Name: Tuuli Shipster
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: South African/British
Hair Color: Light blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Date of Birth: Sept 28th 1982
Place of Birth: Finland
Height: 5′9.5″ ; 176.5cm
Measurements: (US) 34-25-35 ; (EU) 86.5-63.5-89

What more can be said of Tuuli Shipster? Simply a lot. Chosen in 2008 to be the next bond girl, she was featured on the cover of Devil May Care, the latest bond novel. Tuuli was quoted saying: “I was thrilled that Penguin chose me to be their Bond girl. It’s fantastic to be involved with something so iconic.” This sexy vixen was born the Daughter of a diplomat and is a frequent muse of the British photographer, Rankin.

Tuuli began her modelling career at the age of 16 when she joined top modeling agency Storm. She is well traveled and has lived all over the world in countries including Russia, India and South Africa. What makes her even sexier is the fact she has 5 A Levels in Russian, Politics, Maths, English, and General Studies. During her gap year she starred in a hugely successful advertising campaign for Pretty Polly which marked the beginning of her modelling career.

Campaigns with Arena, Cosmopolitan, Jitrois, Harpers Bazaar, Byblos Blu and a role in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually followed. This encouraged her to pursue her fashion career as opposed to a life of academia, gentlemen can thank the fashion gods for that. It was on a shoot for Elle Macpherson Intimates that she met Rankin and so began a professional partnership on many photographic projects – including a 40 page spread for German publication Quest and a book, Tuulitastic: A Photographic Love Letter – that has spanned three years.

Popularity: unranked [?]

What follows is not a set of rules. Rules about sex are impossible- what should matter is that what you do makes you feel good. And “feeling good” should last past the sex itself – you should not feel anxious afterwards about getting her pregnant or catching some horrible disease, so planning ahead about contraception and safe sex is part of the idea.

What time should we have sex?
When you have sex doesn’t really matter. What should matter instead is that you and your partner have sex when you are both comfortable. Some people prefer to make love at the break of dawn, some in the afternoon sun, some in the darkness of night. More important than time of day is the time you have to spend. Give yourself a lot of time to have sex the first time. A weekend is ideal, but at least the whole day, including sleep time.

Should we eat or drink anything before sex?
Avoid eating a heavy meal, since that’ll just make you sleepy. Eat light, don’t drink too much alcohol, if any at all. It may help you shed inhibitions, but it may also make his erection much more difficult to achieve and you want to spend more time in the bedroom than the bathroom anyway, right?

Where should we have sex?
Where you have sex is probably a more important decision. Finding a place where you both can be private for up to forty-eight hours can be difficult at that age where most people are planning on losing their virginity. But it’s worth it. Cars are no longer big enough to have sex in, and the outdoors has less privacy, as well as bugs, sand, and pine needles.

A bed is probably the best thing to make love in, still. Hopefully you’ll have a room to yourself, with all the amenities that a bedroom affords, including heat, comfort, space, and the bathroom. Take a shower together! If you’re about to have sex, you’ve probably had your hands all over each other before now. Get to know each other’s bodies. Take your time. That’s what lovemaking is about.

What do we need to bring?
Bring what you need to make you comfortable. Birth control, condoms, maybe your favorite pillow or a bathrobe.

For her: what do I do first?
You can’t expect him to know what makes you feel good. You’ll have to tell him or show him, and that may mean taking some of the initiative, taking his hands and placing them where they make you feel good. Go slow. If it’s his first time, he may well be totally nervous about what you’re about to do, and his penis may not respond at first. Patience, gentleness, and understanding are required to bring it back to life, and that may be hard for you to achieve, but that’s why we told you to give yourselves lots of time.

Will it hurt?
You have probably heard horror stories about how much losing your virginity hurts. For a few women, it does, but with the right touch and the right partner, you should be able to take his penis into your body without pain. Have him take his time, use a lubricant, and press his fingers into you, opening you up slowly. Tell him when it feels good and when it hurts.

What position should I use?
Many women prefer to have sex the first time being on top, where they can control the first entry. Others want to be on the bottom and give their lovers that control. Choose what’s best for you. Just remember to tell him to go slow, take your time, and if you feel the need, use a commercial lubricant like KY Jelly.

