It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner (TWX) online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant.

The event, which is taking place over three days in Pasadena, Calif., is packed full of Web and media luminaries, so BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, such as this one that I did for the session with Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS).

Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.”

In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.

“We are still in a very large trade wind,” he said, referring to advertisers spending money online. “If someone asked you if advertising [online] is going to go up, I think you would have to say yes.”

To take advantage of that, Armstrong said AOL would be focused on investing “in content systems that connect with advertising systems–that’s a white space we are going after.”

He noted that AOL needs to have the same “plumbing approach” to content that Google (GOOG)–where Armstrong had been a major advertising exec before taking his new job–has had to search advertising.

“You have to take the Silicon Valley approach to content,” Armstrong declared.

Armstrong also talked a little bit about his recent 100-day trip around the AOL empire worldwide and what he got out of it.

“I got a lot of advice from different people about what to do,” he said.

His takeaway, which he will discuss at an all-hands meeting scheduled for tomorrow with AOL staff: “It’s really about strategy. If we don’t have the right strategy, we’re not going to win.”

Which is kind of stating the obvious, but it sounded good.

Armstrong also touched lightly on the issue of getting rid of various assets AOL has compiled over the last several years, like it pricey purchase of the Bebo social networking site.

But some, as I recently reported–such as the Truveo video search service and the information search company Relegence–are staying.

Armstrong also talked of buying, but judiciously–noting to me later that AOL had 900 possible acquisition deals blocked in its pipeline.

Someone call a plumber stat!

Armstrong said he has put a stop to a lot of those deals, including putting the kibosh on a $400 million check he was supposed to sign right when he got there.

It was, as he told me after his interview, a windfall that supposed to go to a big computer maker for a distribution deal, which he chose to pass on.

“Everything has to make sense from a return-on-investment basis for me,” said Armstrong. “It’s that easy.”

And that hard, although he did move the crowd, which was polled with the same questions about AOL’s chances after Armstrong talked.

He got more people in the audience to vote that AOL would “return to health as a major Internet player,” which is–as legions of the company’s leaders have shown–no easy task.

[Photo credit: Brad Markel for Fortune]

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS), was the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif.

The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries.

So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.”

Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn.

Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

But let’s set the scene: Iger looks like a very typical old-media mogul you might order from an online catalog–handsome, suave and sophisticated, a perfect mix of Hollywood and New York.

Thank goodness, then, that he never seems to have acquired that other irksome characteristic of some of his peers–a full-bored panic over the Internet.

In fact, Iger–whom I also interviewed onstage at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006–has been unusually fast-forward among many of the big media companies in facing the digital music and dancing.

Fortune writer Richard Siklos asked him about a mishmash of subjects, from subscription services to authentication to cable providers, all of which center around a basic question:

How the heck is Disney going to be paid for its wares–because someday those agelessly lucrative “kids” from “High School Musical” are not going to agree to yet another reunion?

“This is the beginning of the beginning,” said Iger, who noted that it would be folly to guess what’s coming next in the digital arena.

A most excellent point that he made several times, adding that it was important for companies like Disney to keep trying out all sorts of things digitally, until they got it right.

“This notion of protecting the present is something that I talk a lot about [with employees],” said Iger, who wants them not to do that so much.

He noted that running a modern media company meant you had to have “one hand in the present and one hand in the future.”

Iger forgot about the hand that you might need to protect yourself from partners of the present–like big-box retailers, television affiliates, cable networks–who are going to come at you with a cudgel for giving the stuff you sell them away free on, say, Hulu.

Hulu, of course, is the popular, tiny-money-making premium online video service, which is a joint partnership of News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and now Disney.

“We believe in Hulu,” said Iger, who thinks its business model–currently just online advertising–might evolve over time.

But, he added, he was “somewhat skeptical” of any one answer to what is ahead.

As in: Iger just does not know, which is probably the best thing a media mogul can say right now.

Except for one thing he said is always mindful of–to follow, “where the consumer is going.”

Consumers are going online, of course, which is certainly going to require all-hands-on-deck at Disney in the years ahead.

