There is a lot that has already been written about the Yahoo! / Microsoft deal already, and some of it is even good. A lot of the best material I have read has been written from an American perspective, and so rather then trying to replicate their information, which they have done better anyway, I will just cover a few points they missed relevant to Australia.
The switch to Adcenter for Yahoo Search Marketing. In America this will turn two SEM market places into one, effectively increasing the number of buyers across both search engines. This increase competition for traffic and improve revenue for existing inventory. In Australia however, advertising through Microsoft and Yahoo! is done via Yahoo! Search Marketing. We won’t see increased competition locally, we will just get a new system. ref: “Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.” http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/pressroom/Default.aspx. On MSN and Yahoo! pages, it will be business as normal as far as display and non-search advertising is concerned though. ref: “Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.” and “Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.”
For more information, just check out the posts linked to. They are more indepth and written by people with a vested interest in convincing you that they know their stuff.
Here is a short list of some of the best material on the deal:
http://www.seo-theory.com/2009/07/29/microsoft-and-yahoo-antitrust-concerns/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/top-10-things-the-microsoftyahoo-deal-change-for-seo
http://www.thesearchagents.com/2009/07/microsoft-and-yahoo-agree-to-10-year-search-deal/
For reassuring stock photos of happy people and the press releases, go here:
Ceratosaurus 