I feel that a Microsoft and Yahoo pairing would make a stronger company to compete against Google, with the key word being compete. Paired together their search market share would be at almost 39% – just 10% below Google’s 48%. But even in the perfect world scenario I don’t think they would be able to surpass Google in search anytime in the near future. With that being said, that’s the perfect world scenario, you are talking about two very ego driven companies that both just spent a great deal of time and money building search applications to compete with Google (Microsoft’s live.com and AdCenter; Yahoo’s Project Panama). They also used to work together (Microsoft used Yahoo’s ad platform) and that got scrapped. So….

But in the end, it doesn’t look like its going to matter anyway because according to recent reports talks have been called off for the time being. But they did say that they might still try to find a way of cooperating together in the future. Interesting times…

Here’s a sneak peek of the welcome screen:

If this truly will be Google Analytics’s competition, I’m hoping this is going to address several shortcomings that I’ve found in Google Analytics, particularly the notion of inaccurate counts (especially when compared with Urchin, which is ironic given that Google purchased Urchin yet dropped its core functionality), the absence of the direct referral page in the analysis review, and complexity (especially for newbies — how about simple Urchin-like reports and an advanced view?)

I’m looking forward to seeing this new analytics tool which hopefully will integrate the best of Google Analytics with its own unique flavor.