Yahoo! has told the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it needs more time to hammer out its search deal with one-time rival Microsoft.

The SEC filing reads:

The Letter Agreement specified that the parties would execute Definitive Agreements by October 27, 2009, but given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some details to be finalized. The parties are working diligently on finalizing the agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible.

No details are given as to the cause of the delay, but it is a feasible assumption that the two parties are working overtime to avoid possible regulatory scrutiny.

Back up over 80%, that is.

Remember the days of Bing’s launch? Microsoft retooled Windows Live Search and unveiled it as a challenger to Google. It was further enhanced by the well-timed acquisition of Yahoo!, which combined to make a formidable competitor.

In the month following Bing’s launch, things were looking bright, according to the boys in Redmond.

We’re gratified to report that there has been some great interest in trying out Bing and that those experiences are yielding positive results!   We saw 8 percent growth in unique users to Bing.com in June, which is an important indicator that you are trying Bing and the word is spreading. Based on our own polling, we have also seen the number of people “likely to recommend” Bing double in our debut month.

TechCrunch also did a comparison between Bing and Wolfram Alpha, noting a promising trend:

Searches for “Wolfram Alpha” began to build up the weekend that it soft launched on May 15, peaking the following Monday… Interest in Bing, on the other hand, started out just as strong [as Wolfram's peak] with its unveiling last week. Then when it actually launched, interest shot up even higher. The positive experience many people had with their first search certainly helped.

By all measures, a great success!

Then the hype died down, and everything returned to normal. September’s analytics indicate that Google once again owns more than 80% of the search market. And the flip side?

Bing’s usage share in the US descended by 1.13% to 8.51% for the month of September, while Yahoo’s dove 1.1% to 9.4%. Google’s share among the top three has now climbed above where it stood in May (78.72%), when Microsoft changed the name of Windows Live Search.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, fellas. Better luck next time?

Ed note: Did someone say Bing Bang?

Update: 29 July, 2009 @ 10:12 AM

Yahoo! and Microsoft have published simultaneous press releases which confirm that a deal between the one time rivals has been finalized.

A full list of the deal’s points are contained in the press releases, but we’ve boiled that list down into a selection of essentials:

• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms.
• Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.

Original story: 29 July, 2009 @ 1:28 AM
A source close to the renewed negotiations between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. has confirmed that the dot com giants have struck an agreement that will be announced within 24 hours.

The terms of the alleged agreement upholds rumors of a revenue sharing model, while dashing gossip that Microsoft would foot an up-front payment of some $3 billion said the source, who wished to remain anonymous as the deal has not been announced.

Rumors of a renewed effort to unite Yahoo! and Microsoft against Google broke two weeks ago Friday when 24/7 Wall Street revealed that sources inside a major client of the investment firm ThinkEquity said that a deal was “imminent.” Secondary sources supported the rumors with reports that key Microsoft search execs were at the Yahoo! campus in Silicon Valley to hash out the “short strokes” of a deal.

With the short strokes apparently drying, the purported deal is also said to ink a Yahoo! switch to Bing search results and the adoption of Microsoft technology for advertising sales.

But as Reuters notes, a combination of the second and third largest search outfits will certainly trigger scrutiny, if not ire from antitrust regulators. Similarly, regulators may gut a key advantage to the deal by restricting Microsoft’s ability to share search data with its business partner — not acquisition — Yahoo! Inc.

Despite the potential for legal wrangling, shareholders have continued to see value in a Microsoft/Yahoo! agreement. ComScore’s June search statistics suggest that the two companies are merely trading blows for their respective shares, rather than growing the business by eroding Google. The stats reveal that Google held steady at 65 percent while a 0.5 percent drop in Yahoo! search coincides with the $100 million introduction of Bing. A deal that unites Yahoo! and Microsoft’s search divisions could do away with the share-exchanging wheel spinning and unite 30% of the market under one roof.

Both companies have predictably declined comment.

It seems fitting that almost one year after we published a detailed account of the dramatic history between Microsoft and Yahoo! that the rival web outfits may finally be close to an actual deal.

