AMP!s to Eleven, Stat!

With Ballmer sending the type of love letters that most soon-to-be-betrotheds would rather do without, Yahoo's now in a tight spot: if they take the current Microsoft offer that's on the table, they'll sign over control of their company for a price that a couple years ago they would have scoffed at, but if they don't take it, well then they're looking at a potential proxy battle for control of the company, one that's likely to hurt Yahoo shareholder value while the game plays itself out.

No wonder, then, that Yahoo's talking up a new ad buying platform today & which won't actually ship until Q3, much like they talked up Panama at least 3 full quarters before it was operational. Last time around investors took Yahoo at their word and waited relatively patiently; this time around, it'll be interesting to see how the world reacts.

Sue Decker wrote about AMP! (formerly Project Apex) on Y!'s corporate blog tonight, and included a demo video that's pretty damn powerful if you ask me.

The title of her blog post - 'This One Goes To Eleven' - is eerily reminiscent of a 7/31/07 Searchquant blog post discussing Google's Campaign Optimizer titled 'These Go To Eleven'. Decker's title is clearly a thinly-veiled reference to the Spinal Tap amplifier sketch, but that's an odd reference for Project Apex given that Yahoo's life as an independent company pretty much depends on it - recall that while the amps in Spinal Tap *did* go to eleven, they weren't actually any louder, were they?

I do think AMP! could put Yahoo back on track, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether it's the amp itself, or merely the dial, that goes to eleven; for the sake of continued good Silicon Valley mojo, I'm hoping it's the former...