This weekend on Twitter, someone paid BoomTown a compliment of a sort: “I read you because you are a solid fact-based reporter with a Miss Cleo intuition “

Yipes, because of being fact-based, I had to point out that the well-known-via-infomercials Psychic Friends Network shaman turned out to be a bit of a fraud, although she’s always entertaining, with her jaunty Jamaican accent (she was not, of course, from there).

Nonetheless, it got me thinking about how I would predict what would result from all the deal-making that is suddenly in the air, after six months of ennui from the current economic downturn.

While Silicon Valley has been less impacted than, say, New York, things have certainly been tightening up here, with layoffs at big companies and small ones and less frenetic activity than one had come to expect from Web 2.0.

But last week, the pulse seemed to quicken a little with the various rumors that have swirled around Twitter, the variety of controversies around Facebook and the nascent chit-chatting now taking place between Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Thus, with a third eye to the future, here’s my take on what could happen. Big caveat, though: Much of what follows is all my speculation and analysis and not based on any psychic feelings.

TWITTER TWADDLE

Last week, I did a rather long reported post on what was going on after rumors broke out that Twitter was in “late-stage” acquisition negotiations with Google (GOOG).

While an imminent deal was not pending two weeks ago, I wrote that Twitter was indeed the apple of Google’s eye at the moment–specifically and now more so than ever, many sources tell me, of its Search Product VP Marissa Mayer–for some kind of search deal that could eventually lead to an acquisition.

But I also noted that Microsoft was also in the picture, vying for Twitter’s affections, and I doubted that Microsoft and Google would be the only ones interested in the hot-as-July-in-Alabama microblogging start-up.

Here’s the plus for Twitter: It’s on a hype rocket ship, its growth is also accelerating and it does not need money, since it just got a big slug of venture funding.

And that’s also a minus and why I also predict that there are only two outcomes: a sale very soon or a major investment by one of its suitors.

While I would love for its founders, including Biz Stone and CEO Evan Williams, to stick to their claims of remaining a “strong, profitable, independent company,” a cash offer of over $500 million or a cash-and-stock offer of slightly more will probably be enough to take them off the table, mostly because the getting might never get this good again.

That offer is most likely to come from Google, if I had to make a bet, which is well known for moving quickly when it sees a tasty treat it desires.

That’s a shame, since once the start-up actually does enter these kinds of “late-stage” talks for real, some deserved shine will come right off Twitter’s cute little MINI convertible of a company.

Instead, Twitter might want to take a page from Facebook and let itself grow its own as it explores revenue options, while perhaps taking a large investment and striking a significant commercial deal with a strategic partner like Google or Microsoft.

Then, with a modicum of independence and the possibility of acquisition if it turned out it needed help, Twitter could forge its own destiny.

And wouldn’t that be nice if Google or Microsoft didn’t just gobble up every innovative thing they cannot seem to think of on their own?

FACEBOOK FOLLIES

I will be reporting more very soon on what’s been going on as the powerful social-networking site deals with its fast-growing pains–up to 200 million users now, which is about as impressive at it gets in the Internet space.

Not so impressive is the variety of high-profile management mishaps that have plagued the company of late–from its Terms of Service debacle to its redesign rough road to the way Facebook recently parted with CFO GIdeon Yu.

To say Facebook treated Yu–a well-regarded figure in the tech sector, who had also raised an awful lot of funding for the start-up–with very little of the kind of grace he deserved and that it should have displayed is an understatement.

In the creation of a significant start-up, tensions inevitably flare and there is typically a lot of management turnover, which is natural, for a variety of reasons on all sides.

Why Facebook had to insecurely tout its stable financial state while backhandedly slapping Yu by saying it was in a search for a CFO with “public company experience”–Yu had enough public company experience to make that deeply insulting–was unclear, when it simply could have said he was moving on in the way most such partings are done.

The conflict between its public statement and an internal memo I obtained on Yu’s departure underscored the problem.

Insecure and way too focused on optics is probably an issue Facebook will have to deal with as it moves toward what the company hopes will be in IPO in 2010 or 2011. Rather than all the noise, its only goal should be shaping up its revenue and profit performance and, hopefully, building a cohesive management.

But does that mean current CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg will have to eventually step aside before a public offering and make way for a more experienced CEO type, as Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page did for Eric Schmidt, as some have suggested?

