But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with Barry Diller, the always clever chairman and CEO of IAC, the Internet conglomerate whose holdings include Ask.com, Match.com and many others.

The video of the interview is in three parts, all of which I posted this week.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media (LINTA) over the last year, Diller finally broke apart IAC (IACI) just six weeks ago. His reason: The company had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

In this third part, Diller talks about the new digital communications age and the explosion of video and then takes questions from the audience about tenacity versus stupidity in business, time management and where he is going to make “trouble” next.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with Barry Diller, the always clever chairman and CEO of IAC, the Internet conglomerate whose holdings include Ask.com, Match.com and many others.

The video of the interview is in three parts, all of which I will post this week.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media (LINTA) over the last year, Diller finally broke apart IAC (IACI) just six weeks ago. His reason: The company had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

In this second part, Diller talks about the dire digital crossroads in Hollywood, the prospects for the Ask.com search service, his take on the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover battle (no one is a winner here), Google’s dominance, Facebook’s hype (Diller calls the hot social-networking site the “princess phone” of this era) and the power of interactivity.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with Barry Diller, the always clever chairman and CEO of IAC, the Internet conglomerate whose holdings include Ask.com, Match.com and many others.

The video of the interview is in three parts, all of which I will post this week.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media (LINTA) over the last year, Diller finally broke apart IAC (IACI) just six weeks ago. His reason: The company had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

In this first part, Diller talks about the details of his court fight with Malone, why he wanted to break up IAC and what it is going to become all carved up, how he is getting back to content creation and also trying out other new online products and how Hollywood is “so inbred, it’s a wonder that the children have any teeth.”

Like I said, always clever.

Don’t miss this very good interview–does he ever give a bad one?–that IAC’s Barry Diller did with The Wall Street Journal’s Shira Ovide in today’s edition.

After a bruising court battle with shareholder and cable mogul John Malone of Liberty Media (LINTA), Diller finally broke apart the Internet conglomerate six weeks ago. His reason: IAC (IACI) had become too complex and its stock had suffered due to the operating confusion.

Here are BoomTown’s three favorite Diller killer quotes from The Journal interview …

On the breakup:

“I don’t have answers for anybody else. What I know is that internal complexity makes for superficiality. There’s never essentially a pure story unless there’s a pure product line that has its own shining clarity.”

On Internet advertising:

“You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising. Social-networking advertising is being discounted because there is so much inventory [of available ad spots], and because methods have not yet been found to make it very effective. Will that get figured out? I absolutely believe it will. What form will it take? Absolutely unknown.”

On his fight with Malone:

“It is water down the drain. It’s unfortunate that executives of Liberty forced us into this process that resulted in the court affirming our position, but they did. It was hurtful to the company in which they’re investors, it was hurtful to me, it was a waste of time and money. It’s over. It certainly has no effect because my relations with John Malone are right and proper. They can have board members, but I outvote them.”

And, if you want more Diller unplugged, about all of the above and more, here is the highlight reel from my interview with him in May at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference.

Don’t miss his take on Hollywood children’s teeth.

The entire interview will go up next week in this blog, but here is the shorter video for now:

BoomTown hates to miss any possible opportunity to reference a Charlton Heston movie and, thus, was struck by a report by a Wall Street analyst that Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) will be the sole survivors of the most recent digital age.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said as much in a 310-page report, “U.S. Internet: The End of the Beginning” he penned, noting that only the search giant and the e-commerce pioneer had legs.

Yahoo (YHOO)? Acquired by Microsoft (MSFT).

IAC (IACI)? Split up into five too-teeny, ineffective parts.

And eBay (EBAY)? Acquisition bait for a “Microsoft-like suitor,” if it cannot goose the growth in its key auction business.

While BoomTown loves a good predictions piece as much the next blogger, the report’s conclusions feel like it has a bit of a backward-looking tone.

That’s because who knows what tomorrow brings, in a world few geeks survive.

Oops, now I am channeling the love song “Up Where We Belong” from “An Officer and a Gentleman,” and that can’t be good.