For him: what if I can’t get it up?
It may sound funny, but your penis, which has worked great for years, may suddenly go on strike at your first chance at “real” sex. That’s natural – you’re nervous. Take a deep breath. Do something else for a while with your hands, your lips and your tongue. Try to forget about your anxiety, and your penis will respond. It’s only a temporary thing.

Should I tell her if I’m a virgin?
Many men think that because they’re men, they should be in charge of the sex, regardless of who has the more experience. If you’re a virgin and she’s not, tell her, and let her lead if she wishes. This is as much a learning experience as a loving one. Don’t be afraid to confess the truth. A lot of women would rather know that your fumbling is inexperience, rather than just sheer ineptitude, and will gratefully show you the ways of the world.

Will we come at the same time? Don’t worry about making orgasm simultaneous, either. Some women do not orgasm during intercourse, and even if your girlfriend is capable of climax, the odds are very much against you coming at the same time. Enjoy yourself, and rely on her to tell you the truth when she’s enjoying herself.

What if I orgasm too soon?
If you actually climax much too soon before you wanted to, take your time, take a nap, and try again. The second time you should be much more relaxed and ready to take your time – so will your penis.

Am I big enough? Too big? The right shape?
Another common concern is size. The average penis is slightly more than five and a half inches in length when erect, and that’s more than enough to hit every major nerve center in the vagina, the legendary G-spot included. The vagina is capable of stretching to take a large penis, or shape itself to pleasure a small one. Size has very little to do with your ability as a lover.

Another common issue is shape. Some men become concerned because their penis bends downwards, or to the left, and assume that because they never see men like them in erotic movies that they’re not normal. Others worry that a downward bend will make sex difficult or painful because the vagina isn’t shaped with that bend in mind.

Keep in mind that sex can be performed in any number of positions. The penis and vagina can be matched in many different ways, and each new position can bring new pleasures to you and your partner. Some people believe that a downward-bending penis is much easier to perform oral sex upon.

Will I be a good lover?
Being a good lover doesn’t happen automatically. With the right partner, time, care, and practice, you have everything you need to become a great lover. Your first times, for both you, will be fumbling and awkward, but hopefully they’ll be the start of great times for the rest of your lives.

Source: health24.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

How to combine pleasant and useful? Only novelties make our life various and interesting. Summertime is just right to put on glasses. But the development of gadget technologies offer much more – do not get behind. Stylish glasses with MP3 player built in – this innovation strongly enters into life together with other inventions. The producers offer protection against harmful ultra-violet beams and 100% guarantee of a quality of lenses.Except for volume of internal memory (128 ÌÂ) there is a microphone and USB interface. But all this is in a combination with stylish glasses. There is also software to help you manage your favourite music.

Key Features:
* The Memory size: 128ÌB
* The polarized lenses
* Compatible format: MP3, WMA, ADPCM
* The standard USB port
* Incorporated USB a disk
* Recharging time: 2 hours
* Function of Economy of Consumption of the Battery!
* Voice output power: 5mW + 5mW
* Voice output frequency: 20Hz – 20KHz
* CE and FCC the certificate (legalization)

Source: gadgets-reviews.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

Name: Adriana Lima
Nationality: Brazilian
Ethnicity: Portuguese / French / Native-American / Caribbean
Hair Color: Dark brown
Eye Color: Blue / grey
Date of Birth: June 12 1981
Place of Birth: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Height: 5′10″ ; 178cm
Measurements: (US) 34-23-33 ; (EU) 86.5-58.5-84

Since her rise to fame, Adriana Lima is often cited by popular media as one of the world’s sexiest women. She ranked 7th on FHM 100 Sexiest Women 2007 and was chosen as one of People Magazine’s annual 100 Most Beautiful People in the World, in May 2007, along with her fellow Angels. On June 13, 2007, she was awarded as “Hottest Girl on the Planet” at the first Spike TV Guys’ Choice Awards but the category was not mentioned in the actual show.  Lima was also voted on the Maxim Hot 100 2007 as number 53. She was voted as the Most Desirable Woman in 2005 by visitors of the largest men’s lifestyle website, Askmen.com (she was placed 4th in 2006, also 4th in 2007 and 10th in 2008). Lima is fluent in three languages – Portuguese, Spanish, and English, now that’s sexy. In her free time, she loves reading a novel by her favorite author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Lima has admitted that she was shy around boys when she was younger, not receiving her first kiss until she was 17 years old. In an interview with GQ April 2006 issue, Lima told the magazine that she is a devoted Catholic who attends church every Sunday and is a virgin. “Sex is for after marriage,” she explained. “They (men) have to respect that this is my choice. If there’s no respect, that means they don’t want me.”  US GQ dubbed her as “The World’s Most Voluptuous Virgin.”

