Liam Getreu

Who would have thought? There’s been quite an angry response to Microsoft’s attempted hostile takeover of Yahoo! for roughly $44 billion. The best reaction, though, comes in the form of a Flickr (owned by Y!) group called “MICROSOFT: KEEP YOUR EVlL GRUBBY HANDS OFF OF OUR FLICKR.” The aim is pretty much to upload your own images telling Microsoft exactly where to go.

Some people are being very creative:

“No, Microsoft, we need no assistance. Thx tho.”
Some rights reserved, ‘The Infamous Trench’, Flickr

While you would think there would be a pretty negative overall response from the blogosphere on this one, it isn’t actually the case. Techcrunch has been running a few ‘what if’ articles, most of them positive, or at least leaning towards positive. The plebs haven’t been as kind (as you can see from the Flickr pool), but I reckon it mightn’t be the end of the world.

Google needs a kick up the bum, to push it onwards and upwards. This could be the beginning of something new for them: competition.

I guess it will now be interesting to sit back and see what the American authorities, or more intriguing perhaps, the more conservative European Union, has to say about the merger. We’ll see.