What should Yahoo! do? How can they improve their business? How can they undo the major mistake they made in not selling to MSFT? Lots of people have their opinions, but according to the Search Insider column (via Greg Sterling), one of the recommendations is for them to buy a yellow pages company, specifically RHD. Why not Idearc? Not sure, any more than I'm sure why Barron's recommended RHD stock vs. Idearc.
But what this shows is that there are potential synergies between Search companies and Yellow Pages companies. Search, like many Internet businesses, has trouble getting a critical mass of small businesses. Yellow Pages companies have those relationships (and long-term established ones), but for the most part, don't have the Internet products to go with them. The question is going to be, does a Search company want to take a huge cut on their margins by acquiring a company that has a huge sales force in exchange for increasing their market share? I guess we'll see...
“Buy the Yellow Pages” Returns « Screenwerk
