Yahoo! Inc. is on the verge of eliminating 650 jobs, meaning 5 percent of its workforce, an action which continues what CEO Carol Bartz has started in 2009, reports Bloomberg. Last year, after the coming of Carol Bartz, a series of dismissals was brought about, along with the shutting down of under-performing websites.

Yahoo’s position on the stock exchange reveals a fall of 1 percent, dropping to $ 16.69.  Carol Bartz has acknowledged the increasing power of its main competitor, Facebook, Google not playing a negligible role either.  The main strategy of Yahoo! is to incorporate smaller companies, bringing new customers, and generally following Google’s business model. A realistic example is the prospective partnership between Yahoo! and Zynga, recently materialized in the availability of  Mafia Wars ad FishVille on Yahoo websites.

At the moment, Yahoo is still in the process of rebranding itself.  So far this has included a number of partnerships with other networks, namely Zynga, Google and AOL. The latest deal between Yahoo! and Zynga brought about the launching of CityVille, a game that was supposed to be launched earlier, but the release was postponed in part due to the focus of Zynga on Facebook’s platform.

Among other improved features aimed at refreshing Yahoo! we have an improved version of its Sketch-a-Search function, a limited trail of its Local Offers program involving among others Groupon and GiltCity and a new social-network integrated Yahoo Messenger.