Microsoft to Close Web With Yahoo Search, Facebook?

Who can keep up with this insanity? Since Ballmer couldn't have his way with Yahoo, he's now going at it from a different angle allegedly discussing with Yahoo a partnership or acquisition of Yahoo Search. John Furrier also seems to think Microsoft will scoop up the rest of Facebook as well.

While nothing, of course, is clear and won't be until if and when any deal is penned, Microsoft taking over Facebook is a scary thought. Robert Scoble makes the argument a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo Search and Facebook would lead to a closed web over which Microsoft would have complete control while Google would be locked out leaving "data and social graph portability ... dead on arrival."

Scoble argues FriendFeed, an aggregator of all thing social media, offers a means to keep the web open despite Microsoft's apparent effort to close it. Facebook is behind a wall Google can't crack. FriendFeed, and all it's content, is open and searchable.

Acquisitions and mergers occur on a daily basis. Some big. Some small. Most benign. When Microsoft, however, is involved, it's hard not to liken it to the proverbial bull in a china shop or Gossip Girl fans hanging with the Rush Limbaugh crowd. Oil. Water. Not good.