Customer loyalty is something that Yahoo! has down to a fine art, and it is this that will mean that Yahoo! will win out over its rivals in end.

Yahoo!’s ventures into partnerships with DSL providers such as UK’s BT, Roger’s in Canada and of course, US’s SBC, will help Yahoo! to capitalize on this customer loyalty and earn a steady income based on its excellent services. The great branded toolsets that Yahoo! offers to its DSL customers (portal services, popup blockers, spam blockers, parental controls, integrated messaging, search and a host of other integrated services – all for a comparatively very low total Broadband cost), again, excellently engineered, give Yahoo! brand quality reputation it deserves and places Yahoo! nicely to take over many disgruntled AOL customers, who find that they have to pay for AOL on top of cost of their broadband services, and that AOL slows down their PCs so much that advantage of using broadband is much diminished.

The recent rumour that Yahoo! and Earthlink are in talks is extremely exciting for anyone watching both companies. In Earthlink, Yahoo! would find a partial answer to its quest to acquire more customers who use Yahoo! to connect to internet, and are willing to pay for excellence of Yahoo! experience.

Earthlink also has an excellent product set (including some of best on market - Accelerator, Parental controls, Virus blocker, Spam blocker, popup blocker, spyware blocker, scamblocker and privacy tools) which would complement Yahoo! set of products dramatically.

And, of course, both companies are very interested in venturing further into provision of better email tools – especially client-based email toolsets.

Earthlink’s troubles with “churn” (customer turnover) would be eradicated by customer loyalty associated with Yahoo! brand. Yahoo!’s marketing team would be a great asset to Earthlink – as would Yahoo!’s sales force – who could capitalize on lost opportunity that is Earthlink’s. Earthlink’s revenues from advertising, content and commerce are lousy in comparison to what they could be given Yahoo! treatment! There is a great amount of synergy between two companies – both see their mission as customer-oriented – Earthlink’s mantra is “Earthlink revolves around you”, and has 5 million subscribers, while “Yahoo!” wants to be seen as consumer’s “best friend”. Each has bases in Atlanta and in California, both have a laid back, informal (no ties – shorts and t-shirts) culture – and both have excellent professional engineers who really know technical side of Internet, and are keen to make customers happy.

Both companies have a base of engineers who are well-versed in more “open” technologies (i.e. not simply focusing on Microsoft software), which is key to gaining and retaining customers in Unix and Mac realms. Both are looking into more open solutions (using XUL, Mozilla-sponsored open object manipulation standard, which offers potential for connection-less rich content across platforms) for messaging, wireless and mobile technologies in a big way.

While I recognize my message is an old one – George Mannes was telling Yahoo! to buy Earthlink in 2001 – I believe time is right now for both companies to make big move. So it will be interesting to watch them over next few weeks.

Some News sites also have interactive sites within. For example, on BBC News Blog there is a learning site (BBCi Learning) that involves interactive activities and over half a million pages of factual information and resources available for children, adolescents, and adults. There are competitions and all sorts of games to help educate people in any and every area of interest imaginable.

Another great aspect of these on-line News sites is ability to access archival information. You can watch video and listen to audio recordings of famous historical stories right on computer. If day is Feb.3, you can read articles from Feb.3’s from fifty years ago. Looking up any date and year recorded is as easy as pushing a few buttons.

Some services have subscriptions where instead of looking up website, News you want is sent straight to your email. Being in know, and being in now, has never been such an objective, enjoyable, and simplistic experience as in 21st century. Partaking in a new perspective on life is what on-line current events and News Blogs are all about.