I predict not. Because, for all his careening from crisis to crisis of late, I have no question that Zuckerberg–who has fended off big-money acquisition attempts by big players with a cool-cucumberness that Twitter’s execs should study carefully–has every intention of riding Facebook to the very top–or even bottom.

Clearly modeling himself as a modern-day Steve Jobs (who was fired before triumphantly returning) or Bill Gates (a better comparison), Zuckerberg is a visionary techie who wants to style himself as a crack businessman too.

And with a lot of control over the fate of Facebook, he’s going to see his vision of Facebook and himself out.

THE ODD COUPLE

Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?

Oops, I mean can two once-bickering-over-a-hostile-takeover companies start talking without driving each other crazy?

Last week, the news, first reported here Friday, that Yahoo was involved in preliminary talks with Microsoft about an extensive commercial advertising and search partnership–should have come as no surprise.

After all, Yahoo and Microsoft are laggards in the lucrative search space, especially compared to the dominant Google, and they must somehow find a way to get along to get some traction in the marketplace.

But will they or will it be all Felix Unger and Oscar Madison battling until the end of time? While I loved that television show, and movie too, the Yahoo-Microsoft version is not riveting anymore to some.

“I am so bored with their not-coming-to-a-deal,” said one prominent exec, who was involved in the first go-round between the companies. “They need to make a deal, and if they don’t make a deal now, I will be both bored and in shock.”

That made me laugh out loud when I heard it. But it’s not funny, I know, because this is serious stuff!

Okay, then, seriously, this pair needs to come to some sort of partnership agreement like Miss Cleo needs a new reputation.

And, because I am a hopeful psychic, I predict they finally will, dropping all the emotion and history and realizing that they are wasting time and opportunity.

After all, while the future isn’t written, it can–a lot of the time–be both inevitable and utterly obvious.

Speaking of obviously (bogus), here is a video of Miss Cleo’s famous commercial:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google (GOOG) have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

Said a source close to Twitter: “There was a discussion with [Google executive Marissa Mayer's] group about real-time search and about product stuff. It was a couple weeks ago. It was very preliminary…and that was that.”

More importantly, said another source about the idea of an imminent acquisition or serious or even early talks: “Seriously, no negotiations, no deal, nada.”

So for all those Twitterers madly typing 140 characters and caught up in the grand idea of Twoogle, we return you to your regularly scheduled tweeting.

Of course, there has been a lot of analysis, put forth by many, including me, that Google should think about acquiring Twitter.

It is the microblogging service’s likeliest acquirer, in fact. And there is no question Twitter is being watched closely by Google.

But sources at Google stressed that a strong partnership–especially in light of the growing size of the Facebook social-networking site–is what the company is most interested in at this point in time.

That could change at any time, of course. Google or anyone else could plunk down more than $1 billion in cash, and I cannot imagine Twitter’s investors would or could resist. Nor should they.

And what if, for example, Microsoft (MSFT) offered some huge cash payday for Twitter? In that case, I am certain Google would jump into the faceoff, backing up a giant Brinks trunk to the door of Twitter’s San Francisco offices.

And the reaction such an idea has gotten with this round of rumors will surely be studied at Google.

But this is all just pure speculation and should be couched as that. And that does not mean there are talks going on now, as TechCrunch reported so firmly.

And that’s also true for a range of other companies–from Microsoft to Yahoo (YHOO) to News Corp. (NWS) to Time Warner (TWX) unit AOL to Cisco (CSCO) to Comcast (CMCSA) to the big telcos–that would also be interested in buying Twitter or partnering with it.

And Facebook already tried and failed to buy Twitter last year, which BoomTown chronicled in a post in November, for $500 million in cash and stock of the social-networking service.

Why? Because although Twitter is still small, with seven million users, it has a definite momentum in the red-hot real-time online status update space.

And while I give it a hard time for its utter lack of a business plan or revenue to speak of, the well-funded Twitter is also at the beginning of a long runway of possibility that could yield it a higher price later, if it so chose to sell at all.

Moreover, if Twitter’s investors and founders wanted to sell, they wouldn’t have taken a recent round at $230 million valuation, because it would imply a $750 million to $1 billion purchase price, and no one could pay that right now.

