Hold Your Excitement on Yahoo!

But it's hard for a flower to grow in a pot that's falling from the penthouse window.

And that flower pot is Yahoo!. Not only has the corporate structure been an unsightly shambles that spilled into public view when an executive tried to stage a coup with a rambling memo, but Yahoo! has committed the cardinal sin of commerce: It left money on the table.

It's well known that Yahoo's current search technology has cost it market share, but it has also cost it potential revenue. Page views rose 22% in the fourth quarter, but that was offset by a 3% decline in revenue per page, CFO Susan Decker said. That left search revenue growth "in the high single digits."

Why the drop? According to Decker, it was a "decline in revenue per query in search, which is likely until Panama is fully operational."

In other words, Yahoo!'s delay in rolling out Panama, a technology that can compete with Google's AdWords, is the financial equivalent of Google stuffing millions of dollars into trash bags and tossing them out car windows -- except that it caused fewer traffic jams.

That explains all the excitement surrounding the company's announcement that Panama would be operational ahead of schedule. But it's too late now to get excited about Panama. That moment came nearly two years ago, when it was clear to everyone, including Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel, that Google had surpassed Yahoo! in search, but well before people began to declare Google the winner of the search battle.