According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow.

[UPDATE: The paperwork is taking longer than expected, so sit tight, said sources.]

While the massive agreement–which will settle three aggressive lawsuits lobbed by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis at a wide range of prominent Silicon Valley players–is not yet officially signed, sources said lawyers are apparently putting the finishing touches on the paperwork and have signature papers completed by both sides to be able to wrap it up quickly.

So, while nothing is ever over until it is over, it looks like it is over.

Sources also said that as part of the deal to end the legal madness, Zennström and Friis will get 10 percent of Skype back for rights to key software technology they control, an option to pay $83 million for another three percent of the Internet telephony service and two seats on the 23-member board.

Also, BoomTown has learned that a partridge in a pear tree will be thrown in to guarantee a lasting peace.

All kidding aside, the settlement is proof that squeaky wheels–especially if they hire the combative litigators of Skadden Arps–get the grease.

As has been previously reported, one of the investors in the consortium that won the bidding to buy 65 percent of Skype from eBay (EBAY)–which itself had bought it in 2005 from Zennström and Friis–has withdrawn its investment and involvement as part of the settlement.

That would be London-based Index Ventures, which was a smaller player in the group with–ironically–a three percent stake.

Nonetheless, Index had an outsized fight going on with Zennström and Friis.

That’s due to their ire, aimed at Index’s Mike Volpi, who was CEO of Joost, the failed online video site the pair founded.

After Zennström and Friis lost their own bid to buy back Skype, they quickly sued Index and Volpi via tech companies they control, Joltid and Joost, in Delaware.

The pair alleged that Volpi used confidential information gleaned from his time as Joost CEO to unfairly help the winning consortium acquire Skype.

The lawsuit was particularly vindictive, using embarrassing emails and making pointed accusations about Volpi plotting all kinds of nefarious schemes, like Lady Macbeth on steroids, on his way out of Joost.

I am not sure what law one can break for wanting to leave a job or how much damage one can do to an already failing business, but that did not stop Zennström and Friis from trying to pin some specious accusations on Volpi.

(I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had accused Volpi of being responsible for Balloon Boy.)

But such legal attacks obviously worked, making Index loath to stay in an economically less attractive deal with lessened influence over Skype.

And eBay and the other investors obviously wanted closure, so they could get on with the work of turbocharging Skype.

The fighting between Index and the Skype founders was just one part of the legal morass.

Zennström and Friis had already been in a battle over software licensing issues with eBay in London courts.

They also filed suit again in California against Skype and eBay for copyright violations.

For good measure, the pair added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, in that lawsuit.

(In legalese–and in honor of the Yankees winning the World Series tonight–such massive lawsuit-making is called covering all your bases!)

Of course, Volpi and Index fired back in court filings and both sides armed themselves with powerful PR guns.

Presumably, those same mouthpieces–who have been slagging the other side for weeks–will now be at the ready with honeyed tales of reconciliation tomorrow.

Call me cynical, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

“[Zennström and Friis] got what they wanted by using Volpi as a pawn and the lawsuits as a club,” said one person close to the situation. “Everyone is moving on, but not everyone is going to forget what they did to get what they wanted.”

The new MSN homepage debuts tonight and you would be completely correct in thinking the recipe Microsoft (MSFT) has cooked up to inform its design ethos–white, clean and hiply modern–has definite echoes of a certain longtime tech rival.

That would be Apple (AAPL), of course, with a big dollop of Twitter and Facebook tossed in, and finished off with a generous sprinkling of Microsoft’s new Bing search service.

For those who care: The MSN butterfly logo remains, although it appears to have lost a lot of weight too.

(You can view a preview of the site here.)

The launch is the first major upgrade of the MSN main page in–if you can believe it–a decade, part of an overhaul that the software giant has been doing throughout its money-losing online services division.

That has included the launch of Bing in May, which has been a success for Microsoft, adding a small amount of search market share and, more importantly, some much needed respect to its long-beleaguered consumer Web efforts.

The company’s online execs are trying to keep up the innovation momentum with the new MSN redesign and–as you can see below from the various screenshots–it is a major shift for the portal site.

Together, MSN and Windows Live have about 100 million unique monthly visitors, putting Microsoft typically third behind Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

The company hopes to do better with a fresher MSN, which is clearly aimed, first and foremost, at clearing up the clutter and link-heavy old MSN homepage.

MSN execs said the new main page has about half the “blue” links.

(See a video interview I also did with MSN exec Bob Visse about all of this here, along with other videos Microsoft did with its MSN staff.)

The top of the new page features a big image module, with inline video and drastically reduced topic areas–as BoomTown has previously reported–limited to news, sports, entertainment, money and lifestyle.

