New homepage, new ad system, new outlook? Things are looking sunny for Yahoo! all of a sudden. Barron’s (subscription req’d) is coming out swinging for the venerable search engine, saying that the company’s shares could get a boost over the coming year as investors take notice of its “money-making services” – eWeek summarizes briefly here, and Paul Kedrosky gets to the point even quicker.
Yahoo’s been talking a pretty good game recently; their forthcoming search ad ranking system upgrade has a lot of folks buzzing, and their analyst day presentation from last week (via Digg) is worth a look as well. Aside from some expected self-congratulations (some comparisons between their offerings and the other engines’ appear to use some cherry-picked elements), Yahoo lays out a forward-looking plan for the next five years in the search market, and for the first time offers a coherent vision for making the most out of its Web 2.0 acquisitions. We even caught them fishing for compliments with a survey on their search results page (check our screenshot). So howsaboutit? Would you recommend Yahoo! search?
The Barron’s Yahoo! position isn’t too surprising given their Google perspective; in February, they came out with a scathing article envisioning Google’s collapse by the end of the year, so it only stands to reason that the mag would get behind Big G’s fiercest competition. As far as we can tell, Google’s downfall is still pending, but of course there’s a lot of year left. And Threadwatch noticed a Google stock trend this month that could raise eyebrows; led by Larry Page, Google employees have apparently sold off a heaping helping of company shares this month.
