The big news isn’t that Overture’s stock dropped 10% on a rumor that Yahoo was set to buy a European competitor. The big news is that Overture’s stock price has dropped 50% in the last two months. The ostensible target of the takeover denies the rumor, but why was the market surprised that Overture is vulnerable to a change of heart on the part of Yahoo?
overture needs to determine whether they are going to directly compete with google or somewhat indirectly.
I doubt they’ll compete directly as search site. They don’t have the brand, money, or technology to compete with Google. Besides, that would put them in direct competition with their customer.
They will compete with Google directly in the private-label search engine market. They should be very competitive here. This is a commodity market, they have a lot more experience in the paid search business, and they’re hungrier.