I just got some data through from eMarketer in the US online advertising revenue of the big four; Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN.
Yahoo had the bigger US market share and revenues in 2005: 19.4%, compared to Google's 19.2%, and $2.439m revenues compared to $2.410m for Google.
By 2006, Google revenues had rocketed to $4.095m and a 24.3% market share, while Yahoo made $2.996m and saw its market share drop to 17.3%
By 2007, Yahoo's US share had dropped to 15.5% and Google's rise to 28.6%.
I've added a fictional field for a combined MSN and Yahoo ad revenue figure, just for fun.
On paidContent, JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan said that "on a global basis, MSN/Yahoo could reach approximately 600 million unique users and have approximately 28.3 percent of all searches. Further, we believe the increased scale of the combined search entity would lead to improved monetisation due to a number of advertisers, which positively impact coverage, click-through rates, and pricing."
And it's not just the analysts that are waking up (in both senses) to the Microsoft/Yahoo news.
• Paul Boutin on Valleywag: "National editors and radio producers are hounding me to "weigh in" on the obscure business mistakes made by Yahoo's rotating cast of forgettable characters. Why bother? Just look at the site's cluttered, tacky, fat-download pages. The shrieky, out-of-tune verbiage and garish illustrations resemble my friends' failed attempts to write books for children. I don't know what it is about the Yahoo Messenger smiley that makes me want to punch it in the face, but there's your brand promise right there: Hit me."
• Dave Winer asks himself it it's a good deal: "Nahh. It's like the dead leading the blind. The only reason the deal makes sense is because it's the only thing either company could do that anyone might possibly care about."
• Plus - we've got a poll asking if you think Yahoo should say yes - though the results are not so conclusive as Mashable's.
Technorati Tags: AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo
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