Wire reports today have Yahoo! and MSN teaming up on instant messaging. The AP is reporting that the two Internet giants will make their IM programs compatible with one another, which might prove a threat to America Online. Of course if rumors prove true and Microsoft acquires AOL, what difference would this make?

This week, one month after Google launched a blog search engine, Yahoo!'s search engine for news has started returning blog entries alongside news stories. The move, which comes just days after America Online purchased the blog company Weblogs for an estimated $25 million, leaves no doubt that large media companies have taken an interest in the blogosphere.

A week goes by and the news piles up in this Minute's absence. Strange how that happens, isn't it? Rewinding to last week's events in the Minute's addled brain ain't easy, especially on a misty gray Monday, but let's take Yahoo!'s acquisition of Upcoming.org for starters.

America Online's decision to purchase Weblogs for $25 million is the latest example of the if-you-can't-beat- em-join-em attitude that, these days, established media companies exhibit toward consumer-generated sites.

The majority of people who use the Internet at home (53 percent) now have high-speed connections, up from 21 percent in 2002, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

To date, much of the entertainment readily available online has consisted of music videos--Web-friendly because, at just a few minutes long, they don't require a huge time commitment either to watch or download. But, in the last few months, it appears that sports have also become hot Web content.

Google, flush with more than $7 billion in cash from a stock offering last month, has just submitted a plan to provide free Wi-Fi to all of San Francisco. And it doesn't look as if Google intends to stop with the City by the Bay.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has weighed in on one of the most pressing questions of online advertising -- whether the Internet is best viewed as a branding or a direct medium.

Dan Rosensweig says he sleeps like a baby, but it's not what you think. He wakes up every two hours crying. Yup. The chief operating officer of Yahoo! says he doesn't know what will come next.

For at least the last six months, much of the talk about new developments online have centered on the rise of consumer-generated media -- blogs, podcasts and the like.