These are exciting times for ad-supported Internet service companies like Alphabet’s (GOOGL Quick QuoteGOOGL - Free Report) Google and Facebook . As a recent PWC report says that these platforms are geared to steal a large share of ad dollars over the next few years. From 2015 to 2017, Internet ad dollars will grow 26.3% to $75.3 billion while TV ad dollars will grow a mere 0.7% to $70.4 billion. By 2020, Internet ad dollars will grow to $93.5 billion, surpassing TV ad dollars of $81.7 billion.

This year is expected to be significant because of the Presidential elections, which will for the first time see ad spending of a billion dollars, according to Borrell Associates as reported by thestreet.com. Accordingly, social media is expected to account for $570 million, 100X the amount spent in 2008. So it’s no wonder that Internet companies are going all out to develop platforms with the broadest appeal. 

While a number of companies have jumped on board, Facebook stands out as the one that has made the greatest progress. So let’s start this week with the developments at the leading social networking company:

Facebook Live Videogame Streaming

Facebook and Blizzard have announced the integration of Facebook login and Facebook Live application programming interfaces (APIs) with the game developer’s Battle.net gaming client. This means that starting later this month, serious gamers who also frequent Facebook can login with Facebook IDs to play Blizzard titles like the new Overwatch and other Battle.net games.

What’s more, thanks to the Facebook Live integration, they can broadcast their gameplay live to their followers on Facebook. If it’s a hit, Facebook might consider extending the time limit from the current 30 minutes allowed per Live stream. At any rate, they can create multiple live streams of 30 minutes each that are then displayed on their timelines as videos. (Also read: Facebook, Amazon Battle For Live Video Streaming Market).

Amazon (AMZN Quick QuoteAMZN - Free Report) Music Streaming

If “people familiar with the matter” are to be believed, the online shopping portal that already sells you goods, video and some music is just getting ready to launch a music streaming service at $9.99 a month. The market is already crowded with Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube offering upwards of 30 million songs each, but Amazon thinks the agreements it’s signing with record labels can help it carve out its own niche. After all, it’s got a humongous number of people signing up for Prime and gorging on unlimited amounts of goods and services, or calling on Alexa to turn on the music.

There’s bound to be some music buffs in there that will want to subscribe for a proper music streaming service. All the better if these people are living on other platforms, because then they can be pulled on to Amazon.

Yahoo Bids Climb to $5 Billion

CNBC reported last week that at the end of the second round of bidding, Yahoo’s core business had received offers of up to $5 billion with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway and Quicken Loans’ Dan Gilbert’s entering the fray. Other bidders included AT&T, private investment firm TPG, an investment group including Bain Capital, Vista Equity Partners and former Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn. Surprisingly, Verizon’s bid of $3.5 billion remains one of the lowest and there are questions about whether it will make it to the final round, which will include firm commitments and cash.

Yahoo has enlisted investment bank Black Stone to help it sell its non-core assets, including 3K patents in search, advertising and other foundational technologies, as well as real estate. It hopes to make $1-3 billion from their sale.(Also read: Yahoo Puts Patents Up for Sale, Hires Investment Bank).

Cisco (CSCO Quick QuoteCSCO - Free Report) Heads Are Rolling

Key management personnel at Cisco parted ways with the networking company last week. Dubbed the MPLS team on the basis of the first letters of their names, Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero and Soni Jiandani left the company protesting new roles and responsibilities that transformed Mazzola, Jain and Cafiero into advisors. All four were previously VPs.

Cisco had a unique arrangement with these employees, according to which it provided some capital to help them start new companies to develop different technologies. If these proved useful, Cisco would then buy the company from them at predetermined rates. The arrangement reportedly worked well for all concerned but people have recently questioned this use of funds because of the way it transferred significant resources to these men. (Also read: Cisco Loses Leading Engineers after Management Shakeup)

Other stories you might have missed-

Corporate

Apple Third In Fortune 500 List

Alphabet’s Nest In Trouble

Amazon To Invest $3 Billion In India 

Legal/Regulatory

Russia Talks to Google Out-Of-Court: Google, which has been pulled up in Russia for pre-installing certain apps on Android smartphones, may be nearing an out-of-court settlement with FAS, the anti-competition authority in the country. Russian search company Yandex had taken the matter to the authorities as Google’s actions made serious dents in its leading market share. The matter was thereafter also escalated to the European Union. Google has been making necessary adjustments to its business practices in all the places it operates, which may have helped the process.