News of rekindled romance broke yesterday when 24/7 Wall Street revealed that sources inside a major client of the investment firm ThinkEquity said that a deal was “imminent.”

The alleged imminence of the deal has triggered a new round of speculation over the terms. Sources outside ThinkEquity’s sphere have suggested that Microsoft will deliver $3 billion up front and 110 percent of its net search revenues, declining to 90 percent after the third year.

This most recent endeavor to finally ink an agreement may be more than the incensed phone calls and posturing PR releases of old. Former WSJ business analyst Kara Swisher has reported that key Microsoft search execs are on the ground in Silicon Valley to spend a weekend with their old flame.

One source close to the situation said that the nuptials are “down to the short strokes.” They continued: “it is just a question if we can finally close this.”

Even in today’s tepid economic climate, there continues to be a business case for a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! ComScore’s June search statistics suggest that the two companies are trading blows for their respective shares, rather than growing the business by eroding Google. The stats reveal that Big G held steady at 65 percent while a 0.5 percent drop in Yahoo! search coincides with the $100 million introduction of Bing. A deal that unites Yahoo! and Microsoft’s search divisions could do away with the share-exchanging wheel spinning and unite 30% of the market under one roof.

For Yahoo!, Microsoft may simply be an inevitability. Even after ousting Yahoo! founder and Dear Leader Jerry Yang, issuing pink slips to some 1400 employees and raising former Autodesk exec Carol Bartz to the spot of chief exec, the overall outlook of the company has remained grim.

Year to date, a six month uptick in the value of Yahoo! stock seems fortuitous, but the upswing has yet to put the company back at $20 a share– a value that plunged to less than $11 over the span of four weeks between September and October of last year.

ComScore data also reveals that deep purple has lost a share of the search market every month since the start of the year.

Finally, while Google continues to expand the size and scope of its operation and Microsoft has refreshed its face with Bing, Yahoo! has seemed positively paralyzed in comparison. Efforts to enhance the admittedly clever YQL and BOSS initiatives don’t do a lick of good to bolster the company’s primary focus on public search and advertising.

In many ways, both companies are still struggling to recover from burdensome portfolios that became crushing in the wake of the .com bust. After diversifying into personals, automobiles, finance, auctions, shopping, sports, games and chat, the “portal to the web” model seemed quite the anachronism in light of the simplicity and transparency Google has offered users and investors.

You know it, we know it, and Microhoo knows it: Yahoo! and Microsoft are in dire need of a little simplicity, and a fat-trimming search merger would not only help to streamline, but help to instantly realize the market share aspirations neither company can realize alone.

New Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz once asked bankers and pundits to give the company some “frigging breathing room.” Without this deal, she may as well have asked for gasping room instead.

Microsoft’s revamped Bing search engine has harnessed the power of Twitter to enhance the relevancy of the engine’s results.

The Redmond outfit has confirmed that a select number of prolific Twitter users are currently being indexed in the experiment.

“We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time… just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets,” wrote Microsoft Search Technology Center GM Sean Suchter. “We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search.”

The initial roster of Tweeple is designed to appeal to a broad range of unique interest groups; provided examples include Danny Sullivan, Kara Swisher, Al Gore and Ryan Seacrest. We can infer that Microsoft hopes to interest the critical Digg regurgitator, chatty Cathy, washed up politician and squealing fangirl demographics with these selections.

Suchter also encouraged users to follow Bing on Twitter.

Stances taken in several recent interviews suggest that Microsoft chief exec Steve Ballmer is remaining soft on his firm’s revamped search engine called “Bing.”

Despite intentions to shovel billions into the search furnace over the next five years, Ballmer has been wary to appear excited, much less exuberant as usual. In an interview conducted by Reuters, the exec demonstrated that he was even a little bearish about Bing’s hype.

“I don’t want to over-set expectations. We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time,” he said.

“We may be successful, we may not, but we can’t be successful without being committed to changing things, changing the approach, changing the business model and you can’t give up in six months, or a year or two years,” he continued in an AFP interview.

