Another high-ranking Yahoo exec is leaving–this time, Jim Schinella, the company’s SVP for corporate partnerships.

Sources said that Schinella (pictured here) announced the move internally recently, telling staff he would stay on until the end of the year.

Located in New York, he has been focused on big Yahoo (YHOO) partners such as big telecom firms like Verizon (VZ).

Schinella joined Yahoo in 2003 and left in 2005, after becoming its global VP of business development.

He returned in 2007, as Yahoo said at the time, to focus on “proactively identifying strategic partnership opportunities that align with Yahoo!’s brand and leverage the company’s broad product offerings.”

BoomTown is certainly going to be one of the many-so-many who immediately fork over whatever it takes to get my mitts on the upcoming tablet device from Apple.

And that’s why, according to a new report from Piper Jaffray Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster–who is monk-like in his devotion to writing down every scrap of information he can scrape up about whatever Apple HQ in Cupertino, Calif., deigns to release–it’s going to be raining money down on the company, just like manna from heaven.

That would be $1.2 billion in revenue in calendar year 2010, after he estimated that Apple (AAPL) will sell two million units at a price of $600.

“While at first glance this may appear to address a niche market, we believe the addressable market is larger than that of the Apple TV, of which Apple sold about 1.2m in its first year,” wrote Munster.

He apparently spoke to some leaky Asian component suppliers, who have received orders from Apple, to be “fulfilled by late CY09.”

Munster, who also provided the mock-up image of the Jesus Tablet seen above (it will take its place next to the Jesus Phone and Jesus Pod), wrote that the device was pretty much a larger iPod touch.

It will run all the usual apps and have some extra ones, specially designed for the big screen, he predicted.

It will also be Web-connected and, of course, is a touchscreen and play all kinds of media, like music, games and video.

But don’t call it a netbook!

“We believe an Apple tablet would be priced 30%-50% below the $999 MacBook, and would offer best in class web, email, and media software,” wrote Munster. “In other words, we believe Apple’s tablet would compete well in the netbook category even though it would not be a netbook.”

Also, there will be a 3G modem–personally, we all pray Apple picks Verizon (VZ) and not AT&T (T) to be the mobile provider–with a possible subsidy on the sale of the device.

The hype around the new and doubtlessly innovative Apple product–my vote for a name is that it will be called iTablet–is likely to grow into the fall, especially if it is introduced by the miraculously on-the-mend CEO Steve Jobs.

Apple fanboys: Can you say Hallelujah?

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

Not so much late-stage, I guess, with a gestation period that seems interminable (and BoomTown has been there, so can speak from experience about interminable pregnancies).

In fact, I’m still waiting for the Google (GOOG) takeover news floated inaccurately back then to cross our desk at All Things Digital HQ, although it’s more likely Godot will show up first.

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 (AAPL)–is in “late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter.”

You could set your broken-but-right-twice-a-day clock by it, in fact.

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

In fact, both Twitter co-founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, are in New York today to attend the 2009 “Time 100″ dinner, which fetes this year’s influential people honorees selected by the magazine. Which they are.

So, if they are in serious talks with Apple, they better grab that award and head on home tout de suite.

In point of fact, talks with Facebook last year were actually the only truly deep sale discussions that Twitter has been involved in, and those went south.

Oh, the very notion of Apple and Twitter is a Techmeme dream-ticket, sure to be chewed over for days on end. (I once considered doing a post that just said “AppleTwitterAppleTwitterAppleTwitter…” for 1,000 words to see how much idiotic traffic I would get.)

But given that it is too good to be true for now, 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 rumors of “late-stage negotiations” with Microsoft (MSFT), News Corp. (NWS), Verizon (VZ), Yahoo (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL, Comcast (CMCSA), Cisco (CSCO) and more inevitably show up.

1.) Belle of the Geek Ball

Everyone is indeed actually interested in buying Twitter and each has expressed a proper level of interest to the company’s execs–especially to over-contacted CEO Williams–about said interest.

And, because this is America, a bid for Twitter could come at any time and in any amount.

