After all the fuss, Google-Yahoo search deal finally came out as a failure. It’s not that surprising, after all. Right from the start, this deal was ridden with problems, probably anti-competitive, and would raise the ire of government regulators.

Google read the handwriting on the wall and realized the deal no longer made sense. So it pulled the plug this morning. Yahoo! is clearly the big loser on this decision. They don’t get hundreds of millions in additional revenue that the deal would have generated and, yet again they do not have a strategy for turning around the company. And with the global economy getting worse, the online display ad market is likely to deteriorate even more for at least a few quarters, and it may even see negative growth.

“Time is not on their side,” says Dave Morgan, the former chairman and CEO of Tacoda, an online ad network that was sold to AOL in September of 2007 for a reported $275 million. “The longer they wait the worse their numbers get.”

So why is Yahoo’s stock up 6% when the stock market is down 3% today? Clearly, the market thinks that the failure of the Google deal means that Yahoo is takeover bait again. Problem is, they are running out of dance partners. “It’s a game of musical chairs and the music is stopping and there are not many chairs left,” says Morgan, who left AOL in March.

Google can’t acquire them. Microsoft is probably leery of re-engaging with Yahoo as long as Jerry Yang is running the show. That leaves AOL. It wouldn’t be a merger of strength but it may be Yahoo’s only option at this point–unless the board boots Jerry and invites Microsoft back to the table.

And who wins? Microsoft is the big winner here. Either it gets to buy Yahoo on the cheap, or it can steal market share from Yahoo while the company continues to vanish.

“All of this stuff creates an extraordinary distraction for people who buy and sell advertising,” says Morgan. “Who wants to cut a big deal with Yahoo if they have to unwind it a few months from now?

Although there are literally thousands of directory sites, good, free directory sites are kind of hard to find. While there are free directory sites all over the Internet, useful directories are really hard to come by.One of the exceptions is ClickSmart.com, a free directory site whose motto “don’t just click, connect” is only a token for the possibilities this site offers.

Unlike other directory sites, where anyone can publish their site on a listing, Clicksmart pre-screens the listing entries so that you always know that the results you receive from your searches are top quality, certified experts.

I came around this site while looking for Orlando Realtors (upon request from a friend of mine). One thing that caught my attention is the flexibility in searches because I can search for other related terms, say Realtors in Orlando, and have almost the same results come up. This way, I won’t miss any possible entries no matter what I enter in the search form.

There’s no doubt that credit cards are part of our daily life. We use a Credit Card to pay for many different things, from our McDonald’s meal to our fuel expenses at the gas station and our romantic dinner at the beach.

But not all credit cards are the same. There are some credit cards that are aimed for personal use, some for small business and some for corporate use. That’s why sometimes it’s hard to find out which credit card is best for you, and which is most likely to provide the most benefits.

If you’re looking for the “perfect” credit card, you might want to visit cardhub.com, a website that lists and catalogues hundreds of credit cards, from different banks in the US.

In my personal experience, I liked the way credit cards are catalogued, as it allow me to search using very specific criteria. I also found very useful the direct links to the corresponding sign-up pages, which saves us a lot of time. The Credit Card Education Center is very useful too, as it hosts a lot of information regarding every aspect of credit cards, such as choosing the right credit card and how to best use credit card rewards. Definitely, a must-see for those interested in acquiring a new credit card

Mobile is the wave of the future and accessing the web is increasingly becoming a must for mobile phone users. Smartphone sales are up and the iPhone is hot! But the internet is not as fast on your phone as it is on your laptop. That’s why Google’s news about an update to mobile search will come as welcome news to many.

Writing on the Google Mobile blog, Software Engineer James Watts explains:

“When you navigate to google.com in your browser, we cache the homepage on your phone. If you bookmark this homepage, then returning to Google using the bookmark is almost instantaneous.”

iGoogle has also been improved for mobile. Start by going to iGoogle on your computer, and choose which widgets you want to access on your phone. Again, bookmarking iGoogle on your phone helps it load faster.

Related Reading:
Google Releases Study on Mobile Search Query Suggestions
Google’s New Wifi Push Will Drive Mobile Search

In an effort to boost its search game, Microsoft recently announced its Live Search Cashback program which rewards those who make purchases as a result of Live Search ads with cash rebates. Now, eBay is part of the program, but in a more streamlined way.

When searching for a product, you’ll now see a cashback gleam next to eBay paid search ads. You’ll be able to get cashback on “Buy It Now” products directly through eBay instead of going through the cashback site.

Live Search says that doing cashback this way requires some coding with partner merchants, but it hopes to offer more advertisers like this in the future.

What do you think of this new cashback offering? Has cashback changed the way you search? Share your experience in the comments.

Related Reading:
eBay Wants To Team Up With Yahoo And/Or Microsoft To Compete Against Google?