Merrill Lynch Likes Yahoo Over Google

An analyst at the firm finds that Yahoo's dual revenue stream of advertising dollars and paid content makes it the more appealing search engine. That 42 percent increase to Everlast build sites with their look and feel, powered by Yahoo's e-commerce engine. For Yahoo, that's a recurring monthly fee plus a percentage of transactions. Fantasy football on Yahoo started as a purely free product. Yahoo then moved the live scoring to a premium version while still making the free one available. The popularity of fantasy football has done more than make fans care about late December matchups between a pair of 3-9 teams; it's spurred interest in the stats players generate, which translate into wins or losses in fantasy leagues. For a lot of fans, that interest is enough to get them to buy the premium version, or to entice them to buy the draft kit or the live stat tracker for their free teams. It all adds up to a higher revenue stream for Yahoo. David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him