It seems that eBay is trying to stay away from the headlines these days, happy to leave the brunt of the post Google-YouTube deal reaction to other companies, especially Yahoo!

Has eBay been up to anything these days? Why, of course. In an attempt to perhaps pacify somewhat those disgruntled merchants who were hit by the recent rate hike, or perhaps an attempt to simply boost listings, eBay is offering a Feature Packs promotion. For the next two days, sellers can save 33% when on Feature Packs that combine several listing upgrades.

The promotion started today at midnight, Pacific time, and will end Thursday, October 12, 2006 at one second to midnight PT. Even listings created before today and that are scheduled to start during the promotional period are eligible for the promotional rate.

Finally, an update on the latest auction I've been following, the Skycar, the price now stands at $1,753,150.00 with 31 bids.

ebay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) shares declined 48 cents today, or 1.62% to close at $29.10.

As Melly Alazraki mentioned in her post last night, everyone is mourning, alas poor Yahoo!: the real loser in the Google-YouTube deal. And the best defense is a good offense, right? So naturally the lips of investment bankers are wet with the licking. I can just see (in my imagination silly! I don't have spies) the acquisition pitchbooks being pitched left and right all over Terry Semel's desk.

Is Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) buying? And if the company is keeping its fax machines busy with term sheets, who might it buy?

Yahoo!'s never been afraid of a good little acquisition. Hello, Flickr, hello, Facebook.com? Interested parties have mentioned names like Dabble (a sort of online TV Guide, and no, I never heard of it either), Heavy.com (whose co-CEO says that, although he's not selling, he'd of course consider a deal with "a good exit strategy," haha) and our own Tom Taulli's favorite, vMix, whose CEO spoke not a word of acquisition talk in his interview with us.

But Melly makes an excellent point: shouldn't Yahoo! finish Project Panama first? How the heck could the company even monetize an acquisition right now? Maybe eBay should be the one out there buying. Yeah!

I can just hear the investment bankers scurrying back to their PowerPoint files now and doing replace-all for "synergies with" from "Flickr" to "Skype" ...