That’s why Apple has indeed said hello. Why Microsoft’s business development team has been busy formulating a valuation. Why Google’s M&A guy, David Lawee, has called into Twitter’s HQ many times with kind expressions of desire. And why News Corp. execs, including Rupert Murdoch himself, have murmured tweet nothings to the Twitter team.

Please note: This is not the same thing as “late-stage negotiations.” Not at all; so don’t believe such things, as you will see this one coming down the pike for miles (see Step #4 below).

If there ever were an Apple deal to be done, it would not be living in some tidy vacuum.

For example, does one imagine Google CEO Eric Schmidt–who is on the Apple board, much to the FTC’s chagrin, it seems–would decline to enter the fray? Oh, he’d be up to his conflicted eyebrows in it at this point.

(Full disclosure: ATD is also considering making a bid for Twitter, but only if I get to name who is called Chief Twit.)

2.) We Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty

Twitter’s Williams, as well as Stone, do not really want to sell just yet, given the huge traffic over the last year, goosed even further by the whole Oprah-Ashton Kutcher axis of Tweetvil.

Twitter is growing and growing and growing. Does that mean it has peaked or is just crossing over into the mainstream?

I would say the latter and so would its investors and execs.

I have done a lot of reporting and have found that most of them would like a chance to ride this rocket ship and see if they can prevent it from being a shooting star by figuring out some viable, innovative and lucrative business plan.

“Twitter really could make a lot of money,” said one investor. “And we are not just making that up either.”

Well, phew, because I have been a little worried about that.

3.) We’re Living in a Material World, and I Am a Material Girl

That said, as Madonna sings, a pile of cash is a pile of cash and if one of the suitors makes a big move with $600 million or more in cash, it would be hard for Twitter to completely ignore such an offering.

But, in any case, there will be no late-stage negotiations with one player.

Instead, an epic free-for-all wrestling match to the death would break out among all of them, especially Google and Microsoft.

This will be great for me and all the other tech writers as it will be ugly, competitive and tailor-made for breathless reporting.

Google is the likely winner here, although Microsoft is quite intent on the possibilities of integrating Twitter technology with its business offerings.

Someone will, I can predict with certainty, lose an eye.

4.) All the Single Ladies…Cuz if You Liked It, Then You Should Have Put a Ring on It

And, even with that kind of offer–which I would take in a New York minute, as would some Twitter investors–there is a sense when you talk to Twitter’s founders and investors that they truly believe they are onto some very important interactive communications paradigm shift in the Internet arena with their start-up.

I would have to agree given that the real-time and status-update concepts that Twitter has perfectly touched on are a very important one.

Thus, Twitter would prefer to remain independent for now.

Whether Twitter will prevail or not is never assured, but it would be really a shame if it gave up before the story was over.

5.) And They Lived Happily Ever After

Let’s be honest: There is no real downside here for Twitter.

If the service turns out to be be a flash in the pan and it is not sold for big bucks, Twitter still has heralded a very important new era in the digital industry.

And, if it grows like crazy even more, better still.

Also, Stone got to go on “The Colbert Report” and Williams on “Oprah.”

Best of all, in a shameless plug, they will both be captive on stage with Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference exactly three weeks from today, where we can ask them about all this and more.

So, I am thrilled too.

Who says there are no happy endings?

Until that D7 interview, here is my recent video with Williams and Stone at Twitter’s funky San Francisco HQ:

[UPDATED: With added information about range of product discussions.]

In this digital era’s version of “Spy Vs. Spy,” Microsoft and Google find themselves in yet another sharp-elbowed battle to be the one to strike some kind of commercial search deal or product partnership with Twitter, many sources with knowledge of the situation said, as they also jockey for position to evaluate the potential of the much-hyped microblogging start-up.

After last week’s explosive rumor that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which BoomTown reported was wildly premature, I set out to try to sort out exactly what was going on.

As I found out, there was a lot–mostly much talking related to possible product and distribution partnerships, centered around Google or Microsoft, especially around a deal to become the one to exclusively deliver search or other similar services to Twitter properties.

The reason for the interest? Many think Twitter’s real-time search of its 140-character “tweets” posted by users on the service will become the next great battlefield in search. Google currently dominates the general search market, with third-place Microsoft struggling to get more share.