[Update: It seems Disney was keeping its hand in the present for today, as it apparently had YouTube take down a trailer for its new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, which was set to debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego tomorrow.]

Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009’s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now that the most recent layoffs have taken place, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for.

After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex?

The response I got was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, including quite a few who thought Yahoo needed to sell itself off completely.

Some considered Yahoo (YHOO) a media and advertising company, for example, while others thought of it as a more Web tools outfit. Still, others considered it a turnaround situation, requiring a wholly different kind of CEO.

Perhaps therein lies the problem–it is still hard to define precisely what Yahoo is and is not, even for its ex-employees.

In any case, here are some of the best suggestions:

1. The Media Mogul

“I think they need to sell to a media company,” said one ex-Yahoo, who posits the move needs to be drastic enough to truly reset Yahoo.

In this scenario, search gets sold to Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo’s online content is combined with media assets of a big entertainment and news conglomerate.

That would make the leader of Yahoo one of the following: Bob Iger of Disney (DIS); Rupert Murdoch/Peter Chernin of News Corp. (NWS); Jeff Zucker of General Electric (GE) unit NBC Universal; or Les Moonves of CBS (CBS). (News Corp. is the owner of this Web site.)

2. The Insider

A lot of votes here for former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig and not so many for current President Sue Decker.

Why? Several ex-Yahoos mentioned a need to refocus intently on products and the need for a product-obsessed leader, but one who also knew Yahoo well and could get things moving without needing a lengthy learning curve.

“Since Dan R. left, I think there’s been a definite void (at the senior exec level) on the product/consumer expertise and advocate front,” said another ex-Yahoo.

Other execs mentioned are former Yahoos Jeff Weiner and Jeff Mallett.

But several also pointed to board member John Chapple, who is the one most insiders say they are guessing will be the next CEO, especially since he has been reaching out to Yahoos on many levels and asking questions.

3. The Microsoftie or Googler

The new top name here is obviously recently departed online ad exec Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive, whom many think would be a strong pick and would focus the company on advertising.

In addition, most of those leaving–including several technical people–all seem to agree that Yahoo needs to get out of the search business, and pronto.

Said one engineer: “I hate to say this, but as good as we can be, we cannot compete in the war that is breaking out between Google and Microsoft. And it will only get uglier.”

Other names mentioned in this category include Yusuf Mehdi and Kevin Johnson of Microsoft, as well as Tim Armstrong of Google (GOOG).

4. The Fixer

While there are a lot of different opinions out there among the ex-Yahoos I spoke to, all agree that the company is in need of a sharp operator and someone who can do what it takes to turn the company around quickly.

That means someone like former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, whose name has popped up recently, or even nontechie execs known for operational skills.

“We need a decisive leader, given how slowly it takes for things to change at Yahoo, who has a real sense of urgency from the minute he or she gets the job,” said one ex-employee.

Another former exec described it as a “two-step process.” First, the turnaround CEO needs to come in and reorient, focus, and get the company going in the right direction, then a more product-oriented person can be installed under that CEO later.

5. The Holy Grail-Steve Jobs Option

I think the most interesting idea I got from all the many former Yahoos I spoke to was that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs swoop in and buy Yahoo.

When I laughed out loud at this notion at first, the exec insisted that it was a feasible idea, given that Apple was interested in expanding its platform beyond its now-popular devices.

It’s an interesting bit of wishful thinking, of course, to imagine a “great leader” to calmly guide the company back to its roots.

Jobs, in fact, memorably addressed a meeting of Yahoo VPs in the fall of 2007. As I wrote then: “Jobs basic message [to Yahoo]: You have great assets–just like Apple did–and now it is all about execution.”

Yes, that tiny little detail.

6. Raise the Yangtanic

Interestingly, pretty much all the ex-Yahoos I talked to–as angry as some are at him for his tenure as a CEO less successful at execution and the ensuing loss of market value at Yahoo–said they did feel there was a need for Co-Founder Jerry Yang to stay around in a significant way.

“Jerry has been a really bad CEO,” said one former employee. “But he could still be an important leader at Yahoo and give the company the kind of inspiration it so desperately needs.”

