Yahoo is the New Google
Yahoo is the new Google. Google is the new Yahoo. Up is down, and black is white. This spring has been very strange. Google, it seems, has jumped the shark. It has been overtaken, left standing, and not by some new startup of ultra smart MIT alumni or by the gazillions in the Microsoft development budget, but by the deeply unhip and previously discounted Yahoo.
I'm fascinated by Zopa, a kind of DIY bank, which Michael showed me today. My first reaction was that it was a dream venue for loan sharks, money launderers and con artists. But conversely, I considered all the times I'd groused about the 5 day float banks get on checks over $2,000, and the 30 days it takes to clear a US check at a Canadian bank, and thought perhaps this was just what I needed.
Right now it is only open to UK residents, and lenders are limited to loaning 25,000 pounds. Loans are distributed among 50 borrowers, to mitigate the risk. I don't know if this would fly in the US, or if banks are regulated differently here. But 1% up front, and a commission for the sale of insurance seems as good as a license to print money if they can get to scale. And I'd be interested to hear from some PayPal execs on their perspective on the risk of fraud. Here's a BBC Article as well as an article in MyFinance.co.uk.
I'll keep an eye on this one, it might be huge. It's backed by Benchmark.
