This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• Amid the Gloom, an E-Commerce War — Amazon and eBay are slugging it out for the hearts and minds of both merchants and consumers. The NY Times investigates the strategies behind both, leaving a strongly favorable impression of Amazon’s approach to long-term planning.
• Gmail: Stop sending mail you later regret — We’ve all heard of “drunk dialing” – a new tongue-in-cheek (but 100% real) Gmail feature keeps you from drunk emailing. Too funny!
• The Trouble With Using Product Integration to Write TV Shows — New York Magazine talks to a number of writers, including 30 Rock’s Tina Fey, about the increasing use of product placement.
• Why the Google-Yahoo ad deal is bad for the Web — From Slate: “Given Microsoft’s own sorry antitrust history, its promise to help the government fight the deal is something like Hannibal Lecter counseling the FBI on how to catch a serial killer. But if you worry that Google is taking over the world, it’s hard not to cheer for Steve Ballmer’s Lecter.”
• Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker’s Library — What happens when a nerd gets a lot of money and does something wonderful with it. Drool!
• Sequoia Capital CEOs meeting notes — A Silicon Valley venture capital heavyweight, Sequoia Capital, rounded up the CEOs of its companies and proceeded to scare the unholy bejeezus out of everybody. Get profitable NOW, they said in a presentation, because the coming economic storm is going to be difficult to weather.