Suffice it to say, there is a new company you’ve never heard of–that might not even exist yet–and that’s the one everyone really needs to be scared of.

But not scarier than this video in anime and with guns inexplicably blazing, using the Joe Cocker/Jennifer Warnes song–though BoomTown definitely likes it–here:

While Microsoft’s (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo’s (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang hemmed and hawed about what had happened in their disastrous takeover battle that ended not with a bang, but a whimper, everyone else who appeared onstage at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference last week was a bit more definitive about what should occur now:

Get it done.

From Thomson Reuters’ (TRI) Tom Glocer to IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller to TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers to Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. (NWS) (who simply said: “I’d get on with it.”), it seemed obvious to one and all that the only way either had a prayer of catching up with online search leader Google (GOOG) was to join forces.

It seems, according to many sources, that the pair are now in serious talks again, which–if they are smart–will come to some resolution, yes or no, within the next week. (You’ll get first wind of what’s what, as soon as much-frustrated bankers begin their leaking to major news outlets.)

Whatever the case, I dearly hope these discussions are not bogged down as they have been before.

Not in the bits and pieces niggling of some complex partial deal to buy search and spin of this and that here and there in a configuration sure to confuse everyone.

And not continuing with the endless roundelay of price negotiations that seems to have needlessly taken focus off the ball–which is to create a competitive alternative to the incessant brainiacs of Google (and if you want any more proof of that, see this New York Times piece today about the search giant’s data-crunching abilities).

It seems $33 to $34 a share will still wrap the whole thing up and, if Microsoft was serious about its intentions to buy Yahoo when it first made its foray in February, that seems doable.

Because, if Ballmer is serious about his contention, which he made fervently onstage at D6, that the software giant keeps “coming and coming and coming,” it simply cannot make that attack from a piddling 9% market share in the online search business.

One of the most interesting takeaways I had from last week’s interview Walt Mossberg and I did with him and Chairman Bill Gates (who seemed about as underwhelmed by a Yahoo deal as possible without slumping over asleep) was the early focus at the company on fiscal conservatism.

Baked into its DNA, as it turns out, is a fear of bankruptcy even.

While that was funny to hear about–complete with worried financial calculations on sheets of yellow paper stuffed in couches early on–it seems to continue to this day, despite Microsoft’s huge treasure chest of cash.

But Ballmer should slough off that tendency, as Microsoft can afford all of Yahoo and it should if it wants to make the boldest case possible that it will compete with Google.

As for Yahoo, both Yang and President Sue Decker are to be lauded for showing up to answer Walt’s questions (and one by me via remote video about leadership, which neither actually did answer) about the company and its future.

Their sincerity and love of Yahoo and its products and people was clear and even touching, making it clear that companies are a true reflection of its leaders.

But, while making good points about the he-said-she-said nature of the past Microsoft talks, the pair still could not adequately and passionately explain what Yahoo is exactly, which everyone I spoke to in the halls was surprised and even disappointed by.

Moreover, their weariness for the next phase of tumult that will come if Yahoo remains independent was apparent in both their body language and low energy levels, especially when compared to others onstage like Murdoch, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and, of course, the frenetic Ballmer.

Yang and Decker need big-time help and they need it now, help that cannot come from their own dwindling energies and that of their much-beleaguered troops.

Still, they also deserve credit for this very funny spoof video of advice they have been getting.

I especially like the turn by famed investor Warren Buffett best, with his “buy low, sell high” tip.

But I would fiddle with that to change it a little bit for Yahoo today: Just sell high enough.

Here’s the Yahoo spoof video:

Gifts.com President & CEO William Lynch, who founded the site for IAC (IACI), will transition to HSN full-time as its EVP of marketing and content. He had previously been managing the HSN.com site, while also running Gifts.com.

The site, which also offers gift cards that can be redeemed at over 100 merchants, is now a 40-person operation.

Rapp has been with IAC since 2006 and, prior to joining the company, worked at the New York Times Company.

After a contentious battle with large shareholder Liberty Media, IAC is in the midst of separating itself into five publicly traded companies, expected to be completed in the third quarter, spinning off HSN, Ticketmaster, Interval International and LendingTree.

