It didn't take that long for the Yahoo Board to renounce the new proposal made by Microsoft and Carl Icahn to acquire Yahoo's search business last Friday. Yesterday, Yahoo issued a statement citing four reasons for rejecting the new proposal: 1. Yahoo!'s existing business plus its recently signed commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal. 2.

"And then what will shareholders be left with? A weakened, Icahn-controlled Yahoo." These were the last few words that Yahoo's Jerry Yang said during his conversation with Boom Town's Kara Swisher . Mr. Yang was of course answering to two issues, or should we say two companies threatening to takeover Yahoo's Board and owning the company.

It's bold, it's radical, it's drastic and yet it can just be Google Custom Search Engine in a Yahoo environment. Yahoo has just launched the Yahoo! Search BOSS )Build your Own Search Service( platform which would allow developers and companies to create their own web search engine using Yahoo's search infrastructure and technology. Yahoo is touting their Search APIs as a free-for-all,

Google has just added search volume data to its AdWords Keyword Tool. For non-AdWords publishers, the Keyword Tool is a tool for generating and refining relevant keywords that best matches a publisher's product or service. These keywords can then be added into the publishers' ad groups.

Google has just launched its own 3D Virtual World called Lively. Of course the first thing that would come into our mind upon reading "3D Virtual World" is none other than Second Life, with all its avatars and avatar interactions among members. Although Google's Lively may look and feel like Second Life, it is no where near its rich 3D environment. But it is understandable though since Lively is still in Google Labs, so we expect more features and enhancements later on.

For those who login to their Gmail account from multiple terminals, the new Gmail feature addressing the issue on user privacy has just been rolled out. Basically this feature tells you whether your Gmail is currently in use.  If you check out this new feature, you can see how many people are using your Gmail account. And if its more than one and you are checking your Gmail account at your PC at home or in the offic.

Mr. Icahn sure knows how to start the business week with a bang. Just when Jerry Yang was busy negotiating with Time Warner for a possible merger with AOL, here comes a seemingly irate Icahn writing to the Yahoo Shareholders, urging/demanding a change of Yahoo Board and the immediate replacement of Mr. Yang. In his letter, Mr. Icahn, reiterated the current Yahoo's Board failure to grab the initial $31 Microsoft buyout offer. According to Mr.

Finally, Google has added a "privacy" link to its home page which directs users to Google's Privacy Center which contains a link to Google's Privacy Overview and Privacy Policy plus other product specific privacy statement. The Privacy Center even gives a some bonus privacy videos, all explaining how Google is "committed to transparency and choice." The Privacy Overview explains in simple terms how Google values users personal information and what it does,

Now, that it's barely a month to go before the Yahoo Shareholders meeting on August 1 when the fate of the current Yahoo board is at stake, it is but natural for the current board members to seek ways on how to convince the Yahoo shareholders to re-elect the current Yahoo Board. Words on the streets )and we mean business streets( say that Yahoo has renewed its merger talks with Time Warner, on a possible integration of Yahoo and AOL.

Hitwise Intelligence's VP for Research, Heather Hopkins made an interesting analysis of Yahoo! online properties based on some Hitwise data. Hopkins noted that of the top 20 Yahoo properties for June 2008 based on internet visits, Yahoo! Search was just a mere third trailing behind Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo main portal. Yahoo Search got a mere 12% share of the total number of visitors going to Yahoo's properties for the said month.

Microsoft Live Search's Australian partner ninemsn is reportedly having a contest right now to promote the use of Live Search, and among the prizes of the said contest was none other than an iPod Nano. The contest goes something like this. Everytime you conduct a search using ninemsn's live search , three cards from a set of five cards will flip open to reveal a secret prize. If three of the cards that flipped revealed the same prize, you get that prize.

Yesterday, we told you that Google will be making Flash contents searchable in cooperation with Adobe. Now, we found through a video interview with R.J. Pittman, Google's Director of Product Management for Consumer Search Properties, that Google will also be working on image processing technology to effectively search and organize the web's trillion of images. Of course, we know the underlying purposes of this,

Both Google and Yahoo in coordination with Adobe is finally making it easier for webmasters to make Flash contents on their site searchable by search engines' crawlers. Where as before, webmasters have to do some special arrangements with their Flash content to make it indexable by the search engines' crawlers. For Google, their search engine will index textual content of SWF files including Flash gadgets - such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites,

Expectedly, now that Google has relaunched DoubleClick's Performics ad affiliate network as the new Google Affiliate Network , there's no point in maintaining the Adsense Referrals Program anymore. So,  Google Adsense has just sent an official email to )I suppose( all Adsense members informing us that Google is retiring the Adsense Referrals Program starting the last week of August.

When Google acquired DoubleClick , the company has brought with it its affiliate ad network program called Performics. But Google never did something to push Performics as one of its advertising program, until now. Google has renamed Performics as the Google Affiliate Network , and Amazon with its popular Affiliate Marketing Network called Amazon Associates have something to worry about. The Google Affiliate Network works like your ordinary affiliate ad network,

When Google acquired DoubleClick , the company has brought with it its affiliate ad network program called Performics. But Google never did something to push Performics as one of its advertising program, until now. Google has renamed Performics as the Google Affiliate Network , and Amazon with its popular Affiliate Marketing Network called Amazon Associates have something to worry about. The Google Affiliate Network works like your ordinary affiliate ad network,

Remember Adsense for Videos which debuted not so long ago? We haven't heard too much about this new form of placing Google paid ads since it was launched, until now. The NYT is reporting about the agreement between Google and Seth MacFarlane, creator of TV program "Family Guy", who is embarking on new animation series made for internet only, called "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.

Here you go, 10 search-related service for all your Twittering needs. Search for Twitter profiles, Twitter discussion, Twitter followings and what-have-yous. If you know of other Twitter search-related service/apps that we've missed, please let us know by leaving a comment. We'll gladly add them to the list.

Billionaire turned blogger Carl Icahn explains why he has not posted anything about his proxy battle against Yahoo in his newly established personal blog . At this time, due to SEC regulations, I do not intend to post your comments regarding the proxy fight. However, I am planning to give you my views about Yahoo and its management shortly. If you wish to be informed I invite you to subscribe . Stay tuned.

Any day now, we might as well expect some new changes in the iGoogle design. If you would recall, sometime in Apri, Google has already announced the new version of iGoogle. Google has also picked several user-developer to test out the new iGoogle design. If you're using iGoogle you would soon have cluster of tabso n the left hand side of the iGoogle. You can expand this tabs to reveal the list of gadgets and status information.