But how to do that is in flux, as past efforts at various third-party search arrangements have had mixed success for both Google and Microsoft. Both companies and also Twitter are trying to figure out new ways to do such deals.

On top of that, it is also unclear if Twitter wants to strike a deal purely to get a payment from either Microsoft or Google, as others have done. Twitter management has indicated that they are much more interested in growth and distribution over a revenue focus.

Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone said as much on the start-up’s Web site recently, as well as in many media interviews, noting that it will begin experimenting with its own business ideas this year.

In other words, the talks Twitter is having with both Google and Microsoft could also lead exactly nowhere too.

Along with the commercial talks, both Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) are also trying to figure out if Twitter is simply one of the many shooting stars that are far more typical in Silicon Valley or if it is sea-change start-up worth pursuing and paying up big-time to acquire.

“As impressive as what Twitter has done, we are all overexcited,” said one source. “And so it’s hard to figure out the right thing to do with all the pressure to do something.”

Thus, while an offer for Twitter from Microsoft, Google or a plethora of other players–from News Corp. (NWS) to Yahoo (YHOO) to Cisco (CSCO) to Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL to big telcos–could come at any time, said many sources, only a huge price would lead to an acquisition, especially since the growth of the service has been accelerating more rapidly in recent months than has been reported publicly.

This all makes for dicey times at Twitter, which sits at the center of all this noise, trying to build a company, while also being fully cognizant that trying to engineer a massive buyout could be its best outcome.

Further complicating the situation: The fact that Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams–who has already sold one company, Blogger, to Google and eventually left after a lackluster experience, a common one of many entrepreneurs who sell out early to large companies–is less interested in selling out than in growing the company.

But without the kind of control of the company’s fate–which allowed Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to effectively block similar buyout pressures early in its history–Twitter’s founders also might not get the last word in the event of an unusually attractive offer.

While a $500 million stock-and-cash one from Facebook last fall was turned away by Twitter due to worry about the social-networking site’s market valuation, the massing interest is overwhelming and forcing it to make some clear decisions about it path.

“When you are in a situation like Twitter is in, you have to wonder if this is the high-water mark and it is time to sell out or if you are underestimating yourself badly by even considering that,” said one Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has been in a similar spot in the past. “It can be very hard to think straight.”

Indeed, all the attention is both distracting and slightly surreal for its top execs and small 30-person staff in San Francisco, said many sources close to the situation, especially the mass of media that resulted due to that now-discounted rumor that Twitter was poised to be sold off for a giant pile of money.

In fact, Twitter has its hands full enough scaling its recent surge in growth and keeping the service humming along (it has had tech snafus in the past).

But for Google and Microsoft, this geopolitical one-upsmanship by the Internet’s two most important companies is quite familiar, and they have not hesitated to jump into the Twitter tempest.

If that sounds a lot like the two-month fire drill in 2007 that resulted when Microsoft and Google competed to see who could sidle up closest to then-belle-of-the-Silicon-Valley-ball Facebook, you are exactly right.

After much huffing and puffing back and forth and this way and that way, it resulted in a Microsoft “win,” which gave it the distinct honor of forking over $240 million to own 1.6 percent of Facebook at an astonishing $15 billion valuation.

Even as Facebook has grown quickly in size since then–to 200 million users, as announced yesterday–its valuation has dropped to $3 billion to $5 billion.

Microsoft had previously struck an search ad deal in the U.S. with Facebook in which it paid a guaranteed revenue to Facebook and later also did a deal to do some of the search on the site.

Such kinds of deals have become common for both Google and Microsoft in recent years. Google struck one with News Corp. social-networking site MySpace, as well as with AOL (which will also soon come up for renewal).

And Microsoft grabbed the right to pay Digg a guaranteed fee in another online ad deal. And the pair also fought more recently over a mobile search distribution deal with the wireless unit of Verizon (VZ).

And so it goes now with Twitter.

No partnership deal has been made as yet, of course, since such a thing would say a lot about Twitter’s future, since the prospect of marriage overhangs such a choice, which is also–in essence, a declaration of allegiance in the cold war between Google and Microsoft.

