Last week the Alibaba Group openly declared its interest in buying Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) amid continuing buyout rumors as the company struggles in the online advertising space and to replace its CEO. On the other end of the spectrum, search giant Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) released an important initiative for Youtube – a move that can actually see a significant upside in its display ad revenues. In the cloud computing space, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) sees a threat from Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iCloud, which was launched along with the iPhone 4S this week.
Yahoo
While Yahoo has other high-profile bidders in line such as Silver Lake and Marc Andreessen, the Alibaba Group could see some significant gains as a potential bidder for Yahoo. Redeeming Yahoo’s 43% stake in Alibaba would likely be a priority for Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, especially after the Alipay fiasco a few months back. Additionally, it gives the leading Chinese e-commerce company access to Yahoo’s sizable traffic of over 680 million monthly unique visitors – a big opportunity to expand in western markets. These advantages notwithstanding, the main challenge for Jack Ma would be to deal with U.S. regulators, who may have several issues surrounding Alibaba’s independence from the Chinese government and its access to users’ personal information.
See: Alibaba’s Bid for Yahoo Makes Sense if Shareholders and Authorities Consent
See Our Full Analysis For Yahoo’s Stock
Google seems to be making some progress towards making Youtube profitable. The world’s largest video site is now on the road to provide original content, with Google having ear-marked around $100 million for Youtube to sign-on well known celebrities and media companies to produce new shows exclusively for the website. While this is a big transition from low-quality, user-generated content to high production values, it remains to be seen whether advertisers consider Youtube as a serious alternative to cable television.
See: With Original Content, YouTube Hopes to Woo Advertisers
See Our Full Analysis For Google’s Stock
Amazon
With its seamless integration across all Apple devices, consumer-centric services such as the iTunes Match and an attractive free-5GB storage space, Apple’s iCloud entered the cloud market in a big way this week. While Amazon is an experienced player in the cloud space with products like Amazon EC2 and S3, the iCloud can be a persistent threat to the company in the long-run. What remains to be seen for this year is the company’s Kindle Fire tablet sales, which can go a long way in growing sufficient scale for Amazon’s cloud computing tools to keep up with Apple.
See: Apple Takes Tablet Battle with Amazon to the Cloud with iCloud Next Week
See Our Full Analysis For Amazon’s Stock
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