Did you know Michael Robertson personally made $115 million from the sale of MP3.com? If not, he's glad to remind you on his new site, Dealipedia. Robertson, whose main skill seems to be picking up timely domain names and concocting the appearance of a business around them, expects that a sufficient number of insiders will fill in the details of mergers and acquisitions for him, creating a database to challenge the likes of Dow Jones and Dun & Bradstreet. Right. The real service Dealipedia provides is giving people an anonymous way to let the world know just how wealthy they are. For the braggarts of the world, it offers plausible deniability. Jason Calacanis's details are already in there.

In an anticipated move, new Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the company will further separate AOL from its declining ISP business. Bewkes said the move would "increase AOL's strategic options," which the WSJ took as a hint that he would consider selling pieces of AOL. Speculation names Google an interested buyer. Common sense does not.

In his latest companywide memo, copied below, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang wants to "make sure you all realize how essential you are to yahoo!s success." And by "you all" he means all but the 1,000 or so he planned to "reallocate" in the next few months. But maybe it would have been awkward to take those slotted for firing off the email list?

Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who now runs social networks for porn sites, doesn't think that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal bodes ill for startups. True, there will be one less buyer out there if the deal goes through — but, he argues, neither Microsoft nor Yahoo has been a particularly active acquirer of small startups. He provides a long list of companies, from Akamai to WPP, which have bought startups. If anything, facing Google and a beefed-up Microsoft will prompt media companies to go on a spending spree.

Why are Yahoo executives looking for an alternative to Microsoft? Ask Jim Cramer: "The outside of Yahoo is very good. The inside? They haven't been able to figure out how to monetize these pageviews. So basically, [Microsoft] can take their pageviews [and] fire everyone. Maybe there's some sales people you keep."

Posts on Yahoo's corporate blog and its internal Backyard website seem to be written in a parallel, purple-tinted universe, one where everything is "Great! Just great!" The company's stock tumbles, pending layoffs, and hostile takeovers are nowhere to be seen. Why? Well, all that's just not nice. And nice is what has been killing Yahoo, an ex-Yahoo who's now at Microsoft tells Valleywag.

VC blogger Fred Wilson argues that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger will be bad for users and for the Internet as a whole. "If you think about the Internet, it's a huge distributed network of loosely connected services owned and operated by literally millions. We don't need or want consolidation of services on the Internet," Wilson writes. But you know who the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is even worse news for? The incompetent executives who landed Yahoo in this pickle in the first place. They're ferociously spinning gullible reporters with rescue fantasies. Here are the five most widespread rumors — and why they're unlikely to happen.

AOL has acquired widgetmaker Goowy for an undisclosed amount. AOL claims it will roll out new widgets on its sites and integrate Goowy's technology into its advertising network. That's all very exciting, but when has AOL ever bought a company that changed the course of its business? Whatever That's for another post.

Union Square Ventures VC and blogger Fred Wilson doesn't think Yahoo would survive a Microsoft acquisition. "I suspect that many of Yahoo!'s best services will languish under Microsoft's ownership and that users will leave," Wilson writes on his blog. "It's happening already under Yahoo's ownership to services like Flickr and Del.icio.us and MyBlogLog. It will be worse under Microsoft's ownership." Here's how he thinks Yang and Yahoo can wriggle out of Big Daddy Ballmer's bear hug.

Before Friday, recently coronated Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes had planned to get Time Warner out of the Internet access business entirely, lowering its stake in Time Warner Cable and somehow disposing of AOL's dialup business. He could then, at his leisure, consider an ad partnership between Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft or Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal speculates. But Friday saw Microsoft offer $44.6 billion to buy Yahoo. An analyst at T. Rowe Price said that news leaves Bewkes with one place to turn: Google.

That just about sums up Microsoft's response after Google's top lawyer laid the smack down on the Microsofties. In a short missive, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith says roughly " You're kicking our ass in search and advertising, so who are you to talk about monopolies on the Internet?" Read the full release after the jump.

A source inside Yahoo says the company is reconsidering a previously discussed business partnership with Google as an alternative to Microsoft's $44 billion hostile takeover offer. Yahoo believes that offer, at $31 a share, significantly undervalues the company. Private equity firms and News Corp. have been named as other possible suitors for Yahoo, but neither are seen as realistically able to get a deal together. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google CEO Eric Schmidt called Yahoo cofounder and CEO Jerry Yang to offer Google's help in thwarting an unwanted Microsoft takeover of Yahoo.

Google has posted — on Super Bowl Sunday, no less — its "only statement for the time being" regarding Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. At 291 words, it's far too long to read as you prepare to watch my UNDEFEATED NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS crush Sam Gustin's New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII. Here's the 100-word version.

Some take umbrage with our report suggesting buying Yahoo forces Microsoft to sell MSNBC.com to NBC. These sources claim MSNBC.com earns more money than Yahoo News and they'd be surprised to see Microsoft divest itself from such a profitable property. And where there's money, there's motive to renegotiate the contract that restricts what Microsoft can do in the news business.

On this morning's Today Show, Jim Goldman, CNBC's Silicon Valley bureau chief, said one thing is for sure: Microsoft will not kill the Yahoo brand. "This is one of the world's great brands," Goldman says. Instead, expect more social networking, "the whole idea of community or the idea of getting sort of a relationship — if you will — with the website. Sort of everything you want to do online or in the world you'll be able to do through Microsoft and Yahoo." OK, so that makes no sense. Great analysis, Jim.

"This thing with Microsoft is not a lock," a source tells us. Citing executives at NBC and Yahoo, this source says that as alternative to selling out to Microsoft, Yahoo is considering selling its Yahoo Media Group to NBC Universal and doubling down on search and display advertising, essentially "throwing the kitchen sink" into beating Google. According to this source, NBC and Yahoo have already started talks.

"Thinking about Jerry taking that call from Ballmer. I think I would have puked." — Union Square Ventures VC and blogger Fred Wilson on Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. [A VC]

Here's Dylan Ratigan of CNBC, going off on the Microsoft-Yahoo merger. And we do mean going off. Ratigan is a veteran of Bloomberg News, a serious business journalist. But not in this clip. No, in this clip, it's clear that a madness has begun to creep across Ratigan's cool facade. Why? Might it be that he, the stallwart reporter, has been up since dawn covering today's news? Bringing you people constant updates on Microsoft and Yahoo? Downing coffee and skipping meals? Might that be why he's a little loopy? A little crazy? A little giddy? Just like the rest of us hacks? Hallelujah say yeah!

"I shudder to think about a MSNBC.com and Yahoo News integration," a source formerly employed by both companies in the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo merger tell us. The "cultures," she says, "will be really tough to integrate." In that case, we're happy to report the good news: There's no way it will happen. Legally, Microsoft can't keep both news sites, and if it has to choose between the two, Yahoo News would be its natural choice.

Yahoo founders David Filo and Jerry Yang own 80,833,066 and 54,110,564 shares of Yahoo, respectively. At Microsoft's offer price, the pair have made almost $1.6 billion since yesterday's close and stand to cash out more than $4 billion total if the deal goes through. More amazing? Ousted CEO Terry Semel stands to cash out more than $650 million — not a bad reward for reviving Yahoo and then running it into the ground. We doubt the scurrilous, unfounded rumors that Semel is a Scientology OT 6, but it would explain a lot. Here's our chart of the top Yahoo shareholders and how much their Yahoo's holdings are worth at Microsoft's price.