Yahoo strikes again

Emily Riley | September 06, 2007, 03:39 PM

The buying spree continues with Yahoo!’s acquisition of Blue Lithium. Is Right Media really three times more valuable? Anyway, now with a real network which has publisher relationships and behavioral targeting in addition to the Right Media exchange, Yahoo! might be in good shape. They are definitely in need of better monetization of their banner impressions, especially on Yahoo! Mail (no contextual targeting there like g-mail.) They can now use external behaviors to improve targeting. And to carry on a theme that I’ve heard from their biggest competitors, someone is going to be serving all of the ads out there eventually, so no one wants to think it won’t be them.
The major purchases by all the big portals have served to take the spotlight away from social networking sites and plant it squarely on technology companies. Based on where the money is made, this is certainly reasonable. Social networks are still struggling with how to make their impressions worth more, and relying on the expertise of the networks in the mean-time.