Yahoo Plans to acquire Maktoob

Yahoo has finally taken a plunge in the Arabic world by acquiring Maktoob.com, the largest Arab web portal and online community. GCC companies can now target their ads toward Arabic speaking customers using the Yahoo portal. Last year, I had met online sales director for Yahoo Middle East at a conference who confirmed that Yahoo had previously attempted to acquire Maktoob, but was not able to meet the financial expectations of the website management. The formalities of the merger are expected to be completed by 4th quarter of this year.

Soon Arab users will be using the Yahoo Messenger and Mail on Maktoob. Yahoo last month signed a 10-year search pact with Microsoft that will enable the company it to become the exclusive global sales force for both partners' premium advertisers.

Yahoo's Online Potential

Recently I met the online sales director for Yahoo Middle East at a conference. Amidst the take over dialogue being once again in question, the obvious question asked to him was – What is the future of the company? He was obviously not able to comment as the negotiation between the various parties involved in the deal is still in process.

I was a bit surprised to find out that Yahoo does not have a portal dedicated to Middle East, unlike its rivals like MSN and Google. In the absence of a local portal Yahoo is not able to attract many companies having huge online ad budgets in the Gulf.

There are many UAE based property developers and Saudi base banks active on the portal.

According to me Yahoo Mail was one of the most attractive spaces to place your ads as one could reach its targeted segment. Placing an ad at the Yahoo main page was like driving unwanted traffic towards your website as it would be viewed by the global online users. I would be happy to hear any results that you may have gained post placing ads at Yahoo.

Last month Yahoo had agreed to allow display of Google’s Adsense for Search and Adsense for Content ads on Yahoo’s US and Canadian Web portal. This is an attempt by Jerry Yang to inject some liquidity in the company. Today’s headlines have once again raised a question about Yahoo’s strategy, as Microsoft has once again expressed interests in acquiring the company but at a discounted share price.

What will be the future of Yahoo remains a big question mark as clash of the titans may once again takes place.