A note regarding the authenticity of the Yahoo document: this does indeed seem to be the real thing.  A product called myM that it mentions fell off the map a long time ago, and the scope of the "sunset" list is a little hard to swallow, but Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has threatened to fire whoever leaked it, which lends a distinct air of authenticity.

So to move on to the document itself . . . .   AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Delicious, MyBlogLog, myM, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, and Yahoo Picks are all supposed to be cut.

Then Fire Eagle, FoxyTunes, Sideline, Upcoming, Yahoo Events, and Yahoo People Search are supposed to be merged.

This signals a significant change in Yahoo’s strategy.  Streamlining on this scale may save the company lots of money, but could also harm its visibility and reputation while resulting in an unfortunate number of layoffs.

One other, completely speculative, thought: we may be witnessing Carol Bartz’s last stand as she tries to convince critics that she’s turning the company around and should be allowed to remain in charge.

Hat tip goes to Liz Gannes, who noted that MyBlogLog founder (and former Yahoo employee) Eric Marcoullier was the first person to link to the leaked document on Twitter.

"We chose the name Buzz because of the word’s connotations of activity, conversations, sharing of information," Google’s Victoria Katsarou tells WebProNews. "’Buzz’ is not a trademarked term."

That didn’t stop Yahoo from tweeting about it yesterday, as we previously reported:

Google doesn’t appear to be worried about that all. In fact, during the Q&A session following the announcement of Google Buzz, the company basically said it tries not to pay too much attention to competitors, although that was actually in reference to comparisons of Google Buzz to Facebook.

What’s Next for Google Buzz?

As Google mentioned during the announcement, they are just getting started with Buzz. You can expect many more integrations into many more Google (and non-Google) products in time.

"We have a long lists of features that we want to tackle next," Katsarou says. "This is just the first version of Buzz, and we’re looking to collect feedback from all of you to continue improving the experience. We’ll keep iterating and adding stuff."

Google is not making it clear which other products will be taking priority when it comes to Google Buzz integration, but they did say that Wave would be up there somewhere.

Related Articles:

> Will Google Buzz Change the Social Media Game?

> Whose Got The Buzz: Yahoo or Google?

> Good News for Google Buzz – Social and Email Top Mobile Priorities

"We chose the name Buzz because of the word’s connotations of activity, conversations, sharing of information… Buzz’ is not a trademarked term."

For further details, read the full article: Google: "Buzz" Is Not a Trademarked Term

ORIGINIAL ARTICLE: Recently, Google officially announced their latest product, Google Buzz, during a live press event. If you’re not familiar with Google Buzz, it’s a way to share updates, photos, videos, and more. (You can read an extensive writeup of Google Buzz here).

Wait a minute; doesn’t the name Buzz sound familiar? Well, there’s a good reason for that. Let me re-introduce you to Yahoo! Buzz.

Should Google have picked a different name for their service? Share your thoughts.

For those of you who don’t know what Yahoo! Buzz is, or for those of you who forgot it even existed, it’s a Digg-esque social bookmarking service that launched back in 2008.

The first thing that came to this writers mind was, “how can two rivals in the search industry each have a product with the same name?” Granted, they’re two separate services, but both reside in the social media realm.

Another thing that should be noted is the Yahoo! Buzz logo features a trademark. That trademark only applies apparently to the the word Yahoo, not "Yahoo Buzz". 

What do you think will happen between Google & Yahoo? Tell us what you think.

UPDATE: Looks like Yahoo! finally caught wind of Google Buzz, they recently tweeted the following…

It’s not surprising that marketers are utilizing the service to advance their own agendas, but the LA Times’ Mark Milian’s claims that the Marines and the Mormons are willful participants certainly are surprising and fairly disturbing, each for their own reasons. While the few and the proud, if the news is true, are manipulating a supposed democratic news source to advance favorable stories (i.e., propaganda), the answer to the famed question—what would Jesus do?—apparently is condone fraud (which is lying) to promote oneself.

The Apostle Paul did say he became all things to win men to Christ, and if you stretch it—really stretch it—one supposes that could mean a phony Digg user 2,000 years later.

Neither the Marines nor the Church of Latter Day Saints returned our requests for confirmation or denial of contracting uSocial to game (defraud) the Internet. Hill brags about contracting the Korean government in this release.

Hill says he ignored a cease and desist order from Digg.com because uSocial isn’t based in the US and his employees are “scattered across the world.” He fails to connect that a company wishing to sue him out of business only needs to sue him, not his employees, and now that he’s messing with Yahoo, an international corporation, his Australian immunity may be short lived.  

"Any of the Web’s best current event stories, gossip, photos, videos and more can be submitted and shared on Yahoo! Buzz," explains Tapan Bhat on Yodel Anecdotal.

 Yahoo Buzz

He then continues, "You’ve already seen the ‘Buzz Up’ buttons on many of your favorite sites, including New York Times, Us Weekly and BoingBoing.  Now, as any site is able to add our button, you’ll have even more places to buzz to your heart’s content.  And if you don’t see that button on a Web story you just have to share, you can submit a story right on Yahoo! Buzz."

Certain Yahoo Buzz stories will then make it to the homepage of Yahoo itself.  The traffic-related possibilities at that point are positive to say the least; Yahoo Buzz has seen around 5 million users so far, and a lot more are sure to reach for this carrot.

Bhat promised that additional upgrades are on the way, as well.

Before anyone goes dashing off to click on things, though, we should issue a reminder that the transfer from Yahoo Buzz to Yahoo.com is controlled by an editorial team.  As a result, it’s going to be somewhere between hard and impossible to "game" the system.

Not many publishers have made it into Yahoo Buzz yet, but for those who have, the system works well. Promoted stories make it to Yahoo’s home page, one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the planet.

The resulting placement brings a flood of traffic to the destination, and if that fortunate recipient employs a cost per impressions ad model, that influx of visitors represents a serious bump in advertising revenue.

Yahoo Buzz’s traffic delivery made an impression on measurement firm Hitwise. Heather Hopkins noted how social media biggie Digg sends only 10 percent more traffic to the News & Media sites Hitwise tracks:

To put this in context, last week, Digg.com received a 75% larger share of US Internet visits. Despite being a much larger site, Digg sends only slightly more traffic to News and Media websites.

Yahoo Buzz differs from Digg in one major way. Buzz only accepts stories from a small group of publishers at the moment, with plans to expand that group in the future. On Digg, anyone can submit an article from any website or blog.

This makes Buzz really great for the handful of publishers who have made it into the program. The traffic boost Buzz provides will make it a coveted destination for news site publishers that want more traffic for their ad views. Click-throughs make a pretty ka-ching sound for their ad revenue.