Not everyone is on board with that.

“I completely disagree that Jerry should stay around. Jerry is one of the main issues at Yahoo and he and [David] Filo must go, as well as most of the board,” said one former Yahoo. “There needs to be free rein for the new CEO to make changes and that won’t be possible if Jerry is still there. Jerry is a nice guy and his heart is in the right place but he has failed as both board leader and CEO and the company needs to start fresh if it is to have a chance.”

Adds the ex-Yahoo: “Steve Jobs would be great, but I think he is busy.”

And then the New York Times’s Joe Nocera called for it in an eviscerating column this past weekend that articulated what an increasing number of people in Silicon Valley and Wall Street and, more importantly, within Yahoo have been thinking of late.

And that it is: Whether Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang (pictured here at D6) should step down in favor of another top executive to lead the troubled Internet company into the next era.

It’s the obvious question, of course, to ask whether the co-founder of Yahoo has what it takes to manage the company through what will doubtlessly be a very difficult year.

(Speaking of that, see this disturbing hiring freeze post by Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider, which might spell trouble ahead at Yahoo.)

BoomTown asked Yang specifically why he was the right leader for Yahoo going forward at our sixth D: All Things Digital conference recently and–guess what?–he did not really have an answer to the question.

Let me for him, then: The main reason he is the right leader is due to his history, his obvious love for Yahoo and its employees and that his heart, as Yang said in his one and only passionate moment onstage, does bleed Yahoo purple.

Unfortunately, as important and touching as those things are, it’s probably not enough for the rough road ahead for Yahoo.

As Yahoo continues to be in limbo, pressure is sure to mount heavily on Yang, and it is not a stretch to imagine he will not remain in the top job at the troubled company for the long term.

So who would be good to replace him?

The list is a long one and could include execs like Tim Armstrong of Google, Kevin Johnson of Microsoft and any number of media and advertising execs.

But I have six candidates I like, so here’s my short list, in no particular order (and remember, the last time I made one for the job of the No. 2 leader for Facebook, its current COO Sheryl Sandberg was high on my list).

Sue Decker

Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here) is the obvious choice for Yang to hand over the reins to.

But should he?

Here are the positives: Decker is smart, articulate, financially savvy and a well-known quantity within Yahoo.

And, like Yang, she has worked her heart out there for many years.

But there are some significant negatives, starting with the tarnish of the whole Microsoft takeover saga, which most think both she and Yang have handled badly.

After so much confusion and missed opportunities, it is not clear if the troops at Yahoo or, perhaps more importantly, Wall Street and the company’s shareholders will give Decker the kind of running room she needs.

In addition, again and again, many within Yahoo talk about Decker’s lack of product feel and overall vision that will be required to truly give Yahoo the kick in the pants it so sorely needs.

Plus, Decker has been around Yahoo a long time and is clearly part of the leadership group that has allowed the company to languish for so long.

Nonetheless, Decker clearly remains the front-runner and might blossom if she had full control over Yahoo, as Bob Iger of Disney (DIS) did there, for example.

Meg Whitman

While many do not know it, Meg Whitman (pictured here) was almost the CEO of Yahoo once, but lost the chance due to a botched merger attempt between Yahoo and eBay (EBAY) back in Web 1.0.

Think of the might-have-beens of that union.

There is no doubt Whitman is an Internet exec star, despite the fact that she herself admits having done as much as she could at eBay after a decade when she recently stepped down as CEO there.

But that kind of candor is exactly what is most impressive about Whitman, who is straight-talking, and very, very tough, despite a sunny-seeming exterior.

She has certainly impressed Yahoos already, having appeared in the not-too-distant past at a sales conference, where she blew away the crowd with her grasp of Yahoo’s business.

Here’s the problem: Most expect the Republican Whitman to make her next move in the California political arena. Can you say Governor Whitman? Senator Whitman?

And also, she’s about as rich as you can be and any monetary attraction to reviving Yahoo would probably be negligible.

Peter Chernin

Let’s be clear–we’re not putting Peter Chernin (pictured here and BoomTown’s kind-of boss) in this list to kiss up to him.

