In one week, Yahoo will report its third-quarter earnings, after the market closes.

And so far, its stock is showing signs that investors are hoping for better days ahead for the Internet giant.

Shares are up 8.5 percent for the month, almost 13 percent for the last three months and almost 39 percent since the beginning of the year.

While that’s not the rocket ship Google (GOOG) has been on–the search giant’s stock is up 70 percent since January, which includes a big boost recently on expectations of a strong earnings report tomorrow–it’s clear investors are hoping an improvement in the online advertising market will boost Yahoo’s fortunes.

Wall Street is expecting $1.12 billion in net revenue and seven cents in earnings per share from Yahoo (YHOO)–and a better performance than that could boost the stock.

In fact, a pair of bullish analyst reports that came out today predicted just that.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Benjamin Schachter raised his price target to $21 a share, noting that after the search and online advertising partnership deal closes, Yahoo “should be meaningfully smaller and leaner, but should also be a significantly more profitable company.”

And Benchmark Co. analyst Clayton Moran moved Yahoo from hold to buy, with a price target of $20.

But a string of recent exec departures in Yahoo’s advertising units are making some within the company’s ranks slightly worried.

The departures include Jim Schinella, the company’s SVP for corporate partnerships, in September.

And yesterday, Glam Media announced that it had nabbed Josh Jacobs as SVP of Brand Advertising Products & Marketing. At Yahoo, Jacobs was a key exec in its display ad platform unit.

Many inside the company expect more departures in the ad and engineering arena at Yahoo, pointing out that many big stock packages given to hold onto talent are about to vest.

In addition, once Yahoo’s search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) is approved, as it is likely to be by the end of the year, hundreds of Yahoo engineers will get the choice of moving to Microsoft.

Some will, of course, but some simply do not want to go and many Silicon Valley companies and start-ups BoomTown spoke to report seeing more resumes recently from Yahoo staff.

There is little Microsoft can do to stop possible leakage of tech talent from Yahoo until the deal is approved, since the companies cannot do any integration until it is.

Perhaps worst of all, there seems to be nothing Yahoo can do to stifle its proclivity to yodel, which I begged Yahoo execs to forgo in its recent $100 million “It’s Y!ou” marketing push.

No such luck!

Yesterday, Yahoo launched its online Yodel Studio (no, I am not kidding), where you can record your own yodel in various music genres, like, um, rap.

Yahoo held a kickoff event in New York’s Time Square yesterday–however did I manage to miss it, since I was in Manhattan?–with a passel of celebrity yodelers like Jewel, as well as one in London’s Covent Garden.

Today, there is a yodel event in Mumbai, India. Bollywood yodeling anyone?

Here is a link to the famous Yahoo yodel, by the way, if you are so inclined.

And here is a video of the Times Square event, and also the very memorable Yahoo commercial of Taylor Ware, after she won the Yahoo National Yodel Challenge contest in 2003.

Some things never change (even if they should!).

All the news is already out about the new Yahoo homepage, which was launched today and which you can try here.

It features customizable applications, from Yahoo and third-party developers like Facebook, as well as a cleaner look.

But, just in case you are not satisfied yet, here is the full press release on the new front page for Yahoo (YHOO):

New Yahoo! Homepage Lets People Make the Web Their Own

Consumers can now personalize their Yahoo! experience with the best of the Web; Customizable apps stay with you when you’re mobile

Sunnyvale, Calif.–July 21, 2009–Yahoo!® Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) is launching a new homepage that brings together the best of the Web with the best of Yahoo! in a single destination across both PC and mobile screens. With the new Yahoo! homepage, people can easily add apps–from Yahoo! or virtually any other site on the Web–and access them from their computer or mobile devices so that their favorite content, services and experiences are always at their fingertips. The new Yahoo! homepage is available today in the U.S. at http://yahoo.com/try new and will roll-out in France, India, the UK, and on mobile devices over the coming week.

Today’s launch represents the most significant change to the Yahoo! homepage since the company’s inception. By enabling this level of personalization, Yahoo! allows people to get more done, faster, all in a single place. This launch is a major milestone in the Yahoo! Open Strategy, which seeks to mesh the Yahoo! experience with the best online content and services.

