Yahoo and Microsoft would both like to be doing as well as Google, but neither is all that interested in cutting a deal with AOL, which is beginning to look like the internet's version of a safety school.

As talks between Microsoft and Yahoo continue to devolve, word came yesterday that both parties may find themselves competing for AOL. But that eventuality -- though still possible -- is likely premature, according to a report in The New York Times.

While Time Warner executives continue to talk to both Microsoft and Yahoo about shopping AOL, the likelihood of a deal happening before Aug. 1 is nil, according to Richard Greenfield, an analyst who covers Time Warner for Pali Capital. The problem is that Aug. 1 is the date of Yahoo's much-delayed annual shareholder meeting, where activist investor Carl Icahn is set to see if he can win his proxy battle for control of the company.

But Yahoo's internal turmoil may not be the only thing holding up a possible deal with AOL. For all the talk this time around, Time Warner has been down this road many times before with AOL, which is hardly an attractive buy. Despite owning huge swaths of the web, AOL's brand isn't worth what it used to be. Consumers see the AOL name as emblematic of an older, more closed-off internet, and AOL is so reluctant to use its name that it has opted to brand new sites with unrelated names.