Quincy Smith, the high-profile CEO of CBS Interactive, is planning on leaving his job at the media giant in January to start an advisory firm in Silicon Valley, according to several sources.

But, in an interesting twist, Smith will remain an adviser to CBS under a multiyear contract, sources added, making it his first client. Apparently, Smith will focus intently on authentication issues for the company.

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Longtime Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.

As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending, although it seems more frantic than ever of late.

In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference, and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

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Back in the heyday, Peter Currie was the money man to see in Silicon Valley.

As CFO of Netscape Communications, he led the famed browser start-up into history, as the first great Internet rocket ship, when it went public on Aug. 9, 1995.

Rising to insane levels, the stock was ground zero of the Internet gold rush, despite the fact that it had no profits to speak of. But it did have a 23-year-old co-founder and tech wunderkind in Marc Andreessen and a growth trajectory that was astounding.

If you think it sounds somewhat similar to Facebook today–where Currie will now help out as temporary financial adviser after the social-networking site parted ways with its CFO, Gideon Yu, yesterday–you are correct.

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Last week, I went to the 15th Stanford Accel Symposium, hosted by Stanford University’s MediaX and the VC firm Accel Partners.

With the honking big title of “The Delta Conference: The Impact of 2008 Dramatic Events on the World of Digital Media and Technology,” it included a panel on online media with a stellar gang, all talking about microblogging, content and where it is all going in this economic environment.

It was kind of like “The View,” except all guys in khakis and oxford shirts. You know, a typical Silicon Valley gathering.

Here are video interviews with the panelists.

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Obviously, the dream CEO for Yahoo is News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin.

And, no surprise, he is the No. 1 choice of most inside and outside Yahoo in the wake of the news late yesterday that its current CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang is stepping down.

Well, Yahoo would certainly be a challenge for Chernin, in terms of a corporate cleanup challenge, especially compared to figuring out how to make bank on plush toys from “The Simpsons.”

But there are many other contenders for the job, despite the slog it could be. Here’s BoomTown’s list…

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Another week, another nonpick for the still-outstanding position to lead Microsoft’s digital business.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has cast about for more than three months, both internally and externally, for the person who will turbocharge Microsoft’s Web efforts, but no one has emerged a favorite.

Nonetheless, new prospects include former Cisco exec and current Joost CEO Mike Volpi, sources said.

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A lot of people have been piling on CBS for its deal to buy Web site operator CNET Networks for $1.8 billion in cash.

Not BoomTown.

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

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

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Here are some more video interviews I did at the Monaco Media Forum last week.
Talking about a range of Web issues, the interviewees include pundit and investor Esther Dyson, Real Networks’ Rob Glaser, Simon Assaad of Heavy, BSkyB’s James Murdoch and the ubiquitous Quincy Smith of CBS:

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OK, I am definitely not Princess Grace-worthy (well, who is?). But I am headed right now to her glam neck of the woods for the Monaco Media Forum, which is set to take place from tomorrow through Saturday in Monte Carlo. Hosted by HSH Prince Albert II, its subhead this year is “Leadership for the Digital Revolution,” and the group gathered is pretty heady and packed with American Webheads, as well as from around the globe.

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And what exactly did Quincy Smith get for handing over millions of dollars to the daily financial Web show, Wallstrip?

Well, to start, a cameo on its aggressively cute-as-ever episode yesterday. The jaunty president of CBS Digital wore sneakers with his uncomfortable-looking power suit as he gamely delivered his lines in a sendup of the site’s host–the also aggressively cute-as-ever Lindsay Campbell–arriving at the media giant’s headquarters in Manhattan without anyone caring.

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I always pay attention when anyone calls a media executive smart and, when it is a newly minted one, I pay particular attention. In a post today, BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis points to a story in The Wall Street Journal also today about CBS’s renewed efforts to plunge into the digital space under the leadership of [...]

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