Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has not been replaced by chairman Roy Bostock, Kara Swisher reports. Yang's reputation, however, has taken a severe tarnishing. How far has his reputation fallen?

Sources close to Microsoft say the company's bankers have begun signaling to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg interest in acquiring his company. "We just want to gauge their interest, more than any real effort," one source told Kara Swisher, who first reported the news. These bankers figure there's little chance Zuckerberg will agree to sell to anyone but the public in the next few years, but that "putting out subtle signals," as Swisher reports the bankers call them, is worth the effort if they pay off. Last fall, Microsoft purchased 1.6 percent of Facebook for $240 million. Unsolicited advice for Zuckerberg: Be careful with the high-fives.

While in the strictly platonic section of Craigslist, this anonymous Angeleno writes in a tone more suited to casual encounters, what with the desire to "rocket sweet tracks up each other's Zune slots" and the need for "a hearty and steadfast product." I'm willing to bet my Shuffle against your Zune the author is NBC's Jeff Zucker, and that he wasn't being ironic.

Microsoft exec Brian Hall told Merrill Lynch analysts today that the company has "moved on" since the Yahoo mess. "We've withdrawn the offer and moved on, and now are focused on how we grow as fast as possible organically," Hall, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Live online products, told the analysts. Hall said that Microsoft only wanted Yahoo for help with instant messaging and email — an odd whopper to tell, because who's going believe either of those businesses are worth $47 billion? Put your hand down, Jerry.

Jerry Yang's spin campaign about why the Microsoft bid fell through is transparent. He's not trying to cajole Steve Ballmer back to the negotiating table; he's trying to cover his rear and appease indignant shareholders. The only reason he's so open about accepting a new bid from Microsoft, I think, is that he's not expecting another one to come. Ballmer has more or less said he thinks that Yahoo is worth less and less every day; last Saturday, when Yang flew up with cofounder David Filo to meet with Ballmer one last time, was as close as the two will ever get to agreeing on Yahoo's worth. The thing is, unless Yang makes some dramatic shifts, Ballmer may well be right.

Netscape cofounder and propagator of porn social networks Marc Andreessen will join Facebook's board of directors, Kara Swisher reports. Andreessen will join current board members Accel Partners Jim Breyer, Clarium Capital's Peter Thiel, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Andreessen is the chairman of Ning, a company which sells tools for rolling your own social network. If your mom has an excellent visual memory, she will probably remembers him for appearing on the cover of Time magazine without shoes on. You can tell her that he dresses better now, but only slightly. Why Andreessen, and not a proxy for new investors Microsoft or Li Ka-Shing?

Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock told reporters that shareholders supported Jerry Yang's decision to refuse Microsoft's bid for the company, even when it reached $33 per share. But yesterday, major shareholders Bill Miller and Gordon Crawford — who combined control about 13 percent of the company — said they did not agree with the way Yang handled negotiations. In this excerpt from Yahoo's own Tech Ticker, Sarah Lacy asks Yahoo president Sue Decker, "Who are these institutional shareholders who are supporting $37, $38 per share? Can you shed any light on that?" Watch as Decker explains that what Bostock really meant is that Yahoo's board supports Yahoo's board, which only really ever told shareholders about Microsoft's $31 per share offer. "And that's the end of the story."

Having dropped Apple's iTunes store in a dispute over pricing, NBC Universal will soon start selling downloads of TV shows like The Office and 30 Rock for its Zune media player. If NBC chief Jeff Zucker manages to scrape some sales out of Microsoft's handheld also-ran, it will be a miracle — and the surest proof yet that content, not hardware, is king. Don't hold your breath. Microsoft's Zune has always seemed like a parody of Apple's iPod. Want to buy songs? Well, first you buy "points" from Microsoft, which you can then exchange for music at some bizarre exchange rate. Nothing about its user interface seems quite right compared to Apple's polish. The system for TV shows is no better. Though Microsoft also makes the Xbox, shows downloaded to a Zune won't play on the videogame console unless you're adept at fiddling with cables. By going with Microsoft, Zucker is betting that technology doesn't matter, design doesn't matter, and market share doesn't matter. He must really believe in his prime-time lineup. (Photo via Fake Steve Ballmer)

Suddenly, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is telling reporters he's "willing to listen" to Microsoft offers below $37 a share. Why the change of heart? Because Yang had a bad day Monday. Major Yahoo shareholders slammed him in the press. Employees were angry and the Yahoo board took heat, too. "I'm extremely disappointed in Jerry Yang," Capital Research Global Investors portfolio manager Gordon Crawford told the Wall Street Journal. "I think he overplayed a weak hand." Crawford also directed his ire at Yahoo's board of directors: "The independent directors were not responsive to the needs of independent shareholders." A very tenuous source tells us at least one Yahoo board member got the message and was heard venting over the phone about Yang's performance, saying, "I'm done with this ego trip shit, he's out."

Because of the cheap electricity that flows alongside the Columbia River, server farms starting popping up next to actual farms in the agricultural regions of eastern Washington and Oregon back in 2006. But that doesn't mean techies with salaries that can afford a brand new McMansion will be flooding into towns like Quincy, Washington — where Grant County's publicly owned power authority offered companies like Microsoft and Yahoo rock-bottom electricity prices and developers built estates like "Serenata" on spec.

What is Yahoo really worth? That's the $44.6 billion question, the one that ultimately split Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang. Most pundits predicted Yahoo's shares would drop precipitously today, perhaps as low as $19, where they were trading before Microsoft's offer. Instead, they're trading around $24.60 — a 14 percent drop, but a 30 percent premium to the pre-Microsoft price. The shares could drop further over the course of the day, but it's worth asking what's sustaining Yahoo's shares at this level right now.

Sources familiar with Microsoft tell the WSJ they expect CEO Steve Ballmer to target another large Internet company for acquisition soon. Noting that few companies have the size to boost Microsoft's business, Ballmer himself listed Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace as properties that could help Microsoft control the Internet as it did the personal computer. Others want Ballmer to buy AOL for its massive and cheap inventory. (What, are they pulling for a Nsync reunion tour as well?) Microsoft could easily better Yahoo's $10 billion offer for AOL, says SAI's Henry Blodget. But there's a reason AOL is cheap, people.

According to the New York Times, when Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and his team were told that Microsoft was walking away from its $47.5 billion offer to buy the company "high-fives were exchanged." Today, analysts expect Yahoo's value to plummet to $30 billion. Gimme an O! Gimme an O! Gimme a P! Gimme an S! — Yahoo employees, many of them suddenly poorer, told Kara Swisher they want Yang back on the sidelines where such cheerleading belongs. Yang's high-five display "shows a complete lack of connection to the balance of the company," one Yahoo exec told Swisher. Another told her:

Early trading in Frankfurt, Germany dropped Yahoo shares 22.04 percent to $22.35 per share as of 4:38 a.m. Analysts expect the sell-off to drop the company's value to $30 billion by the end of the day, returning its share price near to where it stood before Microsoft made it's $47.5 billion bid for the company on February 1. "There's frustration," Jacob Internet Fund manager and Yahoo shareholder Darren Chervitz told the AP. "I am not even sure if Yahoo cares about its shareholders because they didn't show much regard for shareholders' best interests in this process."

Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, left bored by running a social-networking startup, has much time on his hands to write excellent analyses of the tech industry. His blog post on why Microsoft-Yahoo might fall apart seems prescient in the wake of that deal's failure. But there's one odd thing about his writeup. Read this passage:

Even when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tries to sound polite, he manages to be rude. His thank-you-very-much letter to Yahoo's Jerry Yang declining to make an offer for Yahoo is no exception. In particular, Ballmer rails against Yang for considering outsourcing search advertising to Google, saying it will cause Yahoo's engineers to flee and raise prices for advertisers. "By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table," Ballmer concludes. If I were Yang, I would read this and wonder why I ever even contemplated getting into business with this guy. The full letter:

A Valleywag tipster spotted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and fellow executive Kevin Johnson in Palo Alto on Wednesday. Kara Swisher now confirms they were in California for a meeting with Yahoo. [BoomTown]

Emails are flying out of Redmond with this speculation: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's botched $50 billion bid for Yahoo could mean the end of his career. While Microsoft's board reportedly gave the CEO considerable leeway in handling the deal, his dithering approach and his failure to sell the deal both to Yahoo's board and Microsoft's own executives don't reflect well on the sweaty screamer. The only problem: Microsoft has no obvious successor for Ballmer.

Microsoft's bid for Yahoo may have been dropped at a meeting in Washington state, but it was lost in Washington, D.C. Google's first word on the prospective deal, from top lawyer David Drummond, was of the cominbation's monopoly in email and instant messaging. That proved the last word, too. By making Yahoo fearful of regulatory scrutiny, Drummond and his lobbyists were able to put steel in Jerry Yang and David Filo's backbones to hold out for a higher price, and demand other conditions besides. The notion that Microsoft might pursue a Yahoo bid and have it nixed, leaving Yahoo incurably weakened, may give Yang and Filo some protection from inevitable shareholder lawsuits. But Google, by keeping Yahoo out of Microsoft's hands, is the real winner.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer heeded our advice and walked away from a bid for Yahoo. Did he dodge a potentially career-ending bullet? "The talks broke down this afternoon after a face to face meeting in the Seattle area that included Microsoft CEO Steve ballmer, Microsoft exec. kevin johnson, and Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo." [All Things Digital] (Photo by Yodel Anecdotal)