There is the site’s (deservedly) much discussed Tumblr, of course. And yesterday, up popped this bit of weirdness: For some reason, entering the “Konami Code” on your keyboard–up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter–turns the site’s homepage into, um, something else (click images to enlarge).

And it goes on in that vein for a while:

No idea who or what is behind this. But I do like it quite a bit.

The aforementioned Newsweek Tumblr tells us that “we just want you all to know that this isn’t some sort of commentary on our current ownerless limbo.” So that means…what?

Newsweek isn’t the first big media site to feature an inscrutable Konami Code hack/tweak/Easter Egg. ESPN’s flagship site had a particularly colorful one last year.

For those of a certain age and/or those of you with a life, see Wikipedia’s Konami Code page. Alas, in true Wikipedia fashion, it explains the what, but not the why. Can anyone else try?

The login page is prime real estate. ComScore (SCOR) says it attracts 26 million U.S. uniques per day, and Yahoo (YHOO) says the page is its third-most popular, after the homepage and Yahoo Mail page. But the Yahoo login has been ad-free–just a white page with a login box and some technical/privacy verbiage–for some 15 years.

Now Yahoo is renting out the page as a “takeover.” That is, everyone who visits the site on a given day sees the same thing.

How much is that worth? Yahoo won’t say. But note that the company is selling takeover spots for its OMG property for $80,000 a day. And OMG gets about 20 million uniques a month, a tiny slice of the login page’s reach.

The new ad units are supposed to cover your entire screen, and run 1,400 pixels wide; by comparison, the column of text you’re looking at now is 350 pixels wide. They’re supposed to be a canvas for “custom, gorgeous, beautiful engagements for an advertiser, that are really meant to be art,” says Yahoo ad VP Mitch Spolan.

Okay. So describing these initial Chevy ads as “art” is a bit of puffery. But they are big:

Twitter is describing the product to advertisers as “Promoted Trends,” an extension of the “Promoted Tweets” program announced in April. The messaging service has been talking about it in vague terms and has yet to test it.

But the basic gist seems to be this: Advertisers will be able to insert their own terms into the list of trends Twitter displays on users’ homepages (see image below; click to enlarge) and on its login page. Clicking on a term would call up a Twitter search results page, which would feature the associated advertiser’s “promoted tweet” at the top of the results.

Advertisers who have heard Twitter talk about the product say the service imagines charging “tens of thousands of dollars” a day for exclusive placement rights.

If Twitter moves forward with the plan, it’s going to need to iron out some details: For instance, will every one of Twitter’s 190 million users see the same promoted trend? Or will the service figure out how to filter them?

Just as important: Can Twitter ensure that its trending topics aren’t cluttered with spam? The service has been trying to tackle this by tweaking the algorithm it uses to generate trending topics, which is why there’s a lot less Justin Bieber in its results than there used to be. But it can still stand some work–can anyone tell me what “CALA BOCA GALAVO” is, and why I should care?

In any case, it’s early. Here’s Twitter’s position, conveyed via PR boss Sean Garrett:

As we have always said, we plan to test different advertising and promotional models in these early stages of our monetization efforts for both user and brand value. As part of this effort, we will likely test trends clearly marked as “promoted” for an undefined period of time. Assuming that we do, during this test, there will only be one visible at a time.

All of this makes plenty of sense. Twitter spent a long time trying not to become a media company, but it is certainly headed that way now: Twitter attracts users’ attention with content and then rents out access to those users’ eyeballs. So if you’re going with that model, no reason not to go all the way.

Don’t know why you’d want to, but you can now personalize Google’s famously austere search page with your own image. To make sure you understand the idea, Google (GOOG) is demoing it right now.

Too busy to verify? No problem. Here you go:

Google says this allows you to “make search more of your own.” But as Dan Frommer and other professional Web content producers note, it looks an awful lot like an homage to Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing.

Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera takes the next logical step:

Another longtime Yahoo exec is departing–this time Tapan Bhat (pictured here), who had purview over the Internet giant’s important front page.

News of the departure came from new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving in an internal email titled “Busy Week” that highlighted the Yahoo (YHOO) investor day that took place yesterday.

Buried at the end of the memo was a paragraph noting that “there’s always a downside to a productive week” and that Bhat had decided to leave the company.

Bhat’s team will report to Yahoo exec Jeff Kinder until a replacement is found. It is not clear what Bhat’s plans are.

Bhat joins a number of top execs who have recently clocked out of Yahoo of late, such as U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford.

Bhat was in charge of a range of products at Yahoo, most importantly, the most recent redesign of its powerful homepage a year ago.

Yahoo has since confirmed the departure.

“Tapan Bhat, SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, has decided to leave Yahoo!. Tapan has been an integral leader within the Products organization since joining Yahoo! more than five years ago and we value his many contributions and wish him well. His last day will be June 15.”

And from Bhat:

“Leaving Yahoo! has been a difficult decision to make because I’m incredibly proud of the work that’s been accomplished by my teams over the last five years, particularly related to the Yahoo! homepage, My Yahoo!, our content optimization engine and most recently, our Mobile and iPad apps. I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place.”

According to some sources inside and outside of Yahoo, Bhat has clashed with CEO Carol Bartz at times and has long been considering a new move.

