Last week, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to join forces after years of rumors, back-and-forth brokering, and debate in the Internet industry. And just the week before, another big online force, Amazon, bought successful online shoe retailer Zappos. Do these deals mean the weak economy could be a good time for mergers and acquisitions?

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show spoke with Web guru and Mahalo search engine founder Jason Calacanis today for his take on the Yahoo/Microsoft deal.

“I think this is a disaster for Yahoo and their shareholders…search is just an awesome business in terms of revenue and profitability… it’s the greatest advertising medium ever created…The big irony of it was, yahoo gave their search business to Google.”

PBS blog Mediashift asks for your opinion on the new Microsoft search engine Bing and gives a roundup of sources analyzing the Yahoo deal. And Marketplace looked at the details of who gets what out of the search agreement.

Last year, Nightly Business Report discussed the likelihood of mergers and acquisitions in recession eras.

Linda Gridley, CEO of Grindley & Co. said in an interview:

“You are seeing a big land grab for strategic maneuvering and positioning and market share building in that market environment. And companies have strong stock prices. They’ve got lots of cash and so they’ve got the money to be able to spend.”

Are more big deals from Silicon Valley to Wall Street in the works as the economic climate falters?