Strategy: Launch of new search platform Panama
With great fanfare, Yahoo! finally launched Panama in the US this week after several false starts. Panama is the ad platform that Yahoo! hopes will revive its fortunes, which have taken a beating recently in the face of stiff competition from Google and increasingly MSN.
The early signs are promising, with the system cherry-picking features from Google and MSN. There is a raft of new and improved features such as additional targeting capabilities, a new bidding environment, an improved user interface and increased relevancy of search results via a similar system to Google's quality score.
Time will tell if this is a cosmetic makeover or a sea change in search, but the need for Panama to be the ace in the pack cannot be overstated. Yahoo! has fallen well behind Google and has even seen MSN eating away at its market share. One of the main contributory factors to this slide has been down to MSN and Google's superior platforms.
Yahoo! has only clung onto larger clients and agencies by retaining agency commission and by offering the only realistic alternative to Google in terms of search volumes.
Yahoo! will expect now to increase ad revenue and market share after this launch and the impact in the market will be closely monitored by all parties.
Perhaps the most interested will be MSN, which is rumoured to be considering an offer for Yahoo! once the market reaction to Panama is clear, further muddying the search waters.
Diffiniti welcomes Panama's arrival as it gives the search market some much needed competition.
Coupled with the recent arrival of Vista, which promises to dramatically increase MSN's search volumes in the next 18 months, the search market looks less sewn up now than at any point in the past two years. Watch this space.
- Review by Nick Ellsom, Director of search, Diffiniti
4 OUT OF 5.
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