Yahoo has endured a downward spiral for quite a while now and it’s a combination of vacant leadership and a poor economy. Slimming down to survive is the company’s focus right now, and Yahoo has invented a creative severance package that requires recipients to stay in touch in case the people taking over old roles have questions.

It might sound easy: post a couple of videos on YouTube then sit back and relax as millions of hits roll in and cash from advertising skyrockets. That’s only half the story though because although video – in this case YouTube – is the latest online goldmine, it takes time and effort to establish a regular audience and generate the kind of cash it takes to make a living.

Mobile devices and green technology are two hot topics right now as consumers demand functionality on the go that doesn’t trash the environment. Hewlett Packard is embracing those trends by purchasing a new kind of laptop battery from Boston-Power that promises longer life and faster charging.

Mozilla Firefox began as a thorn in Microsoft’s side when Netscape finally bit the dust, and now Google Chrome is taking over the mantle as newest incumbent in the browser space. Both Google and Mozilla frequently appeal to early adopters and it will be interesting to see how loyalty shifts between the two progressive organizations. Speed is the name of the game right now, and Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are neck and neck according to SunSpider tests.

The timing is serendipitous. As an entire group of I Want Sandy refugees are searching for a replacement task management tool, Google launches a new labs feature for creating tasks in Gmail. It looks like the search giant is listening and wants to continue expanding Gmail as a nervous center for online productivity.

Facebook and Google seem to be ramming against each other more lately. Earlier this week the two battled over social network platforms and now Facebook has launched higher quality, embeddable videos. Both companies have a strong presence on the Web, it remains to be seen which will perform better at connecting people with their friends, information, and entertainment.

Facebook already has a great corner of the market when it comes to social networking, and so far there’s no sign of that progress slowing down. In fact, the company just took another step forward by unveiling its Facebook Connect application, which allows friends to interact with and keep track of each other while visiting other Web sites. Google isn’t laughing.

In a fundamental shift in its approach to aggregating news, Techmeme is putting human editors on the job. In particular, titles generated by computers don’t seem to be as compelling as those generated by humans. In a way it’s encouraging to find out that humans still relate the best to other humans – at least for now.

Mobile phones keep getting better by packing more functionality into a small form. But we’ve all come to expect that. The dangerous side? Not all of us choose the best time to use mobile phones, especially when accessing applications that require more eye contact. It’s an everyday occurrence, someone floating left or right, trying to drive in their lane with head tilted down and at least one hand pawing at a mobile phone.

Have you looked at a set of search page results lately where you couldn’t tell which links were sponsored and which were organic? If you’re a Baidu user, then you have. Baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google and it’s under fire from other Chinese companies for monopolistic policies, including the omission of many companies from its search index.

Once in a while, a new product or service comes along that fundamentally shifts how we live every day. All of us can use a well placed reminder note once in a while, and I Want Sandy did that with a uniquely humorous elegance. It was essentially a command line reminder service controlled through email, and in many ways it set the standard for a useful cloud powered Web applications. But sadly, on Dec. 8, 2008 I Want Sandy will go offline, but from those ashes an open source project is rising.

Mobilizing people through social networks online was a key component in Obama’s campaign for presidency and new ideas to do the same are constantly surfacing. Twitter is at the center of the social networking phenomenon and TweetsGiving took advantage of that popularity to raise over $10,000 in donations in 48 hours.

Tivo fanatics who travel a lot will love this feature because it makes managing your programming queue much more accessible. Previously Verizon customers could pay for a mobile Tivo application but this version is open to anyone with a decent browser installed on their phone.

Opera is well known for pushing out versions of its browser to a wide variety of platforms ranging from the Nintendo Wii to various mobile phone platforms. Google Android is no exception, Opera Mini just launched for the open source mobile operating system, and the load times are snappy as ever.

If any company were to have a chance of avoiding the chilling effects of the drooping economy, it would be Google. But sadly not even the king of search is safe from the flailing financial markets and volatile real estate markets. People are losing their jobs at Google, and the numbers aren’t small.

It looks like California is continuing to lead the way in the United States when it comes to embracing hybrid and electric vehicles. A company in Palo Alto is at the center, planning to invest $1 billion in building a network of charging stations for electric and hybrid vehicles. Could the smell of gasoline become a thing of the past?

Firefox symbolizes a lot about what’s good on the Web. It’s collaborative, infinitely adaptable with its extensive array of plugins, and largely influenced by community opinion. But what happens when another browser comes along like Google Chrome that adopts some of those same concepts but runs way faster and has Google’s powerful branding behind it?