just a little bit like high school
So WPP buys 24/7 Real Media, and the best quote of the day is in the New York Times…
“Martin Sorrell has said that he views Google as a ‘frienemy,’ ” said Dave Morgan, chairman of Tacoda, an online ad network, and former chief executive at a company that became part of 24/7 Real Media. “He wants Google to view him as a frienemy, too. He has now given his response, which is that he’s not going to just sit and wait and see what happens. He’s going to take an aggressive position against a world where Google and Yahoo will dominate.”
Now there’s lots of juicy strategic analysis to be made here about vertical integration, coopetition and all those other fun things that I spent so many hours caring about in grad school. But instead I’m flashing back to high school, when there was this guy who had this massive crush on this girl and he really wanted him to like her back but she didn’t (she was hot hot hot and could have any guy she wanted, and chose the captain of the soccer team) so to get back at her he asks this other girl to the prom.