If that also sounds like a plot of a James Bond movie, with geeks armed with algorithms instead of gadgety weaponry, you’re also exactly right.

More, obviously, to come…

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

BoomTown loves a good memo and here’s one that two of Microsoft’s top online execs, Yusuf Mehdi and Satya Nadella sent out about the deal the tech giant signed with Dell (DELL) and Verizon (VZ) to distribute its search and other products.

Microsoft (MSFT) is opening its fat wallet to do such a deal and try to best archrival Google (GOOG). It was announced last night at Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote kickoff for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Here’s the memo:

From: Yusuf Mehdi
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 6:29 PM
To: OSD R&D FTE World Wide; Online Audience Business Group FTE; APSP FTE–Adv & Pub Solutions Platform
Cc: Yusuf Mehdi; Satya Nadella; Qi Lu
Subject: Announcing Dell and Verizon Strategic Partnerships!

Satya and Yusuf

[Updated with new details about deal, including who worked on it and info on a cash component.]

About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering to acquire Twitter for $500 million of its stock, which also included a cash component.

While rumors of Facebook’s interest were brought up in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 Summit a few weeks ago, some shot down the idea as silly.

Quite incorrectly, as it turns out, since top execs at both Facebook and Twitter were right then at the tail end of discussions, which were initiated by the privately held Facebook in mid-October, about bringing the two together.

Those talks, sources on both sides said, are now over.

So why did the deal break down?

Well, as is usually the case, over price–was $500 million worth of Facebook stock actually worth $500 million?–and the typical concerns about integration and costs.

But, more important, it seems, was a feeling among Twitter investors and execs that the start-up should still take a shot at building its revenues–there are none right now–as well as it had done at building its growth.

“It’s more about timing,” said one person familiar with Twitter’s motivations. “There is a strong feeling that there is still an opportunity–even with the economic downturn–to blow this thing out.”

Still, combining the world’s fastest-growing social-networking site with what is quickly becoming the best-known microblogging service is actually a natural fit.

That’s especially true given that Facebook–for all its powerful online social connections–has seen Twitter race past it in innovating in the “status update” arena.

While some sources at Facebook said Zuckerberg was becoming frustrated by the buzz Twitter was getting–a market that should have been dominated by Facebook–others at the company said he was interested in buying Twitter because of his respect for its progress.

Indeed, at the Web 2.0 interview, Zuckerberg called Twitter an “elegant model” and said that he was “really impressed by what they’ve done.”

Indeed, with about six million registrations, as reported in October, up 600 percent over the last year, the San Francisco-based Twitter–launched in 2006–has had impressive growth.

(It has also been plagued by technical issues, which are–to be fair–decreasing.)

In any case, for those not familiar with it, the premise of Twitter is dead simple: A registered user logs in via the Internet or a mobile phone and answers the “What are you doing?” question the service asks in only 140 characters or fewer.

It’s quite a clever idea, although–so far–not a money-making one.

To try to goose that, Twitter’s board replaced the engineer who created Twitter, Jack Dorsey, with another founder, Evan Williams, who had served as its chairman and chief product officer.

The more experienced Williams (pictured here) had already built one company–Pyra Labs, which created the Blogger blogging service–that he sold to Google in 2003. He also started the audio and video search site Odeo, where Twitter was actually born.

Still, its investors have not come down on Twitter to hold back its growth efforts, and have handed over $20 million to the start-up so far. In its last round, Twitter was valued at $98 million.

Its funders include: Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital and Bezos Expeditions, backed by Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

In addition, well-known Silicon Valley figures, such as Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway, have also invested. Interestingly, Andreessen is also on Facebook’s board.

Other private investors include FeedBurner Co-Founder (and now Googler) Dick Costolo, former Epinions Co-Founder Naval Ravikant and former Googler Chris Sacca.

Twitter needs all the investors it can get, since it has no revenue, although it has been exploring things like charging business customers and adding advertising into the consumer service.

Lack of revenues was an issue for Facebook, said sources, especially related to fees Twitter pays for delivery of its messages to cellphones.

While the issue has been manageable in the U.S., Twitter cut off its SMS support in some international markets this summer because of too-high costs.