Lima has been romantically linked to other celebrities in the past, including rocker Lenny Kravitz, New York Yankees superstar Derek Jeter, Prince Wenzeslaus of Liechtenstein, and Denny of Timbalada.

Currently Lima is engaged to Serbian basketball player Marko Jarić of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Highland Homes, St. Louis
Projected 2007 Sales: $22 million-plus
Description: Green residential builder

Open House: Bob Shallenberger and John Cavanagh enjoy having company over. Both live in homes built by their company, Highland Homes, and both use them as models to show potential customers what they can do. The two fraternity brothers from St. Louis University used “creative financing” and credit cards to launch their vision in 2003. “We did everything except rob banks,” says Shallenberger.

It’s a Green Thing: Highland Homes isn’t your typical builder. Each new home comes with a plasma TV and the option of special packages like “Elvis Live,” which includes a stereo, karaoke machine, CD player and iPod Nano. Those are fun extras, but the real difference comes down to Highland’s environmentally friendly building methods: sustainably grown wood, rooftop decks, underground parking, lots of parklike green space and high efficiency heating and cooling systems. Says Cavanagh about green building, “It’s difficult and it’s expensive to learn. It’s challenging, and there’s some risk in it. We see it as a big growth segment of the market.” Their next move? “Being recognized as the top green residential builder in the country is the goal for us,” he says.

Hip Homes: There’s a definite spark to Shallenberger and Cavanagh when they discuss Highland Homes and the future of the business. “When we design a building, we live and breathe it,” says Shallenberger. They have no shortage of projects lined up and no shortage of future homeowners looking to buy into their affordable and hip green urban developments. “We’ve got a bunch of cool people working for us,” Shallenberger continues. “The people that we sell to are all really cool, too.”

Follow Their Lead: Surround yourself with entrepreneurial-minded employees and you’ll gain a creative, dedicated work force and a constant infusion of innovative ideas.

Source: entrepreneur.com
Written by: Amanda C. Kooser

Popularity: unranked [?]

Before translating your website, I highly recommend getting a full statistics breakdown of your website visitors, their locations, time spent on your website, and the pages they most view. The best tool I’ve come across thus far to do this is Statscounter.com. They offer a free and paid web based statistics tool for any website or blog.Once you get a full report of your website’s daily activity, decided what countries and cities your niche target audience is coming from, and decide what languages you want to translate your website to.

• The first method of translation I highly recommend is the use of translation scripts for websites or plugins for blogs. You can generally cut and paste the scripts into your web pages or download and install the plugins into your blogs.

• The second method involves using a language translation tool for your website that typically translates english text into most other langauges and vice versa. This is a manual process and not the best recommended. Some very popular and frequently used translation tools are offered by Google, Altavista, Babelfish, and Dictionary.com. You simply type or cut and paste your english text in a form and select the language you want to translate your text to.

• The third method is hiring a translation firm that specializes in website translations, but make sure their software is compatible with the programming language of your website. They should be able to handle HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and simple texts.

• Search engine optimization is top priority for any website in any language, so include the appropriate foreign keywords in your page title, first paragraphs of every page, images, meta tags (keep to a minimum), and tag labels on your blogs.

• Proofread and copyedit your work. Remember to tweak your website to the foreign audiences needs, and be careful and sensitive of word usage. You don’t want to lose website visitors with a translation that comes across as offensive into any specific language.
It’s important to reach international web users to increase your website profit because ecommerce has exploded in the European markets with the Euro as the world’s dominant currency. Other incentives to translate are that the Japanese business to business market is a whopping 140 trillion yens almost twice as that of American B2B, and India’s B2B is equally growing at a tremendous rate. Ecommerce for example in Japan has grown about 13% while the U.S. has grown about 6%. In India, it’s grown 30% on average anually. All these countries have a potential gold mine of web users looking to use your products or services because they trust U.S. based businesses.

Don’t be left out of potential huge profits and web users because of a language barrier.

Written by Wade Nembhard

Popularity: unranked [?]