Even the mighty Google could not–which does not typically overpay for companies.

More likely, Google would surely get killed by investors for spending that much on a revenue-free company, especially since it is still getting beat up for the pricey YouTube deal it made when times were great.

Lastly, Twitter’s founders have expressed the desire to take the company out for a longer ride, even if some of its investors would love to cash out if offered a crazy price.

“Why would the company do something like this right now?” said a source close to Twitter, in a typical sentiment. “The company’s on a tear right now.”

In fact, last night in an appearance on “The Colbert Report,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone explicitly said Twitter planned to be a “strong, profitable, independent company.”

While entrepreneurs have said this and then quickly sold out, it is not the case now for Twitter, unless it got some insane offer, said numerous sources.

TechCrunch, which slapped a loud headline on its first post, “Sources: Google in Late-Stage Talks to Buy Twitter,” then changed it to “Sources: Google in Talks to Acquire Twitter (Updated).”

What’s next? “Google and Twitter Have a Lovely Organic Lunch and Discuss Trading T-Shirts (Updated Update)”?

The TechCrunch report, penned by Michael Arrington, also added a let’s-just-cover-all-our-bases update at the bottom of the ever-changing post that then hedged the news it had just hyped.

This is not new for the tech blog, especially related to Google.

On July 28, 2008, TechCrunch reported: “Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For ‘Around $200 Million,’” and said there was a letter of intent signed.

While the pair did hold ultimately unsuccessful talks, they never got even close to final.

And on February 6, 2008, TechCrunch had a post with the headline, “Rumor: Is Google About to Buy Bebo For $1 Billion To $1.5 Billion? Or Will it Be MySpace?”

Hmm, not so much on the about to buy Bebo. In fact, Google was never in what could be described as serious talks, and Bebo was sold to AOL, the lone bidder, for $850 million a month later.

Thus, the third time is, no surprise, not a charm either.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”

That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?

Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.

Indeed, Brockman now calls the event the “Edge Dinner,” after his lively Edge Web site, where he presides over a variety of eclectic online debates and discussions (in January, for example, the topic was: “DOES THE EMPIRICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE CONTRADICT THE REVELATORY NATURE OF FAITH?”).

Since I managed to miss the fete entirely (embarrassing confession: I fell dead asleep at 7 p.m. and did not wake until the next morning) and could not chronicle it, Brockman allowed me to post some photos from the event taken by him and by former Microsoft research guru and current intellectual property mogul Nathan Myhrvold.

Here are some, and you can see the rest here (click on the images to make them larger):

Google co-founder Larry Page and Applied Minds’ Danny Hillis

Former AOL kingpin and Revolution Health’s Steve Case and Jean Case, Case Foundation

Twitter CEO Evan Williams and Neoteny’s Joi Ito

Nathan Myhrvold, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Nathan Wolfe of Stanford University

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and DEKA’s Dean Kamen

New Media Nabobs Tim O’Reilly and Arianna Huffington

BoomTown just got to Paris, as in France, to attend and moderate sessions for the third annual Le Web conference.

Le Web is organized by Loïc and Geraldine Le Meur, with 1,500 people signed up to hear a range of Internet players, many of whom are from the U.S., tomorrow and Wednesday.

U.S. speakers include TED’s Chris Anderson, News Corp. (NWS) social-networking site MySpace’s Amit Kapur, Marissa Mayer of Google (GOOG), Linda Avey of 23andMe, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and Dan’l Lewin of Microsoft (MSFT).

And some interesting European execs include France Telecom Orange Chairman and CEO Didier Lombard, and Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO and co-founder of a very interesting fashion sale site, Vente-Privee.com.

Of course, there’s a passel of bloggers here like BoomTown. I’ll be interviewing Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon (AMZN) and well-known Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi.

Besides this conference, Loïc Le Meur has been trying to make a go of it with his San Francisco-based start-up Seesmic, which–like a lot of Web 2.0 companies–has recently made cutbacks. See my video interview below with him in better times, when I visited Seesmic in February.

You can also watch the conference streamed live from its site. More shaky–but Frenchtastic, although no lip-synching extravaganzas for me!–videos from me at Le Web to come, of course.