But, if Twitter was offered to Facebook’s 120 million users, Facebook execs estimated that it might have to deal with huge SMS fees–up to $75 million annually.

“Facebook has its own revenue-generating challenges,” said one person close to the company. “As much as Twitter would give them a lift in the status area, it was still a worry.”

Not enough, said several sources, to stop Facebook from making another approach at some point in the future. “We’d hate to see Twitter go to another company,” said one source.

Indeed, while all are even more price-conscious than Facebook, large companies that could also be interested include: Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) or a large telecom company, such as Verizon (VZ).

If it had completed the deal to buy Twitter, it would have been Facebook’s most significant acquisition by far.

Zuckerberg and Williams did meet and get along well, but the deal was primarily negotiated by Spark Capital partner Bijan Sabet (Spark is a Twitter investor) and Facebook deal guy Dan Rose.

But in this time, at least, the Twitter side was still not interested in selling at the price Facebook had offered.

The $500 million offered was in an all-stock form, said sources on both sides, at the $15 billion valuation that came from the Microsoft’s investment in the company last October.

The Twitter side felt that figure was inflated and the shares should be valued at the lower figures that have also been reported for Facebook’s true valuation, more in the $5 billion range.

That would have given the deal a $150 million price tag, which was seen as too low, especially since it was in Facebook stock and not cash initially.

In fact, Twitter wanted cash, which some sources say was offered by Facebook in the $50 to $100 million range, in addition to stock, but taking too much stock was still a major issue.

There are other ways the pair could have approximated a safer choice for Twitter, via warrants, of course, or other methods.

But, said several sources close to Twitter, the primary reason for not selling was because its board simply did not want to yet or perhaps ever.

Said one source: “The question is, is it really a good idea to sell on the first chance you get?”

Well, for Twitter, we’ll just have to wait and see about that, of course.

[Photo of Evan Williams by Joi Ito. Licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 By-Attribution license.]

Well, for sure, Microsoft execs were not doing high-fives after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said he was stepping down yesterday, as Yahoo searches for a new CEO to take over.

Well, maybe some small and discreet ones.

That hand-slapping, of course, was the delightful tidbit from the New York Times after Microsoft (MSFT) dropped its takeover bid for Yahoo (YHOO) earlier this year.

The story: Yahoo execs were reportedly high-fiving each other in celebration for not taking $31 a share from the software giant. Today, of course, Yahoo stock has been halved.

Which has long begged the question why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has persistently–almost obsessively, really–not gone back and made another bid for Yahoo at discount prices.

Well, simply put, he does not want Yahoo whole and still doesn’t want it, even with Yang’s departure.

While many like to gin up a “Dynasty”-style feud between Yang and Ballmer–as if they were Alexis and Krystle cat-fighting in a fountain–that was never true, and Yang’s moving on will not change the equation that much.

Of course, Microsoft execs were burning up the phone wires down to Silicon Valley yesterday trying to make sure it is well positioned to make the deal it does want: A sweeping search and search-advertising partnership with Yahoo, whose similar deal with Google (GOOG) recently collapsed.

“They are ready to move, as soon as it becomes clear who is in charge at Yahoo,” said one source close to the situation. “They don’t want to appear too eager, but also don’t want to lose this one.”

Indeed, Microsoft is now in a good position to wait and swoop, one of its more effective tactics. Not that its consumer-facing digital strategies have been very successful thus far, and it definitely bollixed the Yahoo takeover attempt.

But the software giant has shown it can be more than willing to fork over way too much payola to try to catch up with its archrival Google in the search game at companies like Facebook and, more recently, Verizon (VZ).

While a deal with Yahoo will not bring Microsoft in even close range of Google, it is a deal that is most likely to be done, given the pressure on Yahoo now.

While a large group of execs at Yahoo still maintain that separating search and the company’s other businesses is dangerous to its future, it is hard to imagine its board will pick a new CEO who is not more than willing to travel to Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., HQ and make peace pronto, and do a deal.

High-fives, all around, everyone?

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Today, Yahoo shares plummeted almost nine percent to close at $10.34, off $1.01, in yet another freefall that has all sorts of disturbing implications for the troubled Internet company.

