14 DAY TRIAL // Panama is an advertising platform that was meant to represent a powerful system that will fix all the issues with the company's ads service, an area that received a huge number of complaints from its users.
It seems like the first result of this advertising system appeared yesterday, when the shares of Yahoo raised $0.48 to $27.38. At the moment of the Panama's release, Wall Street showed clearly that Yahoo must fix the ad problems, a fact also sustained by Wenda Harris Millard who said: "Wall Street wants revenue per search fixed, they are obsessed with it."
Several comparisons were made to Google AdWords, and MSN adCenter, and Panama appeared to compare favorably with both online ad platforms. Ease of use, a robust interface to target ads by state and locality, and removal of several legacy quirks were cited as positive improvements," Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck said.
According to Red Hearing, "Last year, Yahoo generated an estimated $2 billion in revenues from online ads that run alongside search results on its sites, compared with $6 billion that Google earned for the same types of ads. As a result, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo spent two-years overhauling its ad system to be more competitive with that of industry leader Google. Yahoo has said that it doesn't expect Panama revenues to impact financials until the end of the first quarter 2007."
We cannot guess if Panama was released to revamp the company or it was one of the services Yahoo planned to attract customers. It's sure that if the advertising platform continues its home run, it is possible to save Yahoo's shares that have fallen with 37 percent last year.
It's obvious that Yahoo needs a shock to revive the company. The Peanut Butter Manifesto, many executive departures, the announcement of the planned internal reorganization. All of these are representing signs for a crisis. Is Panama going to be the hero?