According to sources close to the situation, Facebook is anticipating getting approval from government regulators to officially distribute its S-1 public offering prospectus to investors within days, which would mean its road show could begin as early as next week.

As I reported back in January, the social networking giant is expected to go public in the second or third week of May, a timeline (get it?) which currently appears to be on track.

In addition — although some have speculated that its famous CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg might not take a “hands-on” role in the high-profile process, having missed one pre-IPO meeting with Wall Street analysts and bankers (can you blame him?) — sources said he would be appearing before potential shareholders, and would be present at key meetings to help sell the company to them.

Of course, he will — although there was much speculation that the Silicon Valley superstar would bow out of any of the hubbub around the huge IPO, and that bankers were practically begging him to appear, sources said Zuckerberg is too key to all aspects of its business not to appear.

(No word as yet on whether he will don a tie, as he sometimes does, or if his usual hoodie will be Zuckerberg’s outfit of choice — although his sartorial choices on the road show are sure to get excessive media scrutiny.)

“Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “He’ll do his job as CEO, as he always does.”

Indeed, although he is often portrayed as shy and not a fan of the limelight, Zuckerberg has always stepped up — and rather enthusiastically — when a public appearance is needed, whether in times of trouble or touting for the eight-year-old company.

This is a touting-Facebook moment, of course, as it seeks to raise up to $10 billion in a blockbuster offering that could value the company at $75 billion or more. Filed in February, that will make it the biggest Internet IPO ever.

Also expected to play key roles in the road show are CFO David Ebersman and COO Sheryl Sandberg, as well as other top Facebook execs.

Whether they all can rev up the jets and get going on the road show depends on the Securities and Exchange Commission finally declaring Facebook’s preliminary prospectus of its business and finances “effective” or in legal compliance.

Facebook has updated the initial filing several times, with new financials as well as information about its purchase of photo-sharing site Instagram and its ever-nasty patent battle with Yahoo.

But, overall, the SEC process has been rather smooth for the company, and sources said it appears it will continue that way.

After the road show: A sales process in which investors ask their questions of management and then officially begin to place orders for Facebook stock.

Among the areas of likely concern are that Yahoo patent lawsuit and, most importantly, how Zuckerberg and others characterize the slowing of its explosive revenue growth in its most recent filing update.

Last week, Facebook said its revenue was $1.058 billion, up 46 percent for the year, but down 6 percent from the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2012, its net income was $205 million, which was down from $233 million a year ago. The company attributed the decline to rising costs, including in marketing and in research.

After the road show, Facebook’s bankers will price the offering — which is widely expected to be massively oversubscribed — and then it will go public on the Nasdaq market, under the “FB” ticker.

The rest, as they say, will presumably be history — or, in fact, the future for Facebook in the public eye.

According to multiple sources, the long-anticipated public offering of Facebook is now likely to come in the second or third week of May.

That means that the company must file its IPO documents within the next month, given that the review by the Securities and Exchange Commission usually takes about three to four months.

That’s if there are no issues, of course, such as a turbulent market or thornier-than-usual questions from regulators that require amending the filing.

Groupon, for example, filed for its IPO in early June, but did not go public until five months later in November.

The usual caveat on the late-May timing (even though I called 143 people on this one): This IPO planning could all change, in a New York minute, to another month.

In any case, the Facebook IPO is expected to be one of the largest Web offerings ever — with some reports saying the company will be raising $10 billion on a $100 billion valuation. (The valuation and raise, sources tell me, will be much lower.)

That amount is presumably to match its huge consumer growth and revenue explosion. Users now number 800 million — a figure that is likely to hit one billion this year. And revenue, which was reportedly close to $4 billion in 2011, is expected to be higher by another third in 2012.

Facebook will need such oomph if it is to impress investors, although the social networking site’s leadership is still warning that its focus is products over dollars.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, for example, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hedged the point, even as he sang his same familiar strategic tune of the last few years.

“The thing to take away isn’t that we don’t care [about business]. People for years were asking me why aren’t we trying to make more money,” he said. “I would say I’m trying to build a business for the long term and it was clearly the right strategy.”

While admirably I’ll-row-my-way in tone, Zuckerberg needs a public offering heft more than ever, as Facebook’s battles with rivals — most especially Google — escalate.

Just last week, the monocratically-inclined search giant ham-handedly shoved its own social networking service, Google+, into its results, in a move that could severely disadvantage Facebook.

Thus, into the Wall Street breach, to get a giant pile of dough to fight back!

But, unlike Google’s more kookified 2004 IPO, sources said Facebook’s is probably going to hew to a more traditional offering script.

That is likely to include a hefty consortium of irksome investment bankers — think firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on top of the filings, and a spate of smaller ones (Allen & Co.) below, and you have the approximately accurate idea.

And, while shot-caller-in-chief Zuckerberg will be the one key voice in the IPO, the man to watch has been and will be CFO David Ebersman.

The longtime Genentech exec, who came to Facebook in 2009, has been doing all the heavy lifting in preparation for the IPO, said sources, and will continue to do so.

Facebook declined to comment (but I would too, if I were them).

What an amazing coincidence.

On the very day Yahoo’s board is considering actual bids from two private equity firms interested in deals to buy close to 20 percent of the company for between $16.50 and $17.50 a share, comes a spate of eerily similar breathless media postings that there’s another bid in the making for $20!

That’s totes better, right? I mean, how can Yahoo’s directors accept a real live lesser-priced bid now when there’s a prettier one in the fog just ahead?

No, really, it’s there — if you squint really, really hard.

Except it’s not even close, when you actually check with two of the key members of the group of alleged buyers, which would apparently be Blackstone, Bain Capital and Yahoo’s Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank.

Sources close to Blackstone and Alibaba said while there have been talks, which have been previously reported weeks ago here and elsewhere, there is no bid in the offing that is close to fruition and at that price.

In an unusual public statement, in fact, Alibaba’s John Spelich said flatly: “Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole-company bid for Yahoo.”

This from a company whose voluble CEO Jack Ma is prone to making giant and noisy speeches to signal his interest in finding a way — any way — to get back shares of the Chinese Internet giant from Yahoo.

