“In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users.”
This sentence was probably the most overlooked part of the Yahoo & Google press announcement which was sent out last week as the two Internet giants formed a partnership based upon monetizing Yahoo with Google AdWords and AdSense.
Instant messaging, like email, is the core to Yahoo’s existence. Why does everyone seem to have a Yahoo ID? Because at one point in time, they had to register with Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo HotJobs, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Flickr … etc.
What does this mean exactly?
Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users
The possibilities are endless. Imagine Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk partnering on VOIP, IM or even what I think has much more potential for the two companies, the social map.
Google and Yahoo are both taking steps to connect their users socially within their own networks and outside of their networks on partner sites (newspaper sites for Yahoo, targeted publishers for Google) in response to the popularity of Facebook. What if, just what if, the two companies were to enable the interoperability of their social stream systems, letting Yahoo users connect with Google users socially.
Messenger is the foundation to social networking. Google and Yahoo may be taking steps to expand their communications beyond the messenger applications on onto the social web. And as users, we define our interests and demographics to Yahoo & Google via the searches we make, areas we live in and web sites we visit … having access to our definitive interests via social profiles and group connections across Yahoo AND Google make for intense targeted advertising.
Example : If you archive your GTalk chats, Google GMail serves ads which are targeted to your discussions. Imagine if this Google AdWords targeting included information from your Yahoo connections, profile and social behavior. With Google AdWords being served on Yahoo Search and within content, I’d imagine this would bring much more targeting and response from targeted Yahoo users.
Your thoughts?
Recommended Reading : Google and Yahoo to Partner on IM
