Last year we saw a enormous amount of deals struck between search giants and real-time data providers, aka social networks and microblogging sites.

• In October, Microsoft signed search deals with Facebook and
  Twitter to integrate real-time status updates and tweets
  into Bing's search results.
• Google followed suit in early December with the announcement that public updates from social media sites Twitter, Facebook and MySpace will start showing up in Google's general search results, a particularly nifty feature for smartphones.
• Even more proof in the pudding, this time from M&A (via TheDeal.com): Real-time search engine developer OneRiot Inc. closed its $7 million Series C, bringing the total venture capital raised to $27 million.

But real-time search is "not there yet," as proven by the magnitude 4.1 earthquake that took place in our ever-shifting city this week. At 10am on Thursday, a small earthquake shook the Bay Area, and within 6 minutes Google search was reflecting the event in the form of Twitter updates, according to Stephen Shankland
at CNET. (Google claims it was just 2 minutes, and Shankland attributes the lag to the fact that he was in Detroit at the time. And clearly, people in Detroit don't give a hoot about California.)

But while we can quibble over minutes, the takeaway here is that real-time search is certainly where it's at for the coming year, but it's going to be up to marketers to figure out how that can work for their brand. To be honest, it's a little scary that a real-time tweet about your company from some Joe in Minnesota can trump your hard-earned spot for your company website, blog, newsletter, video, or special deal — though it does introduce some exciting possibilities, like having access to top sellers and current sentiment data, and eventually, pairing real-time news with real-time ads.

You've probably already heard the news… after all, it IS No. 4 on Google Trends today, just under "katt williams arrested for burglary" and right above "brady smith."

Google is betting big on mobile advertising, having just acquired mobile ad firm AdMob for a cool $750 mil. It's one of their largest acquisitions to date, and fueled largely by the fact that mobile advertising is one of the fastest growing mediums, growing 30% annually, Google explains.

As I overheard in a panel at ad:tech NYC last week, "Mobile phones used to be phones that occasionally took crappy pictures, and now they're basically small computers that sometimes make phone calls."

With the new proliferation of these small, sophisticated devices, the reach of equally sophisticated ad units (both text-based and graphical) is going to increase. With more online searching, gaming, and messaging, ad inventory is skyrocketing.

AdMob apparently has served 1.5 billion mobile ads this year, up 540% from Sept 2007.

Overheard in a nearby office, chock full of startups, from a vociferous ad buyer: "Who the hell is AdMob? Why would Google want to buy them?" Deal with your jealousy, hon.

Big news: Amazon is buying online shoe retailer Zappos.com for $847 million in cash and
stock – the largest acquisition in its 14-year history.

For details on the deal, see the Wall Street Journal story. But to find out why the online behemoth decided to fold little Zappos under its wing, see Mashable's version.

Seth Godin, however, did the deal right by summing it up with this:

Have questions about what's next? So does ZDNet: Read their take.

 Among all of the things that are the LEAST LIKELY to happen – including the IAB saving online advertising from plummeting along with the rest of the country, Palin actually helping McCain get votes tomorrow – who would have though it would be the "merging" of two Internet giants?

The deal, which caused a lot of concern – and open mouths – last spring when it was announced, may be thwarted by the US Department of Justice as the two companies fail to convince it that it won't have anticompetitive effects on the online search advertising industry. In fact, they are failing so badly that the chances that the alliance will actually be formed are looking "increasingly slim," according to the Financial Times.

Maybe the letter that ANA sent last month to the DOJ – stating that the deal will likely diminish competition, increase
concentration of market power, limit choices currently available, and
potentially raise prices to search advertisers – had some effect. Or maybe that strong, surly Texas Congressman bringing up privacy issues did the trick.

Either way, apparently this dance isn't for everyone – only the sexy people.

If the deal does fall through, Yahoo's going to have to do some serious soul-searching and maybe even consider acquiring Time Warner's AOL or think about going back to Microsoft – if they'll have them, that is. And Google? WWGD?

Bajillionaire Carl Icahn has jumped into the Yahoo/Microsoft mess, flexing his financial muscles as he takes a big stake of the company, apparently planning  to nominate a dissident slate of directors to the company. Mmm, dissidents. Sounds dangerous.

If his nominated directors are elected by disgruntled Yahoo shareholders to replace the current board, which adamantly rejected Microsoft’s buyout offer last week (it being $5 less per share than they would have liked), they would unanimously accept the bid. But Microsoft may not be interested: "We’re moving on," said a Microsoft source. They’re chasing new tail by now, I’m sure.

WWYD? (What will Yahoo do?) Partner with Google – exclamation point – and further risk antitrust violation? And who is to say Google even wants them? Poor, misguided, overvalued tech company. Maybe Icahn was a good hope for them after all.

Shareholders of Microsoft are calling on the company to just stop messing around with this Yahoo thing already. With a falling stock price (-3.5%) on the Nasdaq and nearly three months of rejection – enough to drive anyone insane – everyone is clamoring for someone to just "get the deal done." (via Bloomberg)

The buyout figure is still hovering at $31/share ($44.6 billion in total) and they have til Saturday deadline to decide. And if they don’t? Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer says that "the company could do anything from lowering its bid to attempting to wrest
control of the board," reports Mediapost.

The plot thickens. Yahoo has been dabbling with Google in the search market. Yang’s Number 2, Susan Decker, has dropped hint that Yahoo! is “exploring options” relating to a Google partnership. Hello? Antitrust? Though, would a MicroHoo be any better?

