Yet another goofy Silicon Valley name did not prevent Asana–the productivity software start-up founded by former Facebookers Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein–from nabbing $9 million in funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

The round, which was announced today, will be used to turbocharge Asana and its small team, who are aiming at the very dull and unexciting but very large and problematic workplace collaboration and communications market.

In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga–so presumably, Moskovitz and Rosenstein are trying to help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana.

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It’s well known that Google doesn’t do much in the way of marketing around its search service.

So, then, what is one to make of a half-dozen videos–called “Search Stories,” which look suspiciously like commercials, starring the company’s many products–that Google introduced late last week on its blog and posted on a new channel on YouTube?

Could it be that the $100 million marketing campaign that Microsoft launched for its Bing search service, which seems to be slowly gaining share, is starting to get on the nerves of those Spocks in Silicon Valley?

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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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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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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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So, BoomTown–who cannot be unplugged from the matrix for very long without breaking into a cold sweat–was pretty excited to have free Wi-Fi on my Virgin America flight to Washington, D.C., early this morning.

Lots of Web companies are footing the bill for people to use wireless for free, in an attempt to boost use and, of course, their brand.

While that should be a given in this country, I won’t look a digital gift horse in the mouth.

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Oh dear, just a single week away and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every gossip site on the Web is aflame in expectation of the second installment of the young-vampires-in-lust movie series, “Twilight: New Moon.”

As pictures of its are-they-or-aren’t-they-holding-hands (um, they are) stars, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, rocketed around the Web last week, prepare for an online and offline outpouring of teenage swooning over the whole overwrought love story, which is set to debut just after midnight on Nov. 20.

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It certainly is good to see Microsoft working the innovation thing, especially in the consumer space with its Bing search service.

The ultimate goal is to gain market share for Bing, from striking deals with hotter companies like Twitter and Facebook to doing a massive advertising and marketing campaign to making constant feature upgrades.

This is one of those weeks for Bing, with the launch of a spate of new features that show a lot of chutzpah.

But whether all this will spell significant changes in market share compared to dominant rival Google is still an open question.

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Who said the venture capital industry is sucking wind lately?

Well, it is–but not today and, especially, not Accel Partners, which sold two of its portfolio start-ups to large public companies for a total of $1.5 billion.

That would be the sale of AdMob to search behemoth Google for $750 million in stock, and the acquisition of Playfish by gaming giant Electronic Arts for about $300 million.

While Accel is not getting all that dough, it’s not a bad haul for the day.

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The new MSN homepage debuts tonight and you would be completely correct in thinking the recipe Microsoft has cooked up to inform its design ethos–white, clean and hiply modern–has definite echoes of a certain longtime tech rival.

That would be Apple, of course, with a big dollop of Twitter and Facebook tossed in, and finished off with a generous sprinkling of Microsoft’s new Bing search service.

For those who care: The MSN butterfly logo remains, although it appears to have lost a lot of weight.

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BoomTown is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant–this time by eBay.

With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the print, television and online marketing campaign starts today to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”

Interestingly, the ads have been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.

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Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California’s Women’s Conference titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.

The panelists included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Here are video interviews I did with each of them.

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Microsoft’s MSN is in preliminary talks with MySpace about using the social networking site’s music service, MySpace Music, to power music offerings on the giant portal.

While sources at both companies cautioned that the talks are still early, Microsoft–which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content–execs are interested in goosing its offering.

That’s because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.

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