Many of you (readers of my blog) work in the marketing and media business and are familiar with the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance. For those of you who aren’t, Yahoo! and Microsoft Search created the Alliance to become a more meaningful competitor in search advertising to Google, the world’s most highly valued media company. Roughly speaking, Google commands about 75% of  search advertising spend, while Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing), combined, control about 24% — the remainder goes to a handful of players is not all that significant. The rationale behind the Alliance is that it will create a more viable number-two player to compete against Google. Many argue that Yahoo! and Microsoft, alone, lack critical mass to 1) capture the attention of advertisers and 2) create perceived ROI for the substantial investment (time, technology, staffing) required in adopting a second advertising network. When you consider the stakes — i.e., Google’s $24 billion in revenues in 2009 — the hype and anticipation around the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance makes a lot of sense.
With that preface, I’m delighted to announce that the SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization) New York Working Group just announced its next Meetup event: Inside the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance. (In case you’re not aware, I’m a co-founder and co-organizer of the New York SEMPO Working Group.) It will be held on August 2, 2010, at 6pm, at the New York City offices of Microsoft. This unprecedented event will feature in-depth presentations from Yahoo! and Microsoft transition leads, followed by a question-and-answer session. You can sign up here, but act fast. As of this writing, 12 hours after announcing the event, 50 of the 100 seats have been claimed. This is a hot topic (several reporters from major advertising and business publications have signed up to cover the event as well).
Hope to see you there.
(Photo credit: Penn Olson)