All Things Digital

BoomTown is at the lovely Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley at the 2009 Yahoo annual meeting, liveblogging the event, which should be spectacularly dull.

Here is a rundown of what went on.

10:05 am: The meeting kicks off with a little video presentation with various and sundry television talking heads saying “Yahoo” in quick succession.

Actually, this was the year during which all of those hype-magnets repeated “Twitter” so many times that it has began to make my ears bleed.

But I like the spirit of trying to make Yahoo seem relevant and innovative again.

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The Microsoft antitrust trial seems like a distant memory, doesn’t it?

Not quite yet to the Justice Department, it seems, which asked the federal judge overseeing the 2002 settlement with federal and state regulators yesterday to extend her oversight of some of the judgment another 18 months.

The Justice Department said it wants that extended to make sure Microsoft fully complies with the requirement that technical documentation to licensees is crackerjack.

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Today, for interested lawyers, the American Bar Association is hosting a “brown bag” lunch and discussion in Washington, D.C. on the now-scuttled Google/Yahoo deal.

Ominously titled: THE GOOGLE/YAHOO! AGREEMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT IN ONLINE ADVERTISING, the gathering could not come at a more perfect time, given that comScore’s 2008 Digital Year In Review report, released yesterday, showed the power of Google at an all-time high, no matter how much Yahoo-chasing, lawyer-rattling and lobbying Microsoft has done.

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When reports came out last week that Google and Yahoo were downsizing their controversial search advertising deal, I told a Yahoo exec I happened to be having dinner with that that it was the surest sign that the search giant was about to dump the long-suffering Internet portal.

The exec, who made the case that the deal was always tactical and not strategic, laughed. For all its problems, Yahoo has always been a straight-up player and such sneaky machinations are not its strong suit.

Google, not so much.

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Are Google and Yahoo thinking of walking away from their controversial search advertising deal, as reported in an amusingly hedged report in The Wall Street Journal last night?

I would bet my Barry Manilow record collection, based on rumblings on Wednesday among those close to the case, that Google is a key whispery source here, sending a very public signal to the Justice Department that it would walk if pushed too far and leave regulators with egg on their faces for not letting the search giant help the struggling Yahoo.

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The election is not the only event with only days to go–a move in face-off Yahoo and Google are in with the Justice Department over their controversial search advertising partnership will have an outcome, sources close to all sides said, before the next President is chosen.

Thus, I predict news either Friday or Monday.

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So–at this point–BoomTown feels it is not untoward in asking: What the heck is taking so long for Yahoo and AOL to decide whether or not to merge their struggling operations?

And, after talking to a dozen sources, inside and outside both companies, this week, I can tell you there is definitely one nagging problem: They’re just not that into each other.

Make no mistake, though, these arranged marriage negotiations are grudgingly advanced. Oh, they are talking, and how, now engaged in what another source describes as “very serious due diligence.”

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BoomTown was a squeaky enough wheel to get Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to grant a long interview by phone yesterday–just a day after he had announced weak third-quarter earnings results for the Internet giant, caught as others are in the econalypse, as well as layoffs of at least 10 percent of its global workforce.

But instead of being glum, as you might expect, especially after a year of corporate turmoil that would have finally gotten to even Job, Yang sounded surprisingly confident that Yahoo would emerge a winner after all the wrenching change is wrought at the company he co-founded.

Here is the second of two parts.

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BoomTown was a squeaky enough wheel to get Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to grant a long interview by phone yesterday–just a day after he had announced weak third-quarter earnings results for the Internet giant, caught as others are in the econalypse, as well as layoffs of at least 10 percent of its global work force.

But instead of being glum, as you might expect, especially after a year of corporate turmoil that would have finally gotten to even Job, Yang sounded surprisingly confident that Yahoo would emerge a winner after all the wrenching change is wrought at the company he co-founded.

Here is the first of two parts.

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Today, The Deal got played, and claimed that Yahoo and Google were likely to abandon their controversial search ad outsourcing deal.

Wrote The Deal’s Cecile Kohrs: “A proposed joint venture between rival Internet companies Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. appears headed for the trash bin, just ahead of an expected U.S. Department of Justice challenge to the agreement, lawyers close to the deal said.”

Well, maybe it will die at some point. But, in the words of Juba in the last line of the greatest movie ever (“Gladiator,” of course!): Not yet.

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Today, the New York Times did a thumbsucker on the fight over the controversial advertising partnership that Yahoo and Google have struck that is opposed by Microsoft, some advertisers and, maybe soon, the Justice Department.

Thank goodness then for the liveliest part, which came when the Google and Microsoft talking heads squared off.

Just like the dudes pictured here! Schwiiiiing!

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You have to admire the sledgehammer stylings of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who loves to accuse Microsoft (justifiably, I might add) of bullying lobbying tactics in our nation’s capital, in the latest moves in the regulatory fight over the controversial search ad outsourcing partnership that Yahoo and Google have struck.

Today, just days before the Justice Department will decide whether to move ahead with a lawsuit to stop the Yahoogle deal from proceeding or let it move forward with some other remedy or tweaking, Schmidt announced that he would be campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama in the last two weeks of the election.

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Yahoo and Google have agreed to delay their online search ad partnership to give the Justice Department more time to evaluate the deal.

Spokesmen from both Yahoo and Google confirmed the delay.

Although Google execs have been especially adamant that the arrangement was going forward no matter what, the move is not surprising, given the increasing opposition to the deal involving the No. 1 and No. 2 online search leaders.

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To be fair, the whole market was dragged down today due to worries about a deepening recession. But Yahoo’s ever-decreasing share price has got to have the company and its investors mighty worried.

Hitting lows not seen since the dot-com doldrums of 2001 and 2002, Yahoo closed at $15.58, down $1.38 or 8.14 percent, giving the troubled Internet giant a market cap of just $22.08 billion.

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This week, it will be Yahoo stepping up the volume in the debate over the controversial Yahoo-Google ad outsourcing deal.

And it could not come a minute too soon.

Yahoo has been unusually quiet about the issue, after weeks of Google’s more aggressive and listen-to-us-big-brains approach.

That’s all resulted in more Justice Department scrutiny, more critics piling on, including the typically dulcet Canadians, who might also be launching an antitrust investigation.

Thank goodness, then, that the first foray by Yahoo President Sue Decker makes the case in a much more sensible and straightforward manner, which has been sorely needed on the Yahoogle side.

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