“People are living more of their lives online–in the U.S., the average person visits a staggering 85 sites a month*. Whether for the PC or a mobile device, Yahoo! is bringing greater simplicity and relevance to the way people experience the Web,” said Ari Balogh, executive vice president of products & chief technology officer. “By focusing on what people have told us they want, our new homepage is designed to help them stay on top of what is going on in their world, and in the rest of the world.”

The new Yahoo! homepage brings together the best tools and content from across the Web, combined with leading content and services from Yahoo! properties, to give people one place to access the people and things that matter to them most.

New features of the Yahoo! homepage include:

• My Favorites–People can easily choose from a dashboard of more than 65 apps to add directly to their homepage, including different email providers (AOL®, Gmail®, Yahoo! Mail), best of breed content sites (Barron’s®, NPR®, omg!, USA Today), popular social networking sites (Facebook® and MySpace®), and dozens of others. These apps give people the ability to preview, interact with, or navigate to their favorite sites from one easy check-in point.

• App Maker–Using technology developed by Yahoo!, people can easily create their own app on the fly by adding virtually any URL of their choice.

• Trend Setter–A new snapshot of trends, including the most popular searches, insights from Yahoo! Buzz, and fun facts from around the Web.

• PC to Mobile Sync (coming soon)–People will be able to continue their Yahoo! experience on the go with a more seamless PC to mobile integration. New apps added to the Yahoo! homepage on the PC can be added to the mobile homepage.

• More Personal News–Hyper-local news and the ability to toggle the news module to the top of the page offer easier ways to access the news that matters most.

• Social Updates–People can now share their current “status” with friends directly from the homepage, get visibility into what their friends are doing across the Web, and integrate with leading social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.

“At Facebook, we’re focused on giving people more powerful ways to connect–whether that is on Facebook or other popular Web destinations,” said Ethan Beard, director of Platform Marketing, Facebook. “With the ability to now check your Facebook activity or update your status directly on the Yahoo! homepage, we’re making it easier for people to share with their friends as they explore their favorite places on the Web.”

All users in the United States can opt-in to experience the new Yahoo! homepage at http://yahoo.com/trynew, with local versions rolling-out in France, India, the UK and on mobile devices over the coming week. Additional global rollouts are planned, beginning in the next month. More enhancements to the Yahoo! homepage, including additional apps, will be added in the coming months.

Although it’s not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so–in fact, it’s gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations–the Internet giant begins the massive rollout of it tomorrow.

The official launch of what was code-named “Metro,” which Yahoo had previously said was coming in the fall, will take place on an opt-in “beta” basis for the hundreds of millions of users in the U.S. and will be extended to France, the U.K. and India later this week.

When users log in, they will get a choice–for now, there will be no forcing it–to switch over to the new version, which Yahoo’s Tapan Bhat, SVP of Integrated Consumer Experiences, said in an interview with me today by phone, is the “the most fundamental change to the homepage ever.”

And, indeed, the new look is much different, even than previous launch candidates, featuring an almost complete rejiggering of the look and feel of the most important page at Yahoo (YHOO) and one of the most trafficked on the Internet.

The change is an important one for Yahoo, since its front page is perhaps its most powerful calling card to users and advertisers, as well as to Wall Street. Its homepage gets 330 million unique visitors every month.

Yahoo has redone its homepage many times since its founding in the mid-1990s (you can see the various incarnations of it here), but this new design is perhaps the most dramatic.

(See screenshots of the new regular page and one with a Facebook app featured below; click on the images to make them larger.)

The most striking change is a prominent left-side “My Favorites” area, with 65 specially designed applications that users can customize, including giving a quick hovering glimpse of email, stocks and of third-party sites like Facebook.

Not quite a dashboard or exactly a social networking page, it feels a little as if Yahoo took a browser tab or a toolbar, put it in a vertical format and gave it some great functionality.

Full disclosure: All Things Digital, as well as several other Dow Jones news properties, are in its special alphabetical apps gallery, although I had no idea it would be there.

Yahoo also allows users to create such widgets on the fly from most any Web site and they can have up to 36 apps on the homepage.

There is advertising in the boxes that pop up when hovering over these apps, which is a way of dealing with the issue of purposely sending users away from Yahoo rather than keeping them there. It is a much better version of that trap.

“We want to be the center of people’s lives online and want to do it in an open, innovative way, all while providing a compelling experience,” said Bhat. “It marks the beginning of a renaissance of Yahoo, a renaissance where every pixel matters.”

