Yahoo, eBay Join Forces to Fight Google - More Terms
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Next we come to the co-branded eBay toolbar. I’m probably showing how inactive I’ve been on eBay when I admit that I didn’t even know that eBay had a toolbar. But it does, and it’s been downloaded more than four million times. Thanks to this part of the Yahoo-eBay agreement, that toolbar is going to be enhanced with Yahoo web search functionality and Yahoo site links, including the Yahoo home page, Yahoo Mail, and My Yahoo.
To me, this looks like a bigger win for eBay than Yahoo, particularly if the co-branded toolbar gets promoted on the search engine’s website. Yahoo has its own toolbar; while I couldn’t find out how many times it’s been downloaded, I’d be willing to bet it’s a lot more than four million. It would be interesting to see whether, somewhere down the road, Yahoo’s toolbar gains some special eBay functionality (such as the ability to search for items specifically on eBay, or go directly to My eBay, or monitor specific auctions).
The fourth aspect of the strategic partnership focuses on click-to-call functionality. The two companies will work together to develop and deploy click-to-call advertising technologies on their respective websites in the U.S., accessible by users of both Yahoo Messenger with Voice and Skype. For those who might not be familiar with the technology, click-to-call is a product feature link included inside an ad that users can click to directly call the advertiser.
It’s really hard to tell what to make of this aspect of the deal. I can see that eBay is clearly working hard to monetize its purchase of Skype. But I admit, when I heard about that purchase, I just sort of stared and scratched my head. What was eBay thinking? I know, the companies kept talking about making it easier for buyers and sellers in auctions to communicate, and I’ll even grant that Skype recently passed the 100 million registered users mark. Even so, it’s really hard to look at the Skype purchase and see it as having been a reasonable move for eBay.
On top of that, click-per-call hasn’t exactly taken off yet. It was introduced with a certain amount of fanfare, and widely predicted to become popular with advertisers for products that require a “human touch” to sell well. But I haven’t heard much about it lately, and it seems to have faded into the background. This doesn’t mean that it can’t be successful, but it remains to be seen what approach to it Yahoo and eBay will take, and whether it will work any better than what has already been tried.
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