Before the advent of Google’s search algorithms, only web marketers and companies with deep pockets could hope to get top search engine rankings from floods of traffic to their sites. Nowadays, the playing field is leveled. To get your website at the top of the serps (search engine results pages), you want to make sure you have a good chunk of one way inbound links from reputable and high ranked websites. Their are five proven search engine optimization methods I highly recommend employing for your blog or website. Please note, these methods require some minor research, a touch of patience, and some basic web knowledge.

1. Post on Free Blogs

You will receive one way linkbacks to your website everytime you create a new post entry on popular free blogs. Make sure your free blog can ping the blog update services such as Technorati. Blogging is one of the easiest and most recommended methods to create valuable linkbacks to your website. Web users can subscribe to your blog’s rss feeds and get regular alerts from blog services whenever your blog has been updated. Also each rss feed that is subscribed to counts as a free inbound link to your site. I discuss my top picks of free blogging services in another article I highly recommend you read. These blogs have rewarded me with fast and high valued inbound links time after time.

2. Post on Popular Forums

Registering on multiple free and popular forums is the second method I recommend for a great linkback campaign. It’s very important though to drop comments on forums whose topics are related or closely follow the same category, theme, and target audience as your website. Its good practice to include and hyperlink keywords in your comments that are found on your site. Remember to always choose forums that allow hyperlinks in your comments or more importantly in your profile signature. The next task is to make sure these hyperlinks do not employ the “rel=nofollow” rule. If this is the case, these forums are a complete waste of your search engine optimization efforts. Search engine robots such as Googlebot do not index these hyperlinks, resulting in no inbound links to your website. Check to see whether the forum is high trafficked and high ranked. The higher the traffic/rank of the forum, the more weight the inbound link holds by Google and Yahoo’s standards. Strong inbound links will push you further up in search engine results resulting in more traffic to your website.

3. Submit Original Articles to Article Banks:

I can’t stress how important this method of inbound linking is. If you have the gift of writing, or better yet if you can simply write about topics and use spellcheck, then your website will benefit greatly by submitting your articles to article banks. As with any form of inbound linking, use only those article banks that are reputable, adhere to search engine optimization rules, and do not employ the “rel=nofollow” rule in their hyperlinks. I name a few good article banks in another article I wrote concerning good SEO. I’ve written reusable articles 3 years ago that are still sending back hundreds of great inbound links to my websites. The key is to write about topics that don’t expire or become stale. Two great example of constant recycled articles are those about money and finance, and sex and relationships. Its a good rule of thumb to keep the articles around 300 to 700 words. Each article you submit will most likely have a signature line with an inbound link to your site, and each time someone uses that article they are required by article banks to keep your link in that signature section.

4. Submit content to Social Bookmarks

Social bookmarks are the new golden child of search engine marketing. They’re free and heavily used for content building on millions of websites. Most major portals utilize them to get their articles, videos, and images distributed to a broader reach of web users. A major advantage of social bookmarks is that once submitted, your articles get indexed by Search engines a lot faster than simply waiting for search spiders to crawl your site and index pages. Each submission creates a valuable inbound link. I generally submit articles to about 14 high trafficked social bookmarks, such as digg, stumbleupon, delicious, and mixx.

Follow these methods and you will see an enormous turnaround in traffic and search engine rank in a short moment.

Written by wadeinni

Popularity: unranked [?]

Famous Female Cigar Smokers

Cigar smoking is certainly not what it once was, hundreds of years ago that is. Many modern women are just as likely to indulge in a nice tobacco roll in private social events as much as men do.

Cigars,  may seem like a male past time, but it’s only true if you’re talking about the world of film and television versus real life.  Men like  the Rat Pack,  Milton Berle, George Burns, or even Hannibal from the 1980’s television cult classic “The A-Team” have created the image of the  common cigar smoker in our mind.  Hollywood women though are securing roles as cigar loving beauties. Lets take a look at some of Tinseltown’s famous women smokers.

Linda Evangelista: A Canadian Supermodel, Evangelista is known as one of the pioneers of the 1980’s and 1990’s fashion industry. Part of a group known as “The Trinity” – along with Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell – Evangelista is credited as being one of the sparks that ignited the world’s obsession with modeling. She is well known both for her cigar smoking and her dramatic hairstyles. In 1995, she became the first women to be featured on the cover of Cigar Aficionado.