Not this time, and several sources close to Alibaba reiterated that it was nowhere near close to any bid as yet and that a price is still up in the air. In addition, sources added, Alibaba might decide to work with another PE group, such as Providence Equity.

In addition, sources noted that if Alibaba could strike an adequate deal with private equity bidders to get a large chunk of the stake back, it would be highly preferable to a hostile takeover of Yahoo that could end in tears and little else.

“The threat of a takeover is more useful than the damage an actual takeover would cause for everyone,” said one person close to the situation. “No one wants this to be unfriendly.”

So why the rumors — doubtlessly being spread around by hopelessly cynical Wall Street types interested only in stock manipulation — surfacing today?

Simple: To get some easy-to-play media outlet to bite, report it as speculative fact and cause the stock of Yahoo to take flight tomorrow.

Hey, it could happen!

Sadly, this junior-league trick has already worked — Yahoo shares were up a dollar to $16.72 in after-hours trading tonight.

It is likely to go even higher tomorrow, which could cause the board of Yahoo to delay accepting either of the partial bids from Silver Lake or TPG Capital, even if they were the best thing for the company and its employees.

Except that the job of the Yahoo board is to evaluate what’s before them and not what is perhaps, someday, soon, wait-by-the-phone, really soon, I promise is going to be delivered.

In fact, several sources noted that it’s not clear if the Yahoo board has even asked for parties to submit whole-company bids yet.

When and if Yahoo’s board does that and if something better actually does come down the pike, with a much fatter price tag of $20 or more, then the directors can mull that over.

That would be the prudent thing to do for the company, its employees and its shareholders, even if Yahoo’s stock gets a temporary lift now.

Maybe I am just a hopeless Silicon Valley romantic and not a hardened Wall Street M&A type, but the survival of Yahoo is the real point here, rather than the lining of bankers’ already fee-stuffed pockets.

And anything other than that is just fog.

I hate to use a personal story to make a professional point — but when I was in the hospital recently, after suffering from a mini-stroke, I got an important piece of health advice that, oddly enough, applies perfectly to Yahoo, the Silicon Valley Internet icon I cover very closely.

I know, I know, but listen up …

When I was close to going home, one of my doctors told me I had to make sure I paid attention to any signs that might indicate a recurrence. The issue around any possible future ischemic attack taking place, he said, is speed in getting critical care once any unusual symptoms become apparent, such as numbness, tingling, confusion and cognitive difficulty.

That’s because every second of delay translates to increased damage to cerebral cells that could badly impact speech, movement and worse.

“Remember,” the doctor intoned with great and very appropriate gravity. “Time is brain.”

Yes, indeed it is — for me, and also very much so for Yahoo these days.

Leaving aside my own mortality, one of the most important issues going forward for Yahoo’s long-hoped-for revival will be how quickly the company moves in the next month, in what has so far been a lugubrious and rumor-heavy process to figure out its strategic plan in the wake of the firing of CEO Carol Bartz in early September.

That means — going into a major holiday season — Yahoo has about 30 working days to make what has to be a complex and multiparty deal. It is likely to include private equity firms, big companies, Asian partners, investment bankers, major shareholders and scrutiny from the media, in an effort that is approximately akin to herding cats.

This from a board that has often moved with snail-like reflexes in the midst of much more minors crises, and has shown a talent for disaster.

So, while speed is sometimes the enemy of reason, in this case, it is now more necessary than ever before.

There are three key reasons why Yahoo’s leaders have to perform quickly now, each of which could spell even more turmoil for the long-troubled company, if botched.

The first is the possibility — actually, the probability — of a proxy fight that might begin informally just after the new year.

That’s when you could start hearing from someone like activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point — who has been vocal about ousting Yahoo board members, including co-founder Jerry Yang. Yahoo directors are fully aware that he is eyeing this ugly option, which will include readying an alternate slate of directors.

According to a Yahoo spokeswoman, the earliest nominations for directors can be submitted is February 24 for those “shareholder proposals not intended for inclusion in proxy materials and for nomination of director candidates.”

But while there is a formal process, you will hear it coming long before that, unless Yahoo gives Loeb board seats to quiet him down — which is unlikely but possible.

Such a noisy fight is not one Yahoo can afford to have, and it has already shown some cloddish sensibilities in its response to a recent letter by Loeb — who has many more shares than Yang, and should still be accorded a certain amount of respect, no matter what he says.

Given how badly the last Yahoo shareholder tussle with Carl Icahn went, another proxy battle could be deadly, and might drag on through the first half of 2012. In his Yahoo tussle, Icahn ultimately got three seats on the Yahoo board, but eventually went away with everyone the poorer.

Second, Yahoo will report its fourth-quarter earnings in late January, which will likely continue to show weakness in key sectors of its business. While interim CEO Tim Morse is doing a laudable job given the shaky circumstances, drops in advertising revenue growth, engagement and search are not anything Yahoo can keep making excuses for.

While it is likely the company’s beleaguered operating execs will pull out the stops to make the numbers look better — a new game I like to play is “how many homepage ads can they jam in there at the quarter’s end?” — it’s no panacea for the kinds of dramatic and even drastic changes that new ownership will have to make, sooner than later.

And, speaking of beleaguered, perhaps the most important reason that Yahoo has to get the lead out and clarify its situation is due to one consistent thing about the company: Talent attrition and employee fatigue.

Speaking to one exec after another in recent weeks, it is dead clear that Yahoo is increasingly hard-pressed to hold on to the best of its current employees, or to attract any terrific new ones.

The impact on product innovation, morale and more is obvious.

One exec who has long been one of the more cheerleader types for Yahoo — often calling me out in the past for being too negative on the company’s prospects — has recently turned weary, cynical and even depressed about the future — so much so that I now find myself bucking up the worker.

“You can’t hire anyone, since you can’t tell them honestly who their bosses might be in three months,” said the staffer. “And you can’t look anyone who works for you now in the eye and tell them it will turn out right in the end, either, given the track record so far.”

Indeed. And, more than any other factor that could hurt Yahoo in the competitive tech sector, brain drain is what will always get you in the end.

Do sale rumors make a troubled asset more attractive? Yes — except when more rumors (that those sales rumors might not be true) appear.