[Full disclosure: My partner, Google exec Megan Smith (you can read all about it here in detail), is judging a start-up competition at Le Web on Wednesday. But I am trying to find an excuse not to go to that panel, because I always nod off at those things, even if the crazy version of Britney Spears were a judge. Instead, I hopefully will be enjoying the lovely artwork at the Louvre right then.]

Now, we have two Googlers, who are demoing Google’s new Chrome browser and its features and user interface.

“Friendly” tabs, knowing your history better graphically, auto-typing, simplicity, easier downloading with a new window that one guy is calling a real app like “Pinocchio, because we wanted to build a real boy.”

Well, Pinocchio was wood for most of that story, but I like the effort!

Also, they show off the “Incognito” feature, where you can hide Web searches you don’t want others to see, which basically means porn and Barry Manilow fan sites.

Except the Google (GOOG) guys use a toe fungus search!

This is gross, although hiding toe fungus is a good idea related to Web navigation software.

Now, another smart-looking guy comes on, who looks like the other guys, and discusses the architecture, including rendering, security and so forth.

Also a speed test, from another Google guy, from Denmark, where Google’s Chrome–incredibly–beats Microsoft’s Internet Explorer! It is like one of those blind taste test commercials on television.

My mind starts to wander and I wonder if Microsoft Founder Bill Gates is watching this and getting plenty steamed up north at Microsoft (MSFT) HQ.

At this point, I suggest you please watch the Webcast of this demo to listen to the details, available through both Windows Media Player and RealPlayer.

Because once the Googlers start talking “plug-in bugs,” I start staring at Google co-founder Larry Page–who is here sitting with with top Google exec Marissa Mayer off to the side–to see if both are paying rapt attention.

They are, natch. (I should have eaten a tasty pastry.)

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Now, apparently, it is time to meet EQAL, a “social entertainment company” that is still essentially the two guys–Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett (pictured here. left to right)–who dreamed up LG15 and also the KateModern Web series.

Except, rather than operating out of their homes on a wing and a prayer, they are now armed with $5 million in funding.

That investment in the Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based start-up, which was announced in April, included some true Silicon Valley luminaries, such as entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, investor Ron Conway and former Googler Georges Harik, as well as Conrad Riggs and Spark Capital.

Sources also said Google’s (GOOG) Marissa Mayer is one of the new investors in EQAL.

With its small pile of cash, Beckett and Goodfried are planning new online shows–one of which will debut in September–as well as a number of other things, in yet another attempt to create a successful mesh between Hollywood and technology and thus yield a lucrative and lasting interactive hit.

If anyone can give it a try, it would be this pair, which unleashed LG15 upon the unsuspecting Web population in mid-2006.

Unsuspecting, largely because most people at first thought the user-generated-looking online video of the incessant jabbering of its attractive female lead right into a computer’s camera was real.

Instead, it was actually the “story of a group of young adults fighting against an evil secret society, the Order, that uses the blood of girls with a rare blood trait to extend the lives of a small group of Elders.”

And they also used Neutrogena products while doing it! (The skin care company was an early sponsor, and a scientist from Neutrogena was also written into the story.)

So with clean faces and over the course of its two-year run, LG15 ran to more than 550 episodes with 100 million views.

Beckett and Goodfried also launched KateModern on the Bebo social network in the U.K. a year ago, which also just concluded.

The “story of a group of British young adults investigating a creepy, New Age religion called ‘The Hymn of One’ that is actually a front for the Order” garnered 50 million views.

Well, it’s all disorder now, as EQAL tries to keep the hits coming without LG15, by working with writers, producers, media companies and advertisers to create new interactive shows that also have engaged online communities.

EQAL’s motto: “The Show Is Everywhere.”

Well, we’ll see, but here are Beckett and Goodfried–the former was a physician and the latter a lawyer in their previous lives–giving me a tour of their new office in Los Angeles’s “Valley,” and also sitting for a longish video interview about where content online is going.

That’s a question a lot of people in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley hope they can answer.

Here’s the video:

I have no idea, nor do I know why Burda broke out into song either–how much do you have to love a media mogul willing to do that?

But I got it all on video and a whole lot more on the last day of the pre-Davos European gathering focused on digital issues and innovation.

(And here is a post by European serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, who apparently thinks his video shows that Accel Partners’ Simon Levene and I were not impressed enough by Campbell.)