While Bing briefly overtook Yahoo! for the number two spot in search shortly after its launch, Live’s replacement has once again fallen to its regular third place position. During the same period, arch rival Google picked up nearly one percent additional share of the search market.

Where’s that good ol’ Ballmer Rage we’ve come to love?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed in an interview yesterday that the search giant remains unthreatened by the introduction of Microsoft’s revamped Bing search engine.

Schmidt said in an interview with Fox Business Network that Bing’s arrival is already passé.

“It’s not the first entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year,” Schmidt said.

“And from Bing’s perspective, they’ve got a bunch of new ideas but some things are missing,” he said. “And we think that search is really about comprehensive and freshness. The scale and size of what we do, it’s just difficult for them to copy that.”

Research group ComScore Inc confirms that Bing.com’s search market share grew from 9.1 to 11.1 percent between June 2 and June 6 but remains mum on long-term growth potential.

On the upshot, Microsoft’s new search venture offers keen insight into the unspoken realities of the humand mind.

Wolfram Alpha LLC announced today that its new Wolfram|Alpha search engine has received an update to improve its robustness.

Enhancements to the company’s body of compiled data includes planetary distances, stock prices, geopolitical names, facts and events, and additional currencies. The search outfit also promises that their engine will be more receptive to natural language questions and exhibit greater self-awareness.

“Today, as one step in our ongoing, long-term development process, we’ve just made live the first broad updates to the core code and data of Wolfram|Alpha” the Wolfram team said in a press release.

The firm also indicated it that it is working to prepare a preview of the next update which could be ready as early as tomorrow. It is expected that the computational search engine still won’t know what to do with your input once this update goes live.

Wolfram Alpha is an interesting experiment in compiling, crunching and displaying the world’s data. While many are obtusely selling it as a competitor to Google, it’s really nothing of the sort. While Google excels at returning pages, Wolfram Alpha narrowly excels at returning data. Did we mention that it errs on the painful side of erudition?

Therefore, to determine whether or not Wolfram Alpha would be useful to you as a user, we have designed the Wolfram Alpha Litmus Test found below:

If you answered no, you’re joined by the global community of laypersons who aren’t statisticians or engineers. While us simple folk dink around in our Google garden, we can still have a crack at Wolfram Alpha’s ivory tower with a neat addon that embeds Alpha’s results straight into Google queries.

In the interim, you can amuse yourself with approachable Wolfram searches like this, this & this.

Spring is in the air, which means we’re left with a dearth of things to write about while companies fall silent to wind up for the summer months. Why not spend this quiet time improving your Google fu? Here are a few options to get ‘er done.

Google Torrent Search

As The Pirate Bay’s founders received their penalty on Friday, they used their closing arguments to touch on Google’s role in piracy. The patch-wearing lads asserted that The Pirate Bay, like Google, merely indexes illicit content, but does not host any of the material itself. Ben Edelman from Harvard’s Business School didn’t disagree. “Google now can and does do what the Pirate Bay has always done,” Edelman said.

Rather symbolically, some enterprising user(s) have cobbled together a custom search that proves Google’s role in the broad accessibility of illegal material. Not that you would actually use this search to find anything other than Linux ISOs, right?

G2P Beta

Not only is Google good for finding Torrents, advanced search strings can narrow results to a whole host of files: PDFs, mp3s, JPGs and more. The mojo is in refining the search results to return repositories of files instead of complete webpages. Beta v0.2 of Google-to-Person can slice those results down to songs, albums, software, ebooks, ringtones and prox-ify. Be a good user and check your five-finger discount at the door, eh?

Just one day after it was alleged that Google was restructuring its deal with Yahoo! in an attempt to quell regulatory concerns, Google has walked away from its proposed deal.

Citing a disinterest in a legal battle with antitrust regulators, Google has washed its hands of the ordeal. This occurrence leaves many to wonder how Yahoo! intends to weather their severe turmoil.

According to several reports, Google and Yahoo! have revised their deal with the hope that U.S. antitrust approval will be given. It is currently speculated that the newest terms reduces the duration to two years from ten and caps the revenue Google can obtain from Yahoo! at 25%.