Welcome to just another day in the life of Yahoo, which saw its shares drop more than 5.5 percent today. Its stock declined almost a dollar to close at $15.64, after it was reported by various news orgs that Yahoo might be leaning toward no sale and a shareholder dividend, and toward taking control of its own sale of its lucrative Asian assets.

That was counter to the news — from a number of the very same outlets — touting a variety of ever more elaborate and sometimes breathless sale scenarios last week, featuring various configurations of Microsoft, Google and private equity firms like Silver Lake and others.

Silver Lake, in fact, appears to be the most aggressive in the possible bidding for all or parts of Yahoo, and has been noodling such a deal most intently, and for a long time now.

It makes sense, given that Silver Lake was successful in a vaguely similar deal that ultimately saved the Internet telephony service Skype, which it eventually peddled at a high price to Microsoft.

In fact, according to several sources, Yahoo director and co-founder Jerry Yang — also a former CEO of the company, who appears to have seized the ball firmly in the strategy game — met with Silver Lake today for an unspecified little chitchat.

That said, one source told me, “what is deeply uncertain is whether Silver Lake will do something at all.”

This is par for the course in this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink drama. Because — although it makes for a boring post, and the back and forth throat-clearing before an actual event might be entertaining — so far, not very much is actually happening as yet at Yahoo, with regard to its variety of options.

Of course, this could change in an hour. Or tomorrow, or the next day. Most of all, it’s clear that Yahoo’s board has to move in some significant way before the end of the year.

So, yes, the Silicon Valley Internet giant is doing all the sales-oriented stuff it should do with its coterie of pricey bankers (presumably being paid by the hour).

Yes, it has recently hired a talent-search firm, which is eyeing the landscape to find a willing CEO. (Even more adviser costs!)

And, yes, it is still wrangling with its Asian partners — Alibaba Group and SoftBank — over how to do a tax-free transaction (you’d think from all the sweating over it that this deal was harder to solve than the European debt crisis).

And, on schedule, activist shareholders — like hedge-fund agitator Dan Loeb of Third Point — should be attacking again soon, until a deal is done.

But according to many sources both inside and outside Yahoo, what’s happening is pretty much business as usual for this Hamlet of a company, which is lugubriously debating and weighing and pondering its fate.

I suppose it should, given the importance of it all, except it is a conundrum that has been going on for far too long at Yahoo, and under a number of different leaders.

In other words, it’s like “As the World Turns,” except with some new characters and a whole lot more amnesia.

But the slowness of a very real process is also causing deep frustration with all those dealing with Yahoo now — including possible bidders, and definitely its Asian partners.

Their gripes — which are louder than in most deals — are not surprising: They refuse to sign a too-onerous NDA to look at Yahoo’s books; there’s an irksome tone of indecision on the part of the company’s board; and, as always, the incessant leaks about all of this and more are making it worse.

One bidder has likened the company to a “melting iceberg that has a lot less time than the planet has to put its house in order.”

Another bemoaned the variety of trial balloons being floated, and noted that no movement was what Yahoo seems to do best.

That’s not exactly true, of course, so expect to see more leaks about plots and plans and meetings.

But no matter what you hear, keep in mind that having Yahoo’s fate being spun about like a top on a daily basis on Wall Street and in the media is not good for the company itself — or for its employees and shareholders.

Since it makes me dizzy — even though I like a good scoop as much as the next reporter — that’s the reason I have largely stuck to reporting about the actual internal turmoil inside Yahoo, from poor employee morale to various staff rejiggerings to more relentless brain drain.

Because while everyone fiddles, Yahoo’s real prospects of maintaining its core business melt a little bit more every day.

Yahoo is on its third CEO in four years, it has lost advertising momentum to Google and Facebook, its engagement levels are dangerously slowing, its social and mobile strategies are unclear and even its powerful email product is under siege.

And in the end, it is only these things that will matter to whoever runs the company in the end.

[Photo from Mat Honan's fantastic tweet here.]

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Groupon plans to conduct its road show for investors next week, starting either on Monday or Tuesday.

While the decision to move forward could still change, it comes amid continued criticism of the Chicago-based daily deals company, which has had one of the rougher IPO processes for an Internet company in recent memory.

Just yesterday, the New York Times took aim at Groupon and its Wall Street bankers, retreading over the same list of issues, including controversial accounting, a too-large payout to its founders and issues around its marketing costs.

In addition, the social buying service has had some management turnover, with two COOs departing.

Lastly, it has amended its S-1 filing several times, for a variety of reasons, including an email to employees by its CEO Andrew Mason that struck regulatory agencies as a bit blabby.

That said, the initiation of the road show — where company execs will pitch its business to possible shareholders — might be an indication that Groupon’s results have improved in its recent quarter.

In the last quarter, the company lost $102.7 million on revenue of $878 million.

Also of concern is the stock market itself. Groupon, like several Web IPO candidates, had delayed its offering due to turbulent conditions.

Now, sources said, the company will go public on the Nasdaq exchange soon after the road show is complete and after pricing by its bankers.

That valuation will also be under scrutiny. Some had previously estimated that Groupon would have an IPO of up to $25 billion. Now it could be half that, sources said.

Well, we will presumably soon see, as Groupon plans to proceed.

Is this investment-banker-hype week and nobody told me?

It certainly seems so from all the almost ridonkulous rumors about everyone and their mother being “imminently poised” to make a bid for Yahoo.

In fact, the process is only beginning to chug along with the Yahoo board, aided by Allen & Company and now Goldman Sachs.

At this point, it is lots of folks rubbernecking, books being prepared and all the other stuff bankers do to look like they are busy, busy, busy.

Among the most serious players: Silver Lake and a shifting group; and a consortium that includes former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin and Providence Equity Partners.

And, just slightly, News Corp. (which owns this Web site) is considering dipping a very small toe in as part of a larger group.

That has been copiously reported here and elsewhere a badillion times already.

But — and I have been clear on this, as have others — no one is near anything of substance, which has not stopped this really lame game of Clue being pumped up by bankers who should know better.

