Wow. This is big news. Microsoft just bid $44.6 billion dollars (half cash, half stock) for the beleaguered Yahoo!

If this deal goes through, this puts the new combined company, let’s call it Microhoo!, in a much stronger 2nd place to Google in terms of online search.

Hope you own some Yahoo! stock today. It’s up 44% at the moment.

Semantic search has come up in various presentations I’ve given so I wanted to update you on Hakia receiving $5 million in funding.

The core value of semantic search is that it works from meanings, not just occurrences of words. Semantic search seeks to increase the relevance of search results and to make searching more natural.

As conventional search tools like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN are maturing, semantic search is often seen as the next major innovation in search.

Learn More about Hakia

Pete Prestipino at Website Magazine just blogged about the new editor for Google AdWords.

New features include the following:

• Draft account for sharing with other AdWords Editor users
• Splats are available which display warnings/errors to find errors quickly
• Maximize work space and view more rows in the data view

Read more at Website Magazine

Mashable! reports that Google Analytics has added a much-needed comparison feature. Comparing analytics data from two different date ranges can be very helpful.

From the Mashable! article:

So far the new feature does include the ability to compare several data points for your own site, including page views, unique page views, time spent on the page, bounce rate, % exit, and $ index.

Read more at Mashable!

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is reporting that the rumored Google/FeedBurner deal is now confirmed.

FeedBurner is immensely popular among bloggers and Google is wise to add this great service to its portfolio of products. With FeedBurner in the bag, Google now has an instant outlet for advertising in RSS feeds.