BoomTown was intrigued when Mind-Your-Own Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter, penned a blog post yesterday about the microblogging service changing its prompting question.

Now, above the little Twitter box, it reads, “What’s Happening?” and not the original tweet query, “What are you doing?”

While the blogosphere covered this as if it were a moment of monumental meaning, most were ignorant that the true beacon of innovative What’s-Happeningness does not reside in Silicon Valley.

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BoomTown has learned that AOL is offering those who “volunteer” to leave the company now a departure package that ranges from three to nine months of pay, compared to one to four months for employees laid off in the first quarter of next year.

It’s a depressing rock-and-a-hard-place choice.

An AOL spokesperson confirmed the offer, which is part of a massive layoff of 2,500 of its 6,000-person workforce.

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Greg Nelson, who has had the thankless job of running MSN for Microsoft, has left that position and been given the even more thankless task of running the integration of the complex search and online advertising partnership struck by the software giant and Yahoo.

Nelson’s counterpart at Yahoo, according to sources, will be Mark Morrissey, who is currently SVP of Products at the Internet giant.

The pair–pictured above, with Morrissey on left, Nelson on right–will have their hands full in what will ultimately be a two-year effort.

BoomTown’s title for the relationship: A Couple of White Geek Guys Sitting Around Arguing!

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Yesterday, BoomTown wrote about AOL’s efforts–including hiring investment bankers–to sell its ICQ instant-messaging unit.

But that’s probably not going to be the end of the shedding of assets at the online site.

In fact, according to sources inside and outside AOL, one of the next candidates for sale could be its MapQuest online map service.

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Earlier today, BoomTown reported that Yahoo was poised to name a few new top execs at its Silicon Valley HQ.

But the company has also hired a new director of public affairs in the nation’s capital–Amber Allman of 463 Communications.

With a spate of regulatory issues coming up around its pending search and online advertising deal with Microsoft, Yahoo will need all the help it can get.

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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is making the most substantive changes in her exec ranks since she did a massive restructuring of its staff in late February, according to sources close to the situation.

“She is continuing to clean the place up,” said one top exec about the moves, which are likely to be announced internally tomorrow.

Will these changes also extend to Yahoo’s board?

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AOL has hired a pair of New York investment bankers, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co., to manage the sale of its ICQ instant-messaging unit.

Sources familiar with the situation said interest in buying the asset from two major non-U.S. companies prompted execs at the online service to put a process in place for a deal that will likely occur after AOL becomes an independent company in December.

AOL bought ICQ in 1998 for about $400 million–$287 million outright and $125 million in earnouts for the team.

Sources said AOL to looking to recoup $300 million.

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While in Washington, D.C., BoomTown can’t just visit the policy wonks from Internet companies, so I paid a visit to Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that works to promote privacy and protection online.

In other words, a professional–and much needed–thorn in the side of Facebook, Google and these days, MicroHoo.

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Yahoo and Microsoft are poised to finally sign the definitive agreement that will govern the complex and far-reaching search and online advertising partnership they struck in late July, said sources close to the situation.

If all goes well, the various Microsoft and Yahoo execs–who have been ferreted away over the last weeks, busy dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s in the massive document–could even turn in the delayed deal homework to their bosses for signature by the end of the week.

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Hollywood director James Cameron is well known for his heavy use of special effects and techtastic techniques in his movies, which include “Titanic,” “Aliens” and the first–and best–two “Terminator” blockbusters.

In a few weeks, Cameron is hoping to hit geek gold again with a 3-D sci-fi juggernaut called “Avatar,” which is about an indigenous blue-colored tribe and their inevitable greedy enemies.

Thus, cue the Smurfs!

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Yesterday, BoomTown paid a visit to the Washington, D.C., office of Facebook to meet its reps in the nation’s capital.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the social networking site has a very small staff–for now, just a trio of on-the-young-side dudes–battening down the hatches from a funky office in a funky section of D.C., Dupont Circle, far from the tonier and lobbyist-rich K Street corridor.

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Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is certainly giving her Facebook fan page a workout this week, as she nears one million fans.

Using the site to flack her new book, “Going Rogue,” which comes out officially today, it got a big boost from her interview today with Oprah Winfrey, clocking in at close to 995,000 fans last night.

In comparison, her Twitter page was as empty of followers as the great outdoors.

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AOL will officially be spun off from Time Warner on Dec. 9, with trading to begin the next day.

Shareholders of record at 5 pm ET on Nov. 27 will get one share of AOL for every 11 shares of Time Warner on the day of the long-expected spinoff of the Internet service.

AOL will trade on the New York Stock Exchange as “AOL,” just like the old days. Unlike the old days: Time Warner has given the company an implied valuation of a little more than $3 billion.

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When in San Diego recently, BoomTown paid a visit to Qualcomm and its Chairman and CEO, Paul Jacobs, to talk about a new “smartbook” device the wireless-technology company unveiled last week, but that won’t make its debut until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

There, Jacobs will show off what is essentially a combination of a smartphone and a netbook.

Obviously, it’s going to be a competitive market and, really, Apple, with its upcoming tablet computer, is also pushing into this mobile-phone-that-ate-computers space.

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Last week, New Yorker writer Ken Auletta launched his new book on the search giant: “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.”

But one final chapter was actually cut from the book, which Auletta posted this past weekend on his Web site. It’s made up of 25 media maxims by Auletta.

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