SiliconBeat

We learned in late December that Yelp turned down an acquisition offer from Google reported to be worth $500 million. Yelp then raised $25 million from Elevation Partners, with another $75 million possibly coming down the road.

It may need that money to ward off Google, which is ramping up its local advertising offerings. The new service places Yelp directly in Google’s scope. And I wonder if it won’t lead Yelp to regret not selling when they had the chance.

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Confirming recent scuttlebutt, Google announced Wednesday that it was walking away from its advertising partnership with Yahoo. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, the agency had told the pair that it planned to file a suit to block the deal:

“Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. abandoned their advertising agreement after the Department of Justice informed the companies that it would file an antitrust lawsuit to block the implementation of the agreement. The Department said that, if implemented, the agreement between these two companies accounting for 90 percent or more of each relevant market would likely harm competition in the markets for Internet search advertising and Internet search syndication.

“The companies’ decision to abandon their agreement eliminates the competitive concerns identified during our investigation and eliminates the need to file an enforcement action,” said Thomas O. Barnett, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department’s Antitrust Division. “The arrangement likely would have denied consumers the benefits of competition–lower prices, better service and greater innovation.”

As I wrote the other day, I think the notion that this deal raised anti-trust issues was wrongheaded. And I think Google and Yahoo could have won a court fight. The problem was that this would take time and money. And the deal didn’t really matter that much to Google from a financial perspective to invest all those resources in fighting to save it. Google was doing it, probably, just to thumb its nose at Microsoft and disrupt its bid for Yahoo.

For Yahoo, on the other hand, this is a body blow. Read the rest of this entry »

The personal computer combined with the Internet changed everything. right? That seems to be one of the most essential maxims of the “new” economy. If you buy that, then this breathless release about “Groundbreaking Engagement Research” will be further proof of your worldview.

It seems that MTV Networks and Harris Interactive co-operated on “new” research that “reveals a critical companion metric to measuring audience size, pioneering a new way for advertising brands to target the most engaged and valuable audiences.”

The study “provides empirical evidence that” — are you sitting down? Read the rest of this entry »