In Response to Aubrey Menegus...

"The CEO of Yahoo called Facebook its top competitor. They do not feel that they can 'beat' Facebook, so they are using Facebook as a way to get more promotion. Do you think that this is a good idea? Will this encourage more Yahoo users?"

       (vs)    

   Advertising through your competitors may seem like a backwards way to market your product or service, but Yahoo isn't the only company doing so.  Many of Google's competitors advertise through Google.  Bing, a Microsoft owned search engine advertises through Google/Google's sources.  I think that this kind of advertisement is a very smart way for companies to advertise.  Yahoo for example, isn't a direct competitor of Facebook.  Yahoo offers services that Facebook doesn't, and likewise, Facebook offers services that Yahoo doesn't.

   Right now, Facebook is the single largest social-networking service online.  Although Yahoo was around first, Facebook has managed to tap into a whole new network of consumers that may not have been online before.  If Yahoo can get just a few of those new consumers to join their service too - than the advertisement is successful and it will be.  My Nana never had a computer until Facebook came out.  She wanted a way to see what her children and grandchildren were up to, and Facebook was a very easy way for her to do that.  Now that she has a computer she has been learning how to surf the web and use things like e-mail and follow the stock exchange online.  Her e-mail is through Yahoo's free e-mail service.  I have no way to prove that Facebook is how she found out about Yahoo, but I can be sure that Facebook is the reason she was interested in getting an e-mail at all.

   Does anyone else know of companies who have succeeded in advertisement through competitors?