The Social Nerdia Show! Episode #11 is now available for streaming below, on blogtalkradio, or as a podcast on iTunes.

In this episode, @jestebanc, @somerlea, and @jonsterp talk about recent Tech News (Microsoft + Yahoo! “partnership”, Blekko stealth search engine getting a 3rd round of financing, Blip.TV increasing its distribution, and the new Twitter homepage ), as well as some Not-So Tech / Pop Culture News (Wedding viral video, Visa’s crazy profits, Twilight characters getting swapped and what is supposed to be a kid-friendly Twilight MMO videogame).

We also wondered about why there are so many Fast & Furious movies (what’s up with that?) and upcoming movie releases coming out on August 7th: GI Joe, Julie & Julia, and most importantly.. Adam.

Finally, we talked about the Randomized Topic of the Day (Cash for Clunkers Program gets suspended). We chose the topic this time but we promise to talk about whatever YOU want to talk about next week. Just send us your thoughts to socialnerdia@gmail.com or leave us a voice message by calling 720-6NE-RDIA.

By now most people know that Microsoft has finally scored the deal it’s been wanting for quite a while. I’m guessing CEO Steve Ballmer still gets a little annoyed when thinking about all the trouble and time he wasted trying to get Yahoo! to give in. Then again, maybe things would’ve gone horribly wrong if Yahoo! had accepted what now sounds like a crazy initial offer.

The fact is that Yahoo! was so concerned with how much they could get out of Microsoft (or maybe how cool they would be by playing difficult) that they lost track of their purpose.

Yes, Yahoo!’s purpose in life was search. That’s how I know about them. That’s how you found out about them. Ok, to be fair, maybe some folks that still use Yahoo! Mail don’t realize this, but they probably only recently made the switch from AOL, so that doesn’t really count.

For most people on this Earth of ours, Yahoo! used to be a synonym for search engine.

Well, no longer. And with that, Yahoo! proves that they not only lost the #1 position many years ago, but that they also didn’t realize just how important search was. I mean, if they cared about search, they would’ve done something about it, right?

Wrong. Yahoo! was so concerned with becoming a portal, becoming the source for movie information (I admit it, Yahoo! movies is pretty good), capturing screenshots of Geocities and Flickr (instead of enhancing them), and wondering if red or purple is cuter, etc. that they totally forgot about the reason for their very existence. (more…)