Yahoo Declines MicroIcahn’s Search and Seizure Proposal
I’m tired. Really I am. I’m tired of hearing refrain after refrain of how Microsoft played hardball with Yahoo, only to capitulate to an increase of its initial purchase offer. I’m tired of Yahoo’s CEO masking his personal opposition to a buyout by Redmond with lawyerly evasions and his clear conviction that the publicly-owned company is worth a whole heck of a lot more than its stock price shows it to be. This saga between the two tech giants went from a big-money bonanza, with pundits enthusiastically tooting their kazoos, to something that can best be describe as a fiasco. A thoroughly frustrating fiasco, at that.
Not because of the length of the journey. No, one would be foolish to assume things might have wrapped up with hugs and kisses in a week’s time. Regulatory approval would be arduous indeed. Instead, it is the course which the spectacle has taken over the months it’s waxed and waned. Or should I say the lack thereof? No one seems to be privy to where things are really headed. Organized negotiation? What’s that? There was $44.6 billion on the table, originally. Which was a hefty premium over Yahoo’s public valuation circa January 31. Now the deal seems naught but a joke liberally milked out in Opinionland for all its worth. (Or not worth, depending on one’s vantage, I suppose.)
You may have already heard; you may not have. The news now is that Microsoft and angry Yahoo shareholder Carl Icahn signed their names to a time-sensitive proposal sent over Friday evening to Sunnyvale, California, to acquire Yahoo’s search business and do a bit of a corporate shuffle. Well, okay. “A bit” is putting it softly. “Complex restructuring” is the phrase being used. Anyway, as you would now reflexively guess, Yahoo essentially offer a reply of, “Thanks, but no thanks.” They still don’t like the fact that the wannabe buyer(s) would be allowed to play in Yahoo’s sandbox and do some weeding inside the employee base.
In its public response to the Microsoft, Yahoo, among its various points made about what Yahoo is, where Yahoo is, and why Yahoo is, reiterated its openness to a full-scale buyout of the company at $33/share, one dollar less than Microsoft allowed some months ago as its final straw. As we understand, Microsoft said no to the $33 deal before. Will it refuse again? Who’s to say.
I’m going to close this one out quick, because, well, I’ve no desire to prolong the agony any longer than it’s “fated” to. Some think Microsoft has no intention of finishing out the season (or even the month) sans an arrangement, either through a Yahoo board room insurgency or through a more formal handshake session and toast to big profits to come. In short, I agree. Microsoft wants to follow through. And the pressure of Yahoo’s impending shareholder meeting in August may well be the backdrop needed to get it done with some modicum of propriety.
On the other hand, if stubbornness wins out, well, ugly plus ugly is still ugly, eh? How much bigger can the mess get, really? Perhaps I’ll regret having asked that question.
Not because of the length of the journey. No, one would be foolish to assume things might have wrapped up with hugs and kisses in a week’s time. Regulatory approval would be arduous indeed. Instead, it is the course which the spectacle has taken over the months it’s waxed and waned. Or should I say the lack thereof? No one seems to be privy to where things are really headed. Organized negotiation? What’s that? There was $44.6 billion on the table, originally. Which was a hefty premium over Yahoo’s public valuation circa January 31. Now the deal seems naught but a joke liberally milked out in Opinionland for all its worth. (Or not worth, depending on one’s vantage, I suppose.)
You may have already heard; you may not have. The news now is that Microsoft and angry Yahoo shareholder Carl Icahn signed their names to a time-sensitive proposal sent over Friday evening to Sunnyvale, California, to acquire Yahoo’s search business and do a bit of a corporate shuffle. Well, okay. “A bit” is putting it softly. “Complex restructuring” is the phrase being used. Anyway, as you would now reflexively guess, Yahoo essentially offer a reply of, “Thanks, but no thanks.” They still don’t like the fact that the wannabe buyer(s) would be allowed to play in Yahoo’s sandbox and do some weeding inside the employee base.
