Quite a run for Search news the last few days! Old line newspaper powerhouse Scripps purchased Shopzilla.com (formerly Bizrate.com). AOL and Yellowpages.com announced a new alliance. eBAY bought Shopping.com. AOL formerly rolled out plans for its new version of AOL.com. And Google almost hit $300 a share (a nice run from its listing price of $85 last August)!

The most interesting fact in all of these dealings is watching the venerable E.W. Scripps spending half a billion to get into vertical shopping Search. One has to presume that Scripps thought long and hard about the need to make an impact in the Search arena and concluded that Shopzilla was the way to go? Scripps must be thinking that if they want to be a powerhouse in media at the end of this century then they had better be "big" in the Internet space and thus the semi-ranch bet.

I also find the eBAY deal intriguing. eBAY is demonstrating a great strategy of building and buying a variety of vertical services associated with shopping. From auctions to payment transactions (via PayPal) and now vertical shopping information through the acquisition of Shopping.com, eBAY is showing that it will be a powerhouse in many ecommerce areas.

And let's take our hats off to AOL. AOL has been smacked around in the press for several years. They are fighting a holding action against the steady shrinkage of its paid subscriber base. But AOL is being creative and trying to reinvent itself with AOL.com. And at the same time it is busy making alliances with the likes of Yellowpages.com. I think AOL has a great chance to jack up revenues with AOL.com --- time will tell.

Google of course never sits still. Whether it is the roll out of new services or it stock price, Google has grabbed a huge mindshare position that will be tough to be beat no matter what services are rolled out by MSN, Yahoo or anyone else.