Yahoo + AOL + Microsoft = Google Killer?

How do you get three giants out of quicksand? The biggest giant eats the other two and makes a boat from their bones.

That seems to be Wall Street’s approach to building an apt competitor to Google. Shortly after analysts dreamed of a Microsoft-owned Yahoo, they’ve amended their solution to include AOL.

Last week, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen told reporters that an AOL Yahoo merger was possible in 2007. Cohen said an AOL Yahoo merger was “one of the more logical combinations” to take on Google, cut costs, and combine audiences, and that Time Warner was open to it.

This caused quite the buzz, spawning charts with potential combinations of companies that could merge with or be acquired by another company for strategic reasons.

A Yahoo AOL combination is considered among the most likely, as is a Microsoft buy out of AOL and/or Yahoo.

Or, if we get out our pie-in-the-sky caps, the ideal scenario is Yahoo merges with AOL and Microsoft buys them both. MSN is sinking in the search market. Yahoo is stagnant. And AOL is ready to be sold for parts. But, theoretically, the high profile threesome could make one hell of a Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger.

This is GEMAYA revisited, that too big of a darn acronym symbolic of too big of a darn theoretical super conglomerate consisting of Google, eBay, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, AOL. And Wall Street gets so hot when people get all cyber-orgiastic.

On paper, it is potentially the only way Microsoft and Yahoo will catch Google. But since competition is key, making GEMAYA a ready target for trustbusters, maybe we should restructure that super conglomerate, add some, and divide it all into two mega-super-conglomerates.

It’s worked for the telcos, right?

How about DAMMIT (Disney, Amazon, Microsoft, Motorola, Interactive, Time Warner) vs. E-GANGS (eBay, Google, Apple, News Corp., General Electric, Sun Microsystems)?

Now we’re just being silly, aren’t we?

Something tells me we haven’t even seen silly yet. We just don’t know, at this point, what level or direction of silly it will be. It would seem silly for there not to be major collaborations to maximize the online market. The size of these potential super-companies isn’t just silly, it’s down right ridiculous. But it also seems silly to drive from the end-user seat, without any concrete confirmation from the players involved.

But it is fun to do, especially at the end of year when there’s little going on and you can’t think of anything to say.

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=70805

Digg, Google, AOL, TechCrunch, Spam, Netscape, SEO, Podcasting, AdSense, Valleywag???

Sequoia Capital’s newly-minted “entrepreneur in action” delivered the morning keynote address at SES Chicago, where he talked about Digg, Digg, Spam, Digg, Netscape, Digg, Digg, and Valleywag. Our Chris Richardson dug in for the session.

After swiftly resigning in the wake of AOL chairman and CEO Jon Miller’s surprise departure, Calacanis resurfaced at SES Chicago, where he delivered the morning keynote to attendees who braved the 12-degree weather.

He did confirm the Sequoia job, taking a position with the company that backed YouTube and a then-unknown search engine company called Backrub, soon to be renamed Google. Calacanis suggested one route he might take would be in creating a DRM-less mp3 player that downloads podcasts automatically with Wi-fi discovery technology.

His talk hit a variety of topics, such as crediting AOL with “creating” Firefox after they opened the Netscape browser’s code. Calacanis also talked about his Netscape, which combined social bookmarking with editorial control; it differed from Digg in that editors could expand upon stories that reached the front page.

He probably did not endear himself to some attendees though, in referring to search optimization as BS and called for more quality content and less trying to game the search engines. Make great content and the world links to it, Calacanis said.

Danny Sullivan was on hand to agree with him on the great content point. But Sullivan pointed out how SEO done to ensure correct crawls and indexing was a correct usage of it.

Incorrect usage, like spam and its many forms, do not please Calacanis, and he railed against spammers in the talk. He sees the Internet industry as a beautiful city, and spammers as those who will ruin it with their littering.

His comments about Digg reflected his previous thoughts recorded elsewhere – he never wanted to destroy Digg, he felt that offering to pay top Diggers for posting articles to Netscape was a good idea, he tried to buy into Digg and got rebuffed.

Sullivan then played word association with Calacanis, with Danny tossing out the first word and Jason following along. Without further adieu, the Internet according to Jason Calacanis:

Digg – Brilliant?
Google – Brilliant, Unstoppable?
AOL – Transitional?
TechCrunch – More Right Than Wrong?
Spam – Evil Die Die?
Netscape – The Future?
SEO – KISS?
Podcasting – Addictive?
AdSense – I Love You?
Valleywag – Liar, Evil, Idiot?
Jason Calacanis – Striving..