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"The Yahoo-Facebook discussions are still in progress, but it doesn't look like they'll be closing the deal as fast as Google and YouTube.  According to the WSJ, an acquisition isn't imminent unless Yahoo increases its $1 billion offer or a changing business environment makes Facebook keen to sell - once again, Yahoo ends up looking indecisive compared to the lightning quick Google-YouTube agreement.  In fact, Yahoo has been talking to Facebook for most of the year, and a deal was almost reached back in July.  Yahoo also showed interest in YouTube but missed out, while delays in upgrading its ad systems and slow growth in ad sales have hit the company's stock price.  But Facebook isn't considering any other offers at the moment, says the WSJ, so rumors of a Google-Facebook deal might be baseless.  \nGood Deal for Facebook?\nMost of the talk recently has been around whether Facebook would be a good buy for Yahoo - but a more interesting question is whether Facebook's value will increase if they hold out.  The Facebook folks say their business has picked up recently - presumably that's got more to do with opening up the site than the less-welcome Facebook news feed, although that too could have increased the number of pageviews.  However, ComScore's latest stats actually show that Facebook's U.S. visitors were down in September - 13.3 million U.S. visitors in that month, compared to 14.8 million in August.  Bear in mind, however, that they only opened up near the end of the month, and stat companies don't always agree.  By opening up, Facebook is increasing its growth potential, while risking the ire of its core users.  Since there's really no strong Facebook alternative, however, that's probably a risk worth taking - hold on a few more weeks, and the valuations could be even crazier.\n\nFounder Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2006/10/11/yahoo-facebook/>