After looking over the history of Yahoo’s homepages since 1994 (see them all here), it has pretty much told a story of a site with increasingly smaller font sizes and more stuff packed on it.

“It had nothing to do with the user, but what Yahoo wanted the user to do,” said Bhat, rather frankly.

Thus, he said, everything going forward will focus on what the user wants, which, he explained, essentially boils down to a “my world” and “the world” outlook.

In the my-world bucket: Email, favorite Web sites, stock info. In the the-world: General news, search, what’s hot.

But, unlike its highly customized MyYahoo product, Bhat said that Yahoo wanted to make it easier for users to create a page where “there is destination for everything you are about in just a click or two.”

The programmed “Today” module remains, although users can indicate which kind of information–finance, news, entertainment–gets top billing.

The module is also localized, depending on the user.

“We wanted to provide broadcast and narrowcast in one place,” said Bhat.

That includes updating status, right from the homepage, including integration with social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

But–in a very big mistake–there is no ability to update status to the popular microblogging service Twitter on this part of the homepage, as yet. You can make it an app, though, as Twitter can appear in your Yahoo updates.

And there is a big advertising module still on the right, along with a what’s-hot section. And, finally, there will also soon be complete two-way syncing with mobile devices, said Bhat.

Interestingly, although CEO Carol Bartz has often said internally that she does not like the color purple, which has been the company’s signature one since its founding, the main page keeps up the violet tradition with a lighter tone.

“Yahoo’s color is purple and it is known for that,” said Bhat (deftly not taking my delicious bait).

As to why it has taken so long to get its front page redone–it was originally set to debut late last year–Bhat noted that such a major shift of such a trafficked page was, well, complex.

“It involves bringing users along and also rewiring everything within Yahoo,” said Bhat, who gave Bartz credit for turbocharging the effort, since she first arrived at the troubled Silicon Valley icon in January and quickly put the brakes on the planned launch. “Now, we are looking at Yahoo holistically, all centered around the user.”

Time will tell if it is a success, but it is certainly a good and even innovative effort, in much the same spirit Microsoft (MSFT) has had with its new Bing search offering.

And while some might complain that it is not cutting-edge enough, it seems just the right amount of rejiggering and open feel for the mass of users it serves.

For Yahoo, at least when it comes to this one, change is indeed good.

Tomorrow, Yahoo will officially unveil the latest redesign of its homepage, an almost complete rejiggering of the look and feel of one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet.

The latest launch comes after about a half-dozen redesigns the homepage since Yahoo was founded, the last one in 2006.

You can read the full story of the new page here, but BoomTown thought it might also be instructive to take a look at what has come before it, seeing how the Yahoo (YHOO) front page has evolved since 1994.

Incredibly, that was 15 years ago.

Personally, I like 1994 and 1995, which were clean and clear with big font sizes, due to Yahoo positioning itself as a directory of the Web, although the 1995 logo and swirly buttons are wacky.

The one from 1997 is also an improvement, in the same list theme.

But in 2000, the whole page suddenly started bloating badly, with too much color and too many links.

Weight gain continued in 2002, and the page got even more colorfully confusing with ever-smaller font sizes in 2004.

The 2006 version was, thankfully, much simpler, but still a packed-out mess.

That new incarnation from the Silicon Valley icon, which you can see above, is a more back to the basics in style.

The latest launch, which Yahoo had previously said was coming in the fall, rolls out today for the hundreds of millions of users in the U.S. and will be extended to France, the U.K., Germany and India later this week.

Here are the screenshots of all the Yahoo pages in order, from 1994 to 2006 (click on the images to make them larger, and please excuse some blurriness–I got these shots from Yahoo):

1994:

1995:

1997:

2000:

2002:

2004:

2006:

After his 100-day VisionQuest to figure out what to do at AOL, Tim Armstrong is in a chattier mood.

The former Google (GOOG) advertising exec took over the perpetually troubled Internet icon in the spring and has been on a worldwide tour of its offices, meeting employees and trying to get a lay of the land of where the Time Warner (TWX) unit has been and where it should be going.

So, BoomTown did not waste a New York–where AOL has its HQ, in fact–minute in getting on the horn with Armstrong to finally hear his take.

There’s not a lot of new stuff to reveal, of course, beyond what Armstrong has already said over the last months about AOL’s new direction.

That would be a spinoff in November, a focus on advertising, content, local, communications and starting a venture unit.