Yesterday, it was Silver Lake, DST Global and the Alibaba Group in the billiard room with foreign money. Nope, nope, nope. Silver Lake and DST are indeed looking hard and Alibaba is a player here, but there is no grand troika going at this moment.

In fact, Alibaba’s Jack Ma — after declaring he was “very interested” in buying Yahoo — has since backed off.

And today, it’s a thinly sourced and carefully worded report of Microsoft in the basement, interested in bidding with a pile of their own dough.

How can I put this delicately? How about: No.

According to my sources, throughout this entire process Microsoft execs have taken pains to make it clear that they are not going to be among the bidders in any significant manner.

In addition, the company has also been communicating with bidders that — while Microsoft is interested in a stable Yahoo, given their search and advertising partnership — it would not throw in with anyone in the process yet.

And, finally, if a winner eventually emerges, it might — and this is only might — consider making a token investment to help get the deal completed.

Certainly, Microsoft has been and is willing to talk to anyone interested, said sources, given their Yahoo business relationship. But this does not make it a bid of any shape or size. They are not even “considering” it, unless that means watching from a distance.

I suppose in some incredible shift Microsoft could change its mind, but most credible sources I spoke to said that is not happening now.

In fact, after its bruising and failed takeover attempt of Yahoo several years ago, said multiple sources, Microsoft now has the deal it wants with Yahoo.

“Why buy the cow when you can get the search and advertising deal for free,” joked one person close to the situation.

Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

In yet another sign that the Internet market is getting very interesting to Wall Street, well-known analyst Imran Khan (pictured here) is jumping from his perch as managing director at J.P. Morgan to become a banker at Credit Suisse, according to sources close to the situation.

In this new role, the high-profile Khan–well known for his reports on digital companies–will be running investment banking for Internet markets, including IPOs and M&A.

Khan, who will leave Morgan in several months, is making a big shift from analyst to banker, designed to give Credit Suisse more credibility in the arena as more Web companies come to market.

He also has a strong focus internationally, especially in China, where there has been huge growth of late.

Khan did not return an email and phone call seeking comment, and Credit Suisse has also not responded.

But one industry veteran noted that Khan had the profile and potential–mixing analysis with banking–to be the next investment star, especially as initial public offerings ramp up again.

“In my mind, Imran is certainly as good as Frank Quattrone, said the person, referring to the well-known Silicon Valley banking legend of Web 1.0, who remains active still in dealmaking. “And even stronger in some ways, because of his international and China domain expertise.”

No, not Facebook.

Not Zynga.

And probably not Groupon.

At least not yet, when it comes to the blockbuster Web IPOs that Wall Street and investors have been waiting for, and now expecting to roll out sooner than later in the wake of the return of the Web IPO in recent weeks.

Not so fast.

That’s what multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said when queried by BoomTown after the successful public outing by Demand Media, followed by LinkedIn’s S-1 regulatory filing last week.

While these events spurred a great deal of speculation about which Web wunderkind would belly up to the public trough next, sources said that those looking for IPOs well above the $5 billion range will have to wait a little longer.

Because, while companies such as social networking giant Facebook, social buying phenom Groupon and social gaming’s Zynga have all been courted heavily by investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others–all remain well-funded and willing to hold off opening their books for all to see until the last possible moment.

“There’s not a lot of reason to expose all kinds of information that is keeping these companies ahead too early,” said one person close to the situation. “In fact, once that much data is out there, you could argue that they lose a lot of their magic to investors.”

Some of that financial information is already out there, although in small bites, which has only been a taste for investors.

Full-scale sunlight will be different. While it can be cleansing, it can also be disappointing to those with too-high expectations of these companies.

Thus, expect to see more small IPOs–at least in comparison–from outfits such as Chegg, which has also been deep in talks with bankers for a while now.

Chegg, like LinkedIn, has been highly successful in a niche arena–in its case, online rentals of textbook to college students.

In the fall, the Silicon Valley company raised another $75 million in funding, on top of a previous $144 million.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners and others have presumably handed over that money in hopes of big returns in disrupting a $10 billion college textbook business.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of “chicken and egg,” and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix.

And a Netflix-like business is what presumably may keep Wall Street investors interested–at least until the bigger fish arrive.

Here’s the tastiest part of an article in the New York Times yesterday about how Goldman Sachs essentially borked a deal to offer its rich clients in the U.S. private Facebook shares:

“However, over the last two weeks, the companies’ [Goldman and Facebook] relationship has grown increasingly tense, people involved in the offering said. Accusations about the news leak have flown back and forth, these people said.”

You can say that again, but –as leaky as the social networking giant has been over these many years in Silicon Valley–it seemed obvious that most of the intricate financial details about the offering were hand-delivered right from some of Wall Street’s hired guns to the DealBook scribes at the Times.

(Memo to myself: Start kissing up to those bankers, however appalling!)

Unfortunately for Facebook, it was those massive news leaks that drew the attention of government regulators to the deal. And with worries that it veered too close to the edge of violating securities regulations, the U.S. part of the offering had to be pulled.

Despite this particular mess, this kind of mishegas is only going to increase now that the banker bloviating is getting fired up a notch in 2011, as a spate of Web 2.0 Internet companies moves to public offerings.

Along with Facebook, that includes Zynga, LinkedIn and Groupon, as well as several others, all of which are just starting the banker bake-offs that used to be common in the Web space.

And that’s going to mean plenty of information to be found as some of those bankers inevitably drop a dime on the companies they are hired by.

Translated into more modern social terminology that these companies better understand: Bankers are really good at oversharing.

How do I know this? Because that is exactly what happened when the Web 1.0 bubble was in full froth.

Like Christmas in July, as bankers arrived to compete to win IPOs, the information flow suddenly became huge for reporters like me–I was at The Wall Street Journal at the time–covering it all.

It looks like more of the same for this round of stock sales likely to come. Already we know more about Facebook’s financials than we ever did.

And to that, I say: Loose lips may sink ships, but it will make for an awesome amount of news to come in 2011 about the Internet’s starring players.

Groupon is in talks with Chinese Internet giant Tencent to form a partnership to accelerate its effort in the critical Asian arena, said several sources with knowledge of the situation.

