• D: All Things Digital/ paidContent.org, Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:45 AM

"Everybody remain calm," BoomTown's Kara Swisher booms following yesterday's Web media merger craziness. For those out of the loop, Yahoo on Wednesday first said it would begin a two-week test of Google ads on its search site. That news was followed by the revelation that an AOL-Yahoo merger was near. Microsoft, meanwhile, had news of its own: one-time Yahoo suitor News Corp. is now looking into a partnership with the software giant that would see a MySpace deal tacked on to a Microsoft-Yahoo union.

So why should everyone remain calm? Because Swisher says a Yahoo-Google search deal, the threat of which started this whole mess, has absolutely zero chance of coming off. It's one thing for Yahoo to do a two-week test with the search king; it's another for Yahoo to outsource its entire search operation. "It is a regulatory no-no of such an obvious nature," Swisher says.

Ad execs don't exactly like the idea either, adds PaidContent.org's David Kaplan (link: http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-on-google-yahoo-ad-test-a-gimmick-to-thwart-microsoft-or-a-simple-act-o/). "Some believe that, if carried further, this kind of relationship would severely harm [Yahoo's] relationship with advertisers across all its vehicles," Kaplan writes, adding that most ad execs he talked to think the move is just another attempt to thwart Microsoft.

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