Here is the interview, which we did by phone on Friday:

BoomTown: So, what’s your overall assessment of AOL and its prospects after your 100-day look-see?

Armstrong: Well, to start, I feel good about the company and where we are at. What I mean by that is that I feel good about what the company’s opportunities are.

B: What were you most surprised by on the downside and on the upside?

A: I think basically things were about 50 percent more negative and 50 percent more positive than I thought.

On the negative side, it has mostly been a crisis of confidence. I think people at AOL had started to believe the business press that it was just an incremental part of the Internet.

On the plus side, there are very surprising assets, which have been neglected, but are amazing. Such as Winamp, ICQ and the really incredible engineering talent all over the world–in India, Tel Aviv, Dublin.

B: What was the one thing you took away as the most important thing to do first?

A: Well, it is important for everyone to understand that AOL should not be in every business out there. That there are a limited set of things we have to commit to do better than anyone else.

Over the years, for example, there were so many acquisitions. But a lot of them became businesses that we were not fully committed to, and we have to start making clear choices and letting the rest go.

B: Such as?

A: Well, we are going to be focused on scaling content, advertising, email, messaging and local, but making it easier and less complicated.

In the ad business, for example, we have 100 products. I think we can be much more successful with less.

And we have different publishing platforms all over the world, just as the Web has become about having centralized technology. We have been missing the core characteristic of the Internet, which is about one platform.

B: Talk a little about what you are doing in the content space. AOL, via its MediaGlow unit, has been creating a lot of small blogs in a variety of categories, but also has big sites.

A: We are going to do both things. One thing I would say is that we have a content strategy that spans the content we create, the content we are buying and partnering on, and I think we have clear plans in terms of investing in each area.

B: What about communications?

A: I think you are very quickly going to see us cleaning up email products. And in the messaging space, one of the things we will be doing is integrating it more with other AOL properties.

Historically, the management has looked at messaging as how to drive monetization and it has been a bad experience. I think that it more important as a recirculation tool.

B: How realistic were you about AOL when you arrived compared to now?

A: I went into this job with my eyes wide open and I am not saying now that I have answers to every problem.

But I have been trying to do what it takes to solve the big ones, such as recruiting and building a team. I have also spent a lot of time finding talent in the company already here.

And, I have worked with people outside the company. I consider my job being whatever it takes and educate myself.

B: So what’s next, besides the already announced spinoff? Is AOL still an acquisition target?

A: I look at it in two different ways.

We need to stay very laser-focused on strategy and execution, as well as innovation.

And we have to build this company as a powerful independent one.

AOL has been looked at as a target for a long time, where AOL has been the prey. It might also change in that we can be the hunter too.

B: What about the online advertising and search deal with Google?

A: Well, it ends in December of 2010, as everyone knows.

I have to say that the partnership has been extremely successful on many fronts.

They have been our partners for eight years and there has been a lot of momentum.

But we also have to think about how to continue that for the right outcome for what we need in future, because AOL has changed since the partnership started.

Of course, we will look at other partners, but we also really know we have a great relationship that exists with a partner that is also going to be listening to us about what we need.

At least he’s not going to Microsoft (MSFT)!

But nonetheless, sources said another major Yahoo tech exec and a longtime company veteran, Venkat Panchapakesan (pictured here), EVP of the Audience Technology Group, is readying his departure from the company.

This time, it’s to return to India, where he has long told colleagues he wanted to return.

Sources said Panchapakesan will not be leaving until the end of the summer, but “his departure is well along the road.”

At Yahoo (YHOO), Panchapakesan has most recently been responsible for the company’s overall product technology and platform strategy, such as its open efforts.

He’s an old-timer at Yahoo, having arrived in 1998, and has been involved in the development and execution of technologies for lots of Yahoo products, such as Mail, Flickr, Answers, Groups, Messenger and its content properties.

But recent reorganization of the tech unit, along with Panchapakesan’s interest in working in India, hurried along his leaving.

According to his profile on LinkedIn, Panchapakesan moved to Bangalore, India, to become the CEO of the Yahoo India R&D in 2003, returning in 2006.

Previous to Yahoo, he worked at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Here’s two about big changes in AOL’s international–such that it is–unit, as the head of it–Maneesh Dhir (pictured here)–moves on.

A longtime staffer at the Time Warner (TWX) unit will “return to his entrepreneurial roots,” according to a memo from AOL CEO Randy Falco below.

