Google (GOOG), which is currently on one heck of a spending spree, is closing an acquisition of San Francisco based DocVerse, a service that lets users collaborate around Microsoft Office documents, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal. The purchase price is supposed to be around $25 million.

Docverse lets users collaborate directly on Microsoft Office documents. Appjet, another recent Google Acquisition, has a related product called EtherPad, although that team is reported to be working with Google Wave and the EtherPad source code has been released to the community.

Google (GOOG) and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.

Yelp was founded in 2004 as a way to let users leave reviews on local businesses. Comscore puts worldwide traffic at nearly 9 million monthly unique visitors, and it has been growing fast – the company says it’s real numbers are more like 25 million monthly uniques.

Most of the tech world now considers it a given that Google (GOOG) will be selling its own unlocked phone, called the Nexus One, to customers directly early in 2010. A few stragglers are still debating the finer points of the difference between Google working with handset manufacturers and carriers on a good Android experience v. them dictating the hardware specs and selling it directly to users. While they work that out for themselves we’re off to the next story – the Google Chrome OS Netbook (although we think Google has a few surprises left around the Nexus One, too).

Google has said from the beginning that they plan on working with select manufacturers to ensure a good Chrome OS experience for users when devices first hit the market next year. From an early FAQ: “The Google Chrome OS team is currently working with a number of technology companies to design and build devices that deliver an extraordinary end user experience. Among others, these companies include Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.”

A number of companies are pursuing AOL’s ICQ instant messaging product, we’re hearing. Russian press is saying Digital Sky Technologies (DST) (a recent Facebook investor) is talking about buying the service. Our sources say they’re a relatively new bidder to the process, and others continue to show interest. One of those interested parties is Google. Another, at least at one point, was Skype.

ICQ, which AOL acquired in 1998 for $400 million, has 33 million worldwide monthly users, according to Comscore. But 8.3 million of those are in Russia, where it hold the no. 1 spot for instant messaging. That explains DST’s interest. It also explains some of Google’s interest as they struggle to get a proper foothold in that market.

Google (GOOG) just announced Google Public DNS, a new service that lets consumers use Google as their DNS service provider. The benefits to users are a theoretically faster and more stable browsing experience, and some additional security against malware type sites. The benefit to Google – tons more data, and lots of potential revenue.

Here are the basic instructions on how to use it (and Google has even provided phone support).

Yahoo (YHOO) continues their strategic defeat from the front lines of innovation. Wednesday they announced that they’d be “deeply integrating” with Facebook Connect, allowing Yahoo users “to see your Facebook friends’ activities on Yahoo! and share Yahoo! content – ratings, photos, article comments, and more – directly on your Facebook stream.”

In other words, they’ve given up on their idea of leveraging all the known social connections among Yahoo email, address book and messenger users. Instead, they’ve outsourced all that social nonsense to Facebook.

Thursday is Thanksgiving in the U.S. Traditionally we take stock of the things that we’re thankful for on this day each year. And I realized that one of those things is Steve Jobs. I’m thankful that he returned to Apple in 1997 and did the things he has done since. It wasn’t at all a certainty that he would ever return to the company that he co-founded two decades earlier. In fact, it was only luck and coincidence that pushed him back there.

It was late December 1996. I was an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the largest and most well known law firm in Silicon Valley. I’d fought for my job there, and I was lucky to be in a small group of lawyers that worked on some of the hottest deals at the firm – Netscape public financings and acquisitions, Pixar’s corporate deals with Disney (DIS), and NeXT Software, among others. Steve Jobs ran Pixar and NeXT, and whenever he did something that needed a law firm, he called my boss. Well, my boss’s boss – Larry Sonsini.

Tuesday we wrote about the soon to launch Google Phone, a Google (GOOG) branded Android phone that we believe will hit the market in early 2010.

Lots of people are saying there’s no way Google will enter the phone market directly and compete with all these handset manufacturers who have bet on Android. Daring Fireball, PC World and IntoMobile are among the doubters. And a lot of people are pointing to a Tom Krazit/CNET article last month that quoted Google’s Andy Rubin: “We’re not making hardware…We’re enabling other people to build hardware,” and “Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, scoffed at the notion that the company would “compete with its customers” by releasing its own phone.”

