Consolidation war, MSN, Yahoo and Google

Many movements are witnessed in the online space of marketing and advertising of late. The big search engines have moved in all directions.

Google has become a social media publisher in buying YouTube and a major player in the metrics and management of display and other online advertising when purchasing DoubleClick. This in combination with the past purchase of Urchin (Google Analytics) for web metrics and visitor analysis. A fairly multiple role for a:
- search engine
- online marketing agency
- web publisher
- web analytics provider
- video sharing site
- news aggregator
- email provider
- free blog service
- calendar management
- publisher network
- local directory
- software provider (picassa)
- offline advertising (radio)

On the other hand Microsoft is not lacking width in terms of forms and services. Recent aquisition of aQuantive means that the software giant also has a multiple personallity:
- software provider
- search engines
- web publisher
- web metrics provider
- ad display platform
- online marketing services
- email provider
- business directory
- peer to peer (MSN)
- blog service (ad funded)
- hardware maker

Yahoo is not lacking behind with various properties that make it amongst others:
- search engine
- email provider
- peer to peer (Yahoo Messenger)
- social media (delicious, flickr)
- price comparison site (kelkoo)
- news aggregator
- business directory

We can only wait and see where the battle takes us. No doubt that there is more consolidation to come and many entertain the thought of a merger between Yahoo and MSN, something that will bi-polarise Google's current monopoly. What do you think?