Glenn, re YHOO reporting: I think these results will be looked at very closely by i-net investors. YHOO has admitted that they are staking their future not on the current banner biz, but on e-commerce, taking a "transaction fee" for each referral that leads to a sale.
I wonder if YHOO will be breaking out the sales by banner ads and referral fees. Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if they did not. I think that the referral fee biz number for the latest quarter is going to be miniscule compared to that $29B market cap.
I also happen to believe that referral fees is not YHOO's future, and they will eventually de-emphasis that in favor of placement fees, much as AOL does.
The fact is, YHOO's "shopping" site is boring. While it is streamlined and fast, it also does not have much depth compared to simply following your nose to sites like wal-mart.com, shopping.com, buy.com, etc.
YHOO has done pretty well up to this point, but they are adding gizmos at a rapid clip just to keep some momo going, so they can stave off the day of "sequentially flat" sales. That day is coming sooner rather than later, IMO. |
