SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Talks between Microsoft Corp. over a possible combination are no longer active, according to a media report late Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site that in recent months the two companies discussed a possible merger, but that the discussions are no longer active. The two companies may still explore other ways of cooperating, the Journal reported. Yahoo shares closed 10% higher at $30.98 on Friday following earlier reports that the company was in talks to possibly be acquired by Microsoft in a $50 billion deal

NEW YORK, May 4 (Reuters) - U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open on Friday on deal news, including a report Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research) is intensifying its pursuit of a deal to buy Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile , Research) and before jobs data.

The widely anticipated monthly U.S. payrolls report, due at 8:30 a.m (1230 GMT), will be scrutinized for further clues about the outlook for interest rates. It is forecast to show employers created 100,000 jobs in April, compared with 180,000 in March.

Yahoo’s shares rose 15 percent in Europe after the New York Post reported Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, has asked the Web media company to reenter formal talks

I’m still waiting for the promised official response from Microsoft about the entire prefilling of the search box thing that happened at
MSN UK, as
we wrote about last week. But via Threadwatch, MSN UK apparently has a blog about the — yes — MSN UK home page. There, MSN explains about the experiment, which has been stopped after users loudly complained that prefilling the search box is bad.
Click to continue reading…

Back in November, we reported Microsoft had apparently shutdown their bCentral business directory. Today, we received an email with instructions for making any last minute changes to your directory listing, before editing permissions are removed and the directory changes format.
The good news is that existing listings will retain their “link friendliness and search ranking value”, hurrah!
How about I just go ahead and paste the entire

Last week, we reported DoubleClick was back up for sale and that Microsoft was the likely buyer. Now comes news that Google may be interested, which in turn could drive up the valuation to $2 billion.
Would Google really benefit from acquiring DoubleClick, or are they just trying to make Microsoft pay more for the company, than they originally planned?
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A lot of search marketers recently noticed that the “link:” command isn’t working at Microsoft’s Windows Live search. Well, it’s not a glitch, but a deliberate shutdown by MSFT…
We have been seeing broad use of these features by legitimate users but unfortunately also what appears to be mass automated usage for data mining. So for now, we have made the tough call to block all queries with these operators. Huh?

SEO Home reports that the MSN UK home page currently has the search box prefilled with the query “The Apprentice BBC,” effectively making it into an ad. Here’s a screenshot:
Click to continue reading…

It’s been just under two years since internet advertising powerhouse, DoubleClick, was bought for $1.1 billion. Now, according to the WSJ (sub), it’s once again looking for a new suitor.
The New York-based company is using investment bank Morgan Stanley to help sound out its options, these people said, including a possible stock-market listing. The company is majority-owned by San Francisco private-equity firm Hellman &

Niall Kennedy did earlier this month an exhaustive analysis of Google Gadgets, coming out with a lot of graphs, facts and figures that would make your head spin. If you’re a geek for infoporn, you’ll love his post on it.
A taste: The average Gadget is 181 pixels
20 or so Gadgets require you to be using Firefox
Google’s 48 Gadgets account for 44% of all Gadget page views More stats at this post, too.
Alex Iskold did a look at

There’s still talk that Google could become the next Microsoft. The U.K.’s Guardian looks at the similarities between the two companies and how Google’s explosive growth is as much of a drain, as it is a boost.
Apart from the many law suits, there’s the new competition and Wall Street’s concern that Google is starting to overreach…
…shares reached $500 in 2006, but have fallen 13 per cent since January, r

Microsoft’s video site, Soapbox, launched in September, has temporarily closed to new users. This comes in response to the (inevitable) video piracy on the site.
As a part of the NBC/News Corp/AOL deal in the works, Microsoft is trying to ensure that videos they’ll be paid to distribute won’t simultaneously be pirated on their video site. Think that ever happens on YouTube?
Or maybe the move has something to do with a certain

