A Microsoft victory could be a big loss for the Internet.

I'm not the biggest Yahoo! fan in the world at the moment, but I can't imagine the World Wide Web without its first giant. When I started to use Yahoo!, it was a very good web directory and nothing else. There were a few directory categories -- tennis was one -- that I monitored fairly religiously, visiting each new web site as it popped up. The Web was a lot smaller back then, but it was quickly becoming something great. Yahoo! let me feel like I was on top of something exciting, watching it evolve. As the years went along, I moved on to other search engines and used Yahoo! more for its other services. Still, I've never forgotten that I used Yahoo! long before Google existed, before Amazon had sold its first book online, and before Microsoft had any right to claim to be anything other than a software company.

Times have certainly changed. Yahoo! remains one of the most popular web sites in the world, but it has seemingly time and time again shot itself in the foot, mainly due to a lack of commitment to its own projects. I can't even say that Yahoo! has treated its enormous user base well; the same lack of commitment that has prevented the Yahoo! Publisher Network from becoming a real AdSense competitor is also going to deprive Yahoo! 360 users of the blogging platform they have grown accustomed to using. Meanwhile, Microsoft has successfully become something more than a software company; it has genuine ambitions of becoming the premier web company. Its offer to buy Yahoo! could lead a radically different Web. Google, at last, could face a strong competitor...but unfortunately it is the everyday user that will feel the changes most strongly.

A combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! would bring a lot of similar services under one umbrella. Some streamlining will be inevitable, and that means users will be forced to change services and jobs will be lost. Probably some huge services, like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, will coexist, but lesser used and suddenly redundant side projects would be suddenly in jeopardy, and I expect in most cases the more popular project will win out and either Yahoo! or Microsoft users will have to migrate. It is even possible that Windows Live and Yahoo! will begin to use a common database and algorithm for search. I really don't see much at all to get excited about here. While Google might have to deal with a more powerful competitor, the level of competition will actually decrease due to the loss of a big player. Innovation could very well decrease because there will be one fewer giant competing for an audience; the quality of existing services, such as search, could also go down for the same reason. Huge numbers of users will be forced to give up services they enjoy using. Of course, it still remains to be seen whether Yahoo! will be acquired by Microsoft or find some way to save itself; it'll be really interesting to see what happens, for sure, but I can't forget that this acquisition has far-reaching effects beyond the business world. Internet users are the people who will be impacted the most and have to deal with the New Web Order as they are seeking information and entertainment, doing business, and communicating with others on a daily basis online. They'll certainly lose out, at least in the short run, in the event of any acquisition.