ONLINE ARENA HEATING UP... YAHOO! FOCUSED ON CONTENT EXPANSION

Yahoo! hired former Wall Street Journal Online editor, Neil Budde, who I'm guessing will lead Yahoo's effort to produce proprietary financial news which will help create an advantage against MSN and AOL.

Other news has Dow Jones buying MarketWatch for $519 million:

Dow Jones will pay $18 per share in cash to acquire MarketWatch, the parent company of MarketWatch.com and a longtime leader in the online delivery of hard financial news, such as stock quotes and earnings reports. The sale price represents a premium of more than 7 percent over Friday's closing price. With some $56 million in cash on hand at MarketWatch factored in, the real value of the deal is closer to $448 million.

Founder and CEO Larry Kramer said having the backing of Dow Jones gives MarketWatch "a terrific platform to grow our business and compete with the largest media companies."

"This transaction supports our mission to be the market leader in licensed and advertising supported financial news and information," Kramer said in a statement announcing the deal.