Terms of the deal are unclear, but sources said that it is likely to involve some sort of co-branded joint venture effort between the two–a key strategic move for Groupon, given the hard-to-penetrate-if-you’re-not-Chinese Chinese market.

More typical for Groupon has been to buy a top local player abroad and rebrand it, such as its launch of Groupon Hong Kong, Groupon Singapore and Groupon Philippines and Groupon Taiwan through the early December acquisition of daily deal sites uBuyiBuy, Beeconomic and Atlaspost, respectively.

Moving into the lucrative international arena, where there are innumerable clones of the dominant social buying service, is one of the big strategic reasons for Groupon’s recent $1 billion funding and also last week’s very noisy IPO toe-dipping.

(How much is BoomTown wishing I could be a fly on the wall to see all those investment bankers courting kooky Groupon CEO Andrew Mason? Memo to Andrew: Act like Snooki from “Jersey Shore” and see how they still slavishly kiss up to you like the soul-sucking suck-ups they are.)

Back to China, where cloning popular U.S. Internet brands has become an art form.

That includes one particularly appalling rip-off (pictured here) in China that looks exactly like Groupon and is actually called Groupon.cn.

(Although you’ve got to be in awe of the complete non-effort to pretend it is anything but a complete shoplifting of the brand.)

But, no matter how much that digital swiping goes on, much of Groupon’s growth recently has been outside the U.S., and the company’s strategic future lies internationally.

Of course, global expansion–especially in the famously difficult Chinese market, where the government favors native companies to an unprecedented degree–has stymied many other U.S. Internet phenoms, from eBay to Google to Facebook. (In fact, for obviously thorny privacy reasons, the social networking site has no presence in China.)

But for Groupon, especially with its public offering plans and need to distance itself from close rivals such as LivingSocial, it is a must-do to reach the deal-crazy and huge audience in China.

Thus, having Tencent as its partner is an obvious plus, given it is one of the biggest Internet services in the country, including its huge QQ instant messaging offering.

In addition, there is a strong link between Tencent and one of Groupon’s key investors, Mail.ru Group.

Mail.ru owns five percent of Groupon, said numerous sources, and Tencent is an investor in Mail.ru, which recently had an IPO.

And DST Global, an investment vehicle that is now separate from Mail.ru–although it shares Russian exec Yuri Milner, who is Mail.ru’s chairman and also DST’s CEO–is also a Groupon investor.

Got all that? As BoomTown has written before: It’s a small and way-too-connected world after all, especially when it comes to the goat rodeo of Groupon investors.

What will be interesting to see is if this makes a difference in China, which has been a consistent black hole for most major Internet companies.

Groupon declined comment, and there has been no response yet to an email query sent to Tencent’s PR group.

Here’s another spoof music video, titled “Don’t Stop Competing,” shown at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco today, using the go-to classic song “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey.

It’s from investment banker Terry Kawaja, who goes by the stage name “L. McDuff.”

The video makes fun of the increasing competition and rancor between and among the various power players of Silicon Valley these days–from Google to Apple to Facebook.

Personally, BoomTown thinks a better song might be Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” (which I also embedded below).

Enjoy:

If wishes were horses, as the old proverb goes, all beggars would ride.

Or, in the case of the incessant corporate drama around Yahoo: If wishes were deals, all bankers would get big fat fees.

Even BoomTown has been harboring a big wish that there were some new scenario–instead of the same retreads that have been bandied about for more than a month–that was at least possible.

But because making up scenarios about the fate of Yahoo is all fun and games, it goes on and on and on.

Today’s latest intrigue is from Reuters, which reports that the Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma is considering entreaties by moneybags private equity folks to give him the many billions of dollars needed to buy back Yahoo’s 40 percent stake in the Chinese Internet giant and perhaps even participate in a takeover of Yahoo itself.

As has been reported here and in many places many times already, private equity and other investor interest has centered for a while on working with Ma to unlock critical financial value for anyone interested in doing any kind of buyout of Yahoo.

And, as it turns out, Ma has long been explicit about wanting to rid himself of Yahoo and to take back control of Alibaba completely.

There’s no doubt the government of China would also look kindly on that result too, many sources say, given the huge size of the vexing foreign ownership of one of the country’s brightest Internet stars.

But, as most also know, wishing–and even offering a giant pile of money–doesn’t make it so, unless Ma can convince Yahoo to sell to him.

And, of course, he also does not have to do anything either, since Yahoo management has little say over his actions at Alibaba, in spite of the large stake Yahoo holds.

As you can see, you can spin these ideas all day long, which is what bankers apparently get paid so much for.

Luckily, I will do it for free.

You could, for example, add Microsoft into the Yahoo mix once again. Would it engage, in order to get the search business in China from Alibaba? Or to finally unload its pricey MSN unit?

And what of News Corp., with its extensive ties in Asia and interest in trading its weak digital properties, such as Myspace, for something better? Wasn’t CEO Rupert Murdoch sniffing around before?

There is also a renewed scenario for Demand Media to become involved.

Of course, let’s not leave out the old faithful plots about how tiny AOL, with its high-Q-quotient CEO Tim Armstrong, could still be a contender.

Just for fun, I will add another interesting idea I recently heard: Comcast. Could the cable and now media giant swoop in at some point and pick up a lot of digital assets it might need going forward?

Don’t forget Disney either–the Hollywood entertainment giant, which has a key interest in moving into the digital space even more boldly.

On consolation: Google is probably out, having been burned before, because of all the antitrust issue inherent in any hookup with Yahoo.

Of course, it will not be a party until Twitter gets here, with its date Zynga.

Finally: Where, oh, where is the holy union of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Steve Jobs when you need them to knock this corporate drama into the stratosphere?

Until it is all sorted out for real, here is a reprint of some of the many similar scenarios I cooked up way back in late September–most of which were investor fantasies, but now are being taken more seriously–in a post titled “Could AOL Merge With Yahoo? Could News Corp. Make a Play? Takeover 2.0 With a Little Help From China’s Alibaba?”

Enjoy–although, as you will see, it’s the same scenarios floated then as now:

Today, as news of the departure of Yahoo’s U.S. head Hilary Schneider and two other top execs got around Wall Street, investors and dealmakers were actually thinking of things other than executive turmoil.

