Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009’s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now that the most recent layoffs have taken place, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for.

After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex?

The response I got was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, including quite a few who thought Yahoo needed to sell itself off completely.

Some considered Yahoo (YHOO) a media and advertising company, for example, while others thought of it as a more Web tools outfit. Still, others considered it a turnaround situation, requiring a wholly different kind of CEO.

Perhaps therein lies the problem–it is still hard to define precisely what Yahoo is and is not, even for its ex-employees.

In any case, here are some of the best suggestions:

1. The Media Mogul

“I think they need to sell to a media company,” said one ex-Yahoo, who posits the move needs to be drastic enough to truly reset Yahoo.

In this scenario, search gets sold to Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo’s online content is combined with media assets of a big entertainment and news conglomerate.

That would make the leader of Yahoo one of the following: Bob Iger of Disney (DIS); Rupert Murdoch/Peter Chernin of News Corp. (NWS); Jeff Zucker of General Electric (GE) unit NBC Universal; or Les Moonves of CBS (CBS). (News Corp. is the owner of this Web site.)

2. The Insider

A lot of votes here for former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig and not so many for current President Sue Decker.

Why? Several ex-Yahoos mentioned a need to refocus intently on products and the need for a product-obsessed leader, but one who also knew Yahoo well and could get things moving without needing a lengthy learning curve.

“Since Dan R. left, I think there’s been a definite void (at the senior exec level) on the product/consumer expertise and advocate front,” said another ex-Yahoo.

Other execs mentioned are former Yahoos Jeff Weiner and Jeff Mallett.

But several also pointed to board member John Chapple, who is the one most insiders say they are guessing will be the next CEO, especially since he has been reaching out to Yahoos on many levels and asking questions.

3. The Microsoftie or Googler

The new top name here is obviously recently departed online ad exec Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive, whom many think would be a strong pick and would focus the company on advertising.

In addition, most of those leaving–including several technical people–all seem to agree that Yahoo needs to get out of the search business, and pronto.

Said one engineer: “I hate to say this, but as good as we can be, we cannot compete in the war that is breaking out between Google and Microsoft. And it will only get uglier.”

Other names mentioned in this category include Yusuf Mehdi and Kevin Johnson of Microsoft, as well as Tim Armstrong of Google (GOOG).

4. The Fixer

While there are a lot of different opinions out there among the ex-Yahoos I spoke to, all agree that the company is in need of a sharp operator and someone who can do what it takes to turn the company around quickly.

That means someone like former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, whose name has popped up recently, or even nontechie execs known for operational skills.

“We need a decisive leader, given how slowly it takes for things to change at Yahoo, who has a real sense of urgency from the minute he or she gets the job,” said one ex-employee.

Another former exec described it as a “two-step process.” First, the turnaround CEO needs to come in and reorient, focus, and get the company going in the right direction, then a more product-oriented person can be installed under that CEO later.

5. The Holy Grail-Steve Jobs Option

I think the most interesting idea I got from all the many former Yahoos I spoke to was that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs swoop in and buy Yahoo.

When I laughed out loud at this notion at first, the exec insisted that it was a feasible idea, given that Apple was interested in expanding its platform beyond its now-popular devices.

It’s an interesting bit of wishful thinking, of course, to imagine a “great leader” to calmly guide the company back to its roots.

Jobs, in fact, memorably addressed a meeting of Yahoo VPs in the fall of 2007. As I wrote then: “Jobs basic message [to Yahoo]: You have great assets–just like Apple did–and now it is all about execution.”

Yes, that tiny little detail.

6. Raise the Yangtanic

Interestingly, pretty much all the ex-Yahoos I talked to–as angry as some are at him for his tenure as a CEO less successful at execution and the ensuing loss of market value at Yahoo–said they did feel there was a need for Co-Founder Jerry Yang to stay around in a significant way.

“Jerry has been a really bad CEO,” said one former employee. “But he could still be an important leader at Yahoo and give the company the kind of inspiration it so desperately needs.”

Not everyone is on board with that.

“I completely disagree that Jerry should stay around. Jerry is one of the main issues at Yahoo and he and [David] Filo must go, as well as most of the board,” said one former Yahoo. “There needs to be free rein for the new CEO to make changes and that won’t be possible if Jerry is still there. Jerry is a nice guy and his heart is in the right place but he has failed as both board leader and CEO and the company needs to start fresh if it is to have a chance.”

Adds the ex-Yahoo: “Steve Jobs would be great, but I think he is busy.”

Not BoomTown.

And it is not because newly crowned CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith (pictured here) is the ever-amusing Energizer Bunny of the Internet.

Okay, CBS (CBS) paid too much and that makes the whole thing suspect. But is it the wrong direction?

I have been noodling on the deal for a while now and have concluded that I like it.

Why? Primarily, because it is a big bet on big traffic from a high-quality Internet-born content and video site, which has been unnecessarily pilloried much as much, much smaller Web 2.0 competitors have been over-hyped.

With a hard re-haul–and there is no question CNET has to shake the Web 1.0 tone out of its system–and a true effort to find new advertising paradigm, the site could be just the kind of proof that content on the Web can really be powerful and more lucrative.

That’s because size still does matter. CNET is a midsize network of sites–smaller than Yahoo, but much bigger than most, with a range of sites, such as the popular GameSpot (see chart below).

Solving all of CBS’s problems is not the end game here, nor should it be, which has been the tone of a lot of the coverage of the deal. That’s been especially true as the media giant’s shares have swooned.

Struck in mid-May and closed at the end of June, the union has not inspired a lot of cheering by either Wall Street or the media, neither of whom like the 22-times EBITDA price (compared with CBS’s own seven).

Typical was The Wall Street Journal, which slappity-slapped the deal–comparing it with a lackluster CBS Web deal from a few years ago when the network bought CSTV for $325 million–and even managed to insult CEO Les Moonves’s ancient acting career at the same time:

“CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves had a bit role in ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ in 1977, but never made it as an actor. So maybe it’s time that Mr. Moonves stop acting like an Internet dealmaker.”

More recently, Lehman Bros. (LEH) Anthony J. DiClemente, in a longer report about CBS’s stock, noted that the deal’s impact was questionable.

He wrote: “In our view, it may take several quarters before we are able to discern if CBS’s purchase of CNET is able to help the online monetization effort for CBS and its TV content. We believe CBS will need to rejuvenate the CNET brands and ad sales effort in order to earn an adequate return on invested capital. CNET’s platform may open up a new collection of advertisers for CBS’s Internet ad sales team.”

Well, exactly. As always, the issue is going to be all about execution, making integration go smoothly and getting its ad sales team to actually begin to sell across all CBS online properties in new ways.

But what should be not lost here amid all the bellyaching about price and the depressed CBS brand and its even more depressing stock is that someone has to begin to build the next generation media model and create a critical mass of high-quality display inventory that also attracts a large and demographically attractive audience.

In other words, all the pieces are in place at CNET and CBS to do this. Whether the Energizer Bunny runs out of power before that can happen is another question altogether.

Please see this disclosure related to me and CBS.

Walt Mossberg interviewed CBS CEO Les Moonves at the fifth edition of our D: All Things Digital conference last May, where he talked about the media giant’s Internet aims.

The 53-minute video is highly pertinent to today’s acquisition of CNET by CBS for $1.8 billion in cash.

As I previously wrote, Les Moonves is getting into the Internet in a big way, it seems, if you watch this onstage interview with the CBS CEO.

While it used to be that big old-media companies, including the powerful television networks, always seemed to display disdain for the online space, these days they are talking it up like they invented it.

At the conference, in fact, Moonves unveiled CBS’s acquisition of Last.fm, the Internet social music platform, and spoke a lot about getting the company’s content everywhere.

Here is Moonves:

While it used to be that big old-media companies, including the powerful television networks, always seemed to display disdain for the online space, but these days they are talking it up like they invented it.

At the conference, in fact, Moonves unveiled CBS’s acquisition of Last.fm, the Internet social music platform, and spoke a lot about getting the company’s content everywhere.

By way of background, D: All Things Digital, the annual tech and media conference Walt Mossberg and I host, has been sold out with a long wait list every year we have put it on.

That has meant only a few hundred people can see the interviews and also demos we do live onstage with some of the tech and media industry’s most interesting and important players and products.

The lineups have included Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as Eric Schmidt of Google, IAC’s Barry Diller, Meg Whitman of eBay, Cisco’s John Chambers and many others.

And we’ve demoed stuff like the Treo when it first came out, as well as digital toilets, Wi-Fi phones and much more.

We usually post the photos and videos of the interviews and demos six or more months after they take place on a separate conference site. This year, our Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski live-blogged D5, and we also posted video highlights from all of the sessions immediately on our newly launched site here.

Now, we are posting videos of every session of the 2007 conference here, in full, and we have made all our photo galleries, hosted by SmugMug and mostly shot by our fabulous Asa Mathat, public too. You can also access our videos via the site’s master player here.

Every day, I am going to highlight a different interview or demo from the conference.

Here is Moonves:

Starting Monday, we’ll be posting all of the interviews from D5 in their entirety. I will be posting and commenting on each interview here in this blog, but the videos will also reside in our video player.

While we have already posted the joint interview of Microsoft’s Bill Gates-Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as a solo turn by Jobs and also one with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now you can watch lively discussions with film legend George Lucas, YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman and many more, as well as seeing our demos and other special video.

And you had no idea what you were going to watch in the midst of the summer doldrums. Now, let Cisco’s John Chambers liven up your day!

The interviews featured are with famed filmmaker George Lucas, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and a solo interview with Apple legend Steve Jobs.

Here’s the video I did for the tab on the conference, focusing on the strides made by traditional media in dealing with the Web and its impact.

In related D news, our official conference page has now been relocated to this site from its old one, and you can now access it here. You can get all sorts of information, as well as pictures and videos from the first through the fourth D conferences.

We will not be opening registration for D6, which will take place May 27 to 29, 2008, until the fall, although Walt and I are already thinking about next year’s program.

Full pictures and video for D5 will be up on this site soon, first for conference attendees and then for everyone. Until then, check out our highlights of the conference with blogs, video and pictures here.

“You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard,” wrote CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler in a letter to fans that announced seven new episodes of the series about post-apocalyptic life in a Kansas town have been ordered for next season. The network had been inundated with calls and emails, we well as mounds of nuts after a line in the show, which was interestingly one of the most streamed online for the network.

During Walt’s interview with CBS CEO Les Moonves onstage at D5 last week, well-known photographer Rick Smolan asked about the series in the audience Q&A part, noting the digital nature of the protest. “It’s been impressive to hear how important the Internet has become to CBS…[but] if the Internet is as important to you as you say it is, would you consider responding to the audience? I understand it sets a precedent.”

Moonves joked that the fans had found a way around CBS email filters. “There has been an unbelievable number of emails to us and, unfortunately, because the audience of that show is very Internet savvy, they’ve learned to get around the blocking,” he said.

Walt followed up, asking about other options for the show. “Why not keep producing it and distribute it on the Internet, where maybe you don’t need that kind of huge amount of viewership?” he asked.

Moonves noted it was still a pricey proposition. “It’s well and good to say that, but when you spend the kind of money it would cost to do that, you would be losing a considerable amount of money,” he said.

Walt then asked the question that will become increasingly important as creative people find new and more economic ways to make and distribute content about the chances for such formats as Webisodes.

“It’s one of the things that is being talked about now because of the attention that it’s had,” answered Moonves.

One can hope, but for now, congratulations to the digitally-savvy emailing fans of “Jericho.”

And that’s without what was clearly the blockbuster joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of Apple, which got a mountain of attention, as it deserves for both its historic implications (the two icons of tech in a rare analog appearance together) and its sheer drama (PC guy meets Mac guy, except in real life!).

While it was not the WrestleMania some would have preferred, I thought it was riveting to see two people with very little left to prove about anything in their professional careers and who will be in the history books willing to go out on a bit of a limb and talk from a more personal place.

In addition, watching these longtime rivals and also collaborators kibitz about their tech-war stories, each correcting the other’s memories, was really interesting. Here is a great comic strip from the Joy of Tech Web site about the interview that says it all.

But outside of the glare of the pairing, there were a lot of highlights and insights I gleaned from the other onstage interviews.

1. THE MSM FINALLY GETS IT: One of the things that struck me was how comfortable and easygoing all the traditional media executives interviewed were. CBS’s Les Moonves, Peter Chernin of News Corp., Ann Moore of Time Inc. and even suing-Google-for-a-billion Philippe Dauman of Viacom all seemed less fearful of the Web than ready and eager to use it for their benefit.

Of course, there are copyright issues for all, which was articulately explained by Dauman (who came off as reasonable in his case against Google’s YouTube), but all seemed to understand the need to find new business models and new distribution methods for their content.

They also had the funniest videos–here is Moore’s faux Geico ad with actor Mario Cantone and Viacom’s genius Stephen Colbert monologue.

2. DANCING WITH THE TECH STARS: On the flip side of that, both Google’s Eric Schmidt and YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen need to at least be a bit more respectful in public about other peoples’ work and rights. It cannot and will not be, as much as I love the idea of empowerment of the consumer, just the “community” that decides what is OK to post.

And, as smart as they might be, it’s hard to rely simply on their assurances that their brainiac engineers will come up with a way soon to stop copyright theft. This is a delicate dance that Google must pull off without two left–and arrogant–feet.

Still, YouTube’s intro video was very sweet, especially Chen and Hurley scarfing donuts.

3. GEORGE LUCAS IS NOT SHY: While the legendary filmmaker has always been known as shy, Lucas had not even dropped his bags on the floor of the hotel lobby before he was deep in conversation and debate about the digital sector with a plethora of folks gathered round.

And he did not mind being pugnacious either, telling YouTube’s Hurley and Chen that they should endow a film school to make up for all the crappy video they had unleashed on the world.

Onstage, Lucas, no lover of Hollywood’s machinations either, gave a great label to some video on the Web, which he called “circus,” or, better still, “throwing puppies on a highway,” compared to “art” that endures.

4. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN IS ALSO NOT SHY: About sticking to his guns, so to speak, related to his stance to continue fighting in Iraq and also about the risks posed by the spread, if we withdraw too early, of Islamic Jihadism.

But Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Cisco’s John Chambers do look the part of cabinet members here. What about Steve Case, whose new businesses center around health, as surgeon general? Or Charles Simonyi, former Microsoft exec and recent space traveler, for head of NASA?

But, whatever your view about the war, I think we can all respectfully disagree with Sen. McCain’s contention that cellphone service in the U.S. is top-notch. Clearly, he has never been to the black hole of mobile coverage near Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road lately.

So here’s one of my movies to show you how we prepare for the annual conference, which is highlighted this year by a joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, the twin icons of the tech industry.

We’ll kick off the conference tomorrow night with an interview with Sen. John McCain, who is in the race to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States. We will talk to him about that, as well as the war in Iraq, but also hope to discuss a plethora of digital issues with him. McCain is one of the few politicians who knows a thing or two about the media, telecom and Web sectors.

Other interviewees on Wednesday and Thursday include: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; CBS CEO Les Moonves; News Corp. President Peter Chernin; Cisco CEO John Chambers; former AOL CEO Steve Case, who will talk about his new company, Revolution; famed director and producer George Lucas; Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley; Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom; and space tourist (and former Microsoft exec) Charles Simonyi.

We’ll also have demos from tech players like Palm legend Jeff Hawkins and others. And we are also excited to have singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who will perform several times throughout.

We’ll have full coverage of D5 on our site, starting tomorrow night, including liveblogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, pictures, video excerpts and more.