I never understood the logic behind the idea of a Microsoft and Yahoo! merger. I mean, what does each bring to the table?

Microsoft brings a few cash cows, buckets of cash, and an ailing online service. Yahoo on the other hand, brings over a lot of eyeballs, some cool bits like flickr, delicious, and others, and a lot of duplicated services (WL Mail = Y! Mail, WL Messenger = Y! Messenger, WL Search = Y! Search, WL Maps = Y! Maps, etc). Anyway, it's an interest idea that they could merge, but I'm not sure what it would do to slow down Google. If anything, it'll slow down the newly joined-at-the hip "Yahoosoft!" I mean, let's take two very large bureaucratic companies with overlapping services, mash them together, and watch the ensuing politcal firefight ensue.

Anyway, I hope these two giants will take a good look at why Google is winning. It's certainly not the breadth of services or the even the reliability of them as I've experienced first hand. No, they are winning for two simple reasons:

1) Search: accurate. They've built the better mouse trap
2) Syndication: They allow you to make a few (or quite a few) bucks on your own blog running on your own server that you can do whatever you want with.

That's it folks. Those are the two reasons that Google is winning. Smashing Microsoft and Yahoo together will NOT get you these two things. The only two things that Microsoft, Yahoo, or Yahoosoft (or Microhoo, or Mihoo!, or Moohoo, or...I can go on for days) can do to beat Google are:

1) Search: make it more accurate than Google.
2) Syndication: get off your "walled garden" wall and let people syndicate your ads on their own site with their own servers that they can do whatever they want with. Yahoo figured this out eventually, but it is most likely too late. The other way to do it is to offer more cash than Google is willing pay. That should win you some converts (until Google ups their payout too, of course).

There you have it folks...no fuss, no political war with clashing cultures ensuing. Just a way to really win over Google. The question isn't if they can merge, because we know they can. The questions really are: does it matter? and will it help? The answer is most likely: no.

Big ups to Ars Technica for sparking this rant: Yahoo-Microsoft merger talk resurfaces

I've been deeply enthralled with my Windows Mobile 5.0 powered PPC-6700 from Sprint. LIttle pocket gizmos have come a long way since my hasty retreat from the nearly unusable Palm II. Even browsing the web is speedy enough because of the wicked EVDO network that blankets the Bay Area and other metro areas. While Pocket IE does a pretty good job of squeezing websites onto the tiny screen, I've been using Skweezer to strip out superflous formatting and just give me the goods.

Reading Scoble's blog, I found that MSN has their own skweezer type service for mobile phones. I'm going to have to give it a go and see which is nicer. I do however like that Skweezer allows me to keep favorites and what not, but if MSN does a better job of reformatting pages, I'll have to go with design over bells and whistles.

See For Yourself.