Microsoft made a bid for Yahoo last Friday. This move should prove beneficial for Yahoo if it can escape from the clutches of the Redmond behemoth. Yahoo has been wandering for a few years now, and it really needs to focus and execute again. Hopefully, this will accelerate their turn-around plans.

Yahoo used to be my #1 destination for news, e-mail and maps. Now, Google and Yahoo divide my attention equally for news and e-mail, and Google has completely taken over for maps. For me, the turning point for maps was Google’s introduction of draggable maps. That was when I switched over to using Google exclusively, even though Yahoo now offers something similar.

I still prefer My Yahoo over iGoogle, though it took me forever to switch over to the My Yahoo beta. I kept switching back-and-forth between the classic My Yahoo and the My Yahoo beta for the longest time. I simply didn’t feel that the beta was an improvement, hence the back-and-forth.

As bad as Yahoo is struggling right now, I think Microsoft is faring even worse. I still keep a hotmail account, but I really don’t check it all that often. I don’t visit any of Microsoft’s online properties, and I don’t know anyone else that does. If Microsoft took over Yahoo and imposed their kludginess on Yahoo, I might have to switch to Google exclusively.