The Economist writes:

If the intention of such a deal is to make Microsoft increase its offer, it is likely to fail….[and] that leaves Yahoo! with one other option, long discussed but never
quite achieved: to strike a deal with Time Warner, a media giant, to
combine its web portal, AOL, with Yahoo!.
Both websites are big in web-mail, instant messaging and display
advertising. But they would never be as nimble as Google is already, or
as Microsoft wants to become with Yahoo!. After almost three months of
fighting Microsoft’s offer, Mr Yang has yet to propose a genuine
alternative. With every passing day he becomes more likely to be forced
into a deal—or forced out altogether.

Sounds serious. How long do you think they can hold out?

The FTC was supposed to jump in and block the Google-DoubleClick deal, on two counts.

And then they didn’t.                 Why oh why?

• Antitrust The proposed acquisition was originally seen by third-parties as likely to substantially lessen competition. They’ve ruled the opposite. Four to one, "unlikely." They looked first at the threat of elimination of direct competition between the two companies and decided that it wasn’t a factor. Duh.

But then it got a little more complicated. Would Google’s effort to enter third party ad
serving markets through this merger eliminate a competitor? No, they said, because the current competition is strong. Well, yes, it is now. But what kind of implications is this going to have on future markets? As Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour wrote:

I am convinced that the
combination of Google and DoubleClick has the potential to profoundly alter the
21 century Internet-based economy — in ways we can imagine, and in ways we
cannot." No, we cannot.

• Privacy Actually, the FTC doesn’t really have any jurisdiction over this issue because it does not directly relate to antitrust. Commissioners said that such issues are “not unique to Google and
  DoubleClick,” and “extend to the entire online advertising marketplace.” Ouch!

• AdSensical They were wondering if Google could exploit DoubleClick’s position in the the third party ad serving markets and ultimately benefit AdSense. But that is assuming that Doubleclick has a commanding position in the market, which they concluded they do not. I guess sometimes it pays to buy a loser. I know, name-calling never got us anywhere – except in kindergarten. And then it got us quite far.

If this is depressing you, and you want a little pick-me-up, read more about the FTC’s adamant support of a competitive marketplace here.

Or check out this little viral. It kind of reminded me that no matter what happens, at least I’m not Britney. And at least I have the important things in life, like maps.

Two hundred and twenty million users can’t be wrong - Skype is useful and therefore popular. However, 220 million non-paying users can also be a huge burden, particularly when the price paid for the company back in 2005 was a whopping $2.6 billion.

Have Skype services been able to cover that amount? Not remotely, reports the WSJ. In the last quarter, it contributed just $90 million to eBay’s total haul of $1.83 billion. This, according to the journal, constitutes “a bust.” EBay is claiming responsibility for its actions to investors and will take a $1.4 billion third-quarter charge related to Skype.

So what is it that failed? Skype’s business model or its relationship with its parent company? Both. Skype doesn’t charge for calls made over the Internet, and it charges very little for Internet to land-line or cell phone calls. While that model builds tremendous user loyalty, it won’t generate huge business until Skype corners the Web phone market.

The future of calling is on cell phones, not PCs, and Skype won’t be able to penetrate that market unless eBay shells out multi-billions to build a wireless network.

Would they? Could they? I doubt it. Google will beat them to it, and they’d best steer clear of telephones and stay busy doing what they do best: online retail. Leave the integration of the two to the next generation of teenagers.

Fourscore minus seventy years ago, in high school, my English/History class – you know, the interdisciplinary college prep class that was supposed to turn us into ‘critical thinkers’ before we ever set foot inside a college lecture hall – had us do an exercise in the field of anthropology. We were given an essay on the Nacirema people and told to analyze them using Edward T. Hall’s Primary Message Systems.

I dove right into the ethnography, summarizing here, extropolating there, and proudly turned in my essay (which probably looked something like this) only to walk out into the hallway and have some smart-aleck class-ditcher say, "Dude. Did you get it?" Meaning, the whole thing was a joke – Nacirema is American spelled backward, and every cultural oddity that we had just analyzed was in fact, our own.

Ten years later, I’m flashing back to that moment because of one word I just read: Xobni.

Now that’s just silly.

There’s been talk about the ridiculous names that web entrepreneurs were coming up for their new babies: Zing, Bebo, Etsy. "...the naming trend has also drawn considerable eye-rolling among Web
denizens, inspiring tongue-in-cheek pages like Web 2.0 Name Generator
and the quiz “Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character?"

And Xobni is no different. At least they actually tell you that it is "inbox spelled backwards". Thanks guys. With a mission of "taking back the email inbox" for its users, Xobni (and Xoopit - another name that would be torn apart at recess) offers an integration of social networking and email – GigaOm calls it a relationship and interaction manager.

In other words, the relationship buckets (and the level of intimacy)
are already predefined and have relevance. From there, all
communication-related information — mobile numbers, geo-location data,
instant messaging identities and of course, email addresses — are just
a click away. So what’s missing? Discovery and presence, and
synchronicity.

Will we find all these – and more! – these two San Francisco based startups? That remains to be seen. Xobni is not yet in Beta (someone please explain to me what that means! or better yet, tell me to get off my lazy ass and look it up!) and Yahoo is getting on their horse, or rather, their Zimbra, to compete.

On your mark, get set, GO.

Hot off the press – from last week – is the news that Offermatica has been acquired by Omniture, an analytics software company, for $65 million. Their on-demand A/B testing and multivariate testing will be an essential addition to Omniture’s business optimization services.

The press release was, like all M&A releases, full of back-patting. Josh James, CEO and co-founder of Omniture went first. “We now have the first and
only integrated site optimization suite with all the testing and
targeting capabilities marketers need to optimize customer experience
and deliver improved online performance.” Excellent.

Then it was Offermatica CEO Matt Roche’s turn: “We believe Omniture is the leader in online business optimization and
is the right company to bring testing and targeting together.”

We hope they’ll be so happy together.

Who will the next lovely couple be? See here for some ideas.