In case you missed it, Seattle’s premier gaming expo was ground zero for an outbreak of swine flu (or what Wired is calling H1Nerd1).

Penny Arcade, the organization that hosts the event, has a list of outgoing flights that had passengers with confirmed cases of the flu.

In addition, the University of Washington just issued an e-mail that two probable cases of H1N1 have been reported to the campus health center, originating from a particular sorority house. The University will be monitoring the flu outbreaks on campus, but officials are encouraging students and staff to take necessary precautions.

And since this flu is hitting everyone from gamers to sorority girls, be sure to wash your hands, stay home if you’re sick, and keep up to date with new info on the swine flu from King County.

Yahoo! and Microsoft jointly announced today that they have signed an agreement to work together. Microsoft will power Yahoo! searching and Yahoo! will become the exclusive international advertising sales force for both companies. Yahoo! will continue doing what it does best, enhanced now by having Microsoft’s resources behind it. Per Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz, advertisers will appreciate the benefits of working with a single platform and sales group. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that the deal benefits Microsoft by helping to attract more users and advertisers, leading to more relevant ads and search results.

Both companies hope that joining forces will allow them to knock out a larger portion of the market; currently Microsoft and Yahoo! combined handle less than 30 percent of web searches in the US and 11 percent globally. The 500 pound gorilla of the industry, Google, handles 65 percent of US searches and 67 percent everywhere else.

Perhaps taking a cue from the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Seattle DOT has a Twitter account and a Facebook page. Where the two seem to differ (at least on the surface) is that the WSDOT follows all of their followers back in order to provide real time traffic updates and incident reports via direct message.

The Seattle Department of Transportation’s website doesn’t work well in Google Chrome, but it plays well with IE and Firefox.

What do you think about your city and state departments going all social these days?

Casual Connect is the industry’s educational component, offering a variety of newsletters related to casual gaming as well as hosting a yearly conference series in Kiyv (Kiev), Europe and here in Seattle. The next Seattle conference takes place this month, July 21 – 23. Industry professionals will come from all over the world to Benaroya Hall to network and learn from each other, as well as introduce new games, new technology and new opportunities.

Seattle makes a great meeting point for the casual games industry since we have so many local game producers, companies like Big Fish, PopCap, Real Games and more, not to mention all the companies that make the software and hardware that make it possible to create games in the first place.

Condrences at Casual Connect Seattle this year include “Working in audio for the games industry: Freelance vs In-House/Staff”, “Designing, Balancing, and Managing Virtual Economies”, and “What Women Really Want”.

If you’re a game designer or developer, it’s really worth your while to check out this conference, see the Casual Connect site for details on attending.

If you follow them on Twitter, they’ll follow you right back. But why? Do they really care that I’m about to down my 4th cup of coffee, or wonder what you’re making for dinner tonight? Well, probably not. However there is one key reason why they always follow back. Once they follow you, they can send you direct messages.

Now I hear the groans now. “I don’t need any more spam!” But these messages are absolutely not spam. In fact, they’re only sent when you request them and they are sent for great reasons. You can send the WSDOT a direct message via Twitter and they’ll send back pass information or border wait times.

How does it work?

Just send them a direct message via your favorite twitter client or SMS. Include the pass code, and they’ll send you a direct message right back with status information. The same format applies for border crossings. A direct message of border 5 will give you the wait time at the Canadian border at I-5.