Dhir has been based in India since his appointment several years ago. He came to AOL from its acquisition of Netscape in 1999.

And, in another memo from AOL President Ron Grant (also below), it looks like MediaGlow President Bill Wilson will get most of the goodies from Dhir, with all of international publishing reporting to him now, such as AOL Europe’s Dana Dunne.

(I could tell you endless stories about when AOL first entered the European market–former head Steve Case tried and failed to get to get the Europe Online moniker–but that would make you realize just what a digital antique I am.)

Here are the Falco and Grant memos:

From: Randy Falco
To: ADTECH Global; Platform-A Europe; Intl Employees; US Employees
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:01:13 PM
Subject: Organizational Announcement

Dear AOL colleague,

I’m writing to tell you that Maneesh Dhir, head of our international efforts, has decided that after 10 long and fruitful years with AOL, it’s time to start the next chapter in his career.

Since coming to the company in 1999 as part of AOL’s Netscape acquisition, Maneesh has made many important contributions to AOL. Most recently, of course, he was instrumental in the growth of AOL’s presence worldwide. Under his leadership, AOL went from a company with a consumer presence in just four countries outside the U.S. to one that is now in 38 countries–including India–in less than two years. Maneesh was also a key advocate for the rebuilding of our product development efforts so we could more effectively and efficiently launch products worldwide.

Just as important, Maneesh helped us learn the benefits of tapping into a worldwide pool of talent. It was his idea to open an AOL call center in Bangalore in 2002, which quickly became our largest. Two years later, he pushed for the creation of the Bangalore Development Center and the Bangalore Knowledge Center–important centers for technology, finance, analytics and shared services that are now part of the AOL India operations.

Thanks to these and many other accomplishments, we are now well positioned for global growth in all three of our key businesses–MediaGlow, Platform-A and People Networks–as well as our Products & Technologies division.

Having done all this, Maneesh told me he’s ready to return to his entrepreneurial roots. He’ll be staying on for a couple of months to help ensure a smooth transition. There will be subsequent information outlining organizational changes coming shortly.

Please join me in thanking Maneesh for all he’s done for AOL and wishing him the very best on his future endeavors.

Randy

From: Ron Grant
To: ADTECH Global; Platform-A Europe; Intl Employees; US Employees
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:05:37 PM
Subject: Organization Update

Dear AOL colleague,

I want to join Randy in thanking Maneesh Dhir for his outstanding contributions to AOL. I’ve known Maneesh for years, and he’s always been a tireless champion of AOL and of our global ambitions. I’m proud of all that he and his team have accomplished.

With Maneesh’s decision to return to his entrepreneurial roots, we’re taking the opportunity to make organizational changes that will build on the progress he and our international team have achieved.

Our next step is to more closely align and centralize our global publishing efforts under the newly formed MediaGlow business unit, headed by Bill Wilson. Over the last year, we have grown the MediaGlow audience dramatically through our highly efficient content development model. We believe that a more centralized infrastructure will enable us to accelerate MediaGlow’s global growth.

As a result, Dana Dunne, who oversees our European publishing business, will now report directly to Bill. In addition, our publishing businesses in India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada will all report in to MediaGlow.

We are also aligning our global technologies and search organizations under Ted Cahall. With this move, our AOL India operations led by Philip Nelson will now report in to Ted, as will Bill McGrath, who heads our ASA team and also oversees the International development team in Bangalore. Ponnapa PG will now report to Phil, who will be working with his team to finalize the India realignment over the next few weeks. Lastly, Joe Arcuri is leaving AOL Canada and his direct reports will be aligned with their counterparts in New York and Dulles.

Please join me in thanking Maneesh for his many contributions and wishing him well.

Ron

Yahoo will begin testing out versions of its new main homepage to a minuscule number of users starting tomorrow, employing a design that more significantly allows users to customize the starting page in a way that essentially amounts to a kind of My Yahoo-lite for everyone.

The redesign is a huge and complex endeavor. According to comScore’s July stats, Yahoo (YHOO) has about 82 million daily U.S. visitors to its homepages.

Most of those visitors use the Yahoo main homepage, which is fully programmed by the company.

Making such a shift will also be a big perceptual deal for Yahoo, which needs to prove it has remained current and open, especially compared to faster-growing rivals like Facebook.

Yahoo has been trying to reinvigorate itself of late, after a disastrous takeover battle with Microsoft (MSFT) and a weakening of its business and its stock price.

