All Things Digital

Earlier this week, BoomTown posted our speaker list for the sixth edition of D: All Things Digital, which will take place in a few weeks–May 27 to 29, to be exact–in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my partner Walt Mossberg and me.

D6 tech and media speakers include: Microsoft Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT); News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX); Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

Just recently, we added Jerry Yang, CEO and co-founder of Yahoo (YHOO), and now he is being joined onstage at the conference by Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here in a lovely Wall Street Journal dot-drawing).

The pairing should make for a lively session, given all the heat around Yahoo of late, largely related to the scuttled attempt by Microsoft to buy the company.

What would you like to know about that and anything else about Yahoo?

As it so happens, you can ask!

While the conference is sold out, you can submit questions that you would like answered to Yang and Decker or any of the speakers via text or video. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose.

Ask early and often here!

In addition, the whole conference will be online at AllThingsD during the conference, via live blogs and reports of breaking news (and there will be breaking news, as there always is), along with video highlights.

And videos of all the interviews will be posted soon after it is over.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT). News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX). Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang.

All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time, or we’d need a professional negotiator–at the 6th D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my amazing partner Walt Mossberg and me (see us here at D5) and will take place May 27 to 29.

The conference, as we describe it on our Web site, is “unlike any other executive conference.” What we mean by that is that we try to determine the next direction of the digital revolution via unscripted and informal, but pointed, conversations about the impact of digital technology with industry leaders.

In other words, Walt and I needling at the major players of the digital sector, until they give up the good stuff.

The other digital and media leaders coming? That would be: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

To say our timing is impeccably planned would be undeserved–we had no idea so much news related to all these companies and their leaders would break out, from the tough economy to takeover battles to court face-offs to mergers to trying to create a whole new way of reading.

Also, there will be some–as yet under wraps–amazing demos onstage too.

While the analog conference has been sold out for many months, the action will be on the AllThingsD.com site throughout the conference with round-the-clock live blogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, as well as video highlights from stage.

In addition, we’ll be pointing all over the Web to important tech and media news that breaks at D6.

And we will also stream the entire conference in the weeks after the conference takes place, so ATD’s audience can experience the whole thing, even if they cannot all attend.

But anyone’s questions can be there, though–this year, you can submit questions to any of the speakers via text or video that you would like answered. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose. Ask early and often here!

Walt and I are very excited for D6, even after last year, when we brought together industry legends Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, for an historic joint interview.

At the time, Walt and I joked that we would not be able to top that amazing event (the video of the entire interview is below).

That interview was nearly unbeatable, but we also think that with the top-level interviewees we have assembled for D6, that it is game on.

Until then, here’s the Gates/Jobs video from D5:

Since BoomTown did an obsessive countdown after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang last year unwisely promised a 100-day, top-to-bottom look at the company, with “no sacred cows” spared (as it turned out, they all were), I decided that–after the month-mark had passed since Microsoft (MSFT) made its unsolicited bid for Yahoo (YHOO)–it was time for a count-up!

Thus, Day 32 (we’re counting from Friday, Feb. 1, when the offer was made public)!

And, frankly, with the added Leap Day this year to add to Yahoo’s agony, this battle is getting about as exciting as Yang’s 100-day slog–with nothing really page-turning on the horizon since Yahoo’s board kicked Microsoft’s $31-per-share offer to the curb several weeks ago.

Now, of course, Microsoft is returning the favor by loudly prepping a proxy fight and trotting out Silicon Valley companies like TellMe to report that a Microsoft takeover is just hunky-dory.

“We are pretty much doing everything we were doing before–just a lot more of it,” said TellMe head Mike McCue to the Associated Press, with the cheeriness of someone with acute Stockholm syndrome and $800 million in Microsoft money.

And if happy, shiny, Windows-cash-gorged tech people don’t impress, according to several sources close to Microsoft, perhaps a little fear factor will work better.

Said these sources, there will be “three to four big-name CEOs” on its list of new board members that Microsoft must nominate in the next two weeks for its slate of directors to replace Yahoo’s current board.

BoomTown recently reported that the software giant was sniffing around for prospects in Silicon Valley.

But, sorry to say, I still cannot figure out what CEOs these are, despite a lot of effort to find out.

So, I started trying to figure it out myself, focusing on tech and Web execs, who are the obvious choices.

Nonetheless, after going over a long list of possible execs, none of the ones I considered seems likely to turn on Yahoo.

Intel? No, CEO Paul Otellini is on the board of Google.

eBay? No, that’s too big a move for the new CEO John Donahoe.

Sun? No, after Scott McNealy’s funny diatribes against Microsoft for so long, CEO Jonathan Schwartz simply cannot.

Dell? No, CEO and Founder Michael Dell has his hands full.

Amazon? CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos is sassy and lives up near Microsoft, but it would be a real slap at another Web icon like Yang.

WPP Group’s Sir Martin Sorrell? Well, to include an ad biggie would be a good move and Sorrell likes to make pointed remarks about Google, but not that sharp.

Frankly, other than non-tech companies, of which there are probably many choices who owe Microsoft in some way, I am officially out of guesses.

Well, of course, except for one Web 2.0 CEO, who has a big name and is in great–and I mean, great–debt to Microsoft.

In fact, $240 million worth of IOUs. In other words, Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg.

It would be ironic (Yahoo tried to buy Facebook a little more than a year ago), it would be poetic (only in Silicon Valley does the young eat its old) and it would be really fun to watch the fireworks (Facebook is no friend of Google’s).

Most of all, Zuckerberg on the board of Microsoft’s Yahoo would be Steve Ballmer’s ultimate SuperPoke at Yahoo.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.