I wasn't exactly the only one underwhelmed by the search ad agreement announced by Microsoft and Yahoo Wednesday. Yahoo shares have taken a beating, and the general perception -- fair or not -- is that the deal spells the beginning of the end for the company.

Enter Steve Ballmer, who is shocked -- shocked! -- at investors' and analysts' reactions to the long-awaited deal.  "Nobody gets it," the Microsoft CEO told financial analysts yesterday. "People haven't figured it out."

Now that it's finally happened, does anyone else feel like the search ad deal struck by Microsoft and Yahoo is a bit anticlimactic?

Not that there are any real surprises in the agreement announced this morning: Microsoft will provide Yahoo's search backbone, while Yahoo will be the heavy-lifter in sales. Bing will get a big boost in search volumes, while Yahoo gets a $500 million bump in operating income and some $200 million in cost-savings.

Can’t Microsoft and Yahoo get together already? After talking and talking and talking, Microsoft and Yahoo are reportedly on the verge of finally forging a search advertising alliance.

According to AllThingsDigital, top Microsoft execs are in Silicon Valley today, hammering out the final details, and a deal could be announced as early as next week.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is barely containing himself in a Reuter's article on how its new Bing search tool is binging Google, at least a litle bit, when it comes to U.S. users.

comScore, an organization that tracks Internet activity, released data yesterday that shows Bing is getting attention.