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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."
Edit please.
Youtube = 1.6 billion
DoubleClick = 2?
Your thoughts?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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.
The company that does bloated and hated software buys the company that does bloated and hated internet ads. Its a perfect match.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
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.
"and coming soon"
I can't wait!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
...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
Will it be as repressive as google? Read their terms of service. There is a whole list of things you cant discuss on an adsence page. Guns and drugs to name two.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Oh boy, the Zune of internet advertising. I'm sure the Google people are really worried.
Just so long as they don't patent the double-click.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If you use Firefox, snag Adblock Plus and the Filterset.G Updater. If you're using Internet Destr-- Er, I mean Internet Explorer, woe is you, but at least snag the Google Toolbar, which I think blocks DoubleClick ads.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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
AdBlock Plus filter set to *doubleclick.net*? Yes. Purchase away Microsoft.
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.
Imagine what you could do - if you were not limited - with all of the data MSFT could gather and combine it with the marketing/advertising data of DoubleClick.
Think operating systems, browser, and office "features" here, people. The features gather more and more information as time goes on. Its already been happening over the last 5-10 years so the trend is certainly in that direction. I mean, thus far, Mr. Softie has been pretty easy (all things considered) on how much data he sends back home but I am sure things could be configured differently to gather a whole new set of information. A much larger, complex, and more intrusive set of information. And then they can market based on that data (DoubleClick). Like Google, cept Google doesn't have an operating system sitting on every damn computer in the world.
It could get very very ugly. I can envision several nasty things that I would do and thats only thinking about it 5 min.
Access to customers (data) + Marketing/advertising = big revenues for the seller of marketing and advertising products. That's what we are talking about here -- selling ads.
What exactly is evil about DoubleClick? If you don't want the cookie, you can either not visit sites that use DoubleClick, or you can opt out of the tracking cookie:
r ivacy/dart_adserving.asp
http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/p
DoubleClick is pretty darn non-evil, unless you hate advertising for some reason.
My other car is first.
If you're using Windows and blocked Microsoft sites on your hosts file, Windows will ignore it and still connect to them. If they get DoubleClick, I wont be surprised if the same thing happens with their servers.
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.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to buy RightClick.
You guys don't get it. Hopefully MS will buy doubleclick and make them THE source for all MS based adds. Instead of the boring old flash, or worse yet, non-interactive dull jpegs, you can now get ads enhanced with all sorts of advanced features. Instead of plain old JPEGs, you can see the glory of the new MS format. You can protect your video ads so they will only play in WiMP11 with DRM user enhancements. Flash? Yestertech, MS has their newer better version.
This will be absolute nirvana! Why? Because they sure as hell won't put out those bullshit DRM infected formats for linux, and I will never have to see their ads again. I won't even have to install a plugin to avoid them. Oh happy day.
-Charlie
I totally agree with what you said. However, there is another angle. People are going to mind seeing all of these things in a web browser, and they're going to use firefox and various plugins to get around them. Yes.
But my guess is Microsoft has more insidious plans. (Don't they always?) They control your desktop, remember? Now imagine instead of those ads popping up in the browser you can pick and control, they pop up on your desktop. They become part of the OS, such that you can't remove them without breaking the system (MS has never claimed this before, right?).
Sure, corporate desktop licenses won't have these; high-dollar corporate licenses will be ad-free. Home desktops, however, will. But just use the corporate desktop, you ask? Except that one won't play games... and will only run Microsoft-signed code, or maybe even code signed with a special corporate key you'd have to buy. Expect to see similar ads appear on XBOX Live! as well.
I encourage Microsoft to do this. They should go all-out and control the desktop experience. It should become like television, where consumers are the product, and getting their eyeballs is the goal. Let them play games or type a letter, but make sure those ads appear everywhere.
That way everyone may finally hate it enough to switch.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Considering the balls-up made when Yahoo bought Overture, I'm really suprised Microsoft are trying this. This is a bad, stupid idea.
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439