Ever since Microsoft launched its own search engine, we’ve heard their claims that they’d gain ground on Google and compete in anywhere from 3-5 years.
Well, as Business Week points out, in the two years since Microsoft dumped Inktomi, it’s not exactly headed in the right direction.
In February, 2005, Microsoft’s MSN Search accounted for nearly 14% of all Web searches, compared with a 46% share for search leader Google, ac

It’s official, we are definitely in the middle of a massive multi-industry war on the level of the RIAA/filesharing and other major technology wars of recent memory. Today, the war entered its third major stage, with many of the opposition joining forces to announce a YouTube competitor, coming this summer.
The chronology:
Pre-war ops: Various companies and startups enter the video sharing arena. YouTube (2/15/2005), Revver (11/2005), Br

Robert Scoble used to work at MSFT, but he was never really one to show a strong bias to the company. So, when the world’s most discussed tech blogger makes the claim that Microsoft is better at research than Google, you tend to take note.
Backing up his claim is a video tour of Microsoft’s research department. Better than Google? Anyone care to argue? One thing worth noting, Google has millions of researchers in its department - ye

paidContent.org, has extracts from a WSJ article suggesting cable company Comcast is unhappy with the amount of revenue generated via their deal with Google, and may turn to Microsoft.

Comcast thinks it should get a larger search ad rev share, and is also is unhappy about other terms of the deal. The company gets about $70 million in shared revenues through the Google deal, but wants $100 million…

This will be interesting to watch. If Comcast renews with Google this year, it would send a signal to Google’s other partners that the world’s largest search engine is willing to negotiate a better deal for its partners.

Yahoo has started integrating Yahoo Messenger into Yahoo Mail, just like Google did with Gmail over a year ago. Because of Yahoo’s cool tabbed IM interface, the IM window is full size, supersized even, making for lots of room for avatars, rich text editing controls, and timestamps.
I’m not sure how integrated it is in Yahoo Mail and how it compares to Gmail Chat, but it’s interesting to see this becoming a trend

TRUSTe has issued its first Trusted Download whitelist. The criteria to gain “Trusted Download” status included that the software is required:

to clearly communicate key functionalities, to obtain informed consumer consent prior to download, and provide an easy uninstall with clear instructions, among other requirements.

The Trusted Download program has already developed a receptive marketing plan

Cross post: This article is posted both at InsideGoogle and InsideMicrosoft.
Rob did a cool thing and compared the way Dolphin Stadium and the city of Miami are portrayed in 3D in Google Earth and Windows Live Maps. Take a look:
Dolphin Stadium:
Google Earth:

Windows Live Maps:

Miami:
Google Earth:

Windows Live Maps:

Thoughts:
Google Earth has a baseball field because the Florida Marlins play there, too

Hitwise released a graph that shows Google Calendar growing at an astronomical rate, reaching the same number of visits as MSN Calendar in late December. If GCal continues its growth, it may have already topped Yahoo’s Calendar to become number one in market share. Google Calendar stood, at the end of 2006 (and only 9 months on the market) at .0043% of all internet visits, above MSN’s .0040% and within striking distance of Yahoo’s .0051%.
Why is Google succeeding so quickly? I suspect it is a case of Yahoo and MSN failing to convert their larger email userbase into calendar users through poor promotion

I headed to Google’s mobile site on my T-Mobile MDA over the weekend, and was presented with a new, non-Java version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile. Naturally, I was excited, but as with most of Google’s mobile offerings, it comes with its own issues, but is a much better product than those we’ve seen in the past

Nielsen//NetRatings reported a week ago that Google had more than 50% of the search market share in December 2006. The data for the top three (compared with comScore Networks’ data from the same period, released Jan 15):

Provider
Searches (000)
Share of Searches
comScore Queries/Share

Google Search
3,035,617
50.8%
3.2 billion / 43.7%

Yahoo! Search
1,412,904
23.6%
1.9 billion / 28.5%

MSN/Windows Live Search
499,946
8.4%
713 million / 10.5%

Clearly, and unsurprisingly, comScore and Nielsen differ on their estimations of each search engine’s popularity

Google has done a terribly unpopular thing, redesigning Google Images so that it presents no new information, no new features, just increases the white space. It could be one of the worst redesigns I’ve ever seen.
The new Google Images is identical to the old one, except all the text that used to appear on the page, save the title of the image, is hidden, and only appears when your mouse is near the image

CNET reports Microsoft is not happy with their recent loss of search engine market share.
“On the search side you are correct we lost market share,” Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said in response to an analyst’s question on the company’s earnings conference call. He said he is “clearly not happy with that.”

