San Francisco - Yahoo will offer users a slew of
advertising-supported games and allow companies to piggyback on its
search technology, the company announced Thursday.
The moves came as Yahoo seeks to assure investors of its potential
as an independent company in the face a shareholder revolt that may
force the internet firm to sell all or parts of itself to software
giant Microsoft.
The search strategy would allow outside companies and developers
to access Yahoo's powerful search technology and to build their own
specialized search technologies to would target specific markets,
offer new interfaces or emphasize links to social-networking sites
such as MySpace and Facebook.
Yahoo hopes that by spurring innovation, the open-source system
called BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), will extend Yahoo's
reach and allow it to collect a share of the revenue from advertising
that accompanies those search results.
'BOSS opens up the playing field for developers and companies to
disrupt the search market, become principals in search and build new
Web search experiences that offer more choice for users,' said
Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo's chief strategist for search.
Yahoo's main competitors, Google and Microsoft, already offer
software that lets users create customized searches, but neither of
those programs goes nearly as far as Yahoo in opening all the
company's basic search protocols to outside developers.
Yahoo said that it would offer its users hundreds of popular,
casual online games as free downloads backed by revenue from
advertising integrated into the games. More than 400 such games from
top casual games publishers would be available to users before
yearend, Yahoo said.
The market for casual online gamers has experienced huge growth in
recent years, and the move by Yahoo could help advertisers target one
of their most sought-after demographics - women between the ages of
35 and 54, who are among the most frequent players of such games.
Such moves may help Yahoo persuade investors that it can leverage
its position as one of the most popular sites on the internet to
better compete with Google without the need to sell itself to
Microsoft.
Microsoft abruptly broke off talks to buy the company in early May
after Yahoo rejected its 47.5-billion-dollar buyout bid, which valued
the company at 33 dollars a share.
Yahoo's shares subsequently fell to around 20 dollars a share but
jumped almost 12 per cent Monday after Microsoft said it might revive
the offer if rebel shareholders led by activist investor Carl Icahn
won an August 1 proxy battle to oust the board and Yahoo chief
executive and founder Jerry Yang. Icahn, a billionaire corporate
raider, accused Yang and the Yahoo board of sabotaging the Microsoft
negotiations.
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