New Technology/Products

Alphabet Pursuing Flying Cars: Technology companies are bringing Robin Williams’ Flubber to life. At E3, we were introduced to the talking, reading Zenbo, and now the media has come alive with news about flying cars. It isn’t as if startups haven’t been tinkering with the technology for a while. But when the quiet and reserved CEO of Google, Larry Page puts money into flying car companies like Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, this certainly is news.

The cars they’re making can rise and descend vertically (thankfully!), but they do make a ruckus. This is probably great news for cheaper taxi services, logistics companies, delivery companies and such parties, but I sure don’t feel excited at the prospect of sky traffic (road traffic is bad enough!). And then there’s the question of privacy (something regulators should take care of).

Google Warehouse Robots: Loading and unloading in factory warehouses may become easy as ever (if Google licenses these robot patents that is). The group of patents, invented by Google software engineer Kevin Watts, allow remotely or physically-controlled robots to load or unload packages. What’s more, they have some kind of load balancing system wherein they operate only at optimum loads or move slower when overloaded with guards against the danger of incorrect unloading.

M&A

F5 May Sell Itself: F5 Networks shares were up around 13% following a Reuters report suggesting that the company had received a takeover bid and was therefore seeking advice from Goldman Sachs. The company is a leading producer of application delivery controllers that are used for secure load balancing in hardware centric networks.

The ongoing trend toward cloud computing has therefore had a negative impact on its results while despite share gains due to the increasing focus on software-centric networks. A sale of the business will therefore be welcomed by many. Possible suitors could be Cisco, IBM, Juniper and HPE. (Also read: F5 Networks Stock Up on Reports of Acquisition Offer)

GM Signals Alphabet: As the race for self-driving cars gathers momentum, none of the automakers want to be left behind. They mostly want multiple agreements with different technology providers so they can have their own self-driving car story. After Alphabet’s deal with Fiat Chrysler, General Motors signaled last week that it would like a similar deal with the company. However, given Google’s leverage at Android phone makers, automakers are making sure that there are no exclusive arrangements on either side. So the stage appears set for a highly competitive market.(Also read: Who Will Win the Robot Car Showdown, Automakers or Techies?)

Pandora Agreement with Music Reports: Pandora has signed an agreement with music rights administrator Music Reports for mechanical licensing and royalty management for the paid on-demand music streaming service it is about to launch. Music Reports allows any music publisher to create an account to handle licensing and royalty reports.

It’s expected that the transparent payment facility for music creators will endear them to Pandora’s on-demand service, a beta version of which Axiom Capital’s Victor Anthony expects will launch in the fourth quarter. The analyst is highly optimistic about the paid music streaming business where he tracks60 million subscribers including Spotify’s 30 million, Apple Music’s 13 million, Tidal’s 3 million Rhapsody’s 3.5 million, Deezer’s 6 million and Pandora One’s 3.9 million. He also expects that Pandora won’t have difficulty converting 4% of its 80 million monthly active users to the on-demand service with minimal advertising costs. That user base will now get to see some dapper ads that make use of rich media including video. 

Some Numbers

VeriFone Shares Fall 28%

Server Revenues Fall: Both Gartner and IDC estimate that server revenue declined in the first quarter of 2016, the first time in two years. Gartner says it declined 2.3% because of weak pricing and marginal shipment growth of 1.7%. IDC said that revenues were down 3.6% even as shipments dropped 3.0%. IDC attributed the weakness to theend of the Intel led enterprise refresh cycle, sluggish investment in hyperscale data center and tough year-over-year comparisons due to a major mainframe refresh from IBM in the year-ago quarter. The top five vendors according to both firms were Hewlett-Packard Enterprise,Dell, IBM, Lenovo and Cisco.

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