• D: All Things Digital, Monday, January 19, 2009 11:30 AM

Kara Swisher weighs in on the news that Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were both recently sighted at the Time Warner Building in New York after meeting with the media conglomerate's CEO, Jeffrey Bewkes.

So what did the trio discuss? Well, for starters, the representatives of the Web's major companies each have a mutual interest in staving off the mounting threat of Google, whose search share now tops 70% by some estimates. They also each have a rich history of talking but not-partnering with each other, although it seems that now more than ever, some sort of online combination is necessary.

What could that be? Swisher thinks that instead of Yahoo buying Time Warner's AOL, Microsoft should scoop up the once-mighty Internet company for $4 or $5 billion, and then spin AOL's content, advertising and communications assets into Yahoo, taking Yahoo's search business for itself and then throwing in some cash and perhaps even MSN into the new company. Microsoft would then take a large stake, Time Warner would get cash from the AOL sale, and perhaps a smaller stake, and the Yahoo brand, bolstered by new cash and assets, would survive.

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