Left in the new IAC will be: Ask.com, Bloglines, Citysearch, CursorMania, Evite, Excite, IAC Advertising Solutions, InsiderPages, iWon, My Fun Cards, My Way, Popular Screensavers, Smiley Central, Vimeo, Webfetti and Zwinky, Match.com, ServiceMagic, Shoebuy.com, Entertainment Publications, ReserveAmerica; Pronto, Gifts.com, Green.com, Primal Ventures, InstantAction, BustedTees, CollegeHumor, GarageGames, RushmoreDrive.com, Very Short List, and 23/6.

Also included will IAC’s current investments in Active.com, Brightcove, FiLife, MerchantCircle, OpenTable, Points.com and SHOP Channel.

BoomTown has known about it forever and Radar Online gave the lowdown about the creation of the hip-sounding news aggregator Web site–headed by high-profile editor Tina Brown (pictured here)–by Barry Diller’s IAC (IACI) in a report in early April.

Think the Huffington Post, but more culture and less political wonkishness in a bolder and more colorful design.

While still in its planning stages, though, it just hired a new GM to run the business: Caroline Marks.

She was GM of Comcast’s Ziddio, a social video endeavor, and was also head of content development for Comcast Interactive (CMCSA). Marks has also worked in several high-profile mobile companies in the U.K.

Marks will reports to IAC’s Nick Lehman–who works for Michael Jackson, the head of programming at IAC–to get the project off the ground for IAC and Brown, the former Talk, Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor.

The project has already hired Edward Felsenthal, the former deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal (and BoomTown friend), to helm the edit side under Brown.

IAC has dabbled a lot in online content initiatives of late with mixed results. Still, it is moving forward with even more.

For example, the company is set to debut a personal financial site in a joint venture with News Corp.’s (NWS) Dow Jones (owner of this site), called FiLife, in June.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my partner Walt Mossberg and me.

D6 tech and media speakers include: Microsoft Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT); News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX); Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

Just recently, we added Jerry Yang, CEO and co-founder of Yahoo (YHOO), and now he is being joined onstage at the conference by Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here in a lovely Wall Street Journal dot-drawing).

The pairing should make for a lively session, given all the heat around Yahoo of late, largely related to the scuttled attempt by Microsoft to buy the company.

What would you like to know about that and anything else about Yahoo?

As it so happens, you can ask!

While the conference is sold out, you can submit questions that you would like answered to Yang and Decker or any of the speakers via text or video. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose.

Ask early and often here!

In addition, the whole conference will be online at AllThingsD during the conference, via live blogs and reports of breaking news (and there will be breaking news, as there always is), along with video highlights.

And videos of all the interviews will be posted soon after it is over.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT). News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX). Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang.

All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time, or we’d need a professional negotiator–at the 6th D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my amazing partner Walt Mossberg and me (see us here at D5) and will take place May 27 to 29.

The conference, as we describe it on our Web site, is “unlike any other executive conference.” What we mean by that is that we try to determine the next direction of the digital revolution via unscripted and informal, but pointed, conversations about the impact of digital technology with industry leaders.

In other words, Walt and I needling at the major players of the digital sector, until they give up the good stuff.

The other digital and media leaders coming? That would be: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

To say our timing is impeccably planned would be undeserved–we had no idea so much news related to all these companies and their leaders would break out, from the tough economy to takeover battles to court face-offs to mergers to trying to create a whole new way of reading.

Also, there will be some–as yet under wraps–amazing demos onstage too.

While the analog conference has been sold out for many months, the action will be on the AllThingsD.com site throughout the conference with round-the-clock live blogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, as well as video highlights from stage.

In addition, we’ll be pointing all over the Web to important tech and media news that breaks at D6.

And we will also stream the entire conference in the weeks after the conference takes place, so ATD’s audience can experience the whole thing, even if they cannot all attend.

But anyone’s questions can be there, though–this year, you can submit questions to any of the speakers via text or video that you would like answered. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose. Ask early and often here!

Walt and I are very excited for D6, even after last year, when we brought together industry legends Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, for an historic joint interview.

