Given the hue and cry about Yahoo!’s expected layoffs and its less than perfect market performance in Q4, the word about the possible bid by Microsoft had already been in the air, which has now been translated in to a reality. Would the deal eventually materialize or not?

Google would like to see Yahoo stay out of Microsoft’s embrace for competitive reasons, but Microsoft’s top lawyer says there’s no problem here.

Google’s top lawyer raises a monopoly question regarding Microsoft’s hostile bid to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion in cash and stock.

Google’s stock is down because its rate of growth is down according to Google’s latest quarterly financial report. Google still had a 30 percent increase in payments from clicking ads, but that was substantially down from the 45 percent increase they had a year earlier.

Yahoo hasn’t said much regarding Microsoft’s purchase offer but here are a few of the official statements that are public so far…

From Yahoo Press Release:

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today said that it has received an unsolicited proposal from Microsoft to acquire the Company. The Company said that its Board of Directors will evaluate this proposal carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo!’s strategic plans and pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders.

Late trading after the bell continues to nudge shares of Yahoo upward, after a dramatic day initiated by Microsoft’s disclosure of a $44.6 billion bid to acquire the Internet company.

It appears another "anchor" has cut a third major undersea Internet cable in the Middle East, this time in the Persian Gulf. Quotes are around the word anchor because that’s the best explanation offered so far.

What, if anything, do you associate with Finland?  How about Slovenia and Poland?  Well, not to shut down whatever cultural research you were going to do, but we’d like to suggest "Firefox" as an answer; new research shows that the browser does especially well in these three countries.

Google has announced that the Urchin Software is now in public beta and can be downloaded at urchin.com.

Google says the software is similar to Google Analytics but you install and manage the software on your own servers. The company says the beta software "should only be used for evaluation purposes," and it is not recommended for production environment.

At the end of this day we’re left with a nail-biter. Chances are we’ll know who won Super Bowl LXII, and who will be the Presidential nominees* before we know if Yahoo accepts Microsoft’s dizzying offer. But that’s all it is: an offer.

To list a few of life’s little nuisances: we require food.  Our cars require fuel.  And some online apps require user bases to make them worthwhile.  Google hasn’t yet solved those first two issues, yet it turns out the company is working on the third.

User-generated videos (UGVs) totaled 22 billion views in 2007, an increase of 70 percent over 2006, according to Accustream iMedia Research’s "UGV 2005-2008: Mania Meets Mainstream" report.

Well two days ago, in light of the woes coming from Yahoo’s earnings conference call, I suggested that maybe now was just the time to pack it up and sell the ship to Microsoft, and it seems like somebody decided to take my advice. Only joking of course.

China’s Internet users are going online to express their frustration over the countries snow relief efforts, which have stranded millions before the Lunar New Year.

Internet message boards in China have post reading, "Today’s CCTV news was exasperating. They did a whole segment on the frozen disaster area in the south, and then cut away to talk hysterically about how heroic their reporters were," wrote Feiniao434.

OK, everyone is already talking about Microsoft buying Yahoo.

But what I find interesting is that Bill Gates is out and now Ray Ozzie is roaring. Microsoft has been so damn boring since I left in June of 2006. This shoots the boring in the head.

Why is “Microhoo” not boring?

The acquisition of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has been something that’s frankly made sense for years. Microsoft has a lot of strengths, but it just hasn’t been able to crack the nut of content creation (does it even own a property that has any meaningful content prior to this acquisition?), particularly the semi-mythic user-generated content, and its attempts at competing with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) in the advertising space have also proven disappointing.

I missed Microsoft’s earnings release last week (I was on a flight back from my vacation), so here’s a look back. Microsoft’s revenue for its second quarter were up 30% to $16.37 billion, and profit was up 92% to $6.48 billion.