As in: Does the uncertainty, along with a naggingly lackluster stock price and weak growth, create pressure on its CEO Carol Bartz and its board to do something dramatic?

In addition, does the messy public situation even provide an opportunity to put Yahoo into play, despite its market cap of $19 billion?

These and many more are the scenarios being debated in boardrooms of big media and Internet companies today, as well as at private equity firms, investment banks and even in Asia.

That’s because many are focusing on Yahoo’s Asian investments. Yahoo itself owns almost 35 percent of Yahoo Japan and a 40 percent stake in China’s Alibaba Group, assets that now make up–along with cash on hand–most of the company’s valuation.

Alibaba and Yahoo have recently gotten into an ugly public tussle over the Chinese firm’s desire to buy back the shares now, with Bartz holding out for more appreciation.

Now, she might have to do a deal with Alibaba, according to one theory, because a sale of its stake would give Yahoo’s stock a significant boost.

One problem: Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has made it known to anyone who will listen that he loathes Bartz personally, after a series of awkward encounters. That said, he has a close relationship with former Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang, who is on both companies’ boards.

That puts Ma in an interesting position, according to another theory, because other U.S. companies with an interest in Yahoo might try to make a deal with him to do some kind of deal with Yahoo.

Most frequently mentioned by big investors in Yahoo: AOL and its CEO Tim Armstrong.

Armstrong, said sources, has not shied away from the idea of Yahoo acquiring AOL and installing him as CEO with Bartz as chairman. AOL’s valuation is just $2.65 billion.

Although AOL has also been trying to turn itself around and is in a much less powerful position than Yahoo, Wall Street likes Armstrong’s story for AOL as a modern-day media and media distribution company.

“At least he has a narrative that is believable,” said one big investor in both companies. “Bartz has no vision.”

Another plus for Armstrong: His friendly and Don Draper-smooth demeanor, in contrast to Bartz’s tough-talking and now too-often curse-laden patter.

And while, Armstrong has assembled an experienced staff. And he himself has deep online advertising sales experience, given his last job as head of U.S. sales at Google.

Also likely to be interested: News Corp. The reason is that its own digital efforts, especially at the MySpace social networking site, have gone sideways.

And there’s history: News Corp. tried to facilitate a merger of MySpace, MSN and Yahoo into a company codenamed “TrafficCo” at the time Microsoft was attempting a takeover of Yahoo.

It was supposed to be headed by former Microsoft exec and now Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson, another possible Yahoo CEO candidate.

That plot did not pan out and News Corp. has been trying mightily to revive MySpace ever since. It certainly would trade it into Yahoo for some stake.

Another hook: Its digital head Jon Miller, who used to be CEO of AOL, almost was CEO of Yahoo, during that same takeover fight. But a noncompete agreement with Time Warner was enforced by CEO Jeff Bewkes at the time.

Both AOL and News Corp. could certainly make approaches to Ma or Yahoo Japan’s Masayoshi Son to agree to help them get back their Yahoo stakes.

Son was the one who made the move recently to switch out Yahoo search for Google in Japan.

And, by the way, Son was one of Yahoo’s earliest investors.

Confused? Well, it is certainly shaping up to be a lively Silicon Valley goat rodeo, as there are also all kinds of private equity companies with spreadsheets already figured if Yahoo shares decline enough.

And there are other ideas spinning on spins into Yahoo, such as Demand Media, which is prepping an IPO, and its perpetually enthusiastic CEO Richard Rosenblatt.

One unlikely player is Microsoft. The once hostile suitor is now a partner to Yahoo in search and online advertising.

Of course, the last and biggest question is what happens between Bartz and the board. While they seem to have backed her this far, she has not performed as she has promised and now seems to have gotten publicly grumpy about all the pressure to do so.

Will the directors, who proved themselves pretty ineffectual in the past, continue to support her? Or will they find some self-protecting way to ease her out?

Some directors are definitely unhappy, sources said, but no one seems to be in charge or particularly influential.

Which could mean even more confusion as Yahoo moves unsteadily forward.

While a merger of AOL and Yahoo is a fervent dream of bankers looking for fees, the reality is a little more–shall we say–premature.

In fact, it’s likely it was just those dealmakers, looking to gin up some activity, who are behind the latest spin-riffic article in The Wall Street Journal that reports on machinations by AOL to hire unnamed advisers to carry out all kinds of complex deals.

Actually, it is the complexity of any of those deals that has put a lot of the takeover, buyout, merger and other scenarios that center around Yahoo–with a side of AOL, as well as News Corp., Microsoft, Yahoo Japan, the Alibaba Group–on ice.

Among the issues being grappled with: Onerous tax implications around a variety of deals; a need for complete cooperation from too many players; and the realization that a hookup of AOL and Yahoo might cause more problems than it solves.

“It looks great conceptually and everyone gets all hot and bothered,” said one prominent investor who did his own strategizing about Yahoo and AOL. “But when you actually do the numbers, you hit a pretty big wall of impossible.”

Still, any whiff of a deal makes for a spate of overreaching stories in the press, such as the Journal’s, which sources at both Yahoo and AOL tell me started out as one about how the pair were in preliminary merger discussions.

They are not, unless a call or two between AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on how to handle the hubbub constitutes preliminary.

It doesn’t, of course, unlike serious merger discussions the companies held several years ago, well before the arrival of either Armstrong or Bartz on the scene.

The Journal story then apparently morphed into one about how AOL was on the hunt to figure out what to do–especially about Yahoo–by hiring new advisers.

Actually, the company has had its same old one, Allen & Co., since it was spun off from Time Warner last year. It has since also retained Bank of America.

Yahoo’s longtime banking adviser has been Goldman Sachs, which was re-engaged more than six weeks ago, only due to all the incoming attention.

That would be from other bankers, private equity firms and others, many of whom have ginned up a variety of schemes and have then pinged both AOL and Yahoo.

Curiously, this kind of activity was reported extensively a month ago here and in the Journal too.

Read the Journal article on October 13:

“AOL Inc. and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges.”

A bold plan to marry? You might want put the honeymoon reservations on hold for now.