Under that is a more customizable news module, to which feature tabs can also be added, such as for the World Series or–prolonged sigh–Balloon Boy coverage.

On the bottom left is a much-goosed local module that resolves to beefed-up local sites, which is right next another section featuring Bing top searches.

Bing is present in every part of the site now, with Microsoft stressing it and using its structured data to improve the consumer experience.

That’s important for Bing search too, since MSN provides 45 percent of its traffic.

Communications modules are to the right, midpage and on the bottom.

Unlike AOL and Yahoo, which have added the ability to put third-party email on their homepages, only Hotmail is now available on the new MSN, although this is likely to change soon.

But perhaps the design element that will garner the most attention is the prominent placement of both Twitter and Facebook tabs in the bottom communications module, right next to one for Windows Live.

This allows users to update their status and get instant access to the status of friends and followers.

“We wanted to cut the clutter, while also giving users one convenient place to find what they need quickly,” said Scott Moore, executive producer of MSN in the U.S., its most important market, in an interview earlier today with me.

“People are overloaded with information and they wanted us to fix that, even if the service is not ours.”

The focus on Facebook and Twitter was simply due to intense user interest in the popular social networking sites.

“Facebook has popped and Twitter was really growing,” said Moore, who noted that there was the possibility of adding other third-party apps in the future.

A heavy emphasis on apps was a key strategy of Yahoo’s homepage redesign, officially launched in late July, which SVP Tapan Bhat touted at an meeting with analysts last week as having increased page views and engagement.

Advertising on the page is perhaps the most conservative part, with units that remain largely as before.

The new MSN homepage will begin rolling out now, eventually reaching about 10 percent of users by early next year. After that, it is expected to become widely available to U.S. customers and then go worldwide.

Here are screenshots of the changes to peruse (click on top three images to make them larger):

Old Homepage:

New Homepage:

Local Edition:

Twitter Section:

Facebook Section:

And here is the official Microsoft press release:

New MSN Designed to Be the Best Home Page on the Web

Fresh, new design delivers best of Bing, latest in news and entertainment, instant access to Facebook and Twitter, and customized local information in one place.

REDMOND, Wash.–Nov. 3, 2009–Microsoft Corp. today unveiled a preview of its most significant home page redesign in over a decade. The new MSN home page is designed to be the best home page on the Web, with powerful Bing search, the top news and hottest entertainment, and some of the most popular social networks–all in a fresh new look. The new home page will deliver comprehensive local information from the new MSN local information offering, MSN Local Edition, also unveiled today. Beginning today, anyone can preview the new home page at http://preview.msn.com. The new home page will begin rolling out today and become widely available to U.S. customers early next year.

Ninety percent of people surveyed find home pages such as MSN to be valuable, and they like the convenience of a comprehensive site.* Nearly 100 million people in the U.S. visit MSN every single month, and MSN added over 10 million new customers in the last year alone. However, today’s sites often fall short of top customer needs and many haven’t kept up with evolving trends. Extensive customer research highlights that people want less clutter and easier access to information and services they care about, including search services that help them make decisions easier and faster.

“Now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web–people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them,” said Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president, Microsoft. “Microsoft is uniquely invested in search, media experiences and technical innovation. Combining these assets to deliver our new MSN home page is a tremendous win for customers and advertisers.”

The clean, new MSN home page cuts through the clutter with 50 percent fewer links than the previous home page and a simplified navigation across news, entertainment, sports, money and lifestyle. The new MSN home page also embraces the latest customer trends by deeply integrating powerful search from Bing and providing easy access to Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live services, comprehensive local information and in-line video. Sophisticated technology powers the home page to deliver personally relevant information, and improved performance satisfies people’s need for speed.

New key features of the MSN home page include these:

* Innovative search technology from Bing. Deeper Bing integration on the new home page helps people make faster and more informed decisions and easily find the information they want from anywhere on the Web. Bing is deeply integrated as the core search service throughout the home page via key areas such as shopping, travel and local, and as a way of highlighting hot topics, trends or people.

* Information and news people care about. The new home page delivers against the No. 1 customer request–simplicity and ease of use–through its fresh design and smart categorization. In-line high-quality, top news and hot entertainment from trustworthy sources such as MSNBC, FOX Sports, Hulu and Hearst, and comprehensive local information provide a compelling one-stop shop for people to use as their home base online. More in-depth local information is offered on the new MSN Local Edition, which is the only local online source that smartly combines media with Bing search and provides access to real-time community news that is grouped by ZIP code.

