Yahoo! is closing down all the public chat rooms in Yahoo! Messenger. It will take effect from December 14, 2012. And that just means within a week you have to say good bye to your favourite chat rooms. It will become same as Google Talk or Windows Live Messenger. You can no longer bump into somebody and have a conversation with them. Sounds pretty boring actually. Here is the official info from Yahoo Messenger Blog.
Yeah, the transition process of Yahoo search to show Bing search results has taken a significant step. Around a few days ago Yahoo organic search in USA and Canada has completely sifted to Bing functionalities at the back-end. Currently it has been done for English language only. So if you search in Yahoo US site, you can see “Powered by Bing” message at the bottom of the page.
I have become somewhat irregular with this blog. I have got busier with my work and it doesn’t help my energy at all. Writing a good post after a long day and again in front of internet is not an easy task, at least not for a lazy guy like me 
So I was going through the news of Yahoo collaborating with Twitter to share social content all across Yahoo network. Here are the main things that is going to happen:
Yeah, the deal is approved by both European and US regulators as a latest news says in the BBC website. The European Commission ruled that the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition” as together Yahoo and Microsoft control less than 10% of search market compared to 90% by Google in Europe and so it will rather help to increase competition in search engine market by making Microsoft a stronger competitor to Google. The deal also got the approval of the Department of Justice in the United States.
It was proposed that Microsoft & Yahoo would finalize negotiating the search deal by 27th October. But Yahoo has filed a document in SEC saying that the two parties have failed to close the deal before intended deadline as still some transaction details remain to work out. But they also stated that both the parties are working hard & a lot of progress have been made. This is exactly what they have said:
So, it’s done! Microsoft & Yahoo have come to a deal on online search & advertising. In a nutshell, Yahoo Search will now be powered by Bing. And in return, Yahoo will handle the sales & customer support for online advertising.
Here is the official news from BBC. Today I was browsing through the news of the probable deal, and was waiting for the official news to be published. So from webmaster’s perspective, you can now concentrate on two search engines. Time has come to stop worrying about Yahoo search. Perhaps I won’t use Yahoo Site Explorer again, just use Bing’s webmaster tools
And this deal will make Bing’s challenge to Google search more realistic. Now Bing will have about 30% of search market in USA, while Google retains its share to about 65%.
Some quick notes on the deal:
I have told you before that Geocities is closing this year. Just got a mail from Yahoo about the date Yahoo Geocities is going to close. So just thought of letting you know. It’s official news. Yahoo Geocities will be closed down on October 26, 2009. From that day your Geocities site will no longer appear on the web & you can’t access files from Geocities server. So choose your option for moving & don’t forget to backup your site data prior to that.
Yeah! That’s official. You can find it from Yahoo Geocities Help page:
Why is GeoCities not accepting new customers?
We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways. We will be closing GeoCities later this year.
Yes, Yahoo is shutting down Content Match for contextual network ads in Europe on 31st March, 2009. As reported by PPC Hero, they have received a letter from Yahoo saying,
As a valued client we are writing to give you advance notice of the closure of our Content Match product in Europe.