For one, it makes the merger possibilities with Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL that much more difficult.

Yahoo’s market cap is off another billion dollars to $14.3 billion right now, and that has a big impact on how much it can pay to own AOL. If at all, that is.

In addition, the options of Yahoo (YHOO) employees are so under water as to be Atlantis, which is sure to make it harder–even in this weak economic environment–to retain and attract talent.

At the very least, it creates a very gloomy Yahoo corporate campus in Sunnyvale.

And while shares of all tech giants were off yesterday, part of the continuing worry about the advertising market online, Yahoo’s drop was significantly more than the others.

It reflects a deep worry among investors about the prospects of its current leadership under CEO Jerry Yang to pull off a much needed turnaround.

If Yahoo shares drop below $10 a share (remember the halcyon days only a few months ago, when the $20-a-share Rubicon was scary?), it creates a very ironic situation.

That being that the company is a true bargain for a buyer interested in scooping up one of the Internet’s still most-trafficked properties, except that not many have the wherewithal in this financial meltdown to pay up.

Except, of course, for Microsoft (MSFT), which has expressed so much disinterest in buying Yahoo as to be pathological about it.

Instead, in its continuing obsession with messing with archrival Google (GOOG), it focuses on overpaying copiously for a search deal to get on the mobile phones of Verizon (VZ).

But at a $10-or-less price tag for a business that could still turbocharge his company’s even less impressive online search and advertising efforts, isn’t it time Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got some therapy to get over his Yahoo issues?

Last month, it was $850 million in cash for social-networking site Bebo.

And, today, it’s a much smaller slug for Sphere, which started as a blog search engine and morphed into a widely distributed “contextually relevant” content engine, used on news and blog sites across the Web (and which AllThingsD uses on this site, in fact).

While one source said the price was upward of $25 million, sources at other companies to whom the San Francisco-based start-up also talked, including Google (GOOG), said Sphere was looking for more than that.

In any case, the sale is surely a win for CEO and Co-Founder of Sphere Tony Conrad, a longtime entrepreneur who also has been a VC at True Ventures, which also invested in Sphere.

Oh, it’s a mosh pit of jolly interbreeding in the Web 2.0 start-up world!

Sphere raised about $4.25 million from many investors, some of which included Radar Partners, Trident Capital and well-known Web players Scott Kurnit and Will Hearst.

AOL has surely shown a knack for snapping up small and innovative properties with clever technologies–the Truveo video search engine and communications app maker Userplane, for example–and has let them stay relatively intact, as it has promised it will do with Sphere.

But it also has not exactly leveraged any of them in a massive way either and still faces the problem of holding onto talent from those start-ups, as BoomTown reported here.

One hopes that AOL can do more with the more complex and elegant Sphere, which has deep relationships with major publishers all over the Web, including many Time Warner properties like Time.com and CNN.

It would be a shame for Sphere to fall into one of AOL’s deep holes there.

But perhaps not, given all the frenetic multitasking activity at AOL of late, including yesterday, when it also announced a deal in which its Platform-A online ad division would sell ads for Verizon (VZ) on the Web and for its mobile units.

Oh, and its top execs, CEO Randy Falco and President Ron Grant, whom AOL sources tell me have been AWOL of late, have also been ferreting away on a possible deal to be the alternative for Yahoo (YHOO) in its takeover battle with Microsoft (MSFT).

While Yahoo troops are not really happy with such a union, as BoomTown reported here, neither are some top Time Warner execs at the possibility that AOL might simply be being used as a stalking horse by Yahoo, in an effort to get Microsoft to up its bid.

“Do you think they’re using us?” joked one Time Warner exec to me yesterday, given the deal activity seemed to have slowed down this week.

Um, yes, of course!

While that wouldn’t be sporting, if Yahoo does end up going to Microsoft, it just means AOL will need to get a lot more energetic and do a lot more Spheres in the future to keep up.

What to think of the announcement yesterday that Verizon will open itself up to consumers who want to use non-Verizon-sold phones for their wireless service?

Was it a bold way to thwart new rivals, like Google and Apple, who are promising–but have yet to deliver–a world without the fascist rule of the “Soviet ministries,” as Walt Mossberg has called the cellphone carriers, with new phones, networks and software?

