Yesterday, BoomTown opined that Microsoft was nearing a decision on who would become the head of its digital efforts.

And, according to several sources and some puzzling by me–if the deal can be sealed–I think that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu.

If Ballmer manages to pull off the hire of Lu–on the heels of already grabbing another top Yahoo search exec, Sean Suchter, which I posted on yesterday–the aggressive exec could almost be bypassing a Yahoo search partnership he has long sought by sucking the talent right out of the place instead.

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According to sources, Facebook is moving to eliminate its observer status slot from its board. That position is currently held by Greylock Partners David Sze.

The reasons might be as simple as the fact that as Facebook grows, it needs a more formal board process, especially as it prepares for a public offering sometime in the future.

In that case, the observer slot might be eliminated, as the company moves to add more members to the board.

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On Tuesday night, BoomTown reported from the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California dinner honoring Facebook.
And, as usual, I was video-harassing Greylock Partner’s David Sze and James Slavet about the acquisition of Yahoo (YHOO) Network division head Jeff Weiner into the firm as an executive in residence.
I prodded: “This is the pair that sucked [...]

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In a much-expected financing, LinkedIn has joined the big funding club (Slide, Spot Runner) of late, by raising $53 million at a startling $1 billion valuation.

Why go public when you can just pretend?

Actually, unlike a lot of Web 2.0 start-ups, the professional-networking site has been profitable since 2006.

The new slug of cash comes from new investor Bain Capital Ventures, along with existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Ventures.

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Accel Partners and Greylock Partners will officially announce today that Yahoo Network head Jeff Weiner will become an executive in residence at both Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

That obviously means Weiner is officially out at Yahoo too.

Of course, loyal readers of BoomTown would have known about this development last week, when this column broke the news of Weiner’s departure from Yahoo, where he was one of its top execs, in charge of all consumer-facing products at the company.

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Silicon Valley luminary Marc Andreessen has been asked to join the board of Facebook, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation.

While the arrangement is not completed yet, sources said the longtime entrepreneur has verbally agreed to accept the post to become the fourth member of the board of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social-networking site.

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Since we are refraining from writing about the current deals being mulled over by Facebook (see this post and also this disclosure)–one for its international ad business with rivals Google and Microsoft vying for the privilege of losing money in a guaranteed revenue deal and another to complete a mega-round of funding that will value [...]

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Back around Day 55–ah, the lazy days of midpoint in Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s 100-day No-Sacred-Cows VisionQuest for the revitalization of the company he co-founded–I asked a bunch of people around Silicon Valley what they would do to help the beleaguered leader.
We got some good answers to be sure (the video is reposted below), but [...]

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I went to a dinner last night hosted by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly of the Web 2.0 Summit, and it was one of the more schmoozy events I have been to in a while.
The event–this year at Foreign Cinema in the Mission District of San Francisco–is held to elicit feedback from the Internet’s movers [...]

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