At the time, Walt and I joked that we would not be able to top that amazing event (the video of the entire interview is below).

That interview was nearly unbeatable, but we also think that with the top-level interviewees we have assembled for D6, that it is game on.

Until then, here’s the Gates/Jobs video from D5:

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 (YHOO) 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.

But Microsoft (MSFT) does not want to pay more, of course. And so the legions of minions under increasingly-under-pressure–translation: more yelling than ever this week–CEO Steve Ballmer are hard at work this weekend on all-nighters to solve the problem, said several sources.

One solution is to spin off all the communications assets, said sources, into a separate company. In that case, the two brands would remain, so as not to inconvenience consumers, although all the back-end technologies to run the services would be merged.

The more drastic step is for Microsoft sell Hotmail to a third party, especially given that Yahoo Mail is considered a stronger brand. Hotmail has already been in the midst of a transition, including a recent name change to Windows Live Hotmail.

Microsoft’s mail offerings now include Hotmail and also Windows Live Mail. The latter offering would presumably remain at the merged company with its @live.com address.

But Hotmail is the candidate to be sold off (with the requisite marketing to try to port its users over to @live.com first).

And potential buyers? Well, not Google (GOOG), but there are many, including AOL (TWX), Comcast (CMCSA) and AT&T (T), as well as IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI). As to price, that’s unclear, but it could be in the billions of dollars.

That’s another plus for Microsoft, which will obviously have to fork over more money if it wants to acquire Yahoo.

And, it is also priceless if Microsoft can minimize government interference in the deal, most especially any antitrust investigations related to its powerful email assets.

That must be a worry, since Microsoft and Yahoo completely dominate all email on the Internet. According to the most recent comScore (SCOR) figures, for example, Yahoo has 256 million users, while Microsoft has 255 million.

Google’s Gmail is a distant third with about 92 million users and AOL has about half that at 49 million.

The same domination is true in the instant messaging market, with Microsoft and Yahoo holding an 80% to 90% market share together.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

“I am beginning to think these people are insane. … Everything they cite is hogwash.”

That’s what is known as a classic Barry Diller, who can be relied on to come out with a good one when provoked.

In this case, the provocateur is Liberty Media’s John Malone (pictured on the right in this comic with Diller), whose company has headed to court to try to remove Diller from his job as chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

As chronicled by the always deft Jessica Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal today, the fight between the longtime partners is getting uglier still with–oh, let’s just admit it–totally confusing moves and countermoves about the fate of IAC and its subsidiaries.

Liberty has a giant stake in all of these entities and Diller, of course, has control of that stake. A recipe for mogul mud wrestling, if ever there was one.

But the fight is a serious one for a number of high-profile Web companies within IAC, which was being restructured to stop just this kind of fighting between Diller and Malone.

Just how Diller has gone about rejiggering it all, in complicated spin-offs in a way that allegedly undercuts Liberty’s control yet again, is what set the new round of tensions off.

Those sites embroiled in the fighting include: Expedia, TicketMaster, LendingTree and Ask.

As luck would have it, Diller will be interviewed onstage at the sixth edition of D: All Things Digital in late May, so there will be plenty to talk about!

The last time I interviewed him at the Monaco Media Forum last November, Diller let loose too, when he memorably scoffed at the $15 billion valuation for Facebook and Microsoft’s $240 million investment in the hot social network.

“If it was real money, it would be insane, but since it isn’t really, then why bother [worrying about it],” said Diller. “It doesn’t mean anything, it is a phantom, false valuation. Let them sell for $14 billion, $998 million, and then I’ll believe them.”

Here is a sampling of quotes from my one-on-one interview with him onstage at the Monaco Media Forum on Friday morning, taken from the not-so-audible audio of my Flip video camera. But you’ll get the idea of why Diller (pictured here) remains one of the more robust characters out there.

We began talking about the split of IAC into five parts, lopping off unrelated businesses, with the backdrop of a struggle he has been engaged in with Liberty Media’s John Malone.

