ABC fired Lloyd Braun in 2004 for greenlighting some expensive prime-time dramas. These, of course, were "Lost" and Desperate Housewives." So Braun, vindicated more with every week's Nielsen report, landed a posh job at Yahoo, heading the Media Group. One of his new goals: to bring established TV content into the rich environment of Yahoo.com.

Closer and closer sources confirm the persistent rumor that Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy will bow out. The old softie can't handle the pressure to fire workers — he never did like to lay off staff — according to the San Jose Mercury News. And he'll always have a spot open as chairman.

• Sorry about the outage last hour. I was wrestling Steve Ballmer and we snapped a cord.

¬ The Official Google Blog hiccuped today when Google deleted it. [via Om Malik]
¬ Better news for the Plex: Google Base now shows up in certain job-related searches. And it's not just for techies. [Good Morning SV]
¬ The Yahoo Media Group reaches that young, hip online crowd with...60 Minutes. Playing a clip about golf. Again, why is Lloyd Braun still working there? [SEW]
¬ Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield get on the Daily Show — only coincidentally. Don't worry, they'll be at Jon Stewart's table any day now. [Ben Brown on Flickr]
¬ One week left before the Stirr Mixer, a social gathering for social startups. To hold one almost feels like admitting defeat. [Stirr]

Today's Lloyd Braun announcement was just too sweet and candy-like in its optimistic spin to appreciate with one post — here are more highlights you might have missed. First, a mixed metaphor from the soon-to-leave Yahoo Media Group head:

Lloyd Braun promised two things yesterday:

Oh tipsters, you are so helpful and loveable. From a Myspacer:

The LA Times hints that Yahoo's media un-mogul, Lloyd Braun, isn't too slick at phrase-slinging. Or, as Times writer Scott Collins bluntly states, there's a "fine line between stupid and clever."

ZDNet comes back to the season's hot question: "Does Lloyd Braun need to leave Yahoo?" And the answer is still "Hell yes!"

Lloyd Braun is digging in his heels again. The media group head (the one with one foot out the Yahoo door) is hiring another assistant, who must be experienced, proficient in Microsoft Office, team player, yadda yadda... lot of qualifications for someone whose job will last, like, another three weeks...

Damn, looks like the hate's on Lloyd today. An attendee from the Yahoo Media Group head's TEG speech says,

A Valley source calling themselves Doncha Wannaknow cryptically lays out the Yahoo situation.

Lloyd Braun didn't stick around long at The Entertainment Gathering. The Yahoo Media Group head popped into the trendy mogul meeting just to give his speech. Then he popped back out — just what he should've done at Yahoo by now. A source says that before Braun left, he argued with the gathering's creator, Richard Saul Wurman:

So, please, let's just stipulate, already: Lloyd Braun is out of Yahoo. The rumors of his departure have been around so long that everyone's bored of them; we're promoting them to the status of fact.

The New York Times profile of Yahoo CEO Terry Semel mentions everyone who's anyone in Yahoo: COO Dan Rosenzweig, Senior VP of Search Jeff Weiner, CTO Farzad Nazem, even CFO Susan Decker of "It's not our goal to be No. 1" fame.

Yahoo skips the trouble of advertising and plugs its entire network in its next reality series. Yahoo's Lloyd Braun rescued rejected weekly series "Runner" from ABC and turned it into an ad-hoc stream of video clips posted online at all hours. The series, an elaborate audience-participation chase game, puts the "we're not a media company" company on the edge of media tipping over into massively multiplayer gaming. Yahoo also gets to plug Yahoo Instant Messenger, Yahoo Maps, and Yahoo Shopping, which will be used to track the eponymous runner's movements.