BusinessWeek's Gene Marcial got his Microsoft and Yahoo sources to talk, but they didn't say very much. "Something will definitely happen soon," Marcial quotes "one of the people involved in solving Yahoo's conundrum." Marcial writes that sources say Microsoft still wants to buy Yahoo outright, although its also considering purchasing just Yahoo's search business. More sources say that if a Microsoft-Yahoo full buyout doesn't happen, Yahoo will outsource search to Google. That deal could be exclusive or it could be non-exclusive, sources tell him. In short, Marcial and BusinessWeek report nothing new. But don't let that stop BusinessWeek from featuring an air-brushed image of the silver fox in his pinstriped suit and silver tie on its home page. No, really. Don't let it. Rowr.

The New York Times has learned a hard lesson: Say what you like about CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith — just don't criticize his duds. The bastion of class consciousness falsely claimed that he was wearing white shoes before Memorial Day — a big no-no among the ruling elite, where white shoes, seersucker and summer dresses are officially verboten except between the holiday that marks the start of the summering season and Labor Day, which marks the end.

Vauhini Vara, who covers Facebook for the Wall Street Journal, is leaving the newspaper to go back to school. Why not write up a friend on the way out the door? In a profile of Harvard graduates inspired by — or jealous of — Mark Zuckerberg's startup success, she includes Sam Lessin, cofounder of Drop.io. A file-sharing startup which has raised only $3.9 million wouldn't normally rate a mention in the Journal, one would think. But Lessin is also the boyfriend of Jessica Vascellaro, the Journal reporter who's moving to Silicon Valley to cover Yahoo and Google.

An article about women in science and engineering from the New York Times, "Diversity Isn't Rocket Science, Is It?" seems like it ought to go in the news or business section. It ran in fashion and style instead. Why? Because white lab coats and Tyvek cleanroom jumpsuits are totes the hot look this summer! (Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

Fast Company videoblatherer Robert Scoble doesn't mind if you talk trash about him. But is it too much to ask that mainstream media outlets get his name right? Slate, owned by the Washington Post, calls him "Peter Scoble." Agence France Presse renamed him "Andrew." Why is "Robert" so hard to type? I don't know — I managed to screw up Scoble's first name once while blogging for Business 2.0. But it is telling on one point: Scoble may be a household name in the office parks of Silicon Valley, but everywhere else, he's a Joe Everyman whose name isn't even worth getting right. Let's just start calling him "Scooby," as his Fast Company colleagues do.

"Who knew that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos chose his wife in part because he felt she could, if necessary, get him out of a third-world prison?" Portfolio scribe Kevin Maney asked at the start of a Q&A for the magazine. The answer: Any 13-year-old who's read Jeff Bezos: The Founder of Amazon.com. Bezos goes on to explain to Maney that his criterion was really a proxy for resourcefulness.

Reading the latest in the spat between Wired's Epicenter blog and Michael Arrington over the Washington Post's deal to syndicate TechCrunch articles and the ethical propriety of the TechCrunch editor's investments in startups his blog covers, I noticed that the post was in the category "ButtMunch." The latest post states that "We have nothing against Arrington," but the tag originated last week in a post that accused TechCrunch of pilfering a story angle related to Steve Ballmer's continued tenure at Microsoft in the wake of the Yahoo deal.

A News.com reporter covered the death toll in 28 words before spending the next 613 trying to figure out if the recent earthquake in China near the manufacturing hub of Chengdu would hurt multinational technology companies. Which is only slightly less tasteless than the conversation which broke out on tech news tracker Techmeme — where the conversation revolved around Robert Scoble shouting "first!" You stay classy, technosphere.

While out and about, a possibly over-enthusiastic Valleywag correspondent heard rumors of a Facebook "prom" being held at the highly anticipated, but as yet unopened, new San Francisco branch of New York's famed Tavern on the Green within the Metreon in SOMA. Those lucky few on the inside remember: Pics or it didn't happen! Update: There is indeed a private Facebook party on the fourth floor of the Metreon, but of course the Tavern on the Green won't take over the space until at least next year.(Photo by Shiny Things)

In person, Sarah Lacy's fierce dishiness is charming. On the screen, her insider know-it-all schtick becomes harsh and grating. Take Lacy's latest post on LinkedIn seeking a $1 billion valuation. The 30-word version: "I've I I I am not giving people the news as I write in my book, I hear from insiders. Imagine that! perhaps I can get to that later today." She has learned exactly nothing from an earlier post on Twitter, whose funding news she failed to break, yet also declared non-newsworthy.

Forbes has exactly two tones: Sarcastically skeptical, if editors thinks its readers don't own a stock, and breathlessly promotional, if they think they do. "The iPhone: Apple's Magic Wand" is an example of the latter. Its writers hail the "touch-sensitive wonder phone" and say "the broad outlines of Steve Jobs' grand strategy for wireless domination are coming into focus." At least when slavering gadget blogs call it the "Jesusphone," there's a hint that they might be tongue in cheek. The Forbes scribes give no such hint.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to do something today — or sometime soon after — about Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal and its News Corp. cousin BoomTown report. Neither publications knows what. The Journal, reporting that "Microsoft's Next Move on Yahoo is Imminent" says that Ballmer has a slate of 10 directors and 3 alternates lined up to replace Yahoo's board. The Journal also reports that Ballmer's options include — but are not limited too — walking away from the deal, filing for a proxy fight or announcing the slate. BoomTown's Kara Swisher confirms that something should happen today or in the future. "What exactly that move will be is still unclear," Swisher writes. "But sources said it could come sometime after the stock market opens tomorrow."

Wondering what a Microsoft takeover will mean for the Yahoos? Front-page editors at the San Jose Mercury News offer what one hopes will be the last word.

A Forbes article estimates the number of Twitter users at 80,000. The story does not note the number of news articles mentioning Twitter in Google's database: 10,800. [Forbes]

Former Fortune executive editor Josh Quittner, best known there for covering the Scrabulous beat, has returned to Time.com, where he worked a decade ago, with a much-hyped exposé; Time's publicity department emailed us to make sure we saw it. The revelatory piece shows off the depth of Quittner's Valley rolodex and the extent of his Web-industry connections: the identity of the pair behind "You Suck at Photoshop." The story also reveals the path Troy Hitch and Matt Bledsoe, two advertising-agency refugees, took to greatness: Their website appeared on Digg and Boing Boing. Displaying Quittner's Web skills, the article also contains hyperlinks. (Photo by Matt Gilson/Time)

In an age when software rules, it's got to be tough to be stuck making hardware. Intel's Mash Maker is yet another "mashup" tool for connecting data from one website with tools on another, such as funneling addresses to Google Maps. Microsoft and Yahoo have similar products. Why is Intel, which makes chips, getting into such a profitless business? The "Intel Inside" advertising campaign convinced people to start asking what chip a PC runs on, but never persuaded them to care. A News.com reporter wangled this explanation from an Intel marketer:

The problem with lists like BusinessWeek's collection of 13 under-30 entrepreneurs: Inevitably, in an effort to fill a demographic quota, editors scrape the bottom of the barrel. And presenting a balanced picture of these business novices cuts against the goal of serving up fresh faces. (Whether they're supposed to make BusinessWeek's 50something readers feel either young again or even older, I'm not quite sure.) Here are some things that BusinessWeek would just as soon you not know about members of its boy band:

I'm on IM with Jordan Golson, and he's on the phone with TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington. You see, Valleywag sort of, um, fired Jordan this morning, and Mike got a bogus version of the story claiming it was all because of one post Jordan did criticizing his management. Jordan wants Mike to correct the article, saying that's not what happened at all — he was dismissed over much bigger issues. To my profound disappointment, Arrington just replied to him, "I can't go back on it now that I've written it." Sure enough, Arrington's updates to the post claim Jordan's explanations are "confusing" and full of "contradictions," rather than just admitting TechCrunch got told the story wrong, which seems easier. Now you know why Mike always insists that you not call him a journalist.

There is only one story ever written about Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos: That he has defied the skeptics, has had the last laugh, and is now looking to the future. Fortune's latest iteration of the formula is no exception. It begins with an obligatory near-death experience — in this case, a not-quite-fatal helicopter ride near Bezos's West Texas spaceport. And then, Christlike, the escape from death, the resurrection, and the glory. The glory: A stock price driven up not by technical innovations like Amazon's Web services, but by expanding profit margins, the result of tightened R&D spending. Wall Street, not Bezos, has the last laugh, but that conclusion doesn't fit the formula.

Climate change superstar Al Gore banned the press from his appearance Friday at the tail end of the RSA Conference on information security in San Francisco. The move seemed like a joke: Surely, Valleywag's editors reasoned, the roomful of high-IQ IT professionals carrying wireless communications devices into Gore's presentation would blog, tweet and shoot the whole thing. Gore would be streamed live to Qik via multiple videophones. No need for a pro journalist to sneak into Gore's talk and liveblog it, as I used to do with Steve Jobs keynotes. Web 2.0 had it covered. So what really happened? The only on-time account of the event came from CNET reporter Robert Vamosi, who used his conference speaker badge to get past security. Vamosi posted a thorough report less than an hour after Gore began. Hey Robert, didn't you get the memo? You're supposed to be out of work by now.