Silicon Beat wonders if the tide of public opinion is turning against Google, and cites numerous examples of recent Google-bashing. Public opinion is difficult to measure, but I do believe that Yahoo! is scoring more quality cool points than Google these days. The company seems to be having more fun than Google. As noted here before, the Yahoo! search blog is in touch with the blogging spirit than Google's generally lame effort. While both companies have been innovating at a fierce pace, Google's developments seem to reflect an R&D team listening to its own inner muse, while Yahoo! conveys the impression of listening to the Internet.

Perhaps the shift in the power balance began when Yahoo! dropped Google searched results and struck out with its own search engine. But much more recently than that, a quick survey of Yahoo! additions and enhancements shows a progressive company on the move: The embrace of RSS in the My Yahoo! redesign; auto-detection of RSS in the Toolbar; the buzz over Yahoo! 360 (time will tell about that one); the Flickr purchase, the continuing and aggressive evolution of Yahoo! Desktop Search; Yahoo!'s trouncing of Google in the video search arena; the new Creative Commons Search.

To be fair, Yahoo! trails Google in many departments, not least in business services, where AdWords and AdSense grabbed the mantle of progressiveness away from Overture, the inventor of contextual search advertising. And Google's own recent innovations are far from uncool: Google Suggest, Google Print, Google Scholar, the customization of Google News. In the area of local search, which is hugely important, the integration of Google Local and Google Maps runs circles around Yahoo!.

Given Google's explosive emergence as a superpower, Yahoo! should get huge credit for responding so competitively. The sheer fact that the two companies are racing neck and neck toward the future is a tribute to Yahoo!'s resilience and responsiveness. For a big, relatively old company, Yahoo! is exhibiting a lot of young spirit and energy.