Why do it? “We were being superficial managers,” said Diller. For example, of the mortgage business around LendingTree, he said: “I have little to no interest and that is not how I want to live my life.”

(Very few execs, I can assure you, will admit to rank corporate boredom about their businesses.)

But Diller was just getting started, taking shots at everything from the “dumb” Hollywood writers’ strike to the insanity of Facebook’s $15 billion valuation, as well as his own corporate shortcomings.

About the idea of synergy among his many properties, which he once touted effusively: “I still believe in synergy, but I call it natural law. They have to naturally fit into each other. The problem is that there was so much huffing and puffing to fit them together.”

(Again, it’s nice to hear someone admit when things just don’t work.)

Diller also took aim at Google, within a week of signing a big guaranteed ad deal with it for IAC’s Ask search network. “It has huge market share, and I don’t believe in the long run it will be able to keep up with it,” he said.

(In this, he is dead right, and the lack of search innovation at Google is troubling.)

While letting Yahoo off the hook for its management woes, Diller did marvel at Microsoft’s inability to compete in the online business. “Microsoft is a greater failure really, if you think about it, with a huge amount of capital and no real traction,” he said.

Diller also noted that the writers’ strike in Hollywood was silly, noting that the writers were striking over virtually nothing. “No one can solve an issue where there is no economic model yet,” he said. “Over the next five years, the market will develop, and at the end of that period, if the economic value is being created, [the studios] will sit in good faith and give [the writers] the money.”

(I am not so sure the writers should trust a bunch of execs who have shafted them so many times when it relates to technology, although Diller is correct that there are no real revenues to speak of yet.)

Lastly, he scoffed at the recent $15 billion valuation for Facebook and Microsoft’s $240 million investment in the hot social network, noting it was simply a move to thwart Google by the software giant.

“If it was real money, it would be insane, but since it isn’t really, then why bother [worrying about it],” said Diller. “It doesn’t mean anything, it is a phantom, false valuation. Let them sell for $14 billion, $998 million, and then I’ll believe them.”

Me too.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Much, much, much.

Yesterday, the battle between InterActiveCorp’s Barry Diller and John Malone of Liberty Media (pictured here in cartoon form) got much more interesting.

As luck would have it, I will be interviewing Diller onstage at the Monaco Media Forum in Monte-Carlo this week–yes, it’s as glamorous as it sounds–so now there will be lots more to talk to him about at the digital gathering.

Diller is an excellent interview–he’s appeared at two D conferences–as he likes to parry more than the average CEO and he is good at it.

Very good, as it turns out, when dealing with Malone.

By way of background, Liberty has indicated it wants to rid itself of the 24% of IAC it owns. That stake has 58% super-voting rights, but it’s controlled by Diller via a past agreement.

So, Malone has been applying public pressure, leveling some choice barbs at Diller.

In a previous piece in The Wall Street Journal, Malone came out with this gem: “There was a time when there was, I think, a 20% Barry premium. Today you could argue there is a Barry discount.”

To deal with the pressure, Diller made the move to carve up the $9 billion holding company, made up of a variety of Internet properties, chopping and dicing more than a Ginsu knive demonstrator selling his heart out on his HSN cable-shopping network (see IAC revenue chart below).

It’s a major reversal for Diller, who has spent many years assembling IAC and who even talked about the importance of its synergies. Now, under his proposal, it will be split into five parts, all separately traded, essentially separating the wheat from the chaff.

Faster-growing and more prominent Web outfits Ask.com, Citysearch and Match.com will remain in IAC. HSN, Ticketmaster, Interval International and LendingTree would become separate, much as Diller’s travel sites became in a previous deal in 2005.

And under terms of Liberty’s proxy agreement with Diller, Liberty could get its stock power back in the spun companies–the ones Diller does not care about as much.

Even Malone was warily pleased. “It unsticks some things,” he said in another article yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.

Well, at least it’s a both tastily complex horse-trading scheme, typical of Diller, but also has a simplicity to it.

Still, Diller faces some basic Internet issues as he seeks a slimmer future.

For example, Ask, which just re-signed its guaranteed ad deal with Google, is innovative in its search results approach in a way Yahoo should be (we’ll forgive the company its misguided Kato Kaelin ad campaign).

