Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Buy DoubleClick?
roscoetoon writes to tell us Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to buy DoubleClick. Seen as a move to compete against the Google advertising engine Double Click owners Hellman & Friedman are seeking a $2 billion payday. "The purchase would give Microsoft tools to battle Google Inc. for ads that appear on Web sites. DoubleClick works with advertisers to create online campaigns, such as streaming video clips to promote New Line Cinema's movie "The Number 23." The New York-based company's Dart technology monitors the performance of Internet ads for marketing companies."
DoubleClick is not accessible from any computer I use. I don't believe a change in its ownership will change that
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Their roaring success: DOS + Windows was not achieved by taking away market share from others (ie. Apple etc), but by going into a new market. They used illegal means to get Office in place.
Whenever they have tried to eat into an existing market where they cannot leverage Windows they have failed miserably: Zune, MSN, .... Their aquisitions are much the same: hotmail...
Doubleclick is likely to end up on the junk pile too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...I've had doubleclick's servers blocked in my HOSTS file for ages now.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Windows wasn't a foregone conclusion - in the early days there was GEM, and during Windows' development there was also OS/2. Office didn't just materialise either, there was Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect/WordStar/DBase III. Then there's Netscape - they killed Netscape-the-company completely by, despite the many myths, simply being better than Netscape v4.
Tried to eat into an existing market with Hotmail? Hotmail was the market - it's all the others that are the followers here. Some did it better of course, but MS were not trying to take away market share from others. They were trying to prevent losing users to web-based interfaces which they did not own.
Zune and MSN...yep, agreed. Doubleclick - different class. It's not an end-user product, and due to this I rather suspect they'll do well with it. MS do cater to developers and API users pretty well, and that's what you're talking about when it comes to an advert site. In the end it can only be good to have two vast firms competing for your site's space and offering you cash accordingly.
Well, good for the site creator of course. For me, I mutter a few words of gratitude for AdBlock and Pithhelmet and then carry on regardless.
Cheers,
Ian
Yeah, a bloated and hated company that has a huge amount of computers going to its site every day buys a company that has a huge amount of cookies on everybody's computers. Match the two together somehow and you probably have more of an issue than searching on google and using gmail at the same time...at least this would probably be able to tie a much lager portion of users to their surfing habits.
What could only add to the mix would be Microsoft + Double Click + Homeland Security (and maybe throw AT&T into the mix as well)
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Yet again, insane amounts of money are spent on things with very little substance but a high internet buzzword count.
Like last time, eventually investors will panic when they contemplate the very expensive pile of hot air they will have accumulated, and yet again the bubble will burst dramatically, sucking up billions of dollars that could have been invested in companies that actually make something and / or actually provide a service, and causing another European and North American recession.
Meanwhile, I'm investing all of my money in tulip bulbs.
Youtube = 1.6 billion DoubleClick = 2? Your thoughts?
My copies of AdBlock don't block YouTube.
Trolling is a art,
Have you thought about the fact that Microsoft doesn't just get access to the doubleclick domains, but doubleclick gets access to the microsoft domains. You gonna block all them, go ahead. Not many companies will.
Nobody goes to Google Whatever for the ads. They go there because they want to use a useful, well-made service. You don't compete by making better ads. Nobody likes ads. Google gets away with it because their ads are unobtrusive, and nobody minds seeing (occasionally useful) ads on the side of their Gmail inbox. People are going to mind seeing giant streaming videos playing at full volume when they're trying to read an e-mail from their niece. If Microsoft wants to compete, they're going to have to spend a little less time trying to think about how to steal money from you by annoying you enough, and a bit more on making applications good enough that people won't mind ads.
Nor do my squid filter rules.
I wonder if Doubleclick would get the prize for being the most blocked internet domain.