So, BoomTown–who cannot be unplugged from the matrix for very long without breaking into a cold sweat–was pretty excited to have free Wi-Fi on my Virgin America flight to Washington, D.C., early this morning.

Lots of Web companies are footing the bill for people to use wireless for free, in an attempt to boost use and, of course, their brand.

While that should be a given in this country, I won’t look a digital gift horse in the mouth.

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BoomTown is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant–this time by eBay.

With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the print, television and online marketing campaign starts today to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”

Interestingly, the ads have been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.

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Earlier this week, while in New York, BoomTown paid a visit to well-known media and Web exec Bob Pittman to hear about his newest venture.

And, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good.

That’s because the former MTV wunderkind, AOL top exec and currently, investor in a wide range of media and Web companies, is making tequila instead of Internet sites.

Thank God it’s Friday!

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According to numerous sources, Yahoo has been shopping around Zimbra, the open-source email company it bought in late 2007 for $350 million.

Zimbra is only one of the many assets of Yahoo that are now on the block, including its personals business, its HotJobs online classified unit and more to come.

The effort to unload Zimbra is yet another sign that the company is trying to slim down its diverse portfolio, even as it strives to redefine itself this week with a new, pricey marketing campaign that seeks to position Yahoo primarily as a consumer company.

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Jim Bankoff–the well-regarded former AOL exec who runs an online sports news network called SB Nation–has nabbed $7 million in funding from investors, including Comcast Interactive Capital, said sources.

People familiar with the situation said SB Nation’s post-investment valuation, after this second round, will be $30 million and also include previous investors, such as Accel Partners and Allen & Co.

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A few weeks ago, when I was having breakfast with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen about his new venture fund, he talked about what he thought was critical to being successful as an Internet company.

Ticking off names, from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Andreessen said he always favored technical entrepreneurs for one key reason: “You need someone who lives and breathes product.”

It’s a refrain I have heard a lot recently from a wide range of people in the sector, most especially when talking about two of the more challenging renovations of key Internet brands going on of late.

That would be: Yahoo and MySpace.

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Was it more than a month ago that the Google was rumored to be in “late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter”?

Not so much late-stage, I guess. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that it was time to fob yet another rumor that yet another moneybags of a company–this time, Apple–is in “late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter.”

But despite very serious interest in the hot microblogging service by every company that can afford considering such a thing, including Apple, getting across that late-stage line would require major investors in the hot start-up to be very involved, and they are not as yet.

So, rather than be on the edge of your seat about all these endless, alleged late-stage high jinks, here is a five-step list to cut out and keep when the questionable rumors of “late-stage negotiations” with Microsoft, News Corp., Verizon, Cisco and more inevitably show up.

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While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

More importantly, said another source about the idea of an imminent acquisition or serious acquisition or even early talks: “Seriously, no negotiations, no deal, nada.”

So for all those Twitterers madly typing 140 characters and caught up in the grand idea of Twoogle, we return you to your regularly scheduled tweeting.

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You almost have to admire the shape-shifting–if not a wee bit slippery–stylings of Slide CEO Max Levchin.

The serial entrepreneur and widget king has signed distribution deals with media giants, such as Time Warner’s Warner Bros. unit, CBS and Comcast’s E! Entertainment channel, to allow users of its FunSpace video service to look at clips from shows.

To make money, Slide will get a cut of ads sold by its media partners.

Oh my, how incredibly traditional of Levchin.

But it should probably come as no surprise that Levchin is now singing a bit of a different tune these days, as the daunting task of actually building a sustainable business model and attracting long-term advertisers has dawned on him and probably many other Web 2.0 wunderkinds.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers about the iconic but often-struggling pioneer and leader in the digital video recorder market.

This is part three of four parts.

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It is absolutely worrisome that Yahoo’s share price continued its downward swirl today, closing at a five-year low today at $17.75.

The downward drift far from the it-can’t-drop-below-$20 barrier makes it clear that Wall Street is valuing the company at close to what it could sell its assets off for and not much more and this obviously puts additional pressure on the already squashed-down Yahoo management to perform.

In fact, with all this pressure, you’d think Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang would have turned into a twin of the cursed Hope Diamond by now.

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Oh, there had to be much, much gnashing of teeth in the corporate offices at the Time Warner Center in New York yesterday with news of the sale of DailyCandy to Comcast for $125 million.

Why?

Maybe because that tasty payment is going right into the hands of Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group Ventures, which bought the fashion and shopping newsletter business for $3 million in 2003.

This is certainly different from the situation almost exactly six years ago when Pittman–nicknamed “Pitchman” for his smooth business stylings–was driven out of then-AOL Time Warner on the proverbial rail.

If you want a taste of those once-grim times for Pittman, here is an excerpt from my book, “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.”

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On one of my many trips to Los Angeles (what can I say? I like to hang where LoRo* hangs), I dropped in to see Nick Grouf of Spot Runner.

As many might know, Spot Runner is an online-offline ad agency play that has gotten big funding and even bigger hype of late.

Usually, BoomTown runs screaming from such Web 2.0 dandies, but there is definitely some there there at Spot Runner.

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Could Ross Levinsohn and Jon Miller reinvent Yahoo? What about OpenTable’s Jeff Jordan? Or various and sundry Google or Microsoft execs?

It could happen.

That specific scenario of putting someone like the two former Internet execs in charge of the troubled Web giant is one of the many being bandied about, as Yahoo shares tumble and the company heads toward a potentially ugly annual meeting everyone involved desperately wants to avoid.

In fact, Yahoo’s board and major investors are talking today about various options for the company, including Yahoo’s receptivity to a sweetened deal with Microsoft and also other ways to pull the asset-rich company out of its stock doldrums.

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Yesterday, BoomTown wrote a piece about Yahoo’s worries about the scrutiny that the monopolistic combination of Yahoo Mail and Microsoft’s Hotmail would get, if it merged with the software giant.

The issue–which has not gotten a lot of attention–is actually a major sticking point in the price negotiations going on this weekend between the companies, as Yahoo seeks solid downside protection if the deal becomes mired in approval issues by governmental authorities due to email and instant messaging dominance on the Web.

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