While search tries to find footing, Microsoft is happier with the state of their display advertising.
“Clearly there is a better story on the display side,” he said

If you hate “echo-chamber” posts, cover your eyes now.
Search Engine Land points to a Philipp Lenssen post on a design change for Google Images. They’ve removed a lot of the information that used to appear alongside each image, and instead show just basic information when you mouse-over any image.
It’s certainly a sleeker interface and now looks a lot like Windows Live Image Search

The Register reports Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Vodafone are among a group of tech companies looking to create a code of conduct to protect freedom of expression online.
The companies announced their “intention to seek solutions to the free expression and privacy challenges faced by technology and communications companies doing business internationally”, according to a joint statement

comScore has released their search engine market share numbers for December 2006, and it shows Google continuing to claim more searches as their competition struggles. For 12/06, Google reached 47.3%, a new all-time high, while Yahoo reversed three months of decline to gain .3% and claim 28.5% of the market

Pete Abilla has put together a neat timeline of acquisitions by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft using Ajax.

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According to new comScore data, both Google and Yahoo have something to celebrate today, they each gained search engine market share - Google up 0.4% to 47.4%; Yahoo up 0.3% to 28.5%.
Bad news for Microsoft and Ask, they both slid this time around. It was only yesterday that we reported on MSFT’s search engine woes, now they’ve dropped half a point to 10.5%

Hooked on Google from the San Jose Mercury News revisits a theme from
Microsoft that I’ve reported to readers over the years. That’s how Microsoft’s
failure to beat Google in search — despite millions in spending — gets the
"it’s early days, give us time" defense from Microsoft. The defense is
partially true, but it gets weaker and weaker as the actual years of saying
that mount.

The Mercury News takes an in-depth look at the lack of ROI Microsoft is getting from its investment into web technologies, especially search.
Despite introducing a bunch of new products, including a new search experience, online video and Virtual Earth, Microsoft just can’t seem to keep up with Google’s explosive growth.
The result: The number of visitors to Microsoft’s sites has not budged, while the amount of time they have spent there has dropped

This is another post in the “IE 7 Sucks” series. This time, I’ve been poking around at data that suggests IE 7 really is crap, and it’s not just readers of Marketing Pilgrim, that think so.
Taking a look at Opinmind, we learn that only 24% of bloggers have a positive sentiment towards Internet Explorer, compared to 69% positive with Firefox.
Switching to Technorati, we discover 632 bloggers have stated “internet explorer sucks“, compared to 274 who think the same of Firefox.
Using Google Trends, it’s clear that more people are looking to download Firefox, compared to IE

Desktop and file search can be very different than web search, and the user’s context plays an important role in what is valuable when creating a search algorithm. But understanding context may be helpful to web search, too.

Microsoft’s Susan Dumais has done an extensive amount of research on how users interact with search applications for the desktop and for Microsoft’s Vista

John Musser has compiled some stats on the mashups of 2006, with 1,404 mashups clocking in at year’s end. The number one mashup API of the year? Google Maps, with 51 percent of all APIs. Yahoo’s Flickr API took second place with 10%, while Amazon’s API ranked third at 8%, followed by (Google) YouTube mashups in fourth with 4%. Google Maps has a lot of buzz and geek cred, and it’ll be a challenge to maintain a lead of that size in the next year, especially with Microsoft’s 3D maps gaining steam.

