As a followup to yesterday’s doom-and-gloom post about that soft “popping” sound over at Yahoo, Om Malik over at GigaOm has done some digging with respect to Yahoo’s third quarter results.

Its a good read, but as a summary:

1. Pundits think that its a sign of an upcoming wider malaise
2. Mr. Malik feels that its probably a combination of: endemic problems AT Yahoo, a wider economic trend, AND a climate of deepening competition
3. When the financial sector goes soft, Yahoo follows (graph provided)
4. Ford’s tough times will probably mean more results-oriented marketing (i.e. away from CPM banner ads) for Ford — and likely the rest of the automobile industry
5. Yahoo has had problems with its next-generation ad serving system (lateness), which may be an indication of difficulties at Yahoo itself

Bottom line:  While Yahoo may have its own issues, there seems to be accumulating evidence that a system-level issue may be at place.  Advertising-dependent models will be hit first.
I suspected that they might be better this time around to weather the storm …

… but its still gonna hurt.