Yahoo – stealing a march on Google?
Jinfo Blog

2nd September 2009

By Penny Crossland

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Livewire contributors have recently been reporting on Yahoo’s revamped home page and more aggressive stance towards its competitors (see Udo Hohlfeld’s (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e23227) and Diana Nutting’s postings, (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22286) recent days have seen further proof that under its new leadership, Yahoo is trying to take on Google on several fronts. Last week, Yahoo acquired the most popular Arabic online community, Maktoob (http://www.maktoob.com), which claims to have 16 million users. Maktoob offers a multitude of services such as social networking, auctions, payments and search. The deal, rumoured by some to be worth $85 million (http://digbig.com/5bafyy), means Maktoob and some of its related sites such as Maktoob Research (http://www.maktoob-research.com ) will become wholly owned subsidiaries of Yahoo, which will now be able to claim usership in excess of 35 million. Maktoob Research will be of particular interest to those trying to gain insight into Middle Eastern consumer trends in a variety of sectors, including mobile, travel financial services and retail. A Maktoob director, commenting on the acquisition (http://digbig.com/5bagab), stated that the deal “promises to take the internet industry in the region to a whole new level; hopefully in terms of quality, content, competition, awareness and investment opportunities”. Although we have been aware of Middle Eastern online content for some time (see Diana Nutting’s posting on Arabia Inform and East View Information Services http://www.vivavip.com/go/e21020 ), seeing a search engine giant such as Yahoo taking an interest, will likely boost online investment in the region. According to Techcrunch, (http://digbig.com/5bagaa) Yahoo’s aim is to challenge Google on the ‘people search’ front as well. The newly designed search homepage will, according to Yahoo, do a better job than its rival in listing links to business and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin when looking for individuals. This, Yahoo’s recent search deal with Microsoft’s Bing and its foray into emerging markets should start to make Google a little worried.

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