So now it’s Google.com’s birthday, and apparently it’s 9. Oh, they’re so proud of themselves.

But let me tell ya, kid, just wait till you hit those double digits. Just look at Yahoo—they’re twelve now. Aren’t they awkward? Yeah. The lesson? Enjoy your childhood (and dominance) while it lasts!

The Onion sent a quirky little birthday gift, “reporting” briefly yesterday about Google’s latest endeavor: TheGoogle.com. It’s designed “to appeal to older adults not able to navigate the original website’s single text field and two clearly marked buttons.” Alright, it’s so good, I just have to show you the whole news brief:

Now, we all know that search engines have troubles with non-text-based documents. So when Yahoo opened Yahoo Podcasts almost two years ago, it looked like things were looking up for finding downloadable and streamed audio broadcasting on the Internet. But now it looks as though Yahoo is changing its mind, with the announcement that they’re closing up shop on October 31:

Right after Yahoo Podcasts opened, it looked as though podcasting were a bubble, when “28% of the people surveyed were aware of podcasting, but only 2% actually listened to podcasts.” However, two years later, podcasting is still around and continues to become more popular, even being used on college campuses. Six months ago, podcasting growth was up 18%—37% had heard of podcasting, and 13% had listened one. So why back out now?

Marketing Pilgrim readers had a heads-up yesterday to expect a new interface and index from Microsoft’s Live Search.

The updates are now live and here’s what Microsoft says you’re getting (from the release):