* Convenient ways to communicate. Simplicity drove the clean integration of popular social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live “What’s New,” which aggregates up to 50 Web activities, including Yelp, Flickr, Pandora and more, onto the MSN home page. People no longer have to jump from site to site to update their status, tweets or see what their friends are up to; the new home page makes it easy to view and update in-line.

“Customers told us they want the latest information from their favorite sources, their friends and the breadth of the Web–and the new MSN home page delivers via a fresh new look and new features,” Jorgensen said. “Today is an important transformation for MSN, and it’s just the beginning.”

That’s the core of Twitter’s pitch, of course, and it has helped the microblogging service raise $155 million, a $1 billion valuation, and forge partnerships with Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Not surprisingly, investors are looking to place money on related bets, from search engines that parse real-time data to location-based social networks with real-time updates, and even real-time photo-sharing sites.

The newest entrant: Hot Potato, a buzzy start-up that’s supposed to let users converse about a particular event, whether they’re attending it in person or watching from afar. When it’s up and running, that is. The five-man crew doesn’t have users or a product just yet.

But that hasn’t prevented the Brooklyn, N.Y-based company from raising about $1 million, sources say, in a round led by First Round Capital and RRE Ventures. A group of smaller investors, including Betaworks, the incubator that specializes in real-time companies, and Ron Conway, the angel investor best known for his Google bet, are also backing the company.

Hot Potato is led by Justin Shaffer, an eight-year veteran of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, pro baseball’s well-regarded Web unit. Shaffer has recruited three other MLB.com employees (one of whom subsequently left to get an MBA at MIT) to join him.

Shaffer wouldn’t comment about his funding round, but was willing to discuss his start-up’s general plans. They are finishing an iPhone app and plan to submit it to Apple (AAPL) in the next few weeks, he said, and will open their doors once that’s approved.

The big idea is an interesting one. People are already using Facebook and Twitter to converse about events in real time–think about Barack Obama’s inauguration, or Balloon Boy, or last night’s Yankees-Angels game.

Shaffer’s critique of those platforms, though is that “they break at scale–there’s no good way to filter the chatter so that  you, your friends, and a group of strangers with something relevant to say can all connect. Hot Potato, he says, will offer a “curated stream” in real time of all the data coming out of the event in real time. What we’re really focused on doing is bringing together the entire audience of an event, whether they’re at the event or watching at home.”

Business model? TBD, of course. But there are a couple of obvious ways to go. For instance, Shaffer thinks people who opt-in to a particular conversation–say, about an NFL game or a U2 concert–would be okay with seeing “in-stream” ads, as long as they were relevant.

But that’s a problem that’s best tackled once the service is up and running. We’ll check back then.

The specifics in this case involve the alleged Balloon Boy hoax and a 25-year-old student who says he was involved, unwittingly, in the stunt. Last week, Robert Thomas announced, via Business Insider, that he’d sell his story to anyone willing to pay him $5,000 to $8,000. Denton’s company wrote a check for the tale, though it says it paid much less than Thomas’s ask.

This is becoming standard practice for Denton, who announced in July that he was willing to pay for juicy stories, tips and other stuff he could publish. In August, he shelled out for video of “Grey’s Anatomy” star Eric Dane, his wife Rebecca Gayheart and another woman in various states of undress.

Seminaked semicelebrities draw more eyeballs than stories about delusional reality-show aspirants, apparently: The “McSteamy” clips have generated more than four million views this fall, while Denton predicts the Balloon Boy saga will ultimately do one million.

My question: Does paying for this stuff make sense? After announcing a year ago that advertising was going to fall off a cliff, Denton now says he’s been making good money after all. So does this kind of checkbook blogging produce more profit? Denton’s answer, via email:

Hard to measure profitability. Short-term effect. Balloon boy story will probably go to 1m views. But you know one can’t easily sell advertising into a spike. And video hosting costs pretty significant–though not this time.

Why you think just two bought stories? We paid 10k for that Photoshop expose a couple years ago. Not really a new thing.

A story is a story. We’re not squeamish about the means. And the paroxysms of the j-school ethicists add to the satisfaction.

You were expecting a more straightforward answer? Ha!

If you want, you can check out Gawker’s rate card, make some assumptions, and conclude that Denton can’t afford to pay his story-sellers that much and still end up in the black, even at one million page views. And I’m reasonably confident that Denton is very interested in measuring profitability and has worked out an equation that pays his story-sellers in proportion to traffic, but without breaking his bank.

But the last part of Denton’s missive–quivering ethicist strawmen aside–is what really rings true. He really does get a huge kick out of this stuff: Entertaining himself with his blog empire, tweaking enemies real and imagined, and shrugging about it publicly.

It would be wrong to say you can’t put a price on that. But whatever that price is, Denton can afford it.