I'm in Vegas right now, so allow me a poker metaphor as I consider the whole Yahoo/MSFT IM and Google/Comcast/AOL thing. The more I think about this, the more I believe that these two deals are linked, intentionally or not. In my last post about Yahoo and MSFT interoperating around IM, I suggested this is a reaction to Google Talk. Kind readers jumped all over me. You were right to do so, as I did not explain myself very clearly. What I really should have said is, it's a reaction to the potential for Google to interoperate its IM client (Google Talk) with, oh, say, AOL's (AIM). It's a battle in a larger war for AOL, and for overall market share. If you stare at how the battle lines might be drawn up here, the Google/AOL partnership discussions demonstrate that Google is actually starting to play poker in a calculated, strategic fashion, much as its peers in the media world have been for years. Google is at the table now, and like everyone else, it's eyeing the flop....and the flop, folks, is AOL. IM and VOIP are critical applications to all players at this table, right? If Google struck a deal with AOL, they could defend their fledgling toehold in IM, and extend it to one of the largest installed bases in the world. What else is critical to Google right now? Access to traffic of good intent (ie, search traffic and good content traffic). AOL has both, and could help Google defend currently owned search turf, as well as grow its share of this critical revenue/profit driver. What else? Google must find new users to whom it can distribute the all important Google Toolbar/Sidebar/Destop Search et al - Google knows it has to get into deeper relationships with...

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