Microsoft is threatening to buy out Yahoo for a frankly ridiculous $44 billion, seemingly under the impression that this will be the first time in history that two lame ducks put together will vreate a swan. I doubt it. Ready yourself for the fattest, ugliest duck the world has seen. The technical complexities of transferring Yahoo's services from BSD and open source platforms onto Windows servers are not only immense but pointless. But that's what Microsoft has done in the past, ala Hotmail, and will likely do again. There is so much overlap between the two companies - they both have big user bases but have little idea how to monetise them. Their search and advertising businesses are nowhere. Google is pretending to be upset, and have offered Yahoo assistance in retaining their independence. Which gives me an idea...

A merger between Google and Yahoo? Why not?! Here are two companies with services that could complement each other. Picassa is shite, and Flickr rules. Although Picassa can teach Flickr a few mobile tricks. Blogger is number one, whilst Yahoo 360 is a dog. Yahoo Mail has the user base, Gmail has the best email outfit. Google search is the best, but Yahoo can show them how to do image search. Yahoo has the enormous user base, Google knows how to make money off them. Yahoo also has a huge amount of content, and Google can show them how to present it aesthetically. Google has Reader, Labs, Docs, Calendar, YouTube and Maps. Yahoo has Games, news, entertaiment, Delicious, Answers Messenger and Upcoming.

Google has the detailed but boring Analytics, which could merge nicely with MyBlogLog into a much better product with a community. What neither of them have is Facebook, and adding that to their portfolio will be a killer kick in Microsofts balls. Even better if they can add a music site similar to QTrax. Imagine logging in YaGoogle, and not having to go through Yahoo's painfully tedious log in and captcha system so often. Google have that one sussed. A killer app, as in the image below would be a top bar, similar to the one on Blogger or Wordpress, which logs you into all their products in one go. And keeps you there in their world. Imagine also a better premium package. Ok, I don't like the word 'Premium'. It says 'pay more money'. Much better to go with 'Pro' or 'Silver/Gold/Platinum' which means 'you're special'. But they could easily bundle a package or two that people would willingly pay for.