While News Corp. (NWS), where Chernin is No. 2, is the owner of this site, I and many others consider him (along with Disney’s Iger) to be one of the sharpest and most versatile “old” media execs to get the Web.

At the very least, he does not seem scared senseless by it. (Which is a very big deal.)

And while he probably presides over one of the choicest media conglomerates out there, CEO Rupert Murdoch shows no signs of retiring, and his son, James Murdoch, is clearly training in the wings.

A move to Yahoo would be a bold one for someone like Chernin, who clearly has the tough management chops to run the place and give it direction to become a true partner to Hollywood in the way the Spock clones of Google never ever will be able to.

Actually, given he has a foot in both old and new media (Hulu.com, MySpace), he is BoomTown’s No. 1 pick.

Marc Andreessen

I had included Marc Andreessen (pictured here) in my list as a possible No. 2 exec at Facebook as a bit of a lark, just to remind folks that vision matters.

For his excellent blog alone, Andreeseen deserves a lot of attention for its bracing insight about the Internet business and its future.

And Andreessen has plenty of real-life chops too, from his founding Netscape right up until today, creating a series of new Web companies (he is currently chairman of a social-networking company called Ning) and investing in a lot of others that have given him a lot of gravitas and financial windfalls over the years.

Let me clearly state, I was not sure Andreessen could ever grow out of his enfant-terrible mode when I covered him several years ago, but that has clearly happened.

He knows how to build exciting companies, he is well-liked in Silicon Valley, he knows about scale, he knows about social networking and he is a respected technologist.

Most of all, Andreessen would be a leader who would add a lot of excitement to Yahoo. And, believe me, Yahoo needs a lot of that.

Dan Rosensweig

I know, I know. But why not?

Some might question my choice of Dan Rosensweig (pictured here), mostly because he departed from Yahoo in a previous crisis, but was still part of the management group that got Yahoo into this mess in the first place.

But, think hard. Rosensweig was not in charge then–in fact, leadership failures fell to former CEO Terry Semel and also Yang.

In addition, many at Yahoo–though not all–thought Rosensweig did a decent job of running the place.

He also wanted Yahoo to take a lot more chances than it did and is well liked in Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

In leaving and then returning, Rosensweig might represent a choice that allows Yahoo employees to feel confident that some of its past soul remains.

Mark Cuban

I am not kidding. Not even one little bit.

I know Mark Cuban (pictured here hoofing with gusto) is disliked by Yang and others at Yahoo for selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo back in the last bubble and then clearing out and making bank.

And I know they were furious that Cuban popped up on Icahn’s alternative board to replace Yahoo’s current board.

So what! Big whoop! Blah, blah, blah.

Because Yahoo needs a major restart and Cuban would easily be able to push that button.

Cuban is unorthodox, has clear business acumen and success, knows how to invest and he is loaded for bear with vision.

He is also dabbling in some very interesting arena of HDTV, as well as being involved in some other interesting investments.

Cuban is willing to be controversial and often takes aim at Google, with some good results, in his blog.

His current post: “Hulu Is Kicking YouTube’s Ass.” (Ahahahahahaha. Dang, I wish I had written it.)

It’s that kind of moxie that means he is probably the only one with the guts to really get down in the weeds of Yahoo and start hacking away at the tangle that needs hacking.

Also, Cuban can sure dance.

And, most of all, the next CEO of Yahoo is going to need to know how to do some very complex two-stepping–with Wall Street, with shareholders and with employees.

And he or she is going to have to look good doing it.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In what is likely to turbocharge its heft in the digital space, according to an internal email sent out by Walt Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger, the entertainment company is combining its Disney Interactive Studios and the Walt Disney Internet Group.

The new unit, called Disney Interactive Media Group–will be headed by WDIG’s Steve Wadsworth.

WDIG has a wide range of properties, like Club Penguin and Disney.com. Disney Interactive Studios makes a range of games for Disney brands like “Hannah Montana” and “Wall-E.”

Here’s the memo, with email address removed:

From: Bob Iger
Sent: Wed Jun 04 19:44:22 2008
Subject: Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG)

Bob