I wanted to let enough time to pass since Yahoo!’s search announcement with Google so that the (other) windbags had the chance to state the obvious. And then I figured that I’d weigh in with a point-of-view to look at the deal from a completely different angle.

I should start by saying that I’m not an expert in search algorithms, and that topic has the same effect on me as a warm glass of milk, a 37-slide PowerPoint presentation and the entire activity we know as golf. Okay, so that last one wasn’t warranted, but you get my point.

Anyway, I’ve been pitched just about every angle on Yahoo!’s inclusion of Google search ads amongst their paid search advertising options. And I have one word for you: AdSense.

Let me explain. Let’s suppose that you run a digital media company. Many people do this every day, so this should be relatively easy to imagine. And you have an online property that you wish to monetize through advertising. Again, relatively straight-forward and believable.

So you do the thing that each of your peers has chosen to do, and that is to select a couple of advertising networks to place advertising at different locations on your web page. Again, this is a common practice in digital media.

And one of those ad networks is Yahoo! and the other comes from Google. Again, no surprises here.

So what’s the rub? Isn’t it just fine to use multiple ad networks? Isn’t it acceptable to use multiple sales channels?

So what if it’s search? Couldn’t we make the same argument for a social network, webmail property, or anything else for that matter?

After all, how exclusive are these bits? And what are the barriers to entry?