I’ve been giving some thought to why Microsoft’s attempt to reach out to bloggers, by sending them free Vista-loaded laptops, went horribly wrong.
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but as a business blogging consultant, here’s the five mistakes that I believe led to such a negative response from the blogosphere.

Microsoft (and Edelman) was not clear in its message to bloggers. They sent out these fully-loaded, top of the line laptops to bloggers without being clear what exactly they expected from them

I wasn’t going to share my thoughts on Microsoft sending out free laptops to some A-list bloggers. I figured it was a dumb move by Microsoft, without first seeking the permission of the blogger. But now Microsoft has made a bad situation worse by asking the bloggers to return the laptops after they “review” them

Comscore released their stats for November, showing Google slightly edging out Yahoo for second place, 475.5 million visitors to 475.2 million (out of a total internet population of 736 million). Microsoft continued to hold first place, with 501.7 million visitors. This accounting combines all websites owned or maintained by the various companies, except YouTube, which is still counted seperately

Google added a new advanced feature to Google Maps: multiple destinations. Now, if you need to go to more than one place, you can enter more than one destination (by hitting the new “Add destination…” link) and get directions to each place in order. Not only that, but you can drag and drop the various destinations, optimizing your route and watching as your trip time gets shorter with each change.
This is a great new feature, one that brings Google closer to the options available at some of its more advanced competitors

This will likely be the last news post until after Christmas. Here’s what’s caught my attention today.

Avinash Kaushik discusses the merits of javascript analytics over web log files.
Robert Scoble has re-discovered banner ads. He explains how Texas Instruments’ banner ads managed to catch his attention.
Mashable is reporting LinkedIn has secured new funding which suggests the company has a $250 million value.
Social media expert, Neil Patel, explains why some SEO web sites are being banned by Digg

The Live Search Blog posted the top searches for 2006 list. Here are the overall top 10, for the categorized top tens, check out their post.

Top Overall Searches at Live Search in 2006:
Ronaldinho
Shakira
Paris Hilton
Britney Spears
Harry Potter
Eminem
Pamela Anderson
Hilary Duff
Rebelde
Angelina Jolie

The Yahoo Search Blog features a post about how they’ve opened the new Panama ad platform to new advertisers. I just found it funny that the image in the post (and apparently on the front page of the new ad platform) features a search results page swimming in adverstisements. Close to 70% of the page appears to be paid for, not leaving a lot for the user.

The search in the screenshot is for “cellular phones” but the actual search results page for that term is a little more manageable (although still only 20% of the page is actual search results)

Steve Berkowitz, former CEO of Ask.com and now senior VP of Microsoft’s Online Services Group, overseeing Windows Live and MSN, describes the challenges with turning around Microsoft’s online unit in a New York Times interview.

Communication, inertia, and a penchant to focus on technology instead of user experience are all making Berkowitz’s job more difficult, he says

The NY Times has a great write up named Looking for a Gambit to Win at Google’s Game. In the article, Steve Berkowitz, old CEO of Ask.com, now in charge of Microsoft’s online services unit, describes the differences between running Ask.com and Microsoft. He calls Ask.com a row boat, and Microsoft a cruise ship

Compete.com’s latest numbers show more good news for Google, as it pulled an extra 3.5 percentage points of market share, commanding a new high of 66% of the search market. Meanwhile, Yahoo’s slide deepened, falling the most it has all year in a single month, losing 3.6 percentage points of share to bottom at 21%.
Compete’s chart (copied above) is great because it shows all the companies as they’ve trended over the previous twelve months

I’ve noticed a dramatic increase, over the past few weeks, in the number of people visiting my rant about just how bad IE 7 is. It’s consistently been one of my most visited posts, but as Microsoft rolls out the upgrade to more and more IE users, I’m seeing a direct correlation in the number of complaints.
Here’s a snapshot of the increase in people visiting my IE 7 complaint post.

Has Microsoft rolled-out an inferior, bug-ridden product too hastily, in an effort to try