Yahoo's been busy in Nebraska.  This week, the company announced the opening of both a data center and a call center in the state, and apparently the celebration was a big deal, with Jerry Yang and several high(-ish) ranking politicians all showing up.

Indeed, according to a post on Yodel Anecdotal, Jerry Yang, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, La Vista Mayor Douglas Kindig, Attorney General Jon Bruning, and Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry made appearances.  That's not a bad turnout.

As for some more substantial details relating to development, the data center is located in 180,000-square foot building, and the building is located in a small city called La Vista (hence Kindig's involvement).  It's expected to employ about 50 people, and without giving away any trade secrets, Yahoo's implied that the data center's rather "green," environmentally speaking.

Not as much is known about the sales and customer support call center - it presumably took less time and money to set up, thereby attracting less attention - but it's located in Omaha, and should help a few people earn paychecks, too.

One possible interpretation of all this activity is that Yahoo's very optimistic about its future even as Microsoft's stepping in to influence the search and advertising side of things.