``We have seen a little bit of weakness in the last three or four
weeks'' from automakers and financial services providers, Chief Financial
Officer Susan Decker said today at a Goldman, Sachs & Co. conference in New
York. ``It is having an impact on our quarter.''
Decker's comments surprised investors and sent the shares, already
hurt by a 26 percent stock slide this year, down as much as 13 percent. Slowing
sales growth at Yahoo, the most-visited U.S. Web site, sparked concern of a
general reduction in demand for Internet advertising and shopping, prompting a
drop in shares of Google Inc., EBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc
I noticed this trend about 2 months ago when I saw that the ads on Yahoo were almost all for Yahoo branded services. I can't tell you how many times I saw an ad for Cakemania, or for Yahoo Personals in a prime spot like the side banner of Yahoo mail.
Yahoo mail is something a person will look at almost every day so you would think it would bring a pretty nice fee. This is where you would see an ad for the new Yaris or something like that. I figured they were not able to sell that space so they were forced to put up their own banners or end up with a blank white space.
So it seems they were being forced to self promote in prime ad real estate. It is kind of like putting up a billboard advertising the billboard company right in Times Square. You just know that a company like that going to be hurting. Ms. Deckers comments just confirmed this. I should have went short YHOO when I first saw this trend emerge way back when.
I wonder if this ad downturn is only attributed to YHOO? Or will GOOG and to a lesser extent ValueClick VLCK (who makes software that helps advertisers create online ad campaigns) get smashed as well. I think we have to wait until Google puts out their numbers on October 19 to be 100% sure.
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