Yesterday, the day after after Google aired its first national commercial on the Super Bowl, an exec at a rival Internet company marveled at what high favorable scores the “Parisian Love” advertisement got, adding that the possibilities for spoofs were endless.

“I have a feeling that making fun of it will probably be a good thing for Google,” sighed the exec, who would dearly like such attention.

And, indeed, it did not take two seconds before the takeoffs on the ad–an unusually sentimental, but effective, ongoing story about love in Paris, using only Google’s iconic search box–appeared.

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Redpoint Ventures announced that it had closed a new $400 million fund to invest in early-stage start-ups in the “social and mobile Internet, cloud computing and clean technology spaces.”

Is the closing a sign that things are looking up for the venture business after one of the toughest years in a dozen, with the amount VCs made in 2009 dropping 37 percent, according to a recent report?

Who knows–but here’s the skinny on the Redpoint IV fund.

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Today, BoomTown motored down to the Sunnyvale HQ of Yahoo, this time with a tiny bit of trepidation.

Okay, not that much, but some!

Why? Because CEO Carol Bartz had invited me to be the first in a new speaker series for employees at the Internet giant, called “Yahoo from the ‘Outside In,’” due to my intense–some might say obsessive–interest in the company.

The twist: Bartz herself conducted the interview with me in front of about 600 Yahoos gathered in its URL’s Cafe, the main cafeteria at the company.

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Next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is likely to unveil Windows Mobile 7, the new version of its mobile operating system, trying to create some excitement around its foundering mobile strategy.

“Foundering” is probably kind, given the innovative strides both Google and Apple have made in the smartphone arena in recent years by comparison.

So is a new mobile OS–along with “Project Pink,” to create a new Microsoft-made device–going to cut it? Or should the tech giant buy its way back into the game?

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AOL has taken another step closer to selling off its ICQ instant messaging service, culling seven bids to four “serious” ones, said sources close to the situation.

The price for the service is hovering just under $200 million, several sources said, with one bid 15 to 20 percent higher.

Sources said that the solicitation of bids is now over, with the four remaining described by one source as a “U.N. of buyers.”

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The snake finally ate its own tail in the long-running NBC debacle over its mishandling of the network’s late-night switcheroo, with a Super Bowl promotion for David Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS (CBS) last night.

Starring Letterman, daytime talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and–big reveal–Jay Leno, it was a touchdown for Dave.

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Here are two quotes that got me thinking about what would happen if Facebook–whose user base is inexorably marching toward 400 million–ever got serious about the news aggregation business.

While it is not doing that now in any organized fashion, it will be increasingly obvious that consumers are inevitably moving away from the only-search paradigm to that of discovery through social and other jacked-up affiliation networks.

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Earlier this week, the reliably erudite PBS public affairs program, “Frontline,” aired a documentary called “Digital Nation.”

The show’s team races hither and yon interviewing a pile of smart folks–most of whom, thankfully, are not from Silicon Valley–to uncover what’s up with this Internet thing, which the kids seem to love.

This egads-no-one-knows-where-this-geekery-is-taking-us worrywartness is probably appropriate, and though nothing new, is well told.

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Here is a terrific video by singer Caitlin Crosby, which seems to start as a marketing tool for her most recent album and single, “Flawz.”

Instead, her rallying cry of “Embrace Your Flawz,” aimed at a wide range of people, especially young girls, makes for a most effective online message, made up of messages from fans and celebrities.

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If you feel the need to dig deep into AOL’s business, as outlined today by its fourth-quarter results, here is the full skinny, including its official press release, its financial slides and something called a trending schedule.

Please feel free to wallow in the data at your leisure.

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BoomTown liveblogged the AOL conference call, the first since it spun off from Time Warner.

Earlier this morning, AOL reported its fourth-quarter results, whichN beat very, very low Wall Street expectations.

And essentially, it was all about turning the Internet icon around. Bottom line: Still turning, but the lid is super-duper tight, folks!

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It will be like they never left the Googleplex in Silicon Valley if this Washington, D.C., invasion of execs from the search giant keeps up.

The fourth new geek in town is Sumit Agarwal, who was head of Google’s mobile product management and has become the deputy assistant secretary of defense for outreach and social media in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

It’s interesting to see so many key appointments in the tech arena going to one company, especially one so immersed now in national and international policy issues.

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Yammer, the enterprise equivalent of Twitter, said it had grabbed another $10 million in financing, after raising $5 million a year ago.

But the question for the San Francisco-based microblogging service for businesses and closed groups is: “What are you working on?”

Emergence Capital took the lead in the Series B round for Yammer, along with ubiquitous Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway and previous investors.

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Every year on Groundhog Day, my friends–such as Liz and Treby, from when I was but a wee BoomTown (well, I am still wee)–call me with holiday greetings.

Why? Because freakish child that I was, I actually threw an annual Groundhog Day fest at school, complete with a cake–I used a rabbit-shaped pan, cut off its ears and added slivered almonds as teeth.

So, as I take off to bake another cake with the kids–passing on a noble tradition–here are some videos to enjoy.

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Longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig is stepping down as president and CEO of the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard to take a new job as CEO of Chegg, the top online textbook rental start-up.

The move is unexpected given that the former Yahoo COO landed the job running the top gaming franchise in March of last year.

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