MicroYahGoo-gate: who will emerge as the ultimate victor?

To say that this has been a big week in search news would be a gross understatement, newsletter readers! With so many stories about Microsoft's $44.6mn hostile takeover bid for Yahoo! circulating the websphere, it's hard to remember where it all started.

Let's look at the build-up:

A week ago, Yahoo! cut 1000 jobs from its workforce - its biggest exodus since the dotcom crash. Then on Thursday, former-CEO Terry Semel stepped down from the Yahoo! Board of Directors - and Friday, of course, saw Microsoft drop their bombshell on the search engine pioneer, who is yet to make a decision on the bid.

Compounding Yahoo!'s problems is the role of search giant Google, who voiced its concerns over Microsoft's potential takeover in a Google blog post over the weekend. Since then, it's been reported that Google has offered Yahoo! a pact to propose working together in the future, in an effort to stave off Microsoft's bid.

But where will it go from here? As the animosity between Google and Microsoft reaches a boiling point, it seems it has been left to Yahoo!'s shareholders to make one of the biggest decisions the search market has seen in recent times and to subsequently decide its fate.

However, amongst the chaos, we have seen other news too. As Super Tuesday dawns in the USA, a recent bigmouthmedia technical report has highlighted a crucial flaw in the White House web strategy - but who will come to its rescue?

Google has also announced a stream of new developments this week, as it unveiled its Social Graphs API and announced a new and improved Google Mobile search facility.

Other large web players haven't stopped to stare at the Micro-Goo-Yahoo! squabble either, as yesterday AOL announced its acquisition of Goowy, a start-up that specialises in widget development.

What's more, as MySpace launches its new developer platform, the News Corp.-owned social network is finally squaring up to Facebook in the buzzing world of Web 2.0.

So, loyal newsletter readers, with Yahoo! yet to make their momentous decision, it promises to be a week to remember in the search world. And you can depend on the bigmouthmedia newsletter to bring you all the highlights on cue as always - until then, feast your senses on this week's exciting stories.

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