Jerry Yang on why Yahoo shouldn't merge with Microsoft ... but they've got to dance with somebody

Another great summation from Google-Watch. I wonder why eWeek has no "Yahoo-Watch" ... but that tells you a lot right there.

Yahoo may have a big market share, but nothing they're doing is all that exciting. I got a push e-mail the other day about Yahoo's Web-site services in which small businesses can get unlimited everything for something like $13 a month. It sounds great, but it's just ... boring.

I use Yahoo Mail -- and more people do than use Gmail -- and I also use Yahoo Messenger, though I almost always use Pidgin so I can get my Yahoo and AIM IMs together.

And one thing the Google-Watch article by Clint Boulton points out is that Yahoo has no strategy for Web-based apps or cloud computing.

And if the key to turning things around is getting people to use Yahoo! for search instead of Google, it would take some powerful dose of innovation and deal-making to turn that one around. I'm not sure it can be done.

And combining Microsoft and Yahoo wouldn't appear to affect that state of affairs at all.

That said ... Yahoo Mail is solid. But again, e-mail is boring. Moving apps and data into the cloud and remaking the desktop in your own image, trying to open up wireless spectrum and remake the mobile device, imaging the entire planet and turning it into a Web feature? Not boring.

But Yahoo's gonna have to deal with somebody, and when News Corp. starts to look good, you know you're in deep trouble.

Clint's take:

If Yahoo takes such a deal and controls (News Corp.-owned) MySpace, does it seek to supplant Google as MySpace's primary ad supplier? That might not mean much now, but in the long run, people will be making big bucks from social network advertising.

Hmmmmm. Very interesting.