The entire economy is taking a hit from the current financial crisis, and Google is no exception. Today Google (GOOG) shares are trading at $340, which is $100 less or 22% off the price they were on September 25, 2008 ($440). A huge chunk of the options granted to employees (approximately 7.4 million shares) have a strike price of $440 or above. A lot has changed since September 25th, and they could change again and be back in the money. But presently, 75% of the stock options granted to employees are worthless.

A massive sell-off in United Airlines (UAUA) shares resulted after a false report about the company declaring bankruptcy appeared on Google (GOOG).

Lawson Software’s (LWSN) chief executive, Harry Debes, believes software as a service will collapse in two years.

In an interview, Debes told ZDNet Asia why SaaS is history repeating itself, and why his company is not going down the same path as its bigger competitors that have jumped aboard the ‘on-demand’ bandwagon.

If you were an Apple (AAPL) employee or shareholder, you would be about 300% richer today than a Google (GOOG) employee or shareholder. This is based on a comparison of GOOG and AAPL shares over a five year period between August 27, 2004 to August 22, 2008.

Over that period, Google returned an impressive 355.73% and Apple returned a staggering 1050.52%. Year-to-date, GOOG is down about 5% and AAPL is up about 36%.

Powerset claims to be the next big thing. Would you sell the next big thing for $100 million? Here is my initial assessment of Powerset - It was an opportunistic play to make a quick buck on the Google (GOOG) craze.

I was right and this transaction proves it.

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Exactly one year ago to the day, I wrote about Yahoo (YHOO) being a casualty in the search war. The war has taken its toll and Yahoo is on life support today.

It all began when Jerry Yang made the catastrophic mistake of hiring Terry Semel in 2001. Terry had a backward view of the world. His experience was in Hollywood where everything was packaged. The internet business, however, is like a "live play" where you have to think on your feet. And thus, he was not equipped to move Yahoo forward as he was lost himself. He did not even know what email was when he came to Yahoo and he was baffled when employees would send email. He thought they should just pick up the phone and call or walk over to their desks to talk to each other.

Sergey, you can’t be serious. Dinging users 20 cents every time they use Google (GOOG) CheckOut? You are already charging them a hefty fee for using the service. Furthermore, you are also dinging users 20 cents every time they cancel an order. You can’t be serious.

Google (GOOG) accounted for 68.29 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending May 31, 2008, Hitwise announced Tuesday. Yahoo! (YHOO) Search, MSN (MSFT) Search and Ask.com each received 19.95, 5.89 and 4.23 percent respectively. The remaining 41 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.63 percent of U.S. searches.

As the Viacom (VIA) / Google (GOOG) legal battle over YouTube clip copyright issues intensifies, Google has tried to knock the rhetorical ball back into Viacom's court, stating yesterday in papers filed with the judge that Viacom:

"threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression."

After Yahoo (YHOO) spurned its initial offer, Microsoft (MSFT) said it was no longer in the game to aquire Yahoo. However, corporate raider Carl Icahn entered the fray last week with a proposal that would force Yahoo into Microsoft's arms, netting Icahn a huge payday if Microsoft ponied up the $33+ it was clearly willing to pay before.

As if this deal was not already complicated enough, Microsoft is now proposing to Yahoo some form of collaboration on search, presumably a deal where Microsoft and Yahoo search teams would team up against Google (GOOG).

Billionaire takeover strategist Carl Icahn is looking at a possible play to force Yahoo (YHOO) back to the table with Microsoft (MSFT) to sell the company at a big profit. The news yesterday sent Yahoo up about 1.30 and still rising.

Microsoft's (MSFT) proposed bid for Yahoo (YHOO) was its fastest way to gain the scale necessary to compete against Google (GOOG) for online advertising dollars. Even before pulling the Yahoo offer, the company had begun laying the groundwork for a strategy to compete with Google in online advertising. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is convinced that online advertising is crucial to its future. So much so that he sees online advertising making up as much as 25% of the company’s business within a few years. Google generates approximately US$ 22 billion versus Microsoft's US$ 3.3 billion from online advertising.

Google (GOOG) has been named the world's number one and most powerful brand for the second year in a row, clocking in at an estimated value at $85,057 million which represents a 30% increase in its brand valuation. This, according to BrandZ's top 100 brand ranking for 2008.

Other tech heavyweights in the top ten included GE (GE), Microsoft (MSFT), China Mobile (CHL), IBM (IBM), and Apple (AAPL) which was the biggest mover in the top 10 and a new entrant, moving up from sixteenth to seventh place with an incredible 123% increase in brand value to $55,206 million. HP (HPQ) was at sixteen, Cisco (CSCO) ranked twenty-two, and Oracle (ORCL) and Intel (INTC) at numbers twenty-six and twenty-seven respectively.

RatePoint, a startup sproviding online reputation management platforms for businesses, has hit the jackpot with VerSign (VRSN ). RatePoint has got one of the most trusted brands on the internet to resell its product to Verisign's 1,000,000 customers. RatePoint's online reputation management and customer feedback platform will be offered as a value-added to customers who purchase VeriSign's retail SSL certificate. VeriSign's SSL customers, mostly online businesses, can use the service to rate their overall satisfaction with that business.

"The combination of VeriSign SSL with RatePoint will provide VeriSign customers with another way to establish trust amongst its consumers," said Chris Babel, senior vice president, SSL, VeriSign. "The market for RatePoint is relevant to businesses that use VeriSign SSL certificates to secure e-commerce transactions. Gaining the trust of consumers is vital to business success and adding a mechanism to collect and promote authentic customer feedback and ratings will only further that trust."

eBay (EBAY) unveiled the eBay Partner Network, a new global affiliate program for publishers driving traffic to eBay. The affiliate network will be in-house, designed to more fully align the programs across eBay's global properties and give affiliates expanded access to revenue opportunities across its platforms. Previously, eBay's affiliate program was run by ValueClick (VCLK), whose shares took a big hit yesterday. ValueClick in a full service integrated online marketing company.

"Affiliate partners are central to eBay's ongoing strategy of improving the user experience and increasing engagement," said Matt Ackley, vice president of Internet marketing at eBay. "The new eBay Partner Network will allow us to have a direct relationship with our affiliates, innovate faster and deliver new products and tools in a more timely and efficient manner, providing new revenue opportunities for our affiliates and creating a more streamlined user experience for our buyers and sellers."

Danny Sullivan has a great post on the conflict of interest facing Google (GOOG) with the consummation of DoubleClick. DoubleClick is an online behavioral target ad network. DoubleClick also owns Performics, one of the largest paid inclusion and pay-for-performance providers. Danny points out that by owning Performics, Google is essentially competing with its customers - in this case SEO and SEM specialists. Even the perception of such can be dangerous to Google's search and advertising business as it erodes the trust of the professional services industry that has built Google's revenue base.

Microsoft (MSFT) has acquired San Francisco's Rapt, an online ad management company. The purchase price is undisclosed. Microsoft has been on a buying spree to catch up to Google (GOOG) in the online search and advertising space.

Microsoft will integrate the Rapt into its Atlas Publisher Suite, acquired as part of the $6 billion aQuantive deal last year. From Microsoft's press release:

Baidu (BIDU), China's leading search engine has selected Omniture (OMTR) to provide web analytics and online optimization services. Baidu is looking to improve the advertiser experience by providing better data points on China's fast growing web audience.