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Yahoo! has been testing a new home page design. Last week, we saw images and learned more about the user interface.

This week, Yahoo! has announced the addition of an eBay application to the home page test. The app is included on the left hand sidebar along with tabs for stocks, movies, local events, etc.

Check it out:

After news came that Jerry Yang would be stepping down as Yahoo!’s CEO, the immediate reaction by analysts, Wall Street, and your neighbor’s cat was: MICROSOFT ACQUISITION TIME!

But Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, is saying: Not so fast.

Ballmer has said time and again that Microsoft has moved on from the possibility of returning to the good ol’ days of negotiating a Yahoo! acquisition.

And while it’s tempting to think that he’s just waiting for that stock to drop to around $2-3 a share (hey, only $6-7 more to go!), consider this: Yahoo’s VP of Search Technology, Sean Suchter is leaving the Sunnyvale search engine. And I hope he likes rain and coffee, because rumor has it that he’s headed to Microsoft.

That rumor was reported by none other than Kara Swisher, who is pretty much never wrong. The only thing I’m wondering is: Where’s the noncompete agreement?

Amidst the rumors and denials, one thing is for sure. No matter how much Ballmer would like the speculation to end, it won’t.

Yahoo! has announced that Jerry Yang will step down as CEO once his replacement has been found. Yang will remain on board as Chief Yahoo!

Yang became CEO in June 2007 at the request of the Board of Directors. Board Chairman Roy Bostock will lead the search for a new CEO. Here’s his official corporate-speak on the matter:

“Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues. Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board.”

Fox Business is reporting that a civil complaint has been brought against Mark Cuban for insider trading regarding “The Mother of All Search Engines” Mamma.com, which is owned by Copernic (CNIC).

Cuban learned that the company would be issuing a PIPE: a public investment and private equity. In other words, they were about to issue an additional stock sale. When he learned about it, he sold his stake, about 600,000 shares before the public announcement. He avoided losses of $750,000.

If the charges Cuban will have to give back the money with interest.

Related Reading:
Cuban’s IceRocket Sold To Think Partnership
Yahoo Confirms Icahn Proxy Fight

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has responded to Jerry Yang’s comments about being open to a Microsoft acquisition. Speaking to a group of developers in Sydney, he dismissed the option of an outright acquisition, but remained open to a search deal. Though, even that didn’t sound particularly promising:

We made an offer… We made another offer. It was clear that [Yahoo] doesn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not an acquisition. And that didn’t work either, and we moved on… and they moved on… We are not interested in going back and relooking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share … I’m sure there are still opportunities for some kind of partnership around search.

Of course, all of this has been a game of poker from the start. So, whether Ballmer is truly saying no or simply just waiting to see if Yahoo’s stock drops so low that Microsoft becomes the JP Morgan (Yahoo being the Bear Stearns, of course) remains to be seen.

And why not wait for a merger of Yahoo and AOL and then scoop up 2 competitors for the price of 1 (and a reduced price at that!)?

Microsoft is smart to hold on to its stash of cash while the economy hangs out in the pooper. Sorry, Jerry, but you had your chance.

Jerry Yang told attendees at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday that a deal with Microsoft is still the best option for Yahoo.

To which I say: Then why didn’t you accept the $31 per share acquisition offer made earlier this year?

And then I read this: “People who know me know I don’t have an ego about remaining independent versus not remaining independent.”

Wow. I have to admit that asking for $35-37 per share earlier this year seemed a bit egotistical on the “Let’s stay independent front.”

To be fair, with both sides having slung a fair amount of mud, it is difficult to know what really went down. And really, any CEO who isn’t at least somewhat egotistical about his own company isn’t worth his weight in gold.

Matters of ego aside, it seems that a white flag might be flying over the Sunnyvale campus. Now, we’ll wait to see just how low that Yahoo stock goes before the white knight of Microsoft comes by to do the rescuing.

Yahoo announced that Google has decided to terminate its advertising partnership with Yahoo, “following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s concerns,” the Yahoo press release stated.

While I understand Google does not want to add another legal battle, does this mark a pull back on the part of Google from their previous aggressive acquisition and partnership agenda?

The press release went on to state:

While the implementation of the services agreement with Google would have enabled Yahoo! to accelerate its investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of additional operating cash flow, this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search. The fundamental building blocks of a stronger Yahoo! in both sponsored and algorithmic search were put in place independent of the agreement.

Hopefully this will not further impact Yahoo or Google’s stock prices. Yahoo had announced a possible partnership/merger with AOL earlier this week but the loss of the Google partnership may now jeopardize that as well.

Barron’s Eric Savitz reported this could lead to another Microsoft offer - though one lowered to $20 a share - which I doubt Yahoo would entertain.

Google is ending its search advertising partnership with Yahoo. It was never even implemented. Concerns over antitrust issues rose fast and furious since Google + Yahoo = an enormous chunk of the search ad market.

Groups of advertisers spurred on by Microsoft lobbied the Department of Justice to oppose the deal. But they might have just facilitated the search market going from 5 major engines to 4, providing less competition.

Yahoo is in dire straits and desperately needed this influx of cash. It’s looking more and more likely that their stock could drop (fairly or unfairly) to single digits, at which point Microsoft could get a great deal on a company they once offered $31 a share for.

Take that number 4 and reduce it to 3 if a Yahoo-AOL merger occurs before the (inevitable?) acquisition.

Both Google and Yahoo are saying that the cancellation of the deal won’t affect their commitment to search innovation.

Scott Moore and Al Warms are leaving Yahoo, while Jeff Dossett is joining the Sunnyvale search engine. Dossett replaces Moore, who headed up Yahoo!’s media group. Al Warms headed up Yahoo News, Tech and Education, and came to Yahoo through the acquisition of Buzztracker.

“Jeff is one of the country’s most experienced online media executives, and I’m confident he is well-suited to lead Yahoo!’s audience business to even greater heights,” said Hilary Schneider, Yahoo! executive vice president. “His understanding of consumer needs and high-quality premium programming will help ensure that we continue with Yahoo!’s reputation of inspiring audiences and attracting marketer dollars.”

Moore and Warms join the mass exodus of senior level employees leaving Yahoo in the aftermath of a failed acquisition by Microsoft and in the midst of poor earnings, layoffs and a plummeting stock price.

Washington is on a bailout binge lately, so you would think they’d hop on board when it looks like the private sector could actually manage to work things out on their own.

Like, I don’t know, the search advertising deal between Google and Yahoo. Yes, there are concerns from the advertisers. But Yahoo keeps posting dismal profits. So, unless something magical happens to Yahoo (like an acquisition by Microsoft - oh wait), then antitrust issues won’t even matter.

But Google has been dropping hints that it might walk away from the deal because of regulations they don’t want to comply with, like caps.

It’s been projected that the deal with Google could infuse $800 million of cold hard cash into Yahoo in a year’s time. That certainly wouldn’t hurt. Of course, Yahoo would need to manage that influx well, and therein lies the problem. Perhaps regulators don’t think the deal, which could hurt advertisers, would ultimately save Yahoo.

Adding fuel to that fire is that regulators have been lobbied hard by Microsoft, who is probably looking to watch Yahoo’s stock fall into the single digits before coming back to pick it up. Microsoft may be struggling to grow its search market share, but as a whole, they have a ton of cash on hand and will weather the economic storm. Acquiring Yahoo (especially if a merger with AOL takes place) could create a stronger second place finisher in the search engine market, which would reduce anti-competitive concerns, indeed.