Three major players in search, Yahoo, Google and soon Microsoft makes for more players than some of the other big Internet services, occupied by the likes of Ebay, Amazon, Netflix. Here’s a wild prediction for the first massive merger of the rebound: Microsoft will buy Yahoo (if they can get away with being that aggressive).

MarketingWonk, on agency snobbery towards adwords/adsense: “I’m getting negative vibes from the professional ad community, but mostly I think because syndicated text ads isn’t glamourous [sic] and it cuts out a lot of middle men and agencies.”

John Battelle wonders if you are compelled to stare at the Bruce Clay search engine landscape chart via Kottke. If you do, you will notice that its not quite what it appears. Consolidation means that there are only 8 companies involved (I’ve highlighted them in separate colors above) and the outbound link from Looksmart has now gone, leaving only 2 3rd party providers, Google and Yahoo.

Google AdSense: A better way to make ad revenue Hmm. Update, this is even more absurd: Perhaps the strapline should have read: “Google Adwords, Ads that work unless you are in advertising and are an expert in ads in which case adwords are far too subtle” or “Google Adwords, ads that don’t always work” or “Google Adwords, as not used by Google and not suitable for advertising execs or children under 5” For the sake of brand marketing instead of ‘marketing marketing solutions to marketing people’ – as they used to say in 1999, Google should eat its own dogfood and advertising people should feed from the same bowl.