That’s because interest does not mean result, especially when it comes to merger scenarios (and, if you are bored, you can read a whole bunch BoomTown came up with in late September).

But, in fact, because the big Yahoo-AOL deal is harder to realize in practice than in theory, things have quieted down and there are no proposals being evaluated by Yahoo or offered by AOL.

And, thus, the dealmakers must begin to chatter again to get things hopping.

Ironically, both boards of AOL and Yahoo should be considering a spate of ideas–however outlandish–to spur growth and innovation in their lackluster businesses.

And, in truth, if some very big players, such as Microsoft, got involved, the smoke around both AOL and Yahoo could someday become a real fire.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns both this site and the Journal.)

Investment bankers and stock markets can calm down–Microsoft and Adobe are not in talks about an acquisition.

Spurred by a story in the New York Times that Microsoft was eyeing the software company for purchase, Adobe (ADBE) stock went wild today, up 11.5 percent to $28.69.

Except, according to numerous sources at both companies with whom I talked today, it’s “nonsense.”

Sure, it might be an interesting idea–kind of like AOL (AOL) and Yahoo (YHOO) merging–but that’s not the case at this point either.

Chalk this one up to blabby bankers and stock speculators–this might be a good rumor for regulators to look into.

Of course, as is typical, the execs at both companies talk a lot–you might have noticed that Adobe has a lot of software that is popular on the Windows operating system.

So, they had a meeting!

But it is kind of hard to do an acquisition when “Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, recently showed up with a small entourage of deputies at Adobe’s offices to hold a secret meeting with Adobe’s chief executive, Shantanu Narayen.”

Memo to the Times: When there is an acquisition afoot–in my experience–it’s all private airplanes and law offices and not a company HQ visit by the very loud and very noticeable Ballmer, the exact polar opposite of a shrinking violet.

In any case, it is not a big surprise at this point if longtime rivals like Adobe and Microsoft (MSFT)–which makes a competing video technology called Silverlight to Adobe’s Flash–talk about trying to stop the explosive growth of Apple, especially in the mobile space.

Microsoft is about to launch its Windows Phone 7, after many cloddish efforts in the arena have failed, and Adobe has been subject to a withering attack from Apple (AAPL) and its CEO Steve Jobs.

Jobs, in no uncertain terms, has dissed Flash relentlessly as a technology.

Others have not, such as Google (GOOG), which recently showed strong support for Adobe’s Flash in its recent launch of Google TV.

In fact, it is Google that is more mentioned in Silicon Valley as the logical acquirer of Adobe, if there were to be a sale.

Along with all its various assets, such as the Photoshop and Acrobat software that dominates online publishing, Adobe’s Omniture unit is one of the more powerful and popular analytics companies on the Web, which is right in Google’s wheelhouse.

Personally, that’s the one I would bet on, although that’s entirely me speaking.

Until that happens, here is a video interview of Jobs smacking around Adobe and Flash at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101007/adobsoft-nonsense-on-the-microsoft-adobe-rumor-in-any-case-itd-more-likely-be-goodobe/feed/ 13 http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/ http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:03:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32936

Yesterday, BoomTown dropped into the lower Park Avenue offices of the New York-based Gilt Groupe, the online fashion retail site.

Since 2007, the site has raised $83 million from General Atlantic and Matrix Partners, giving it a $400 million valuation and spurring interest from investment bankers who think Gilt might be a good candidate for an initial public offering.

That’s doubtful for now, given how important it is for Gilt to solidify and expand its business, even as competition increases.

But already, Gilt has built an important consumer brand online, using its funding to expand the member-based service that offers a range of well-known fashion brands and luxury goods at sample sale prices, much like the originator of the idea–France’s Vente-Privee.

To keep all the fashion moving forward, Gilt hired former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) CEO Susan Lyne, who also was a big-time television exec at ABC, in 2008.

Along with a turbocharge of its operations as its sales grow, Gilt is also attempting to expand its offerings to travel and other experiences, via its Jetsetter site, and growing its base of local “city” sites for a range of services, such as spas.

Also on deck: More personalization for users, to better targets deals, as well as mobile versions of Gilt.

Of course, Gilt is operating in a very competitive arena, with rivals coming at the business from a number of different ways, such as Groupon, the hot discount deals start-up.

Here is the video interview I had with Lyne at Gilt’s Manhattan offices about all this and more:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100826/gilt-groupes-susan-lyne-talks-about-fashion-local-and-not-ipo/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100420/demands-rosenblatt-in-ipo-and-also-ma-spotlight/ http://allthingsd.com/20100420/demands-rosenblatt-in-ipo-and-also-ma-spotlight/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:30:16 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=27192

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100420/demands-rosenblatt-in-ipo-and-also-ma-spotlight/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100420/richard-rosenblatt-at-d8/ http://allthingsd.com/20100420/richard-rosenblatt-at-d8/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:30:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d8.allthingsd.com/?p=295

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100420/richard-rosenblatt-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090701/dealmakers-arent-dealing-unless-you-can-get-the-word-mobile-in-your-pitch/ http://allthingsd.com/20090701/dealmakers-arent-dealing-unless-you-can-get-the-word-mobile-in-your-pitch/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:42:56 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8849 Did you want to buy or sell a media or tech company in the last six months? Chances are you didn’t: New data from banker The Jordan, Edmiston Group say the M&A market for the first half of 2009 was nearly nonexistent, at least compared to the post-MySpace Web 2.0 heyday. But you knew that (click chart to enlarge):

The one exception to the drought: Companies that have something, anything, to do with mobile. The Jordan, Edmiston Group says deal volume increased 45 percent over the last year, and the value of those deals leapt by 38 percent.

