Yahoo offers some neat tools for developers, but do they scale? Matt from Wordpress writes of troubles they are having:

I loooove the way Yahoo provides results as serialized PHP in addition to XML (every API provider should do that!) but the underlying search product seems to be built on a shaky foundation.

I haven’t experienced the Yahoo search API tools falling over in our own projects, but clearly something is amiss in Matt’s camp with using them. For developers wondering about how to use the Yahoo API, I wrote an article last year published by Informit that should get you up to speed fairly quickly.

Meanwhile eBay and Yahoo have cut a deal for YPN search results to show up in eBay search results which some are referring to as late and “reactionary” to Google:

“There’s no question that this is a significant partnership, but it seems reactive,” says Allen Weiner, a Gartner Inc. analyst. “It’s anti-climactic, because we’ve been waiting for years. If they had done this two or three years ago, they would have done it from a position of strength.”

Acquisition rumours continue with Microsoft allegedly taking a serious look at buying eBay, which again some believe would be a counter to Google, but that is staunchly rebuked by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer:

Ballmer said: “A tie-up with the sole aim of shutting out a competitor makes no sense. The partnership must produce something that is useful for users and advertisers.” He added, however, that he did regularly talk to eBay’s CEO Meg Whitman, who he said was a close personal friend.

Logically, there are executive concerns about anti-trust violations in such a deal. I don’t see an eBay buyout being a very likely reality, but it’s interesting to ponder what PayPal and Skype would be like under the Microsoft umbrella. Just think of the possible names:

Microsoft Windows Live Skype
Windows Live Skype Messenger
Windows Live PayPal

And don’t forget the developers:

Windows Live .NET PayPal API
Windows Live .NET Skype API

Seriously, I think an eBay buyout, especially with the Skype debt, would be too expensive an undertaking, even for Microsoft. If these rumors still have any traction after the holiday weekend Microsoft and eBay might see a tiny punch.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• eBay interested in Skype buyout for $2-3 billion?
• Paypal integration in Skype to finally be reality as GBuy lurks
• eBay is the one to watch, not Microsoft, in Yahoo! acquisition
• Yahoo Q1 2007 net income falls $142 million!
• eBay Live! June 24-26, 2004 in New Orleans
• Stumble from within Skype future and Google competively rolls the bones