In one of the odder things to happen in my journalism career, I was forwarded a flash analyst report by Wall Street’s Macquarie Capital on the news that AllThingsD.com broke yesterday (and foreshadowed before) about the shakeup of Yahoo’s board.

I cover the Silicon Valley Internet giant closely, obviously, and have had a lot of scoops on its machinations over the years. This was simply the latest, and turned out to be on on target (Phew!).

While that is presumably my job as a reporter, it was apparently of “concern” to Macquarie’s analyst.

Said the report:

One final note: it continues to concern us that one particular journalist, Kara Swisher, frequently seems to be privy to such precise information regarding YHOO. On January 9, almost a month prior to the actual release from the company, Kara wrote, “While some departures seem most obvious — longtime board members Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson — the really interesting part will be the possible exit of Chairman Roy Bostock.” Yesterday she wrote, “expect a change in the Yahoo board composition, too, as early as this week.” And today at 3:38pm EST, she posted a story that “Yahoo will announce the impending departure of four of its longtime board members, including chairman Roy Bostock. The others headed out the door are Hewlett-Packard exec Vyomesh Joshi, Gary Wilson and Arthur Kern.” While we give much credit to Kara for her ability to obtain this information, we believe it reflects very poorly on YHOO’s ability to maneuver effectively outside the public spotlight.

While I appreciate the fist-bump, it’s unclear why it’s concerning for shareholders — whom these reports are created for — to know this information before Yahoo deigned to release the news or spoonfeeds any other information at investor events. After all, fair, complete and accurate information from anywhere in the tech news media could help them make better investment decisions.

And Yahoo also always operates in the public spotlight, even when it is outside it, as does every tech company. That’s especially true these days, in the vastly changed media environment, in which news moves faster and with more immediate impact.

In fact, I’m concerned that worrywart Wall Street doesn’t grok this — but I’m definitely not surprised, either.

Yesterday, on WSJ.com’s “Digits” online tech show, host Simon Constable asked me if some parts of my scoop on Apple holding a media-focused event in New York at the end of this month were secretly implying anything.

Simon apparently read “The Da Vinci Code” one too many times! I don’t know from clandestine signals, but here I am talking about the event, along with AllThingsD.com media ace Peter Kafka.

Enjoy:

Here’s how Yahoo’s top brass and board–with the help of its newly re-engaged crisis-management PR firm, Abernathy MacGregor–are already trying to spin the latest executive turmoil to hit the company:

Trashing those on the way out, to take focus off those remaining who have been just as responsible for driving the Internet icon and claiming that this is all part of yet another well-planned reorganization at Yahoo (YHOO).

Don’t believe most of it for a second. Some of it is corporate politics as usual, some of it rejiggering of events, some just not true at all.

After BoomTown’s scoop earlier today that Yahoo’s U.S. head Hilary Schneider, as well as Audience head David Ko and VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro, would be departing the company–all of which Yahoo is still planning to announce after the markets close on Friday–here comes this gem in a follow-up story in The Wall Street Journal:

“[Yahoo CEO Carol] Bartz, who joined Yahoo in January 2009, is in the midst of a turnaround effort. People familiar with the matter said she is removing the company’s old guard to assemble a new team.”

Let’s parse this ridonkulous spin-addled blame game, shall we?

Bartz is, in fact, the very person who picked all those execs for prime responsibility in her last reorg.

If they were so incompetent, why not dump them much quicker? After all, it’s not like the problems have not been mounting for months and months, with more and more talent taking off.

In addition, the exec exodus at Yahoo over the last year has been unrelenting and broad, encompassing way too many employees for her to act as if it were all planned and okay.

As to the “midst of a turnaround effort” canard that Bartz keeps insisting on, even comparing herself to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Job’s epic journey to return that legendary company to health?

Um, we are deep in the second year of the Bartz regime, and there appears to be no iPod-like save in sight, and it’s a little long in the tooth to keep using the turnaround excuse for all that has not yet happened under her command.

Which is to say, stock with a pulse and real growth across all metrics, as Facebook and Google (GOOG), to name a few, are showing.

In addition, it was Bartz herself who handed over a lot of the responsibility for the revival of Yahoo to Schneider.

Which meant Schneider had to be thrown under the wheels of the bus in the Journal by dragging out a very old–and tangential to the much larger flat revenue crisis at Yahoo–newspaper deal as pretty wet cannon fodder:

“Ms. Schneider is leaving because officials haven’t been satisfied with her performance, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Schneider was responsible for a 2006 deal with industry group Newspaper Consortium, in which Yahoo sold ads for newspaper websites and print editions. The effort continues but has not met Yahoo’s expectations, according to a person close to the company.”