Demi Moore: Originally known for her roles in teen-targeted movies, Moore has become one of the leading actresses in Hollywood. From movies such as Ghost and G.I. Jane, she has made a name for herself onscreen. Off screen, she has been the source of controversy on more the one occasion. Whether it is for posing nude during her pregnancy or for her marriage to a much younger man, Moore has found herself the target of the tabloids. But, she has muddled through with grace and perseverance, refusing to apologize for her choices. An avid cigar smoker for years, she was featured on the cover of Cigar Aficionado in 1996.

Sharon Stone: Lauded and ridiculed for performances, Stone has received everything from a Golden Globe to a Razzie. A former fashion model turned Star Search winner turned actress and producer, she has been in the spotlight for decades. She turned heads when she modeled nude for Playboy in 1990 and turned heads again when she (nearly modeling nude) shot an infamous scene from the film Basic Instinct in 1992. Though there is some media speculation that she is no longer a smoker, Stone was featured on the cover of Cigar Aficionado in 2004.

Susan Lucci: Originally known for her role on All My Children, Lucci eventually became infamous for being a lady who could not catch a Daytime Emmy break. Between 1978 and 1998, she was nominated for 18 awards, but failed to win any. This made her the butt of the joke among some members of the media. Finally, in 1999, the joke ended when she won a long awaited Day Time Emmy. She has also appeared in a variety of primetime TV shows and made-for-television movies. She made an appearance on the cover of Cigar Aficionado in 1999.

Gina Gershon: Appearing in a slug of television shows, including Ellen, Just Shoot Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Ugly Betty, Gershon has done a bit of everything. She has appeared on movies as well as Broadway productions. She attended Beverly Hills High School with Lenny Kravitz, and has been linked to John Cusack and Owen Wilson. Gerson had bit parts in many notable 1980’s films as well as larger parts in some cult classics. She was featured on the cover of Cigar Aficionado in 1998.

These are certainly not the only women in Hollywood who know how to treat themselves to a stick of luxury. The movie and television industry, like life itself, is full of females discovering a past time that was once synonymous with being male. As more and more women, throwing down their inferior cigarettes in a fit of rage, turn to stogies, the male stigmatism the cigar industry once harbored will begin to fade away… like a puff of smoke.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The sleek, portable nüvi 350 is a GPS navigator, traveler’s reference and digital entertainment system, all in one. It is your pocket-sized personal travel assistant ready for adventure. Like the rest of the nüvi 300-series, you’re just a few screen taps away from anywhere.
Navigate With Easenüvi 350 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator® NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with 2-D or 3-D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. In addition, nüvi 350 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. The European version even includes a preloaded safety camera database containing the location of safety cameras for parts of Europe.
Add Traffic Alerts

Avoid traffic jams with the addition of an optional FM TMC traffic receiver and traffic services. By adding these to your nüvi, you are notified of accidents or road construction ahead on your route. Simply touch the screen to view traffic details or recalculate your route to avoid traffic.
Take It With You

Like the rest of the nüvi series, nüvi 350 sports a sleek, slim design and fits comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot.
Go Beyond Navigation

Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 350 includes many “must have” entertainment and travel tools including MP3 player, audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more. It also comes with Garmin Lock^TM, an anti-theft feature, and is compatible with our free Garmin Garage where you can download custom vehicles that show your location on the map. Optional plug-in SD cards let you add additional features to enhance your travel experience including language translation and detailed travel guides. Our SaversGuide® provides information on nearby merchants offering discounts to customize your nüvi whether you’re traveling or close to home.

nüvi 350: It’s a whole nü way to travel.

Source: garmin.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — Yahoo!’s efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft Corp. have reached a dead end, prompting the Internet pioneer to hire online search leader Google Inc. to handle some of its advertising sales. The news disclosed Thursday caused Yahoo! shares to plunge 10 percent as investors abandoned hope that Microsoft would renew a nearly five-month quest to buy the Sunnyvale, California-based company.

Although a stock sell-off is never welcome news for any company, Wall Street’s disenchantment comes at a particularly bad time for Yahoo! and its board of directors.

Yahoo! is trying to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn, who has vowed to replace the company’s board because of the way the directors handled the Microsoft negotiations.

But Icahn has been hoping to engineer a sale to Microsoft, so some shareholders may be reluctant to support his attempted coup unless he can demonstrate that his slate of directors has a better turnaround plan than the current board.