Because of all this, the Yahoo brand has also doubtlessly been tarnished.

Thus, making a success of its new design is critical, and Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang has been touting the idea that Yahoo must be the “starting point” to the Web for users.

To respond to users who want to access information and services more quickly, the new streamlined homepage will be much shorter, be made up of more “snippets” and have links to outside email providers (initially, Google and AOL).

Most importantly, the new homepage will prominently feature a left-hand vertical bar, which has applications from both Yahoo properties and third-party services like eBay.

These apps can be added and subtracted easily. Eventually, there will be thousands of apps, from Yahoo and, after vetting, from outside developers.

(See screenshots below comparing the old Yahoo with three of the new ones.)

The changes will initially impact less than one percent of worldwide users in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and India. But they will be rolled out to a wider and wider circle over the next six months.

“People want broadcast and narrowcast at the same time,” said Tapan Bhat (pictured here), Yahoo’s SVP of Front Doors, Communities and Network Services, in an interview with BoomTown. “They want choices, but they also don’t want to do the work involved [in programming their own homepage].”

Thus, Yahoo apparently is going to give users both in its first major redesign since 2006, which it has been working on for two years.

The major components of the page will still remain close to the old one, but jazzed up and shifted around.

For example. the apps will be moved into the position where Yahoo services links used to be, and vice versa.

As before, there will be a main information module at the center of the homepage, “pulse” and news area on the bottom-right and -left, and search and navigation at the very top.

Bhat said the changes were made after a lot of research of user behavior and also after paying attention to key trends such as the widgetization of applications and the trend toward openness.

The new look is not aimed at the hardcore user, who might want to endlessly tweak the Yahoo homepage, although those options will remain for those who prefer them.

But, Bhat said, more people wanted quick access to things like email without having to launch apps. Instead, users will be able to see it all on the main page.

“It is not a dashboard approach of My Yahoo or iGoogle,” he said. “People are time-starved … so it is important to the user to get to their relevant daily information as quickly as possible without having to click around.”

Bhat said the rollout tomorrow will not be final and that Yahoo will keep making changes, depending on reaction.

“We don’t want 300 million people opposed to change,” said Bhat, who wrote a blog post on the changes here. “So, we are going to be listening hard.”

Here are screenshots (click on images to make them larger):

This is the home page that will be rolled out tomorrow

This is a home page that includes more outside apps

This is the home page that shows how email from Yahoo and Google and AOL would look

This is Yahoo’s current home page, as of tonight

Apparently, an Indian tech news site called TechGoss has its dander up about a visit Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured here) has been making to that country.

And, for information related to news of why the social-networking czar is in India, TechGoss is offering 10,000 rupees–or $240.17—specifically, 5,000 for exclusive photos of him there and 5,000 for a detailed story on his stay in India.

Currently, Facebook is the No. 3 player in India, whose social-networking scene is dominated, incredibly, by Google’s Orkut.

Asked the post: “What is Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, doing in India these days? Rumor mills are working overtime mainly pointing to a business trip to launch Facebook India soon. Others speak of a working holiday. As in the past, the Facebook PR team is only available to speak to a few chosen journalists.”

Well, Facebook PR was not helpful to me either, but that does not stop BoomTown in its greedy and ceaseless quest for rupees!

According to sources, Zuckerberg is in India and, in fact, all over the world, on a trip that is mostly for pleasure and contemplation, but also mixing it with some business.

In fact, some at Facebook are jokingly calling Zuckerberg’s month-long jaunt abroad “Vision Quest,” as the 23-year-old travels completely solo from place to place.

So in India, it is not some major initiative yet and more a getting-to-know-you visit, although Facebook will surely need to compete more handily in the growing market there.

Namasté, Mark, and safe travels!

One looks at the newfound fervor in India for Lord Balaji (pictured here), an incarnation of the Hindu Lord Vishnu, because of his apparent pull in getting adherents visas to the U.S. and other Western countries. Well, that’s one way to win an H-1B.

Another is a piece about investor Peter Thiel, who made the first significant investment in Facebook, and his maverick theories on how venture capitalism has to change. That includes letting entrepreneurs cash out early–praise the Lord and pass the Porsches!

(If you want to hear Thiel in action, see below the video interview BoomTown did months ago, in which he discusses his approach. And, yes, I know I say “right” too much.)