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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Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, the personal genetics start-up, will be leaving to start a foundation related to Alzheimer’s disease.

With Anne Wojcicki, she founded the high-profile company–whose Series A investors include Genentech, Google, and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin–in 2006.

Avey noted in an email to staff, which is posted in its entirety below: “I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.”

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Yesterday–in a somewhat rambling and also riveting blog post about charging for content–serial entrepreneur and perennial gadfly Mark Cuban made a very important point that execs at every large media company should take to heart as they try to cope with the digital challenge.

Use your noggins, why dontcha?

He also threw out some very good ideas for doing so.

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Oh, who doesn’t just love, love, love the two latest viral videos to hit the Web–“United Breaks Guitars” and the joyful wedding dance of Minnesotans Jill and Kevin? Combined, they have more than 20 million views on YouTube.

While that’s all well and good, like a lot of these kinds of viral phenoms, neither is likely to make much money and become more than watercooler wonders.

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It’s hard to know what to think of the economy’s direction, even if you are trying to glean some knowledge from those whom you imagine might know a thing or two about it.

Indeed, if you listened to a variety of tech and media execs talk about what its status is of late, it’s a wonder we can get out of the woods, since no one knows exactly where we are in them.

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A few weeks ago, when I was having breakfast with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen about his new venture fund, he talked about what he thought was critical to being successful as an Internet company.

Ticking off names, from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Andreessen said he always favored technical entrepreneurs for one key reason: “You need someone who lives and breathes product.”

It’s a refrain I have heard a lot recently from a wide range of people in the sector, most especially when talking about two of the more challenging renovations of key Internet brands going on of late.

That would be: Yahoo and MySpace.

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Yes, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz did indeed drop the F-bomb on BoomTown quite expertly in an onstage interview at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference recently–and, yes, it was both expected and enjoyable.

(In this picture, she is clearly trying to hypnotize me with her stare.)

But that’s not all the voluble leader of the long-troubled Internet company said in what was a sassy, funny and very lively session at D7, where she talked about a lot of topics, from Microsoft to Google to the state of the advertising market in the weak economy.

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Tomorrow, just two weeks after it took place, All Things Digital will start posting the full sessions of the recent seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

We could not accommodate everyone who wanted to come in person, so you have already lost the opportunity to annoy major tech and media moguls and my mother all in one place (although Mission Accomplished! for BoomTown), but will be able to see all the content onstage here, in its entirety, on ATD, in the exact order we put on the show at the conference.

As a primer, here’s News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and singer Jill Sobule opening the show.

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Incredibly, the seventh D: All Things Digital conference begins tomorrow night, after a year of preparation, as we raced to the finish line this past weekend.

Here is a video I did as we get ready, including: my mother being perplexed by Twitter (which will be fodder for a good question for co-founders Evan Williams and BIz Stone on opening night of D7 tomorrow); my assistant, Ed, getting threaded; our first D commercial by my friend and also new Fox star Jane Lynch of “Glee” (incredibly, we realized that she and I now both work for Rupert Murdoch); and a short primer on this year’s show by my terrific partner, Walt Mossberg.

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Was it more than a month ago that the Google was rumored to be in “late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter”?

Not so much late-stage, I guess. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that it was time to fob yet another rumor that yet another moneybags of a company–this time, Apple–is in “late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter.”

But despite very serious interest in the hot microblogging service by every company that can afford considering such a thing, including Apple, getting across that late-stage line would require major investors in the hot start-up to be very involved, and they are not as yet.

So, rather than be on the edge of your seat about all these endless, alleged late-stage high jinks, here is a five-step list to cut out and keep when the questionable rumors of “late-stage negotiations” with Microsoft, News Corp., Verizon, Cisco and more inevitably show up.

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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.

Well, we’re still going–making the same long-term bet that the digital revolution will keep rolling as we did at D1. Here’s our lineup for D7.

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Finally, Owen Van Natta is about to win out over a founder.

The former Facebook COO is poised to become the CEO of MySpace, replacing co-founder and current CEO Chris DeWolfe.

DeWolfe will likely get a title as a special adviser to MySpace in a deal that is still coming together.

But the die seems cast for Van Natta to take over the thorny job of rehauling MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

It’s familiar territory for him.

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As of today, we have made important changes to the All Things Digital Voices section.

Why? Well, a few weeks ago, ATD was caught up in a bit of the controversy that broke out due to louder-than-usual complaints by several traditional media companies about how their content is treated on the Web.

Without going into a long explanation: They expressed displeasure that some sites were misusing their content via aggregation. Those complaining included the editor-in-chief of Dow Jones, which owns this site.

The ensuing debate made us realize we needed to be a lot clearer and more explicit about what we are doing in our Voices section, which includes short excerpts of third-party content from outside our site, and to make those policies more prominent and transparent.

Some will disagree with the changes we have made and some will not think they go far enough. But we hope we have addressed the key issues.

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According to several sources, News Corp. will officially announce its shaken-but-not-stirred digital lineup this morning, as former AOL head Jon Miller takes over as the media giant’s new chief digital officer.

And Peter Levinsohn–his predecessor at Fox Interactive Media, which Miller will inherit in a new form, along with a larger portfolio, all based in New York–will also officially take up his new post as the key digital exec at News Corp.’s film and television studios in California.

BoomTown and others had reported on the changes last week.

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BoomTown has confirmed a report that former AOL head Jon Miller is set to take over as digital head at News Corp., replacing Peter Levinsohn.

But Miller has not actually signed up for the job officially, since he is still under a noncompete agreement with Time Warner from his AOL stint. It runs out in three days, in fact.

But sources said News Corp. is likely to announce Miller as its “chief digital officer” by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Once he does sign, which seems likely, Miller will be reporting directly to the media giant’s head, Rupert Murdoch. Based in New York, he will also be chairman and CEO of the newly created News Digital Media group.

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