But it is still a small player, with 5% of the U.S. market (although a network of sites it has gives it a bit more clout), which limits its scope and power.

In other words, small may be beautiful, but it’s still small.

And no more Burning Man, either (we completely ignored the annual techie Valhalla in this blog, because it evoked a very dusty and peyote feeling that we just have never felt the need to learn about close up and personal)!

In other words, time to get serious about the business at hand!

Namely, cranking the volume up to 11 on our ongoing efforts to figure out a few choice things about several different Internet companies.

Much as the television networks tout their crappy fall slate, here’s my September lineup:

1. Yahoo–natch! Could we possibly give up on this ongoing dramedy, when we are almost at the midway point of CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang’s 100-day Vision Quest to turn around the troubled Web icon? I think not! Like that new let’s-just-dispense-with-subtlety series on ABC called “Dirty Sexy Money,” it has everything: Money! Power! Sex! (Ok, not so much sex.) But: Money! Power! Search!

Tomorrow is officially Day 50 for Yang, and we’re going to spend the week asking smart people what they’d do to fix Yahoo.

Also, of course, we have requested interviews with everyone from Hilary Schneider to Sue Decker to Yang, and, curiously, the phone is not ringing with calls.

Nonetheless, we will not rest in our efforts to bring Yahoo to you–Garlinghouse! Ismail! Horowitz! Fake! Bhat! Boerries! Those not-Lloyd guys down in Santa Monica!

2. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Also Mark Zuckerberg, unavoidable, of course. And those other guys there, whose names escape you because only Zuckerberg says cheese for the magazine covers. Will they IPO or will they sell or will they stand pat? Kind of like “Deal or No Deal,” but without the suspense.

They will. One of those choices. Or not.

3. Hey, what about MySpace? Aren’t they No. 1? By far? I am itching to try to figure out what’s going on down there in Beverly Hills, what with all the attention and momentum Facebook seems to have of late.

So how is MySpace really faring? And what are its prospects for growth? What are its weaknesses (the chatter in the Valley, the Silicon one, is increasing technology challenges as it grows ever larger)? Is owner Rupert Murdoch angling to unload it? Or perhaps double-down with a play for Facebook, too? (I know, stupid, as it’s too costly now even for the master dealmaker.)

Television comparison: The return of “Grey’s Anatomy”–has it jumped the shark with that left-at-the-altar trick? Much in the same way, with its concerts and new offerings, can the hits keep on coming from MySpace?

4. AOL reminds me a little bit of “Desperate Housewives”–I stopped watching long ago, but I still really hope Felicity Huffman is doing OK (not so much Teri Hatcher).

I guess it was the two books I wrote on the online pioneer that hooked me, but I am truly interested in seeing what will happen to the service as it continues to stumble on.

Will CEO Randy Falco’s online entertainment plans work? (No, but they should!) Will AOL’s ad business take off? (No, but it should!). Will its cool side companies like Truveo and Userplane get the attention they deserve? (No, but they should, too!) Will it ever be spun off from the suffocating arms of its parent Time Warner? (You know the answer by now!)

5. Google. Microsoft. It’s going to be like a war between the 2007 one (Michelle Ryan) and the 1997 “Bionic Woman” (Lindsay Wagner). We don’t need to elaborate further, except to say pull up a chair and enjoy the show, as some cyborgs are going to really be kicking some you-know-what. And it’s going to be pretty!

6. Let’s not leave out the oldies like eBay, Amazon (Jeff, don’t think I have forgotten you!) and IAC, as well as newcomers like Joost, Hulu and the plethora of other interesting new companies now on the scene (with more to come).

With topics like copyright, privacy, innovation, growth and the continued Hollywood-Silicon Valley tussling, it’ll be a great time, as usual, to be watching the digital arena.

And even NBC Universal and Apple’s fighting over price, which now means I will not get to watch “Heroes” on my iPhone, will not deter me.

Although I beg and plead with the thickheaded pair: Save the cheerleader! Save the world! Save my $1.99 an episode!