Yes, you read that right.

In a press release earlier this week (see below), Yahoo! Japan announced that it will replace its own search engine with Google's.  Company representatives said that Yahoo will instead focus on content, auctions and shopping, while Google will power both search and advertising (via AdSense).

I'm always watching ad agencies and social marketing firms to see how they're adapting the latest web tools. Why? They're in the business of selling things: products, ideas, even sentiment. It's one of the reasons I haven't missed a single episode of Mad Men. I'm endlessly fascinated with what drives trends, and more importantly, our inevitable acquiescence to many of them.

I'm a huge Billy Joel fan, and this makes me like him even more. Every budding entrepreneur should watch this vintage footage of Billy Joel explaining how to be an entrepreneur.  Proto-social media, self-publishing, viral marketing. And that was almost 30 years ago.

His message: "if the song is good enough and the voice is distinctive enough," you'll get a record deal. Rings true for journalists and others today. If your content is good enough, niche enough and presented in a format that resonates with your audience, you'll succeed.

Here's a meme I just don't understand. The bit about the Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers survey which found that 80% of its members have used Facebook and other social networking sites to gather evidence for cases. The AP ran the story a few days ago. None of the lawyers would divulge the details of cases, but they described some common threads to the AP: