Now this would be an interesting potential genius move/ mistake: According to an unverifiable leak to Gawker-approved blogger Cajun Boy In The City, Microsoft might be thinking about Johnny Knoxville as its cool new answer to Mac's young annoying hipster spokesman, Justin Long. You'll recall that Microsoft recently hired a new, more with-it ad agency in a bid to stop getting humiliated in 30-second spots. Is this what they came up with? We've emailed the company for comment [UPDATE: Microsoft's PR firm emails us: "Microsoft is planning a consumer advertising campaign with Crispin Porter & Bogusky. We have no other details to share at this time." Thanks!]. After the jump, the entire email [via Cajun Boy] from someone who purportedly attended a Microsoft focus group and saw it all firsthand.

China's Alibaba Group is close to securing the cash needed to buy back Yahoo's 39 percent stake in the company. Executives at Alibaba believe that if Microsoft successfully acquires Yahoo, a change in control would present an opportunity to preserve the "management independence" it has today, thanks to a hands-off Jerry Yang. The news might cool Microsoft's already lukewarm shareholders. If Yahoo is worth $42 billion, it's due in large part to owning a stake in a highly trafficked Chinese portal. China already has more Internet users than the United States. (Photo by pmorgan)

Wall Street analysts don't believe Yahoo revenues will grow 72 percent by 2010, as the company argued yesterday in a shareholder presentation. JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan said Yahoo's estimates for its 2009 revenue, $7.1 billion, exceed his own by $700 million. He doesn't believe Yahoo will own enough search market share to hit those targets. "Those are not easy numbers," Citi analyst Mark Mahaney told the Wall Street Journal. "The most likely outcome that Microsoft buys Yahoo, and at a higher price than $31," he said. (Photo by Todd_Cliff)

"You're pretending that there's one standard, but since nobody has a way to test against the standard, it's not a real standard." — Software pundit Joel Spolsky on the impossibility of conforming to Web standards. If you're a Web developer, Spolsky's 4,738-word treatise, with illustrations, is worth reading on your employer's time.

According to our admittedly unscientific poll, 62.3 percent or readers said they wouldn't mind if publishers wheeled and dealed their way to the front page of social news sites like Digg, Yahoo Buzz, and Reddit. The news bodes well for Yahoo. Buzz is meant to lure websites into Yahoo's ad network; Yahoo will then take a cut of the ad revenue generated when Buzz send traffic to those sites. It's all part of Yang's grand promises to shareholders made to counter Microsoft's acquisition bid.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would "break the Internet." Top ad agency execs don't mind the idea. WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, who calls Google a "frenemy," told the FT "a duopoly is better than a monopoly." Robert Lerwill, CEO of agency giant Aegis, hopes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will win over Yahoo shareholders too. "The deal would probably be beneficial for advertisers, not just in encouraging price competition but also in terms of improvements in technology," he said.

In a presentation filed with the SEC and embedded below, Yahoo declares that by 2010, revenues will reach $8.8 billion, up 72 percent from last year's $5.1 billion. "Display is a larger opportunity than search, and we are positioned to extend our leadership in display," Yahoo's argument goes. It's Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's latest public plea for Yahoo shareholders to ignore Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's hostile bid for the company. Highlighting Yahoo Open Search, Yahoo Buzz, and the Yahoo Display Ad Platform, Yang and the gang argue "Yahoo warrants a significant premium above its equity value." Your copy of the presentation, below.

Sneaky blogger Phillip Lenssen uncovered Google's answer to Microsoft's annoying animated assistant, Clippy. His name is Cliply. Lessen found him in the source code of a Google Docs document. Google developers told Lenssen Cliply is an "Easter egg" and not a planned part of Google's annual April Fools' joke, they said. At least, not any longer, he isn't.

Some fanboys say the iPhone actually provides something better than the "real Internet," because it lacks Flash. You kidding? What's the point of Internet-on-the-can without all that embedded Web video? While his holiness Steve Jobs won't go there, Microsoft mobile exec Derek Snyder will, signing Microsoft to license Adobe's Flash Lite technology.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Portfolio that owning Yahoo would give Microsoft too much control over instant messaging and email. That power, he said "could be used essentially to break the Internet and diminish choice." Google's dominance in search and entry into display advertising with DoubleClick, however, doesn't "have much to do with that argument."

Yahoo's move into live video could have kneecapped startups like Justin.tv and Ustream.tv. Instead, its botched launch just proved that serving up streams is a harder business than it looks — and got Yahoo rivals like YouTube interested. We hear Ustream.tv is now leaning strongly against taking Microsoft's $50 million bid, and going with a top VC firm instead. Cofounder Brad Hunstable would only concede that "something is going on." Anothing thing going on: Yet another new boss. "Chuck Wallace is the CEO," Hunstable told Valleywag. Note the present tense. If Wallace is replaced in conjunction with a new round of funding, it would be the third time an investor has installed new management.

Microsoft will acquire San Francisco-based Rapt, which helps publishers manage their ad inventory. VCs Kip Sheeline of Levensohn Venture Partners and Arthur Patterson of Accel Partners saw their firms cash out on the deal, along with cofounder and CEO Tom Chavez. But not without a little founder blood on their hands.

"Compared to the $6.1 billion Microsoft paid for aQuantive and the $3 billion Google paid for DoubleClick I feel we have done a pretty good job here." — AOL CEO Randy Falco, explaining that the fact that his predecessor, Jonathan Miller, spent $435 million to buy Advertising.com somehow makes up for the $850 million Falco just spent on Bebo. [Guardian]

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang may finally be starting to ease into Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's bear hug. But just in case Yang goes suddenly frigid, Ballmer is ready to turn Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo from surly to hostile. TechCrunch reports Ballmer has a list of candidates for Yahoo's board ready to go. The stooges, below.

Senior executives from Microsoft and Yahoo met on Monday, the WSJ confirms. In fact, Microsoft execs even presented their "vision of a combined company." But don't call it a negotiation, the Journal's Matthew Karnitschnig writes. Will your Yahoo sources let us call it an afternoon tea, Matt? [WSJ]

Jerry Yang and the rest of Valleywag readers have had a week to study the 10 best Ballmer-goes-nuts videos. In this, our latest Valleywag poll, tell us which clip jolted Jerry Yang back to the negotiating table and into Ballmer's bear-hug embrace. For me? I'm a Gene Wilder fan.

Remember how long it took for Microsoft and Yahoo to connect their instant-messenger systems? Microsoft's overtures to Yahoo executives seemed to be happening at the same pace. But at last, News.com reports, the companies are talking. Don't expect instant results. One of the reasons why Yahoo made itself vulnerable to Steve Ballmer's takeover bid? Because the stifling bureaucracy Terry Semel installed means everything takes forever to get done there. Jerry Yang's inability to commit to a course of action doesn't help. President Sue Decker is more decisive, but she's going through a divorce, which has to be a distraction, and her lousy people skills make it hard for her to execute on her plans. Steve, why don't you just go hostile? That seems faster. (Image by Geeks Are Hot)

Microsoft VP Joanne Bradford has left the company and will join Los Angeles-based ad agency Spot Runner. Even with a new title of EVP, it's hardly a leap up the ladder. Our guess on why Bradford bolted? A former executive at Microsoft and Yahoo told us, " I shudder to think about a MSNBC.com and Yahoo News integration." Bradford's departure plans likely came together not long after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear he favored Yahoo's brands over the MSN portal Bradford ran.

Oracle founder and longtime Microsoft opponent Larry Ellison believes Microsoft-Yahoo is a good idea. "MSN is modestly successful," Ellison told the New York Times. "It would be a formidable portal combined with Yahoo." Ellison also suggested Yahoo CEO and cofounder Jerry Yang might not know what's best for the company. Company founders, said the guy who's completed two hostile takeovers in the last four years, "sometimes have a hard time separating their emotions from what's best for shareholders."

OpenSocial: it's Google's widget platform for MySpace and a bunch of social networks you've never of — and now Yahoo's. Bits reports that Yahoo will join the OpenSocial platform sometime in the next week. Don't overthink the message here, people. It's "Hey Microsoft, you sure we're worth all that money?"