.5 Yahoo! founders are Jerry Yang pictured here with an aligator grin. 01FEB08, Microsoft wrote Yahoo! informing of a desired purchase. Stocks went up, AOL came in Google came in, Microsoft was kept waiting, Google left, Comcast was erroneously reported as coming in, AOL was bumped away and now we’re back to just Microsoft sitting and waiting. Oh, and a top Yahoo! brain left for Google too.

The source of this entry is this Washington Post article which describes Jerry Yang’s letter to shareholders Wednesday. Read the story, read the letter and you see Jerry’s plea’s to shareholders not to let Microsoft buy Yahoo!. He argues all the greatness of Yahoo! But I wonder if he’s noticed that he’s the only one talking about Yahoo! when people are talking about Yahoo!.

One point of the letter was how great Yahoo! will be for shareholders once Panama gets started and couples up with Yahoo! acquisitions, Right Media and Blue Lithium. Those two online advertising mechanisms were purchased ages ago and then vanished from mention. What’s Yahoo! waiting for to do any of these things that they could do? I think the music is over for Yahoo! and has been for a long, long time even if it’s in the top ComScore spots for online ad revenue and visits to Yahoo! Mail. My local post office gets more visits than my local Dunkin’ Donuts; that still put much of a thrill in it for anyone.

— Bryan Applegate