Memo to readers: “People familiar with the matter,” I am guessing, would be current Yahoo execs.

The fact of the matter is that there have been both critics and admirers of Schneider at Yahoo, which comes as no surprise for one of its top execs. Some consider her smart and canny, while others complain of indecisiveness and slowness to act.

And, she has definitely had some very big whiffs, including the newspaper consortium, but most especially not finding an ad sales chief to replace Joanne Bradford, who left in March, about which I gave her a hard time when a very squishy structure was announced.

And, right now, sources tell me, Yahoo’s upcoming quarterly report could be an even tougher one.

And that falls to Schneider, of course, who has been in charge of its many partnerships, as well as advertising sales across the key Americas region.

Perhaps good reason for an ouster, except I have been tracking Schneider’s status for many months now, since hearing from many sources–not her, ever, in case you wanted to know–that she had told Bartz she wanted out.

Maybe that is what began to sour the boss on Schneider. But to now suddenly call her performance poor seems unusual, especially when you can just as easily point to Yahoo’s disastrous and pricey marketing campaigns–it is definitely not You!–helmed by CMO Elisa Steele, which has failed to move the needle on key user metrics.

But she has a tight relationship with Bartz, so she’s all right, jack? I am dizzy from all the spinning.

In other words, execs make mistakes and there is a lot of blame to go around and–as the old saying goes–the buck really does stop with Bartz.

But, guess what? Perhaps it should be noted that Bartz has also misstepped badly of late by making a series of wild remarks that have seriously angered many partners and other companies in Silicon Valley.

And I have heard from countless and very significant investors, all of whom are deeply concerned about her tone and recent public comments.

Just ask Yahoo Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Or Alibaba’s Jack Ma in China. Or the fine folks over at Apple in Cupertino, Calif.

And, I can also report that several execs at Yahoo’s new search technology partner, Microsoft, are also increasingly alarmed. Said one to me yesterday: “It is becoming a little unsettling.”

I can say for certain that Ko, who will doubtlessly be the next to get dinged, left on his own motor, telling Bartz himself recently.

He was quickly followed by Pitaro, who, as I reported earlier this week, is headed to another big company. No matter what the spin, his departure is a big loss, as he is well-liked inside and outside the company.

Then Schneider rounded out the latest trio of execs to go.

Thus, sources said, Yahoo is about to go on the offense, which is the expected thing to do, ready to announce a plan to move most of the product organization under Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.

The former Microsoft (MSFT) online exec is as sharp as a tack, in my experience, and clearly an even sharper corporate player, recently bringing in a series of his old cohorts from the software giant to take over big jobs at Yahoo.

He’s obviously now won some version of a corporate power play, and is now in favor with Bartz. But that means he’s being handed the entire thing.

Apparently, Irving has told numerous people that he plans to “rip it all down” and streamline the whole organization.

More rearranging at the company that has moved around the corporate living room umpteenth times over the past several years? Except it is still essentially the same room and same house.

Okay, Irving should probably have his choice of where the sofa goes, but as one exec wisely told me tonight: “Yahoo needs to build great products, not have another reorg….It needs a win.”

Indeed, just as board member Eric Hippeau apparently said at a recent meeting to deal with the latest executive kerfuffle.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock–who has presided over so many stumbles over the years that I have lost count–said to the room: “We need crisis management.”

Countered Hippeau, a longtime Internet exec who is now CEO of the Huffington Post: “What we need is revenue.”

Indeed. And innovation. And a vision. And, most of all, spin-free leadership.

While Quattro Wireless was not saying anything about price in its blog post this morning confirming our scoop–like the image?–last night that it had been acquired by Apple (AAPL), sources reconfirmed the $275 million figure Boomtown reported.

“It was a great company and a good price and a good time to sell, given all the change going on,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “It is a game of size now.”

That would be a reference to Google (GOOG), which purchased Quattro rival AdMob for $750 million recently in what looks like a continuing consolidation of the mobile advertising market.

Here is the blog post by Quattro CEO (and now Apple mobile advertising VP, Andrew Miller) on the deal:

Happy New Year from Quattro Wireless

Happy New Year from Quattro Wireless!

We are thrilled to let you know that Apple has acquired Quattro. We want to share with you our excitement about this news and what it means for our customers.

We have built our business by enabling advertisers to reach the right consumers across the mobile web and in applications. We remain focused on delivering more engaging, relevant and useful ads to mobile devices, and improving the measurement and execution of digital campaigns. Together with Apple, we look forward to developing exciting new opportunities in the future that will benefit our customers.