In its public response to the Microsoft, Yahoo, among its various points made about what Yahoo is, where Yahoo is, and why Yahoo is, reiterated its openness to a full-scale buyout of the company at $33/share, one dollar less than Microsoft allowed some months ago as its final straw. As we understand, Microsoft said no to the $33 deal before. Will it refuse again? Who’s to say.
I’m going to close this one out quick, because, well, I’ve no desire to prolong the agony any longer than it’s “fated” to. Some think Microsoft has no intention of finishing out the season (or even the month) sans an arrangement, either through a Yahoo board room insurgency or through a more formal handshake session and toast to big profits to come. In short, I agree. Microsoft wants to follow through. And the pressure of Yahoo’s impending shareholder meeting in August may well be the backdrop needed to get it done with some modicum of propriety.
On the other hand, if stubbornness wins out, well, ugly plus ugly is still ugly, eh? How much bigger can the mess get, really? Perhaps I’ll regret having asked that question.
ShareThis Now Counts and Displays Diggs
The ShareThis widget that lets you email and bookmark content across the Web has added a DiggDigg count to its button. Click on the ShareThis widget on a site where it’s been added by the content publisher, and beside the Digg link you’ll see, in parenthesis, the number of Diggs that particular piece of content has already received.
The actual capability of this new Digg count is already quite popular as a browser plug-in, from services like AstonishMe, DiggClick and Interclue for Firefox. But having it included in a bookmarking and content-sharing widget such as ShareThis is a testimony to the type of increased functionality being layered into these tools. AddtoAny has recently tweaked its comparable bookmarking and content-sharing widget to provide the most popular sites you use based on your behavior. Both ShareThis and AddtoAny have provided stats tools so publishers can analyze the actions around users sharing their content.
To further along the development of practical functionality being added to bookmarking and content-sharing widgets, ShareThis has also added support for the “Post” tab for four more sites; hi5, FriendsterFriendster , Orkut and LiveJournal. The “Post” tab enables site visitors to post publishers’ content directly to their social networking profiles and personal blogs.
This feature speaks to the type of free-form sharing that will be provided by the majority of socially-oriented media services in the future. As we’ve seen from products like SixApart’s BlogIt, redistributing content across the Web is becoming a far more simplified process, allowing users to have a much more fluid experience around Web content.
The actual capability of this new Digg count is already quite popular as a browser plug-in, from services like AstonishMe, DiggClick and Interclue for Firefox. But having it included in a bookmarking and content-sharing widget such as ShareThis is a testimony to the type of increased functionality being layered into these tools. AddtoAny has recently tweaked its comparable bookmarking and content-sharing widget to provide the most popular sites you use based on your behavior. Both ShareThis and AddtoAny have provided stats tools so publishers can analyze the actions around users sharing their content.
To further along the development of practical functionality being added to bookmarking and content-sharing widgets, ShareThis has also added support for the “Post” tab for four more sites; hi5, FriendsterFriendster , Orkut and LiveJournal. The “Post” tab enables site visitors to post publishers’ content directly to their social networking profiles and personal blogs.
This feature speaks to the type of free-form sharing that will be provided by the majority of socially-oriented media services in the future. As we’ve seen from products like SixApart’s BlogIt, redistributing content across the Web is becoming a far more simplified process, allowing users to have a much more fluid experience around Web content.
To further along the development of practical functionality being added to bookmarking and content-sharing widgets, ShareThis has also added support for the “Post” tab for four more sites; hi5, FriendsterFriendster , Orkut and LiveJournal. The “Post” tab enables site visitors to post publishers’ content directly to their social networking profiles and personal blogs.
This feature speaks to the type of free-form sharing that will be provided by the majority of socially-oriented media services in the future. As we’ve seen from products like SixApart’s BlogIt, redistributing content across the Web is becoming a far more simplified process, allowing users to have a much more fluid experience around Web content.
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