UPDATE: And now it’s back. Thanks to Mash readers lubos, Philip, et al. for spotting the reboot!

Web video fans, we have some news to share, and you may not take it so kindly. YouTube is down. Yes, the copyright-infringing clips and the homages and assaults on the now infamous Miley Cyrus housed within Google’s all-powerful meme machine are evidently inaccessible.

You may panic.

First highlighted by Allen Stern at CenterNetworks, the outage seems to have stretched the globe, with reports from people spanning the US, the UK, Estonia, and places elsewhere. A few simple requests by yours truly for YouTube clips via Google Search this morning return links to unresponsive pages. (The Australian site is down too, by the way.)

Not good, not good. Maintenance gone wrong, is it? Who’s to say? Google’s not talking, neither on the company blog or, more specifically, on the official Youtube Blog. (Which is also down.) And heck, why would they? Only if this crash doesn’t get cleaned up in reasonably short order (what’s the metric for that, anyway?) will Sergey and Larry and Chad and Steve come out with a were-so-sorry and some sort of technological excuse. All we know is that YouTube devotees are likely none too happy with the cold-turkey cutoff.

Right now, it’s likely best to share some alternatives to the pixelated archives of GoogTube. Alright, alright, think, think. There’s Vimeo, Veoh, iTunes Podcasts. Yahoo Video is another. DailyMotion is a good choice. The Onion News Network, too. Those come immediately to mind. Give those a go.

Or you can put this Current TV clip of Mashable bossman Pete Cashmore on repeat. A great choice, actually, regardless of YouTube’s vital stats.

Let us know how your efforts to get into YouTube

Wall Street Journal reports that the preliminary testing of the Yahoo-switching-to-AdSense deal has gone well. The question is whether this deal is a real possibility (in a normal situation, without Microsoft bidding for Yahoo, it wouldn’t be: it’s probably an antitrust violation and it’s bad for Yahoo in the long run), or is it Yahoo trying desperately to pull out of the Microsoft deal by making them less attractive (because they gave their ad search business away to Google) and more expensive (because they will be earning more money, at least in the short term, with Google AdSense) at the same time.

The Wall Street Journal suggests another option: Yahoo could hook up with Google but later change their mind should Microsoft acquire them. This seems a bit naive to me, though. Deals like this have terms, and I doubt that Google would sign a deal which says that Yahoo can back down whenever they feel like it.

And let’s not forget that Microsoft can fight this one; when Yahoo announced they’re considering outsourcing their search ad business to Google, Microsoft has sent a stern letter saying that “Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands.” And if there’s something that Microsoft knows well, it’s antitrust violations.

However you look at it, a Microsoft-Yahoo deal still seems the best (although not necessarily a good) solution for the two companies. Unfortunately, this entire saga in which Yahoo is trying to make their grapes sour to Microsoft is starting to be like the Clinton-Obama rivalry - everyone just wishes one of them to back down so they can focus on the real issues.

Well, at least the totally silly AOL-Yahoo deal looks even less likely now.

According to a press release this morning, Yahoo has acquired Hungarian analytics company IndexTools for an undisclosed sum. IndexTools offers an analytics platform that gives online marketers detailed insight into the effectiveness of their web business. They boast a 98% customer retention rate, and constant growth since 2002. The deal with Yahoo will be completed in the first half of 2008.

Here’s a hint of what Yahoo plans to do with IndexTools: “the first group of customers to benefit from these enhanced tools will be more than 150,000 small-to-medium businesses marketing on the Web with Yahoo!. Additional capabilities enabling third-party developers to monitor and optimize the traffic performance of their applications are expected to follow throughout the year following the acquisition.“

Believe it all not, this time the title really says it all. Reuters reports that Yahoo plans to send a letter to Microsoft on Monday, in which they’ll state they’re not opposed to a deal with Microsoft per se, but they think their company is worth more than the $31 per share which is what Microsoft is offering them.

They also plan to “reject Microsoft’s suggestion that its business is deteriorating,” but let’s wait for the actual letter to appear, shall we? What seemed like the most exciting tech story of the year is now turning into a snoozefest.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer spent some quality time with his negotiations team over the past few hours and considered the actions of Yahoo concerning the $44.6 billion bid issued publicly back in February, and has come to a conclusion: enough is enough. Redmond has now made it clear in a letter published today that the Yahoo board has three weeks to come to some sort of agreement.

What Ballmer wants to do between now and then is sit down, have a nice, super-serious chat about Microsoft and Yahoo’s desires going forward. Ballmer wants to make some impression of cordiality. If he can do things civil, he wants civil. Yet he makes evident that if the two parties are not to come to a “definitive agreement,” Microsoft “will be compelled to take (its) case directly to (Yahoo’s) shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo board.” Ballmer goes on to press Yahoo’s feet to the proverbial fire saying:

“The substantial premium in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.”

What does this pressure push amount to? Is Ballmer implying that, if the Yahoo board continues to barrage itself against a deal as requested by Microsoft originally, and Yahoo’s market value diminishes further as a result of such opposition, that the software giant of the north will partly or entirely cut its offer for the Sunnyvale-based company, as Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget has optioned? One may well intuit such an ultimatum from the letter. Ballmer’s phrasing is strong enough yet still vague (which is to be expected, given the present state of the attempted buyout) to imply that all options are on the table, including a complete revocation of the original bid.

A response from Yahoo has not yet been delivered, but it would be sensible to predict one to come in the next few days. Of course, one can surely count on Yahoo’s volley to be equally generic in language. At least we now know when the clock for direct talks stops. (Granted, that assumes that Microsoft will keep precisely to alloted timeframe. We can only wait to see whether that challenge is a definite one.)