Founded last May, Kakai is one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

But while there have been sketchy reports suggesting that the start-up may be working on some kind of e-reader, BoomTown has found out exactly what it’s up to via reports of a concept video the company has shown potential investors and interviews with several sources close to the situation.

In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.

That would be Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

Chegg recently hired former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Dan Rosensweig as its CEO, taking over from Rashid, who wanted to focus on Kakai.

Interestingly, you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

But rather than focusing on making an old business better via the Web, as Chegg does, Kakai is plunging right into the competitive tablet market that now includes Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and, reportedly, Google (GOOG).

While these efforts, including Apple’s iPad, for example, are mostly aimed at broader media markets, sources said Kakai’s effort focuses solely on the educational niche, offering a Linux-based foldable double-screened device.

Gesture-based and portable, it is designed to feel like a mix of a notepad and a book.

While Kakai declined to comment, sources said a key part of the endeavor goes well beyond the tablet itself by including robust software and seamless Web site to deliver course material, allowing for note-taking and offering other audio and video capabilities.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kakai, which is nearing 50 employees, is now prepping the device to be ready for a demo in several months.

It’s paying for all this with almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

Until he reveals more specifics, though, don’t expect much from Kakai’s homepage (see below), which has a very funny trio of jokes that play with the company name, asking “Which Kakai are you looking for?”

The possibilities include Kakai Bautista, a singer-comedienne in the Philippines; Neferirkare Kakai, third Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty; and Kakai, an Austrian pumpkin that yields valuable oil that promotes prostate health.”

Not looking for the singer, the pharaoh or the pumpkin?,” reads the bottom of the Kakai homepage. “Well, we wish we could tell you more, but you’ll just have to cool your jets.”

Perhaps now it’s time to start heating them up.

Yahoo is close to rolling out a new version of its pricey advertising campaign, said several sources, after the one featuring the tagline, “It’s Y!ou,” seemed to flag.

One of the rejiggered versions being considered is centered on the concept that the Web is “personal,” with specific references–via flying tiles–to all kinds of apps and services you can use on Yahoo (YHOO), including third-party ones such as Facebook.

Yahoo launched its initial marketing effort earlier this fall with splashy events in New York and slick rollouts all over the U.S.

But not everyone at the Internet portal loved it–including CEO Carol Bartz, who criticized its effectiveness in a meeting with reporters at the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s HQ earlier this year.

“We didn’t have a really good call to action,” she said in March.

While Bartz noted that the campaign raised awareness of the Yahoo brand in international markets, it had less impact in the key U.S. market, largely because it was very unspecific about exactly what “Y!ou” meant.

Many inside the company had long worried about whether the motto and ad effort had enough punch and point to get Yahoo back on track.

But execs in charge of the effort have maintained that Yahoo was staying on the “Y!ou” message as it moves into the latest phase of the multiyear effort. However, they also promised more specific “product proof points” that focus on Yahoo’s “hero products,” such as search, email, homepage, mobile and more.

Sources said marketing head Elisa Steele is expected to give a look at the new ad direction sometime in the next week to Yahoo employees, perhaps at an all-hands meeting Wednesday that will follow its first-quarter earnings release Tuesday.

Yahoo’s new lead creative team at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has been working on the next direction.

The San Francisco-based Goodby, owned by the Omnicom Group (OMC), is known for its innovative ideas and has done high-profile campaigns like the terrifically memorable “Got Milk?” campaign.

Previously, the job of goosing Yahoo’s tarnished brand, as part of the recently launched $100 million marketing push, was helmed by Ogilvy & Mather, a unit of the WPP Group (WPPGY).

Yahoo declined to comment when asked about the ad campaign.

The television hit, “Glee,” is one of News Corp.’s crown jewels of late, while its MySpace social networking site has struggled painfully to regain its once-hot momentum.

Now MySpace is getting the benefit of the heat “Glee” is generating, by hosting the online auditions for the Fox television network show, which returns tonight after a short hiatus.

“Glee”–an online phenom in its own right, with more than four million song downloads so far–is probably a good partner for MySpace as it tries to differentiate itself as a place where users can express their musical and entertainment passions.

This “discover and be discovered” concept is all part of a very slow-moving effort to turn MySpace into a socially-charged entertainment hub.

That effort will get a splashy rollout today with the first animated takeover of MySpace users’ personal homepages to coincide with the return of “Glee” (you can see it in action in the PDF below).

In the branded campaign, the character of Rachel (played by Lea Michele) becomes the profile picture, and evil cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch) pops out to shout a tune-in message about the show’s premiere, while blowing parts of the page away.

The bigger deal, of course, is the online casting call for “Gleeks,” as the show’s rabid fans are called, which MySpace is also hosting.

Professional and amateur performers between the ages of 16 and 26 can submit video auditions for the chance to have a re-occurring role on the show’s second season, choosing from songs featured in “Glee” and using the MySpace Karaoke tool.

Since it was launched March 30, the page has over a million friends and thousands of video submissions, which will be voted on. The casting call ends April 26.

Here’s a video interview of the effort that I did last week at the tony Chateau Marmont hotel with MySpace Music’s Courtney Holt, who worked on the deal, as well as a special guest star you might recognize.