Granted, we’re talking about fairly small numbers to begin with–the bank counted 16 mobile deals in the first half of this year, compared to 11 a year ago–but it still seems telling, and right. We’ve been hearing about the inevitable rise of mobile as an advertising, content and commerce platform for years, but in the last year or so, this now seems plausible, due in large part to the adoption of smartphones from the likes of Research in Motion (RIMM), Apple (APPL), and, perhaps, even Palm (PALM).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090701/dealmakers-arent-dealing-unless-you-can-get-the-word-mobile-in-your-pitch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081201/the-yahoo-rumor-mill-the-broken-clock-will-be-right-at-some-time/ http://allthingsd.com/20081201/the-yahoo-rumor-mill-the-broken-clock-will-be-right-at-some-time/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:25:54 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=7184

[UPDATED: I added a stronger first sentence to leave no doubt about there is no Microsoft-Yahoo deal at the present time and to be clear I am not backing off on my weekend post on the topic.]

Let me be crystal clear: Yahoo and Microsoft are not currently secretly at work on a pricey new search partnership and a piece this weekend in the Times of London that said they were is inaccurate.

It’s natural for the idea to be brought up, since they have talked about such a deal many months ago and have indicated publicly and recently that they should again in the future, so smart betting is correct in guessing that they probably will do some sort of search deal in the months ahead.

But this was put out as a supposedly reported piece, and it was wrong. There is no deal at this time, according to my sources and reporting, which has been pretty accurate overall on Yahoo.

Still, various unsubstantiated rumors pop up weekly about deals between the pair, which are about as convoluted as a mash-up of “Richard III” and “Macbeth,” with some “Three’s Company” thrown in for comic relief.

The core problem is, of course, that for the past year or so with regard to Yahoo (YHOO), truth has indeed been stranger than fiction.

Consider:

A founder takes over after a stumble from a Hollywood mogul, whereupon the sweet-natured Silicon Valley icon also fumbles. But, before he can right himself, what ho!–a dastardly midnight takeover attack by a giant invader from the rainy North.

Then another attack from the greedy East from a sneaky raider named Carl. And, next, a possible rescue from a powerful do-no-evil neighbor that turns into more of a do-some-harm result.

And, all along, more stumbles and bumbles, as the stock slides and employees flee like rats from a sinking ship. The founder founders, while all kinds of plots of usurping unravel around him.

He is, ultimately, banish’d (well, sort of).

You might think all this real-world plot would satisfy even a fan in need of a serious fix, after “Heroes” ran off the rails in its second season.

But no, the false rumors–all wrapped cleverly in some obviously logical suppositions–that have swirled around Yahoo have been breathtaking in both the level of stock manipulation clearly involved and their ability to be swirled around the Internet quickly enough for some vulture to make a killing on an endless willingness to believe anything.

Such was the case this weekend, with yet another story–this time in the Times of London–about Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo being involved in yet another hook-up.

Similar previous such reports have turned out to be bogus, but did always give the much beleaguered stock a short-lived bump upwards.

This time out, the Times told about a very complex search deal in detail, worth $20 billion, which was–of course!–imminent.

And–as an added plus, since Yahoo’s other story thread is a new CEO search too–the story also involved a pair of well-known Internet execs–Ross Levinsohn and Jon Miller–taking over as the new managers of the company.

The problem was that top sources at both companies rushed to deny it.

There were also serious insider trading issues for a major investor and board member, Carl Icahn, if it were true. He just loaded up on Yahoo shares a week ago.

And, oh yes, one of the co-CEOs-in-waiting, Levinsohn, told me he was not contacted by the Times (and neither was Miller, as far as he could tell) about his becoming leader of Yahoo.

Thus, he called the tale–on the record, mind you–”total fiction.”

Well, not total fiction, actually, because–as in all things–there has always been a grain of truth to the idea of some kind of deal for Microsoft to buy or monetize Yahoo’s search assets eventually taking place.

And who whispered that juicy nugget to me? Well, actually, both companies have said so loud and publicly many times recently to the whole world. Outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang did in an onstage interview in early November, as did Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in another appearance.

And this week, Icahn said it again in an interview with Barron’s:

“I’ve said this before: Yahoo! should make a deal with Microsoft as far as selling its search capability…Microsoft has said publicly that they are not interested in buying the whole company, and I believe them. But they are interested in doing a deal on search, and we should pursue that.”

That’s pretty clear, I would say, on potential direction. And, it probably means both sides are surely getting there ducks in order to imagine such a deal, which does not take a lot of brain cells to surmise.

The Yahoo leadership that has resisted such a deal is on its way out, although there still remains significant resistance to it by some board members, which Icahn also said was true in that Barron’s interview.

But I would guess that the new CEO will be hired partly on the basis of being able to make nice with Microsoft.

And rather than get caught up in internal Yahoo corporate machinations, as it did to bad results in its earlier takeover attempt, one would assume Microsoft is patiently waiting to do a deal with a more willing team and board, if it can.

After all, it no longer has Google (GOOG) to compete with now that the search giant’s deal with Yahoo collapsed, due to much deserved regulatory scrutiny.

If Yahoo wants a search deal, it has no other real choices save Microsoft (except not to do a deal, of course).

But that kind of simple logic–as in, these corporate deals are more messy and slow than stealthy and well thought out–still seems to escape some.

One grassy-knoll type, in fact, expressed that proof-absent sentiment perfectly in this post about the Times story, which I underscore was not speculative, but represented as actual reporting:

“What we don’t know out of all of this is what’s truth or fiction, despite the latest denials.

Companies and governments like to deny all kinds of things before a deal is magically struck, taking everyone by ‘surprise’ yet again thanks to all the denials.”

Yes, it makes perfect sense! All these people and companies, all of whom don’t particularly like each other–including two principals who said they have heard nothing of the deal, despite the fact that they were to be co-CEOs of the resulting company–are all involved in a coordinated plot of deception that rivals anything Jason Bourne could unravel.

But let’s get a dose of reality, shall we? Just because some think there should be a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo and they both publicly indicate there could be, it simply does not count as actionable news, until it actually happens or there is a well-reported story that it is about to.

You can certainly prepare for such a thing and work it into your future stock price formulas, but these rumor eruptions are useless to anyone who cares about being an informed investor.

And if a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo is struck, that does not make the false rumors correct either.

If that was the case, score one for stock manipulators, who are no doubt behind a lot of this stuff.

My second vote for leak candidates goes to under-employed bankers, because–as one smart Internet exec noted to me yesterday–”there are more deal-doers than deals these days.”

Ain’t that the real and confirmed truth, forever and always?

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