For now, the offerings and services you receive from Quattro Wireless will not change. We will continue to operate the Quattro Wireless network across all devices and platforms. Your client and support teams will remain the same, and you can continue to expect the world-class service we are proud to deliver to our customers.

We look forward to working with you during this exciting time.

Andy Miller
Vice President, Mobile Advertising
Apple

One good thing about taking a break between Christmas and New Year’s is getting to miss all the 2010 prediction stories out there about the tech world.

You know the tedious drill: The Consumer Electronics Show’s products this year indicate cloud computing has finally arrived; the Apple (AAPL) iSlate will bring world peace; it will be revealed that Google’s co-founders are aliens (wait, that one is true).

Oh, BoomTown will admit that I used to do them too–or, more precisely, was dragooned into doing them by weary editors when I was writing for The Wall Street Journal.

But, to be honest, they were mostly off-base in some significant way or, if by some chance I got one right, it was definitely a very lucky guess.

So, last year, I made a resolution I am keeping this year: No predictions.

As I wrote a year ago:

“But the real reason I am not inclined to go all Miss Cleo is simple: I have no idea what is going to happen and neither does anyone, even in their heedless guessing.”

Thus, I will only speak of certainties, and here is what I can absolutely promise for this column and All Things Digital in general in 2010:

* Breaking news of digital and media companies, including lots and lots of accurate scoops, such as a heap we managed to ferret out last year.

* Cogent and enlightening analysis of key trends in the online sector.

* Major interviews with important players in the industries we cover.

* More streaming video–including this Friday’s live onstage interviews with Palm (PALM) CEO Jon Rubinstein, Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings and Google (GOOG) Android guru Andy Rubin, all at our special event in Las Vegas during CES.

* An effort to get out of the tech-centric Silicon Valley weeds more and attempt to do longer reported pieces that take on big topics, showing that blogs can take up the banner of long-form investigative journalism from print publications and do this important work in new and innovative ways.

* The same strong commitment to the high standards and ethics in doing all of the above, which is perhaps the greatest and most critical compact we need to keep with readers.

* We also hope to grow our coverage, as well as produce a crackerjack eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June, and much more.

This site grew strongly in 2009, in terms of both traffic and engagement, and we hope to do even better in 2010 by providing readers with the highest-quality and most accurate tech and media coverage we can.

And while I cannot predict we will reach that goal, I can promise you that we will try our best.

Yahoo confirmed the news–first reported by BoomTown and in The Wall Street Journal last night–that it was buying Xoopit, the San Francisco-based social email company.

And it did so in both a blog post and on Twitter, as you can see here:

@karaswisher @jvascellaro Your scoops confirmed http://bit.ly/gpOT2

Well, thanks! But we are already onto new scoops, so try to keep up!

The price for the acquisition, which Yahoo (YHOO) did not reveal, was about $20 million, according to sources.

In its blog post, titled “Xoopit + Yahoo! Mail = Moving beyond that massive digital shoebox,” Yahoo’s SVP of Application Products Bryan Lamkin wrote, in part:

With the integration of Xoopit’s platform technology and capabilities, the task of sending photos via email will be as easy as it should be and sharing photo albums with friends and family members will also be a cinch. You’ll be able to share your pictures among a group of friends or family like never before–combining pictures from numerous sources into a single album for a private group to view. And soon your inbox will become an organized photo index as well. Just imagine having a tool that collects all the photos you’ve sent and received over the years into that scrapbook you’ve never had time to assemble.

In short, Xoopit will bring phenomenal photo organization, improved photo sharing, and the serendipity of discovering forgotten photos to Yahoo! Mail.

Why is this such a big deal? Yahoo! Mail is actually home to one of the largest online photo repositories in the world. And every day, millions of you use Yahoo! Mail as your primary way to share the photos of important moments in your lives. While social networks and community sites are great for sharing photos with everyone you know, we realize it’s not for everyone or every occasion. For many, email is still best for sharing photos among a more select group of friends or family. And now we’re making it all that much easier for you.

Xoopit finds photos, videos, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them on many sites, such as social networking giant Facebook. It also has other products that essentially enliven email.

Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.

As I previously reported, sources said Yahoo was first impressed with its innovative plug-in that works with Gmail from Google (GOOG), and has been looking at the company for a while, previously offering about $10 million for it.

Xoopit also makes a similar photo-sharing application for Yahoo Mail, which it launched late last year.

The opening up of its popular email product to a variety of third-party applications in order to make it more robust has been a goal of Yahoo recently as it seeks to socialize one of its most popular products.

Interestingly, in the Yahoo blog, Lamkin said Xoopit was Yahoo Mail’s most popular third-party app.

Here is a screen shot of Xoopit in action in Yahoo’s email offering (click on the image to make it larger):