A Fuller View

Microsoft closed its acquisition of enterprise search company FAST last Friday. This deal was originally announced back in January.

I am a little bit slow posting about this news from UK based Multimap, which is now part of the Microsoft family - Multimap is now tightly tied to Live Search in the UK - which is cool! Here’s some details from the official blog:

First things first, Multimap is now the lead consumer mapping experience for Live Search in the UK, and we’re proud to welcome all the UK users of Live Search Maps to Multimap.com. It may have been a while since you last used Multimap.com, but we hope that you’ll find all the great features that you’re used to, plus much more.

For those of you not familiar with Live Search Maps, and the Virtual Earth platform that powers it, check out the fabulous Bird’s Eye images, which are now available on Multimap.com. Unlike normal satellite and aerial imagery that is taken from directly above, Bird’s Eye images are captured by low-flying aircraft and are taken from a 45 degree angle, facing north, south, east and west directions to give a unique perspective.

Read the full blog post here OR better yet use the new and improved Multimap directly. I’ve always found Multimap to be one of the best UK focused mapping sites and was always an early innovator. Its great to see that they are improving the product and taking back ground from Google maps.

There are a number of interesting posts over on sister site AdViking worth a read this week if you have time:

• Google blames their tech - trying to save face with WAN
• Microsoft moves - buying Rapt
• Google shmoogle and OpenX
• Beacon Sucks - this is a sweet review of the Zuckeberg interview at SXSW!

There is a great post over on sister site AdViking that give some insight into MSFT’s enterprise search strategy and how FAST fits in, well worth a read - Microsoft and FAST: Bill Gates at the SharePoint Conference.

AOL CEO Andy Falco was talking tough this week at the IAB meeting in Arizona:

“I hope they [Google & Microsoft] beat each other’s brains out over search and leave the display market to us,” he said to the Interactive Advertising Bureau annual conference. “I think it’s a mistake. But I think Napoleon said never interrupt your enemy when they’re in the middle of making a mistake.”

…

“Microsoft and Google can ignore us and leave us of charts if they want, but they do that at their peril,” this from AdAge.

Good stuff. Let the games begin. I would love to see more innovation and more dynamism from AOL. For that matter lets see more from all of the big 4 - GYMA.

I also like this video posted up by Mr Scoble about some cool tools from AOL - GO HERE  to view it.

Follow-up notes/comments: I would comment that actually Microsoft definitely gets display, just check out MSN’s ad offerings and the Aquantive acquisition last year as proof. Plus Yahoo is a BIG display player. Google too has made moves in the area with expansion of ad types for AdWords/AdSense and their attempt to buy DoubleClick. I agree that while GYM are distracted with each other that creates new opportunities for AOL - they just have to execute. Here’s a wild predication: Microsoft does buy Yahoo in the end and then Google buys AOL.

Microsoft launched a new methodology for tracking the effectiveness of online advertising termed “engagement mapping” - this has previously been called “conversion attribution.” The full MS release is here. Also worth reading this interview from Sept ‘07 with Brian McAndrews, Microsoft’s senior vice president of advertising and publishing solutions for more on the background this new ad measurement system. The super short digested version of this news is that: engagement mapping a smart and more balanced way to measure the effectiveness of ad spend on-line that does not reply solely on the users’ last click. Last click heavily favors paid search vs. display (banners).

Of course there is tons and tons of comment and analysis on the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal. I am not going to be able to add anything of value to this debate, instead I will point to a few of the pieces on the subject that I’ve found most enlightening.

• Internal MSFT email on WSJ - nothing surprising but sounds pretty confident on a deal
• Avenue A SVP: Microsoft + Yahoo = Irrelevant - worth a read if you have time
• Microhoo vs. Google: The Battle for Audience and Keystrokes - least we don’t forget about display ads (~30% of on-line ad spend and 2nd to search)
• First Evening at Microsoft’s SAS: Aha! - should MSFT be more like GE, maybe it makes sense

This is a great resource - from mydigimedia.com - that outlines who own who and gives a nice tiddy summary of M&A by the big Internet players - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, IAC and News Corp. There is also a handy PDF version you can down load.

Ok, I was planning to chuck my comments into the Yahoo! debate based on their recent revenue numbers and the unfair (in my opinion) general bashing they have been getting in the press and blogosphere. Well, it looks like MSFT gets to eat YHOO in the end. This is a great deal for both companies and for the Internet industry. We need a strong rival to Google for sure…

MSFT is bidding $45 billion for Yahoo - more details here[CNN] and here [TC] and here (this one on SEL has the full letter from Ballmer to YHOO). I’ll be back with some more thoughts this later today.

TC have come up with a new logo - copied below … I kinda like it :-).

Well, its only the middle of the work week and there has been a lot of interesting stories and posts already. More stuff than I can keep up with. Here are some of the tidbits I think are interesting…

No, Google Won’t Buy the NYT. But Google.Org Could - I like this mini-post form John Battle’s search blog. I completely agree, lets put and keep the best news organizations in a trust. Living in the UK you sort of take it for granted, but I gotta say the BBC rocks and papers like The Irish Times and The Guardian also very cool and not run to make a profit for share holders.

Search Stocks & The Stock Crash: GOOG, YHOO & MSFT - this post is over on SEL. My opinion is all 3 of the majors are solid. I’ve got to think ad dollar$ continue to go into search during a down turn year, but that probably display gets hurt… This means Google could fair a bit better overall but they still have to finish the DoubleClick deal and they are still way over valued. I would sell GOOG short, hold YHOO or buy if it dips under $17 and buy MSFT all the way its cheap :-). Disclaimer: do NOT trust my stock tips. This is just fun.

The parent company of WordPress - Automattic - secures B round funding - this report from the NYT. Great news. I love WordPress! Related to this is a post by Greg Sterling - Harnessing Blogs for Local - this one has got me thinking about new micro-publishing mash-up business ideas… More on that after a few more beers.

Enteprise search provider Endeca closed funding from SAP and Intel - this over on TC. This interesting in light of the MSFT FAST deal and the Sun MySQL deal. Doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but lets see what happens with Endeca. I keep wondering when will someone do a “redhat” version of open source Lucene?

Internet Trumps Print Directories in Britain - this post again fro Mr Sterling based on a neat report from UK based welovelocal. I Love it, lets recycle all those print directories! Save the trees.

Publishers’ vertical search can rival Google, says AOP forum - not sure I agree, but I have to say job well done to my buddy Simon Baptist who gave one of the presentations. My sources tell me he did a great job. Nice one!