Longtime Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.

As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending, although it seems more frantic than ever of late.

In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference, and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

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Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, the personal genetics start-up, will be leaving to start a foundation related to Alzheimer’s disease.

With Anne Wojcicki, she founded the high-profile company–whose Series A investors include Genentech, Google, and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin–in 2006.

Avey noted in an email to staff, which is posted in its entirety below: “I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.”

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BoomTown is wearing all-black today, in profound mourning for the prospect of no Paula Abdul on “American Idol” next season.

“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return,” tweeted Abdul yesterday, bidding goodbye, natch, on Twitter.

Here is a cool video look at her and co-judge Simon Cowell and one of her appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference. (I kid you not!)

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Last week, after much delay, longtime Internet exec Julius Genachowski was confirmed by the Senate as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

It is an important role for the future development of the Web, of course, although it took a dog’s age into the new Democratic administration to approve him.

Hopefully, he and the other commissioners can soon get to work on a wide range of major digital issues, such as a national broadband plan that does not cost Americans a fortune.

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San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien made a lot of humorous hay at the expense of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz yesterday, in a joke piece called: “Bartz Unveils New &*%! Strategy for Yahoo.”

O’Brien cleverly created a fictional transcript of a Yahoo staff meeting where Bartz–by now, well-known for her salty language–lets loose in an address about just how sick she was of competitors getting all the good press: “So we’re re-branding the company around excessive use of profanity. Our new marketing slogan will be, ‘Yahoo, (expletive) yeah!’”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Oh, Scooby-Don’t…

You could not be more wrong in your post last week–titled, “Why Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are wrong about naming Web 3.0 ‘Web 3.0′”–about Walt and I being wrong about naming Web 3.0 “Web 3.0″ in an essay we posted at the start of our D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week.

I know writing “Kara Swisher,” “Walt Mossberg” and “Wrong” is well-nigh irresistible, but your solution of calling the digital era we are in the “2010 Web” is equally confusing and incorrect.

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If BoomTown were to hazard a guess, I would assume Yahoo would, if it could–in the end–sell itself off to Microsoft.

It’s just my opinion, of course, but it would still be the best-case scenario for the company, over either a more limited commercial advertising and search partnership with the software giant or, of course, going it alone.

That’s because, in 2009, it is still hard to answer the simple question: What is Yahoo?

That’s the one that stumped former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang onstage at our sixth D: All Things Digital conference last year and will be the key query that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will need to answer when she takes the stage Wednesday morning at D7.

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Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will take over as CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s powerful Guitar Hero franchise, according to sources close to the situation.

Rosensweig will run the hot gaming company’s division, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick.

The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds, high prices and the opening of networks.

This is the third of three parts.

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Time Inc., the largest magazine company in the world, is laying off hundreds and reorganizing itself drastically, due to tough economic conditions, especially in advertising, as well as the more inexorable diminishing of its business as readers move to the Web.

Time Inc. Chairman and CEO Ann Moore penned the email memo to employees tonight. She tried to tout gains in its digital business–part of the reason for the reorg is to move more of its content to Web platforms–noting 26 million people visit its Time Inc. sites monthly. Not good enough it seems.

Here’s the memo.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds, high prices and the opening of networks.

This is the second of three parts.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds and high prices.

This is the first of three parts.

Read More »

Next week in Los Angeles, Microsoft will kick off its Professional Developers Conference, a place the software giant likes to unveil all kind of news in a big launchtastic flourish.

For all the noise, it’s worth paying attention, because Monday’s outlook will be cloudy, as in cloud computing.

The day will include a speech from Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, and others on, among other topics, its cloud infrastructure service initiatives–designed to match aggressive efforts from Amazon in the space.

But who knows what else is up Microsoft’s sleeve?

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Barry Diller, the always clever chairman and CEO of IAC, the Internet conglomerate whose holdings include Ask.com, Match.com and many others.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media over the last year, Diller finally broke apart IAC six weeks ago. His reason: The company had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

This is part three of three parts.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Barry Diller, the always clever chairman and CEO of IAC, the Internet conglomerate whose holdings include Ask.com, Match.com and many others.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media over the last year, Diller finally broke apart IAC six weeks ago. His reason: The company had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

This is part two of three parts.

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