All Things Digital

So, no surprise, according to multiple sources I talked to yesterday, the roadshow by top Yahoo execs–CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker and CFO Blake Jorgensen–to tout the new growth plan the company unveiled last week was not such a hit with shareholders.

While the group met with polite audiences, most investors I talked to were unenthusiastic about the plan and dubious that Yahoo’s blue-sky hopes would come through. “I think we wanted to give Jerry a hearing, but mostly to save face,” said one investor, in a sentiment that was typical.

What Yahoo (YHOO) was selling, of course, has been a plea for time from shareholders and a way to signal Microsoft (MSFT)–which made an unsolicited bid for the company in the beginning of February–that a price rise was needed to complete the deal. In addition, so far, no alternative offers have panned out.

Thus, last week, Yahoo released information about its future prognosis, saying there would be no surprises for 2008 off guidance, strong gains in revenue and cash flow for 2009 and 2010 and a resulting share price closer to $40, $9 above the original $31 a share–the cash-and-stock offer is actually now worth about $29.50–offered by Microsoft. (See chart.)

Interesting, Microsoft has been unusually silent on Yahoo’s growth predictions, which to me signals: Unimpressed, not inclined to raise its price and increasingly bored waiting for the inevitable call to negotiate.

But that call, I think, will now have to happen–even though I would bet my precious “Beverly Hills 90210″ pilot episode DVD (seen here!) that Microsoft’s Morgan Stanley (MS) bankers and Yahoo’s Goldman Sachs (GS) bankers have been secretly communicating for a while now.

(Morgan to Goldman: “Ignore what the left hand is doing–it will stop gesticulating wildly soon and we can begin bargaining and collect our big fat fees!”)

So do others: “I now give it 14 days,” said one person who has experience in merger back-and-forth Kabuki dances. “There are no more moves to delay this, although you have to give Yahoo credit for its efforts.”

Extra credit even! But is that all there is?

Some at Yahoo do not agree. One person close to the company noted that Yahoo’s situation is like that of financial software maker Intuit (INTU), which was not bought by the software giant in 1994.

“Remember what happened to their deal with Microsoft?” said the person.

Actually, I do. After a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure from Microsoft, Intuit Founder and CEO Scott Cook struck a deal with Microsoft’s Bill Gates in which the company got a 40% premium, or $1.5 billion in Microsoft stock.

That deal was only scuttled, when the Justice Department stepped in and threatened to file suit to stop the union.

Thus, Yahoo’s only hope is the Justice Department, defanged under the Bush administration and with the existence of a major online rival like Google (GOOG) to point to as competition?

It could happen, I guess. But, I would have to say: Count me dubious.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

OK, we’ll admit it–we just like the steady and non-hypey persona of Aaron Patzer, whom BoomTown has officially and forever dubbed “Mint Guy.”

While he is not exactly minty fresh–in fact, the founder and CEO of Mint is much more circumspect and cool than any 26-year-old I have met recently–Patzer does stand out in a sea of over-touting Web 2.0 entrepreneurs as someone who might actually have created a business with some substance to it.

Rather than offering dopey widgets that let you throw food at each other or yet another version of a social network or the umpteenth music download-share-compare whatever, Mint feels different.

The free Web-based service is aimed at a younger demographic interested in finding a way to manage money better, in learning about their spending habits, in being alerted to unusual activity and even in saving some cash by finding better rates on things like bank accounts and credit cards.

It might sound crazy in these frothy Web times, but the Mountain View, Calif.-based start-up certainly has the potential to be actually useful and relevant to consumers and has a doesn’t-make-me-scoff-out-loud business plan that focuses on lead generation for sponsors.

Mint now claims 100,000 users since its launch last fall and is expanding its features to allow users to track investments, student loans and mortgages soon too.

Mint has not escaped the bubble, of course, having received about $5 million in funding from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital and a number of prominent angel investors, such as Ron Conway and former Yahoo exec Geoff Ralston. That’s a lot of money for a company with a lot of possible pitfalls.

While there are a few Web competitors, such as Wesabe, the biggest challenge is that Patzer is taking aim at desktop software packages like Intuit’s Quicken and Microsoft’s Money. The pluses of those solutions is that users feel more secure when financial data lives locally than they might loading it up to the Web.

More significantly, giants like Intuit are moving services online too, as with the recent Quicken Online, which makes for a mighty foe to Mint.

Still, Intuit has been woefully slow online and Patzer is obviously nimbler. And he counters that he is using heavy-duty encryption, as well as a number of methods to keep data anonymous, which make the information safe.

Well, we’ll see how it all turns out, as everyone is going to have to battle security concerns and convince people to trust them with important financial information on the Internet. But, it is clear that it is an interesting space to watch.

And, better still, it is–thank you, thank you–not a food fight.

Here is the video I shot with “Mint Guy” Patzer during lunch this past week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Mint was showing off its service a bit: