In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.

On the possible agenda: A new strategy aimed at music and entertainment; a new look; and, perhaps, a new boss for the ad sales team.

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In the ongoing game of Internet exec musical chairs, Greg Coleman, who has been a top exec at both Yahoo and AOL, is poised to become president of the Huffington Post, as well as chief revenue officer, several sources said.

The deal for Coleman to come on board at the privately held online news site–which has grown significantly over the last year and just added well-known online media exec Eric Hippeau as CEO–came together only recently.

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One of the great things about the Internet is the immediacy in getting relevant information, especially via video.

Such has been the case with the fires that have been raging around Los Angeles of late, riveting images of which have proliferated around the Web, posted by professionals and amateurs alike.

Check out this amazing one.

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Wenda Harris Millard–calling in to BoomTown HQ from a cruise either on the way to or the way from Slovenia, since she said she was not exactly sure, given that it was the middle of the night there–wanted to make one thing clear:

She is still working for her other dozens of clients at Media Link as its president, but also has a big new gig helping MySpace get its advertising sales house in order, especially related to strategy and execution.

“I guess it’s a matter of semantics, but I will be leading the engagement,” said Millard. “But we have a whole team here too, and I am also still working for all our great clients.”

Okay, people?!? Which is, in Slovenian, in case anyone asks there, Wenda: Vidirati narod?

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In a move that will surely have Madison Avenue talking, well-known online advertising sales executive Wenda Harris Millard–who is now president of New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy Media Link–is poised to take over all advertising sales at MySpace, sources said.

But, in an unusual twist, the former Yahoo and Martha Stewart exec will remain in her job at Media Link, which has also been hired by MySpace to advise on restructuring the social networking company’s salesforce.

Current President of Sales and Marketing Jeff Berman will be leaving the company, MySpace has told employees via an internal memo.

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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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Now what?

The party-all-night social-networking site that has been MySpace so far got a massive morning-after shock yesterday when 30 percent of its workforce was laid off.

And today, MySpace, which is still 1,000-strong, has to face the cold, harsh light of day in the aftermath of the restructuring and get busy quickly figuring out a way to reinvigorate a brand that has suffered after a stunning rocket of a start many years ago.

So, based on many sources I have spoken to over the last week, here’s a rundown of the next steps MySpace will likely be taking and who’ll be making them.

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San Francisco-based Sugar Media, which specializes in Web sites aimed at women, cut its ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capitol.

Sequoia has been an existing venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006. NBC, a unit of GE, invested $10 million in 2007.

Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, also announced it has bought video shopping start-up, Shopflick, and had hired its founder and CEO to run a new Los Angeles-based entertainment unit.

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Yesterday, BoomTown wrote that Yahoo’s SVP North American Audience, Jeff Dossett, was leaving the Internet company after a very short stint there, because of personal reasons.

But I also noted that sources said he was likely to quickly land at a start-up, and in fact, he has resigned from Yahoo to do just that.

Dossett, who came to Yahoo from Microsoft in November, is taking a job as CEO of AdventureLink, an online site aimed at adventure travel and booking such trips.

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Since leaving Google several years ago, where he last worked on wireless spectrum issues, it’s hard to say exactly what role the digital jumping bean who is Chris Sacca plays.

He’s not an entrepreneur, although he seems to know all of them in Web 2.0 world and advises 18 start-ups. He’s no longer a big-company exec, although he was one and knows a lot of them too. He’s not a venture capitalist, although he is involved in a private equity firm and invests in a lot of the start-ups he advises, like the red-hot Twitter, and knows those guys too.

In any case, here’s my chat with the Silicon Valley gadfly, whom BoomTown has dubbed the Start-Up Whisperer.

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Platform-A President Greg Coleman–the former Yahoo advertising sales exec who came to AOL only three months ago–is leaving the company, sources said, as new CEO Tim Armstrong remakes his top staff in preparation to spin off the Time Warner online unit.

Coleman was brought to AOL by former CEO Randy Falco in February, replacing Lynda Clarizio, and will be replaced by a Google ad exec, Jeff Levick.

Armstrong, sources said, announced the moves to his staff tonight, right after he told Coleman about his decision late today.

Also out: CFO Nisha Kumar, who came to AOL in early 2007 from Time Warner, owner of the online unit.

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While in Los Angeles today at the AlwaysOn OnHollywood conference, BoomTown ran smack into blogging empress Arianna Huffington.

She was there to give a speech called “Video Killed the Radio Star…But Can the Web Actually Save Journalism?”

Her answer was a decided yes, especially with great journalists working online, such as the new managing editor of the Huffington Post the mega-blog has just hired.

That would be former CNET Networks Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh, who quit the company last year after a dozen-year run.

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MySpace has officially announced the appointment of entrepreneur and former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO, as BoomTown had reported earlier today.

But the social-networking site also named former Sling Media top exec Jason Hirschhorn as chief product officer in what has become a series of senior management moves at MySpace.

Both Hirschhorn and Jones will report to newly named CEO Owen Van Natta, the former COO of Facebook, who replaced MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe last week.

Once the trio get their bearings, many sources indicate that News Corp., owner of MySpace, has given Van Natta and his key execs free reign to remake the unit from top to bottom.

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New MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta starts his first day on the job at MySpace bright and early this morning, coming to its Beverly Hills HQ as he takes over for co-founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe.

Along with him will also be a new COO, former AOL exec Mike Jones, whose appointment will be announced this morning, sources said.

Jones was the founder of Userplane, a social-networking application maker that was bought by then-AOL head Jon Miller in 2006. Miller is now the digital chief at News Corp., which owns MySpace.

With a strong product and technology background, Jones is an excellent choice to be a partner to Van Natta–who was hired by Miller last week in a flurry of change at the social-networking site.

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Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta has finally been officially named as CEO of MySpace, as BoomTown reported yesterday and News Corp. announced this morning.

He will replace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe, who stepped down from the job earlier this week. DeWolfe will remain a strategic adviser at MySpace.

Here’s the full press release.

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