Quincy Smith, the high-profile CEO of CBS Interactive, is planning on leaving his job at the media giant in January to start an advisory firm in Silicon Valley, according to several sources.

But, in an interesting twist, Smith will remain an adviser to CBS under a multiyear contract, sources added, making it his first client. Apparently, Smith will focus intently on authentication issues for the company.

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Perhaps the sides in the ever-escalating war over the Skype deal will work out their differences and settle–which is what should and probably will eventually happen after everyone realizes how stupid all this noisy legal wrangling over the Internet telephony giant is.

But that day is decidedly not today, given a pair of recent big-gun PR hires by parties involved.

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Oh, I’m sorry, is this the part where BoomTown is supposed to make a list of some sort of what I like and don’t like, what’s hot and what’s not, what’s going to happen and such to all the various players in the digital space?

I don’t think so.

Why? Well because it’s a lot like Nostradamus–you can read into it anything you want.

For instance, in just one week of speculation in the blogosphere: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dying. Wait, no he is not, but is sick, so he lied. Even though he has always said he is sick. Hey, maybe he is lying and is really cured!

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With Yahoo board Chairman Roy Bostock reportedly assuring investors and others that the company will have a CEO in place by the end of the year, it seems prudent for BoomTown to initiate an official Yahoo CEO Countdown.

After all, this column had a 100-Day No-Sacred-Cows Vision Quest to mark the time that Jerry Yang said he needed to give Yahoo a top-to-bottom look-see when he took over last summer as CEO.

So here’s today’s update: No Peter Chernin and a lot of thorny issues for other candidates.

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Last night, Walt Mossberg and I hosted yet another annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” event for the Churchill Club.

It was a gadgetfest with BoomTown, Walt Mossberg, Gadgetoff’s Greg Harper and Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Evan Williams presenting the digital show-and-tell.

Here is a rather longish video of the event, which is well worth watching. (Yes, I am–along with my No. 1 son, Louie, and an animatronic Elvis–wearing a Yahoo hat.)

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BoomTown might have been remiss in my post yesterday on top candidates for the Yahoo CEO job, in the wake of news that Jerry Yang was stepping down, by leaving out several key possibilities.

Yesterday’s roster included News Corp.’s Peter Chernin, Google’s Tim Armstrong, Kevin Johnson of Juniper Networks and also two Yahoo board members, among others.

So here is an addendum to my initial list–all of whom are Yahoo outsiders, the likely choice versus more tarnished insiders.

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Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget sounds an important horn again, namely, outlining in graphically ugly detail why graphical advertising-based businesses online are in big trouble.

In his post, Blodget shows some convincing graphs about past performance trends, including the years after the first bubble burst, from 2000 to 2002, which could augur what is to come for the display business.

And it ain’t pretty.

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Last week, one of the things that struck me about the coverage of the two main tech conferences devoted to start-ups, DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, was the almost complete lack of discussion–or, more appropriately, worry–about the troubled economy.

This, even though the subprime mortgage crisis remains in full swing, along with the continuing turmoil around the stability of Wall Street financial firms, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Also, let’s not forget those sky-high gas prices.

The situation has worsened this past weekend with more dangerous developments in the financial sector, which eventually means that the popular Web 2.0 maxim of “growth before profits” is also in for a very bumpy ride.

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One thing is absolutely true: It is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and only Ballmer who knows for sure whom he is most interested in to take over the dicey job of head of the software giant’s long-suffering online services business.

But there is a movement afoot among its developers and other execs at Microsoft to push for Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who replaced Founder Bill Gates in the job just over two years ago.

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BoomTown was all busy trying to think of execs to replace Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, as pressure mounts on him to right the troubled Internet company.

But now, Yang’s position feels safer than ever and it’s his nemesis–Microsoft–that needs a new leader for its long-stumbling online services business.

Microsoft is already been cracking, according to sources, with a wish list of internal and external candidates that CEO Steve Ballmer is now considering.

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So exactly when will Microsoft and Yahoo really start talking again?

Much sooner than later, if investors have their way.

While the pair have not had any substantive talks as yet, despite reports they had, I would expect pressure from those shareholders (if not a dose of sanity in the face of the Google juggernaut) will bring them to the table within the next week.

While the software giant has no interest in buying all of the Internet portal, under a scenario being suggested to Microsoft by major Yahoo shareholders, a more substantial search deal could effectively give Microsoft control over Yahoo.

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As readers of AllThingsD.com might have noticed, we added columnist Therese Poletti to the main rail of the site today.

Her twice-weekly column, Tech Tales, which appears on MarketWatch on Tuesdays and Thursdays, will also be published here too.

Poletti joins Eric Savitz of Barron’s, whose posts on his Tech Trader Daily blog about tech stocks have been appearing on the front of ATD several times a day for the past month.

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Break out the sedatives, because Carl Icahn is getting mighty tetchy with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the board of directors of the troubled Internet company!

In yet another letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, the ever-grumpier billionaire investor, who is waging a proxy fight against Yahoo and seeking to oust Yang and crew, he stepped up the volume to Crazy Eddie levels.

It’s almost too juicy to require translation, as the veins practically pop out in Icahn’s letter from all the agita he seems to be experiencing over this botched takeover.

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So what other Web media company facing a hostile investor does CNET remind you of?

Disgruntled investors, a troubled Web 1.0 company whose management is recalcitrant to give in, an obviously powerful, but underutilized set of assets.

The acquisition of CNET by CBS for $1.8 billion in cash is the happy ending of this scenario. Now Yahoo needs one too.

The sky is indeed falling, Jerry Yang, so get to the king of Microsoft before the Icahn fox–as it did the guileless Chicken Little–eats you up.

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Walt Mossberg interviewed CBS CEO Les Moonves at the fifth edition of our D: All Things Digital conference last May, where he talked about the media giant’s Internet aims.

The 53-minute interview is highly pertinent to today’s acquisition of CNET by CBS for $1.8 billion in cash.

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