As anticipated, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced a deal. The Wall Street Journal reports it's worth between $250 million and $450 million in additional cash flow to Yahoo.

The deal will be delayed a few months for regulatory approval. Under its terms, Yahoo will select which search term queries it offers Google paid search results for, the number and placement of Google results and how they are blended with its own results and those of other providers. Yahoo said either party can end the agreement in the event of a change in control. If control of Yahoo changes hands in the next 24 months, Yahoo must pay a termination fee of $250 million.

Poor Carl Icahn. He could have had a $33 a share deal from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), now all he has is 33 cents a share from Google. Cover your ears before his moaning and groaning begins. Yahoo shares are up 1% after hours after losing 10% during regular trading.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

With Google all over the news, both foreign and domestic, about its policy on aggregating news content, Google has explained over at its blog why management made the decision to maintain its stance on aggregation. I love this quote from a recent post on the Google blog, which says, "the Internet has broken down many of the barriers that exist between people and information -- effectively democratizing access to human knowledge."

Could not have said that better myself. But, in the process of democratizing information, Google is irking the purveyors and publishers of knowledge who cling to outmoded copyright thinking. I'm not saying that all copyright holders should not protect their content (if it's original and not simply parroted wire stories). But, the publishers of information need a swift kick so that they can wake up to realize that the rules of information transfer is changing -- from the establishment's control to the consumer's control. And, there is no going back. Ever.

So, what can Google do? For one, the company says that they do respect copyright, although that statement may be rankling the Belgian and French governments at the moment. Google, at its blog, states the below in regards to the content it does not own and in respect to content owners who need to protect their rights.

Google pledges to:

• respect copyright
• let owners choose whether it indexes content in its products
• try to bring benefit back to content owners by partnering with them

That last bullet is the kicker -- Google's partnering with content providers needs a facelift, big-time. The smaller bridges it has burned are tiny compared to the lavish rewards of mutual partnerships.

With Google CEO Eric Schmidt joining the board of directors at Apple Computer, what is in store for Apple on the near horizon? I think it can only mean good things in store for AAPL shareholders and customers -- more great products that continue to beat the competition again and again. Although some commenters have chosen to name me an "Apple Fanboy", let me be clear -- I don't even own an Apple product.

I immensely admire what the company does for the customer experience, which is the basis of my admiration. If only more companies were interested in actually giving the customer what it wants instead of designing decent (and great) products meant only for revenue generation, can you imagine what the consumer world would look like?

With that said, another company I greatly admire, Google shares some of the same traits as does Apple. Both want to -- and have -- changed the world in respective ways, and both seem "under the sheets" intent on de-throning Microsoft from whatever throne the company created in the last few decades by making sure Microsoft's software was installed on almost every personal computer made in the world.

And so Google's CEO joins Apple's board this week. What's in store here? Schmidt will join with Steve Jobs and other Apple directors in steering the future of the company through multiple avenues as the world continues to change. New media and computer software are two large things Apple will have influence into, much to the chagrin of Ole' Softie. The battle, as they say, has just begun. Do you agree?

Google shares closed up in a huge way today to end the trading session at $380.97, a sharp increase of $11.54 or 3.12% over Wednesday's close. What happened today to start the Google increase, you ask? Was it Google's launch of a free online coupon service for advertising partners at its Google Maps service?

How about teaming with coupon vendor ValPak for this new service? As this article over at The Fool points out, Google going old-school with its coupon service sends a mixed and strange signal -- is Google's online related services -- namely the just-removed-from-homepage Froogle service?

Maybe that's the mixed signal Google wants the market to teem over with analysis and rumor. Perhaps Froogle is doing fine as are Google's other e-commerce services. Maybe the recently-launched Google Checkout is waiting in the wings to steal gobs of marketshare and customer purchase dollars from established online marketplaces like Amazon.com and eBay. If so, Google is staying quiet -- very quiet.

Google may have quite a few initiatives in the recent past and even coming up in the product pipeline, but as Sheldon writes here, Google still only has one revenue stream -- Internet search ad dollars. What is Google's plan to monetize all these other initiatives? Why, trying to continue recruiting advertisers for its network in a form or fashion, of course.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.