Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Flickr–what’s next, what’s right, and is it a good thing?

There are sometimes when I am glad I don’t get right on a story to blog it.  This weekend with the Microsoft-Yahoo news it was a matter of being sick and not really having the brains to muster a descent post.  I think I’m better enough to give this a shot, good thing too, because I like Scoble’s addition to the discussion:

1. Google doesn’t mind this deal going through at all. Google knows they will be able to outrun a “Microhoo.” Why do they know that? Because they’ve been able to outrun them both separately. As I said on Channel 5 news on Friday night: put two turkeys together and you don’t get an eagle. Source: What you all are missing about Google « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger

This is only the first point, of course, and the rest of the post is excellent.  The main kicker of the post–Google is just using this as a smoke screen to delay the merger so they can continue to (or begin to) dominate the mobile market.

A short-term strategy, of course, Google knows it probably won’t prevail, but it will slow things down a bit.

Once the Microsoft-Yahoo merger goes through, and I think it will, is the search war heating up?  Will the game change?  I don’t think so.  I think Google will still to be dominant and newcomers like SiloBreaker (who I saw at DEMO) will target niche markets.

Services?  This is where the geek-erati will likely stick with Google, but new comers will be tempted but this new Net super power.  Why not?  Everything you want will be there.  Search, email, content, services … and services brings me to Flickr.

Right now I have several thousand pics on Flickr and even pondering moving to another service makes my head hurt (like it hasn’t stopped for a couple days).  Thomas Hawk and Mark Evans have both commented on a growing user revolt on Flickr.  People who say they will jump ship if Microsoft takes over.  Uh huh.  Well I’m going to stay put.  Way too much inertia for me to stay.  Heck Microsoft could make all pro-level accounts free (that would be nice).

The one thing that I think Yahoo has done pretty poorly is to leverage their acquisitions.  Flickr, del.icio.us, MyBlogLog.  They all could use a punch in the arm.  Something to make them even better.  Yahoo just hasn’t done it.  Will Microsoft?  I think so.  If this is a part of a larger online strategy, they better had.

My guess is that this will all be said and done in a week.  Google?  Google will just keep doing what it does, but better I’m sure.