Yahoo today announced that they are acquiring Citizen Sports, a company that creates fantasy sports leagues for Facebook, iPhone, Android and other devices. The acquisition is meant to enhance Yahoo’s position in social games and fantasy sports, and “strengthen Yahoo!’s social strategy of enriching, aggregating and distributing social content from across the entire Web, and offering a highly customizable social experience.”
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WSJ is reporting that Facebook and Google have been sued by Wireless Ink Corp, a Long Island based company for patent infringement. Wireless Ink is accusing Facebook and Google’s mobile websites of infringing upon Wireless Ink’s patent that was sought in 2004 and finally granted to them in 2009.
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Only a couple years after users were banned for trying to import their Facebook contacts into other services, Yahoo! has launched a new service which enables you to import all of your Facebook contacts’ email addresses. Interestingly enough, this has nothing to do with applications that were granted access to users’ emails as Facebook recently enabled. While Yahoo! has announced that the service is live, we can’t currently access it.
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According to a new report from Nielsen, Facebook was the top destination for Cable TV viewers who turned to the web to view the opening ceremonies of this year’s Winter Olympics. According to the report, 13 percent of the Cable TV audience who watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, also simultaneously watched them on the Internet.
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The latest statistics from analytics firm Compete.com confirms that Facebook has indeed surpassed Yahoo! as the second largest domestic website. While Alexa data suggested that Facebook surpassed Yahoo! on a global level long ago, Nielsen data released yesterday suggests that Yahoo! still has more unique visitors when considering all properties beyond Yahoo.com.
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Over the summer I wrote about the Facebookization of Yahoo! as the company implemented support for Facebook from the Yahoo! homepage. Today, the company announced more widespread support of Facebook by implementing “Facebook Connect across Yahoo! properties worldwide”. This is a massive announcement for Facebook as Yahoo! is the largest portal on the web.
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As Facebook prepares to surpass Yahoo in terms of global reach (they already surpass Yahoo! in terms of time spent on the site), Yahoo! has redesigned their site to incorporate Facebook into the homepage. The company is also letting developers create other applications that can be integrated into their homepage. Sound familiar? It’s similar to Facebook’s strategy and it’s an ongoing strategy that started months ago when the company launched the Yahoo! Social Platform.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer paid “lip service” to a Yahoo! deal and cleverly set the stage for acquiring Facebook, during his keynote at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit.
Yahoo!’s stock price shot up on the news of his comments, but I think the press and the markets are missing the big picture: Microsoft’s is using the “potential Yahoo! deal” as a red herring with investors. Ballmer is using Yahoo! to convince the market that Microsoft needs to buy Facebook to compete with Google, and to set a price floor of 50 billion for the acquisition. Microsoft may be facing a situation where Facebook usage grows so fast that its costs skyrocket, creating a cash crunch, and in this difficult fundraising environment it’s best bet is just to buy Facebook.
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Last year when Microsoft invested in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation I doubt they expected Yahoo! would soon fall below that level. As of yesterday’s closing price, the company now has a market capitalization of $12.67 billion, over $2 billion less than Microsoft valued Facebook at. Facebook is now valued at around $4 billion according to leaked reports about internal stock sales.
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