By now you've read the stories about Yahoo being in talks with Microsoft. Together they might be able to stop the seemingly unstoppable Google (us old hands remember back to ye olde year 2000, when Microsoft had to be legally shackled because no software company could hope to catch it in the free market).

So far, the key winner has been Yahoo's often embattled share price, which rose 10% on Friday (Microsoft was down slightly).

The Wall Street Journal has published a chart (see homage below; all figures are in US dollars) which shows that apart, Yahoo and Microsoft seriously lag behind Google in online ad revenue. Together, they would pull level (though there's also the slight problem that Google makes tons of money, while Microsoft's online division lost a bunch of money last year).