The debate over Droid v. iPhone rages on, but lots more Android surprises are on the way. Get ready for the Google Phone. It’s no longer a myth, it’s real.

The next “super” Android device will almost certainly be an HTC phone that’s much thinner than even the Droid or iPhone – The Dragon/Passion. This is the phone the senior Android guys at Google are now carrying around and testing, at least as of a couple of weeks ago. If you’re willing to give up the Droid’s keyboard, the Dragon/Passion is going to be a really cool phone. It should be fully available very soon.

MySpace is in late stage negotiations to acquire music streaming service iMeem, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. MySpace is on a bit of an acquisition spree – they acquired iLike, another music service, three months ago.

The iMeem acquisition isn’t yet finalized, we’ve heard from sources, and awaits approval from various stakeholders.

I’ve mostly been a spectator in this whole Rupert Murdoch de-indexing his news sites from Google (GOOG) circus. First because I didn’t really believe he even knew what he was talking about (or how much traffic he’d lose), and more recently because Erick Schonfeld took the story here at TechCrunch.

But suddenly this is a fascinating story to me for a bunch of reasons. This may be less about the self destruction of traditional journalism and more about the search wars.

I’ve had a nagging frustration in my otherwise perfect relationship with Google Voice. The service systematically replaces my friend’s phone numbers with their Google Voice numbers when they call, even when they aren’t calling from Google Voice. Not only has this led to a lot of confusing and time wasting “how did you get my Google Voice phone number?” conversations, it is a clear violation of Google’s (GOOG) own privacy policy.

Here’s how this works: Let’s say you signed up for Google Voice sometime in the past. The main benefit of Google Voice is that it forwards calls to your other phones – the whole “one number for life” thing. So you probably told Google Voice a few of your other phone numbers – home, work, mobile, etc. And then perhaps you stopped using the service after testing it.

Google’s Chrome OS project, first announced in July, will become available for download within a week, we’ve heard from a reliable source. Google (GOOG) previously said to expect an early version of the OS in the fall.

What can we expect? Driver support will likely be a weak point. We’ve heard at various times that Google has a legion of engineers working on the not so glamorous task of building hardware drivers. And we’ve also heard conflicting rumors that Google is mostly relying on hardware manufacturers to create those drivers. Whatever the truth, and it’s likely in between, having a robust set of functioning drivers is extremely important to Chrome OS’s success. People will want to download this to whatever computer they use and have it just work.

Earlier this week we broke the story about Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5. Thursday Google (GOOG announced the deal on the Google Voice blog.

They aren’t saying much other than that the Gizmo5 team will join the Google Voice team, and that new Gizmo5 signups will be disabled.

2008 was the year of free streaming music. When MySpace Music entered the fray a little over a year ago, it seemed like the music labels had finally relented, and were willing to experiment with free streaming music to users. The future looked bright.

2009 is the year of reckoning. The European launch of Spotify, which offers users free streaming music on demand, was an affirmation of the trend. Soon Spotify would launch in the U.S., too, the company said.

By MG Siegler

Market share is probably the easiest and most often used point of comparison between competing products. It makes sense: If something has a large share of the market, it’s probably doing well. But that doesn’t always mean that it’s doing better than something with less market share, especially from a business perspective.

Last month Skype was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5. It was a perfect backup plan in case all that IP litigation didn’t work out. – Gizmo5’s SIP infrastructure could theoretically replace Skype’s proprietary P2P back end.

After the Skype settlement, though, Gizmo5’s strategic value to Skype sort of plummeted. In the meantime, Google (GOOG) bought them, say multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, for around $30 million in cash. The deal is done, say our sources, and will be announced shortly.

If you are a tech lover, there is nothing quite like the launch day of a much hyped new gadget. Expectations run high. And since those expectations are rarely satisfied once you have the special little device in hand, it’s a moment to savor. In the hours before you own it, that device is perfect in every way. It will make you happier, a better person. There are no bugs, there are only features. It is whatever you want it to be.

Launch day of a new cool gadget is the closest thing to being a kid again on Christmas day (or whatever your winter solstice holiday of choice). You’ve anticipated the day. You’ve called in sick to work. And you are standing out in the freezing cold at 7 in the morning, hoping your place in line assures you a device before the carefully-planned sell out occurs. You’ve worked yourself into…a Fever Pitch.