The Microsoft bid to take Yahoo! has entered it´s third month and the plot has been slow. as a Soap Opera trying to squeeze all the time possible of a previsible storyline.

The plot strung a chord with Steve Ballmer letter proclaiming a Ultimatum to Yahoo! and Yahoo! responded shortly turning this in a “he said, i said, he said” game.

But it is truly all is there to it?.

 I truly think this is not the REAL story of what is happening, i see a scheme of protocol and a play of some sorts. more because of the same findings Brian Caufield of Forbes.com found. a game of waiting because there are too many shared interests at play given the main stockholders of Yahoo are also important Microsoft stockholders making this whole  deal a done deal in a unofficial form.

If Microsoft chooses to go into a proxy fight, they win and Yahoo! would lose greatly because it is very possible they would get less that the original bid Microsoft did for them.

The share interests also explain why Microsoft has been so nice and patient with this deal considering the magnitude puts it as the biggest deal ever done in the web. precisely because the main Yahoo stockholders are also Microsoft stockholders and damaging them would hurt Microsoft too.

This does stop the rest of the Soap Opera from going on and people getting nervous with it, minor stockholders in the border of a killing mood and wall street losing their temper to the slow pace of this story.

The stakes have already being played, it is only about the actions following their marked path. any other scenario would still mean the end of yahoo because of the effect on the company value if Microsoft walks away and because the stockholders would sue the board to death causing the internal auto-destruction of the company. something already implicit on the counter effect of the initial Microsoft offer. such destruction would still allow Microsoft to bid for the pieces they need as Google would not be able to touch them but such scenario would be sad and tragedy because of all the market value and hits real state that would suddenly go off into thin air. this is what Microsoft wants to avoid. as more of the package they get, the best.

Yahoo! Jerry Yang still claims he can save Yahoo!, but i also wonder if that is another play or if he is really just a pawn into this and is truly as disconnected from reality to think he can save Yahoo1 in time?

JErry Yang last hope are that Yahoo last quarter earnings come as good so his projection can hold some water. but the questions is: even if they are good, Yang projections can hold true?, and they are enough to turn around the tide?.

The problem is that the answers to those questions is already to be known as a “NO”. but miracles exist. so maybe Yahoo! got a early Christmas like Miracle that will make everything right.

At least the Finale has been announced and the most we have to wait it 3-4 weeks to watch the end of the line.

Yahoo continues its race against the shadow of a Microsoft acquisition by their latest new services release spree with Shine, a content portal geared to women. some may even find it a riff of ivillage. something kinda ironic considering Yahoo runs their search for them but it is obvious they are going for Glam, the Lifestyle website geared for Women that have been raising lot of funding and that have even started to acquire others in ther market like StyleMob so they can cover as much ground as possible in Lifestyle and fashion content targeted at Women for their ad network campaigns.

Yahoo Shine wil be bringing content from partnered blogs but everything that gets into this new content portal looks to be curated, as truly hand picked by a group of editors instead of just automating the process. something they could do if they wanted, but this kind of venture requires to be treated in the same way a women magazine to truly thrive, and that is where they are going for.

The look of the portal is very important and surprisingly Yahoo Shine got a nice look in a Gazzette like layout.

The true strenght of Shine is that Yahoo got the back end to make the site work right. Yahoo has experience with news, has been experimenting with user powered with Yahoo Buzz and now has a good idea of what can be expected to run niche news content in focused format like Yahoo OMG! Celebrity Gossip site while having a understanding of their Target Audience. in this case 25-54 women as posted by Techcrunch.

Yahoo Shine does show as a good prospect to compete in this crowded market thanks to the crumbling of USA newspaper industry and a contraction of the Magazine market. the opportunity to bring eyes into focused content portals like this one is a bet that Yahoo can make expecting to win for it since there is so much money to be made on this market since is the most desirable by advertisers.