All Things Digital

When it reports its first-quarter earnings this afternoon, CNET Networks (CNET) will also announce a much expanded editorial and advertising relationship with Yahoo (YHOO) that will give the tech news site broad distribution on the highly trafficked Internet portal.

CNET and Yahoo have had content licensing deals in the past, in which some CNET content has been featured in the tech areas of Yahoo.

But in 2006, Yahoo launched a more robust tech section, which includes original blogs and reviews, and which many saw as a direct competitor to sites like CNET.

Yahoo more recently launched a Tech Ticker site, a blog-like site aimed at tech investors with original material and a lot of videos, along with content from partners (including AllThingsD.com).

Under the new deal, sources at both companies said a large swath of CNET tech news and also reviews will be carried on Yahoo, making it the major supplier of tech news content to the site. Rather than just focusing on its owned-and-operated properties, Yahoo’s more recent strategy has been to partner with media companies.

In addition, under the terms of the deal, Yahoo will sell some of CNET’s remnant inventory and also allow CNET ad sales staff to sell into some areas of Yahoo.

This deal is likely to be touted as a big win for CNET’s current management, including CEO Neil Ashe, who has been under siege from a group of dissident shareholders who are unhappy with the company’s lackluster performance and have called for a variety of significant changes.

Last year, Michael Dell returned to the computer company that he founded to try to get it back on track.

Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget and I talk about what it will take to get Dell (DELL) moving–innovation–in this video on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker.

Here’s the video:

After six weeks of non-movement on Microsoft’s bold but unsolicited bid for Yahoo, it is still unclear what will happen. Most think Yahoo (YHOO) will eventually have to sell to Microsoft (MSFT) and it might eke out a slightly higher price.

Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget and I talk about the current situation on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker video.

(Kudos to Yahoo for letting me be tough on the company’s strategy and executives on its own Web site.)

Here’s the video:

Here is a video of me and Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker, discussing the DNA of the Google (GOOG) founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and the impact on the company’s recent stock meltdown.

Our diagnosis: Not crazy, but iconoclastic.

Here’s the video:

In the second of three discussions with Yahoo Finance’s Tech Ticker’s Sarah Lacy (the first was on politics in Silicon Valley), we talk about the management issues at Facebook.

BoomTown broke the news recently about the departure of longtime top exec Owen Van Natta at the hot social-networking site. I also reported on the start-up’s search for a No. 2 exec to back up Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and made some suggestions about possible candidates for the job.

Here’s my talk with Lacy about Facebook management changes:

As you can see from this video, BoomTown should stick to poking at Yahoo’s business plans, rather than talking to its very sharp Sarah Lacy of Yahoo Finance’s new Tech Ticker site.

Some material from AllThingsD appears on Tech Ticker from time to time, linking back to our site. And BoomTown was invited to talk about various topics last week with Lacy, including in this post and video about politics in Silicon Valley.

In the piece, Lacy and I discuss the candidates, as well as issues like ubiquitous broadband access (a critical issue about which I have long maintained the federal government has dropped the ball on spearheading the development of, as it has in the past with other important issues such as the universal telephone service or the federal highway system).

While I am not “longing” for former Vice President Al Gore, as the Tech Ticker post noted, it is still true that he is the most techie of any politician in recent memory.

I Obamapolize, but it’s true! (I also Obamapologize for my weird hair and lack of makeup, but I never appear on camera in BoomTown, so I am not going to when visiting Sunnyvale, Calif.)

Also below it is the hour-plus interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Sen. John McCain last May at our fifth D: All Things Digital conference, at a time when he was considered the longest of long shots for the Republican presidential nomination.

So much for predictions!