Yea Right.. Microsoft bought a turd… everyone knows it… everyone knew it then… now even the detractors know it.
Microsoft paid billions for an advertising agency that never delivered, and the charge now admits it never will. aQuantive was never a great performer. It hardly survived on it’s own in light of Google Adwords, and of course the Microsoft purchase is akin the kiss of death. The company constantly squashes innovation on all their purchases.
From their site “Microsoft Advertising connects you with your target consumers and optimizes your advertising impact through our world-class brands and partnership services.” sounds like adwords, just worse.
No one is saying that adwords is perfect, but this is just harder to justify spending advertising dollars on.
Mark my words now , Microsoft’s purchase of Yammer is going to be just as bad… The ‘social network’ was a failure from inception, and with Microsoft behind the wheel it’s going to get worse. An informal recent survey stated that 98% of US internet users never heard of Yammer before the purchase….
“Launched in 2008, Yammer now has more than 5 million corporate users, including employees at 85 percent of the Fortune 500. The service allows employees to join a secure, private social network for free and then makes it easy for companies to convert a grassroots movement into companywide strategic initiative.
What they failed to mention is that vast majority of those 5 million users were not paid, and the rumor mill was that there was a significant amount of spam bots counted as users.
Some friendly advice Microsoft, it’s Mobile GPS + Advertising = Profit ….. Where does Yammer and aQuantive fit into that formula…. it doesn’t.