Icahn did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The fate of Yahoo!’s board is to be determined at the company’s August 1 annual meeting.

“If you are a Yahoo! shareholder, you just have to be scratching your head right now,” Standard and Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler said.

With Microsoft apparently out of the picture, Yahoo! is turning to Google to help its chief executive, Jerry Yang, prove that he made the right decision last month when he turned down Microsoft’s takeover bid of $47.5 billion, or $33 per share. Yang asked for $37 per share, prompting Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to withdraw the oral offer.

If the Google partnership passes what’s likely to be a rigorous review by U.S. antitrust regulators and lawmakers, Yahoo! intends to use its rival’s superior search technology to display ads on its own Web site as well as those of its partners’ in the United States and Canada.

Yahoo estimated that the arrangement could boost its revenue by as much as $800 million during the first 12 months of the partnership.

The deal shapes up as a major victory for Mountain View-based Google, which didn’t want Yahoo! to fall into Microsoft’s clutches.

“I am happy to be helping them to stay independent,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Thursday.

Yahoo!’s advertising partnership with Google won’t start until late September at the earliest because the two companies voluntarily agreed to wait at least 3½ months to allow the government to review a deal involving the two leading players in search advertising.

Google already holds about 75 percent of the $11 billion search advertising market in the United States, with Yahoo! in a distant second at 9 percent, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc.

Microsoft had hoped to use Yahoo! as a weapon in its efforts to slow Google’s growth, but they couldn’t agree to terms.

“Clearly, it’s time to move on,” Yang said during a Thursday conference call with analysts.

Before signing the Google deal, Yahoo! made a last-ditch effort to persuade Microsoft to revive its last takeover offer of $47.5 billion.

But after withdrawing that bid last month, Ballmer began to focus his efforts on persuading Yahoo! to sell its search operations instead.

Yahoo! concluded that its search engine was too important to sell piecemeal.

Without explaining its logic, Microsoft said it believed that a deal involving Yahoo!’s search engine would have been more valuable to Yahoo! than if it had bought the entire company at $33 per share. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker said it remains open to buying Yahoo!’s search operations.

Yahoo!’s deal with Google includes an escape hatch should Microsoft or another suitor buy the company. If Yahoo! is sold, Google would receive a termination fee of up to $250 million.

That clause could still raise hope that Icahn might be able to renew the Microsoft talks if he can win control of Yahoo!’s board.

Investors clearly favor a sale of Yahoo in its entirety. Yahoo! shares dropped $2.63, or 10.1 percent, to finish at Thursday at $23.52 and then shed another 7 cents in after-hours trading.

The Google partnership expands upon a two-week trial conducted in April, while Yahoo! was trying to pressure Microsoft into raising its bid. The tests confirmed that Google’s technology would generate more revenue for Yahoo! than its own system, which cost more than $2 billion to acquire and improve.

Nevertheless, Yahoo! still intends to use its own search engine to distribute some ads and process all search requests. Working with Google will give Yahoo! “the best of both worlds,” Yahoo! President Sue Decker said in Thursday’s conference call.

But Microsoft and a variety of consumer interest groups have signaled that they will turn up the political heat in an attempt to prevent Google from working with Yahoo!.

The outcry already has drawn the attention of U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, who chairs an antitrust committee.

“The consequences for advertisers and consumers could be far-reaching and warrant careful review, and we plan to investigate the competitive and privacy implications of this deal further,” said Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat.

Google and Yahoo! have hope they can overcome the antitrust concerns by convincing lawmakers and regulators that their deal is similar to business arrangements between rivals in other industries.

Brin and his co-founder, Larry Page, both think the partnership could even help foster more competition by providing Yahoo! with more money to improve its own search technology.

“Having more money is a good thing,” Page said.

If it isn’t blocked, Yahoo!’s advertising partnership could last for the next decade.

Although a Google deal could help boost Yahoo!’s short-term profits, some analysts think Yahoo! could be hurting itself by ceding any ground to an already powerful rival.

But Yang was under intense pressure to do something bold after Yahoo! repeatedly spurned Microsoft attempts to buy the company or arrange some kind of joint venture to challenge Google.

The talks date to 2006 and included a 2007 merger proposal that Yahoo! rejected, according to a January 31 letter that Ballmer sent to Yahoo! to announce his initial bid of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.

Source: ap.org

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Popularity: unranked [?]