Or perhaps a clever PR feint by the U.S.’s No. 2 carrier to get regulators (and consumers) off its back as an auction looms for new wireless spectrum, in which Google convinced the Federal Communications Commission to set aside some for a new open network?

Or maybe more consumer confusion, since pricing is unclear and Verizon’s CDMA technology is not compatible with more GSM networks?

Or maybe, just maybe, it means the American market–long held hostage by the onerous rules of companies like Verizon–might finally be like the rest of the world and let consumers make their own choices about the phones and perhaps software they want to use?

Well, we have absolutely no idea, since we’ll believe it when we see it and when other carriers follow suit. Right now, most seem to love their consumer-trapping walled garden approach, through which they think they are protecting consumers from the wilds of the more democratic wireless world.

Thanks boys, but we can handle it, I think.

Nonetheless, others weighed in on the move, although with different takes:

Lowell McAdam, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless;: “This is a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices–one which we believe will set the table for the next level of innovation and growth.”

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin: “Wireless customers should be able to use the wireless device of their choice and download whatever software they want onto it.”

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt: “As the Internet has demonstrated, open models create better services for consumers and stronger businesses for providers.”

Microsoft Corp. Senior Vice President of the Mobile Communications Business Pieter Knook: “Microsoft is very excited to see Verizon Wireless make such a bold move to satisfy the demands of wireless consumers. As people’s mobile needs become more sophisticated and varied, they will require smarter and more adaptable mobile devices. We are proud to support any open access that puts more power in people’s hands to connect them to the information they want when and where they want it.”

Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer: “Verizon’s announcement will be more meaningful in a few years when more devices–not just cellphones–use wireless data networks.”

Valleywag’s Owen Thomas: “But Verizon’s latest move shows that it’s not that the phone companies are resistant to the idea of openness. They oppose, rather, the notion that Google should get to set the rules for competition–rules that will no doubt smooth the way for the sale of mobile advertising on terms favorable to Google’s offerings.”

TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld: “You didn’t think Verizon was just going to let Google waltz right in and take its customers for a spin, did you? But if Verizon doesn’t make it easy for developers and unaffiliated device manufacturers to get onto its network, it could end up tripping over its own feet.”

Infectious Greed’s Paul Kedrosky: “In practice, what does it really mean? It’s tough to say and the announcement is short on specifics. For now, color me encouraged, but highly skeptical until we have more than some PR puffery. Will they really let you hook up your own GPS device, wireless data thingie, etc., with no additional fees assuming you have an account? I find that hard to believe, but hey, I can be convinced.”

GigaOm’s Om Malik: “Do we really believe that Verizon is going to be happy being Pipes-R-Us?”

Well, that–at least–we don’t believe.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Sure, John’s daughter is adorable, but we have to draw the line at child labor here at AllThingsD.com!

In other words, more cute kids!

Today, John gives a roundup, for the last time in 25 whole minutes, about the iPhone launch, which actually arrived today like clockwork at 6 p.m. The video can be found here or you can also watch it below or read the text version.

Also in his Digital Daily column: Upgrades to AT&T’s questionable network that the iPhone rides on and the noiseless noise from competitors BlackBerry and Verizon.

Yesterday, it was his talented eyebrows, and today, John Paczkowski’s very lustrous hair gets a workout in his Digital Daily video.

Using Selsun Blue, John washes away all pretense that Lonelygirl15 is anything more than a marketing shill with a recent deal with Neutrogena. Here is a direct link to today’s video, which is also below (don’t judge us for our promiscuous link-love here at AllThingsD.com).

Here is his text post about it in his Digital Daily column.

He also posts here about Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg’s latest boneheaded remark about the benefits to his company of the Apple iPhone rollout in a week, especially given that the carrier is not selling them. (Seidenberg also made another gooney remark about BlueTooth technology at the D conference a few years back that you can see here in a video).

And John chronicles the sweet revenge of entrepreneur Sky Dayton here, who was pilloried for buying the business.com domain for $7.5 million in the midst of the dot-com bubble–it is now for sale for $300 million to $400 million.