Will Yahoo buy Web 2.0 hipsters Zillow and Meebo, or crush them?
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The start-up Zillow will now allow the giant portal Yahoo to show home valuation estimates at its real estate page. Will this cannibalize Zillow’s viewership, if Yahoo users know they can get it from Yahoo now — and will Yahoo then create its own technology and put Zillow out of business? Well, fat chance. Word is, Yahoo moves pretty slowly on these sorts of things, and is more likely to acquire a company than to do an end-run.
And check out the Yahoo email that leaked out, over at SlickDeals.net (seen via ValleyWag), which reveals that Yahoo is paying testers $150 to use Meebo, the Web-based company that integrates instant messaging across platforms. Yahoo has been trying to integrate its IM more, recently striking a partnership with Microsoft’s MSN to do just that. And then there’s the Google-AOL camp on the other side, and Meebo can bridge the gap. Will Yahoo buy? We asked Meebo’s Seth Sternberg. The email took Meebo by surprise, he said, but they found it more amusing than worrying.
Indeed, if Yahoo did show aggression, Yahoo’s reputation would go to gutter here in Silicon Valley (Meebo has good valley connections). But you never know.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
