If spinning is an intense political skill, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is doing her very best at trying to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

As Om Malik reports on GigaOm, Whitman–who is trying to nab the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California–told a radio interviewer recently that “actually I think Skype will prove to be a good acquisition for eBay.”

Well, good if you mean the $2.6 billion purchase of the Interent telephony that didn’t ever work as Whitman had effusively promised in 2005. Or the ugly lawsuits over it. Or the successful shakedown by its co-founders to get a big chunk back.

You get the idea.

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According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow.

While the massive agreement–which will settle a series of lawsuits waged by Skype’s co-founders–is not yet officially signed, sources said lawyers are apparently putting the finishing touches on the paperwork.

Sources also said that those co-founders–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis–will get 10 percent of Skype back for rights to key technology they control, an option to pay $83 million for another three percent of the Internet telephony service and two seats on the 23-member board.

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Carl Icahn, the activist billionaire investor who made such a noisy fuss in his quest to force management and other changes at Yahoo, is taking a much quieter leave from the Internet giant’s board.

He said “there was not a need at this time for an activist investor” on Yahoo’s board.

That’s true, of course, but here’s BoomTown’s quickie analysis: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz completely ignores him.

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Well, well, well, that financial imp at Microsoft–CFO Chris Liddell–pulled a fast one on Wall Street and turned in first-quarter earnings that blew away all estimates and even whisper numbers.

BoomTown liveblogged the morning conference call, which took place at 7:30 am PT–thanks for the Kiwi-laced wake-up call, Chris!

While revenue and net income in Q1 were down significantly from the same period a year ago, they were not as bad as investors expected.

Which apparently passes for terrific these days!

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Yahoo bested Wall Street expectations today, announcing stronger net income for its third quarter, despite an also expected decline in revenue.

In addition, Yahoo’s expectations for the fourth quarter are more positive than expected by investors.

But, there were some issues to worry about: Search advertising revenue was off 19 percent and display was off eight percent at “Owned and Operated” sites on Yahoo.

So, while investors can finally relax, how Yahoo can grow going forward is sure to be their next focus.

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When Apple reports its fourth-quarter earnings today, investors are hoping–actually, expecting–that the iconic computer company will look a lot now as it always has.

In other words, don’t go changing and it will please us.

In fact, Wall Street is anticipating, as it has throughout the econalypse, another estimate-beating performance.

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Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.

But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

There’s a great excerpt in the New Yorker this week.

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Well, it’s not like Twitter’s investors are Britney Spears or anything, but somehow, the $1 billion valuation of Twitter deserves a BoomTown all-lenses-shooting response.

Thus, the crack team at All Things Digital went all out in trying to capture one such investor in his true state.

Click in to see photographic proof!

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Is it just me or is it completely ironic that a pair of European entrepreneurs kept out of the United States due to tantrum lawsuits from the music industry are stamping their own legal feet like two ill-tempered toddlers of late?

That would be Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who today filed yet another lawsuit in their seemingly never-ending quest to win in court what they couldn’t in business dealmaking.

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BoomTown was as surprised as anyone when longtime Silicon Valley Web music entrepreneur Dave Goldberg said in May that his next move was going to be investing in and running an online survey company with the unusual name of SurveyMonkey.

Most expected the former Yahoo music head to land at an entertainment or media giant, running its digital operations.

But it is at SurveyMonkey where Goldberg has swung himself and he has now made good on his promise to open a Silicon Valley office of the Portland-based start-up.

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MicroHoo. Check! FaceFeed. Check!

And Twoogle? Let’s check!

Yahoo and Microsoft have finally partnered. Microsoft is already a big investor in Facebook. And today, the huge social networking site just picked up online content-sharing site FriendFeed, which is chock-a-block full of ex-Google execs.

Now, one has to wonder if wouldn’t it be easier if Google finally ponied up and bought the most recent star of Web 2.0?

That would be, of course, Twitter.

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This morning, in a blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone gave more of an explanation for the outage that the microblogging service endured due to a denial-of-service attack.

Fortunately, BoomTown can read between the lines in order to decipher the secret message herein!

Biz wrote: The Adventure Continues.

Translation: By “adventure,” I mean yet-another-friggin’-Twitter-birdie-crisis.

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Yahoo plans on announcing Thursday that it has bought Xoopit for a price in the $20 million range, according to several sources, one of its first acquisitions in a long while.

Reached late this afternoon by BoomTown, a Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment about the purchase. Xoopit did not respond to emails earlier today.

But sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, videos, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them.

Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.

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In a quiet fund-raising effort, Ning has raised $15 million more, a round that is valuing the social networking start-up at an eye-popping $750 million.

The money for this fifth Series E round comes from Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ning, founded by well-known entrepreneur and Ning Chairman Marc Andreessen and CEO Gina Bianchini, confirmed the funding when contacted by BoomTown. It was not actively searching for funding.

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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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