In any case, DLD’s motto was: “Uploading the 21st Century.” And while it did not quite do that, there were definitely a lot of interesting moments I captured for your viewing pleasure.

Along with Campbell (who was supposed to appear on a panel on Africa, but did not) and a singing Burda, the video features clips from two sessions today.

The first was titled “Exploding Media” and included: pundit Clay Shirky riffing on flash mobs; a very funny clip of kids talking about television (made by Technorati’s Peter Hirshberg); Google’s Marissa Mayer noting that Google will still not be in the content business; Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz discussing Yahoo’s plans to de-focus on making original content; and BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis advising old media to just ask WWGD? (What would Google do?).

Another session on the video features the founders of the genetics-focused social-networking company 23andMe–Anne Wojcicki, Linda Avey and Esther Dyson–answering questions about fears people have about learning too much about DNA.

Here is the video (and now I am off to Hamburg to visit Xing, a business social-networking company):

They include a stop at angel investor Ron Conway’s Pacific Heights (San Francisco) apartment, where we talked to Ron, entertainer and entrepreneur MC Hammer, blogger Om Malik and The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Delaney.

Then, a visit to investor Ram Shriram’s home in Woodside, Calif., where VC James Joaquin and YouTube’s Chad Hurley are harangued by our Flip camera.

And also, a sojourn at the downtown San Francisco abode of Google’s Marissa Mayer, where we interfaced with her, as well as Google’s Sergey Brin, WSJ’s Rob Guth and, yes, someone we can only call Hot Santa.

No surprise, but BoomTown just could not resist that one.

Here’s the video:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Now in its fifth year, it was called “Making a List: The Fifth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” and took place in Palo Alto, Calif. Our guest were Marissa Mayer of Google and tech consultant Greg Harper.

Walt and I typically show off several devices we think are interesting and try to identify some important trends.

Here’s a video of Walt, Greg and Marissa at the event:

(I still am having problems with the Brightcove player, so I uploaded the video to YouTube.)

For example, Walt showed the new Amazon Kindle electronic book reader (which he did not actually like so much in his review of the device this week), as well as the new version of Sony’s e-book offering. He also showed some new cellphones that are trying to mimic the Apple iPhone. His take: Great software in consumer electronics is key this year.

I showed new robotic devices from iRobot–the new version of its popular Roomba vacuum and its new wireless gutter cleaner called the Looj. We had an actual gutter on stage, full of leaves I made my much-abused assistant Ed Daly collect from a gardener’s truck we found on a suburban street.

And every year, we’ve brought in uber-gadget geek and tech consultant Harper, who always brings in a truckload of cutting edge and sometimes freaky stuff. That included an egg-shaped speaker that dances from, of course, Japan, as well as a solar battery charger, a $400 laptop and a vanity mirror that is a Webcam in disguise. Harper posited that all devices would have to be always connected going forward.

And, also annually, we invite a celebrity geek from well-known tech companies. In the past, we’ve had Google’s Larry Page, Jerry Yang of Yahoo, RealNetworks’ Rob Glaser and Chad Hurley of YouTube–geeky guys all. But Mayer, one of Google’s top execs, proved the nerdiest with a wide range of cool stuff.

She showed off a keyboard whose keys had embedded LCD screens, a wireless rabbit, an alarm clock that can jump off your nightstand and a T-shirt with a wireless signal locator in it. She also did a demo of exactly what the new Google Android operating system for cellphones looks like. Take careful notes: It looks an awful lot like the iPhone.

As you will see, it is quite the Bubblefest, with all sorts of geeky bonhomie and aspiring hopefulness of also landing a $15 billion valuation, as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted he was about to do onstage yesterday.

Other luminaries onstage yesterday included Google exec Marissa Mayer, Nokia’s Anssi Vanjoki, former AOL exec Ted Leonsis and super-VC Mike Moritz. Today’s slate: Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, eBay’s Meg Whitman, Philippe Dauman of Viacom and other various and sundry Web poo-bahs.

Of course, most of the action–as always–takes place in the halls of the Palace Hotel, where the schmooze factor is always ratcheted up to 11. There’s nothing a bunch of nerds likes to do more than debate each other over code and funding and which start-up is about to tank (not theirs!).

Here’s a video of the scene from Day 1: