Allen & Co’s 27th Sun Valley media and technology conference starts on July 7 and ends on July 12. In the meantime, expect media writers to breathlessly report, blog, tweet, photograph and record the event. Why the fuss? There are literally hundreds of people coming who are known to do nothing else than run the universe when it comes to TV shows, movies, telecoms, the Internet and all sorts of other electronic communications. We have lists of all the people who bankroll them as well, along with a list of other interesting people you will find there.

Here, meanwhile, are the big men and women of media and technology who justify the travel budgets that increasingly hard-up news organizations have to put out for your favorite folks in the press corps to hide behind the hedges and hope for a handout that will break news, move markets and excite our editors. Keep in mind: this list is not a guarantee that these people are showing up; it’s just an invitation list (arranged alphabetically by company). We’ll update it as we learn more. (Our boldface names indicate some general viewpoint that they’re the stars of the stars.)

• James McCann, CEO, 1-800-flowers.com.
• Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard Inc. Also Brian Kelly, co-chairman.
• Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com Inc.
• Tim Armstrong, chairman and CEO, AOL
• Michael Ovitz, AMSEF LLC, former uber-talent agent at Creative Artists Agency and former Walt Disney Co executive.
• Gerhard Zeiler, CEO, RTL Group, Bertelsmann AG.
• Bill and Melinda Gates, of the foundation of the same name. Bill, of course, co-founded Microsoft Corp.
• Mark Vadon, executive chairman, Blue Nile Inc.
• James Dolan, president, CEO, Cablevision Systems Corp.
• Leslie Moonves, president, CEO, CBS Corp. Also Neil Ashe, president, CBS Interactive. Also Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive. (And a former Allen & Co man.)
• Charlie Rose, interviewer and anchor on the Charlie Rose Show
• Anthony Bloom, Cineworld plc
• Richard Parsons, chairman, Citigroup Inc. Former CEO, Time Warner Inc.
• Lowry Mays, chairman, Clear Channel Communications Inc.
• Ralph Roberts, founder, chairman emeritus, Comcast Corp. Also Stephen Burke, president and COO, Comcast Cable.
• Patrick Condo, president, CEO, Convera Corp.
• Jimmy Hayes, CEO, Cox Enterprises Inc.
• Richard Lovett, president, Creative Artists Agency Inc. Also Bryan Lourd, managing partner.
• Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, Dell Inc.
• Richard Rosenblatt, chairman and CEO, Demand Media. He used to work at MySpace’s parent company before News Corp bought it.
• Chase Carey, former DirecTV CEO and Rupert Murdoch’s new No. 2 man at News Corp.
• John Hendricks, founder and chairman, Discovery Communications. Also president and CEO David Zaslav.
• Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO, DreamWorks Animation SKG.
• John Donahoe, president and CEO, eBay Inc.
• Dara Khosrowshahi, president and CEO, Expedia Inc.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (We’ve heard conflicting reports about whether he’ll show. Either way, he’s still on our list.)
• Tom Freston, principal, Firefly3 LLC. Former Viacom executive.
• Martin Varsavsky, CEO, FON
• Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO, General Electric Co.
• Jeff Zucker, CEO, NBC Universal. (GE)
• Ronald Meyer, president and COO, Universal Studios. (GE)
• Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google. Also co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
• Juan Luis Cebrian, CEO, Grupo Prisa. Also Ignacio Polanco, chairman.
• Emilio Azcarraga, chairman and president, Grupo Televisa. Also Alfonso de Angoitia, executive vp.
• Christopher Schroeder, CEO, HealthCentral. Also former CEO of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
• Cathleen Black, president, Hearst Magazines.
• R. Todd Bradley, executive vp, personal systems group, Hewlett-Packard Co. Also CEO Mark Hurd.
• Barry Diller, chairman, CEO, IAC/InterActiveCorp. Also chairman, Expedia Inc. Also Victor Kaufman, vice chairman, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
• Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman, Illyria Pty Ltd. Son of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch.
• Craig Barrett, former CEO, chairman, Intel Corp. Also Sean Maloney, executive vp, chief sales and marketing officer.
• Jeffrey Berg, chairman and CEO, International Creative Management. Also president Christopher Silbermann.
• Michael Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems Inc and Joost.
• Eric Eisner, L+E Pictures. Son of former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner.
• Kevin Reilly, CEO, Lamar Advertising Co.
• Michael Fries, president and CEO, Liberty Global Inc.
• John Malone, chairman, Liberty Media Corp. Also Greg Maffei, president and CEO.
• Reid Hoffman, chairman, president of products, LinkedIn Corp.
• Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO, Loopt Inc.
• Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, advanced strategies and policy, Microsoft Corp. Also Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division, and Henry Vigil, senior vp, strategy and partnership.
• Rupert Murdoch, CEO, News Corp. Also with him is his second son, James Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp’s Europe and Asia operations. Also Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s chairman and CEO for its digital media group. Former president and COO Peter Chernin, whose last day was June 30, is coming along too, in tow with CFO David DeVoe and new MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta.
• Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning Inc.
• Jorma Ollila, chairman, Nokia Corp.
• Greg Wyler, founder, O3B Networks Ltd.
• Jeffrey Jordan, president and CEO, OpenTable Inc.
• Jeffery Boyd, president and CEO, priceline.com Inc.
• Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe.
• Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO, Qualcomm Inc.
• Robert Johnson, founder and chairman, the RLJ Companies.
• Jay Y. Lee, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Kenneth Lowe, chairman, president and CEO. Scripps Networks Interactive.
• Mel Karmazin, CEO, Sirius XM Radio Inc.
• Max Levchin, CEO, Slide Inc.
• Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO, Sony Corp. Also Kazuo Hirai, president of networked products and services group; Robert Wiesenthal, executive vp and CFO, Sony Corporation of America; Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO, Sony Pictures Entertainment; Hiroshi Yoshioka, executive deputy president, president of consumer products and devices group; and Nicole Seligman, top lawyer.
• Nick Grouf, CEO, Spot Runner Inc.
• Thomas Glocer, CEO, Thomson Reuters Corp, along with Niall FitzGerald, deputy chairman.
• Michael Eisner, the Tornante Company LLC. Former Walt Disney Co CEO.
• Lars Buttler, CEO, Trion World Network Inc.
• Evan Williams, co-founder and chairman, Twitter Inc.
• David Levin, CEO, United Business Media plc.
• James Berkus, chairman, United Talent Agency.
• Brad Grey, chairman and CEO, Paramount Pictures Corp (Viacom).
• Sumner Redstone, chairman, Viacom. Also Philippe Dauman, president and CEO.
• Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO, Vivendi.
• Robert Iger, president and CEO, Walt Disney Co. Also Thomas Staggs, CFO.
• Edgar Bronfman Jr, chairman and CEO, Warner Music Group.
• Donald Graham, chairman, CEO, The Washington Post Co.
• Casey Wasserman, chairman and CEO, Wasserman Media Group LLC.
• Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman, The Weinstein Co.
• Shelby Bonnie, CEO, Whiskey Media LLC.
• Jim Wiatt, William Morris Endeavor.
• Terry Semel, chairman and CEO, Windsor Media. Former Yahoo CEO.
• Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP.
• Anne Mulcahy, chairman, Xerox Corp.
• Jerry Yang, chief Yahoo.
• Mark Pincus, founder, CEO, Zynga Inc.

We’ve had two months to ruminate, speculate and analyze about who will take over as Yahoo chief executive after co-founder Jerry Yang who decided 18 months in the hotseat was enough for him.

Carol Bartz, former chief executive of Autodesk, was appointed CEO on Tuesday after her name had been floated ”on sources” a few days earlier in various reports.

Yahoo shares were flat on Wednesday morning and most Wall Street analysts viewed the appointment as a positive as it clears the way for Yahoo to do some sort of merger/outsourcing deal with Microsoft.

Bartz, a director at Cisco, also got a glowing endorsement from Cisco chief John Chambers, according to the New York Times:

“She’s the best player in the draft,” said John Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems, where Ms. Bartz has served as a board member since 1996. Mr. Chambers said Ms. Bartz often challenged him on strategic decisions, like mergers and acquisitions, to make sure they had been thought through well. And Ms. Bartz is not afraid to speak her mind, he said.

“You always know where she stands,” Mr. Chambers said. “You may not always like it.”

But more importantly what does the blogosphere think of Bartz?

From AllThings Digital:

Yahoo, “frankly, could use a little management.” Uttering those words Tuesday afternoon during a conference call to discuss her appointment as CEO of Yahoo (YHOO), Carol Bartz ushered in a new era at the company.

Known for occasionally opening Autodesk executive staff meetings with a “Tell me why I shouldn’t fire the whole lot of you,” she’s no milquetoast. She’s a cancer survivor. And she’s the person who rebuilt Autodesk, after putting down a rebellion of programmers bent on undermining her.

TechCrunch:

Bartz is a capable manager. She led Autodesk for 14 years between 1992 and 2006, keeping it from the PC software graveyard by focusing on CAD software for architects and builders. Autodesk, however, is an old-school software company. It is not exactly a great training ground for running an online advertising business attached to the most popular destinations on the Web. And as far as applications go, they are all Web apps and Yahoo gives them away for free. Bartz is most definitely an ally of founder and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang. They both sit on Cisco’s board. But it gets better. She also sits on Intel’s board with [outgoing] Yahoo president Susan Decker. In other words, she is has close ties with existing management. (Decker, though, wanted the CEO job as well).

Silicon Alley Insider:

The more we learn about Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz, the more we like. Based on anecdotes we’ve heard from Valley execs and Autodesk investors, Carol’s own introduction on yesterday’s conference call, and stories in the press, she appears to have exactly the philosophy that Yahoo needs right now.

Carol’s biggest weakness is still a lack of experience in the consumer Internet business. But if she gives the job 100% of her attention, she’ll get up to speed fast.

Keep an eye on:

• EchoStar welcomes U.S. Patent Office decision to rexamine patent infringement claim involving TiVo’s software (Reuters).
• AT&T Wireless upsets some customers by sending mass text messages for American Idol, which it sponsors (New York Times)
• A task force created by 49 state attorneys general finds that the online threat to children is overblown (New York Times)

After watching Bill Gates deliver Microsoft’s keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show for 12 years, CEO Steve Ballmer finally got his moment in the sun on Wednesday.

We were rooting for you Steve, but next time, tell your friends not to steal your thunder.

First, it was Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg leaking the news that the U.S. phone company has picked Microsoft as its default mobile search provider. It’s a big win for Microsoft, which has been lagging behind Google and Yahoo on the Web, but Ballmer didn’t get to be the first to tell the world. Seidenberg stole the spotlight, announcing the deal at a Citi investor conference earlier on Wednesday. We were hoping Microsoft would take back the limelight by giving us more details when it was Ballmer’s turn at CES, but alas, all the CEO said was, “I’m also thrilled to announce a new long term partnership with Verizon to offer our live services on all Verizon phones.”

Besides the Verizon deal, Ballmer also announced at CES the beta test launch of Windows 7, Halo Wars, a Windows Live deal with Dell, and a bunch of other stuff. But most of it, while good news, didn’t seem to wow the crowds at the Palazzo Ballroom in the Venetian hotel.

The funniest moment of the keynote, in our opinion, was when Ballmer joked about the advice Bill Gates gave him for his first-ever keynote. Ballmer flashed a message on the screen from Gates that said “There are always two conventions going on during CES - make sure you go to the right one.” The other conference is the adult entertainment expo, of course (if you didn’t know).

He then followed with supposed messages from President-elect Barack Obama, disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and others, including this faux gem from Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang:

“Why do you keep ignoring my Facebook requests?”

(Photos: Reuters)

Able to use a computer? Check. High school diploma? Check. Work well with others? Check. Willing to strike a deal with Microsoft? Ummmm….

Indeed, in the hunt for the next top dog at Yahoo that last issue — whether the candidate can do a deal with Microsoft — may be the most pressing.

Since Yahoo’s announcement on Monday that Jerry Yang would step aside, the tech/media world has been abuzz with speculation about his replacement. Silicon Alley Insider is even running a terrific mock election — letting its readers vote among six candidates.

(News Corp’s Peter Chernin is one of them. Wouldn’t it be great if he got the job? It would let us spend some time chattering about what will happen over at Rupert Murdoch’s empire).

But as Anupreeta Das points out in the Reuters story, the only way Yahoo may be able to satisfy its investors is either a massive turnaround plan, which would be very difficult in this environment, or an M&A deal. And the best shot at a deal may be with Microsoft.

“Microsoft wants Yahoo’s search audience, the traffic, the clicks,” Needham & Co. analyst Mark May said. “They want to have as much as Google does. So it’s important for Microsoft to have a big presence in search and display.”

The upshot: Yahoo needs a CEO who is willing to negotiate. The trouble is that means it needs a CEO who would also be willing to possibly negotiate himself or herself right out of a job. Or go to work for Steve Ballmer. Hmmmm…

Keep an eye on:

• Dan Abrams, the former general manager of MSNBC, is launching a media-strategy firm, Abrams Research, to help business executives navigate public-relations challenges (WSJ.com)
• Procter & Gamble and Google are swapping some staffers — to help each other learn more about marketing (WSJ.com)
• Time Inc is expected to cut more than 250 from the payroll as part of an overall cost-cutting plan (NY Post)

(Photo: Reuters)

There’s the story, and there’s always the side-story. The snarky, juicy, lip-smacking stuff. 

Case in point is last night’s news that Jerry Yang is stepping down as chief executive of Yahoo — which itself is an interesting tale. But we’d like to draw your attention to RealDanLyons.com, where you’ll find a wonderfully catty distraction.  

In his blog, Dan Lyons rips into Kara Swisher, the AllThingsD honcho and prominent tech writer, who apparently took issue with him for not crediting her with getting the scoop on Yang’s departure. 

“Kara, honey, I love you dearly, but girl-child, having a company send you a press release ten minutes before they put it on the wire isn’t a scoop. That’s called taking dictation,” he writes. ”One thing you have to admire about Kara is that in a blogosphere that all too often resembles an echo chamber, she’s managed to cut out the middleman; she just echoes herself. And while others engage in logrolling, Kara keeps it real and rolls her own log. Kara, listen. You’re not the story. Bokay? You’re the reporter. This isn’t about you. It really isn’t. Now stop it or I will fly out there and sit you down for a talk. You’re getting Mossberg Syndrome, honey, and that’s not a good thing.”

Is Swisher going to take that? No way, no chance.

“How would a snarktastic wonder like you know what a reporter was?” she responds in the comment section. ”I was teasing you, you twit, as you well know (I would dearly love to mangle emails you sent to me recently about your work, but I am too much of a gentleman!). When you come here, we’ll have a “talk” all right–my people like to call it a “sit-down” though. Love and kisses, Kara.”

What a way to start the morning.

Keep an eye on:

• AT&T Inc, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, said it would sell LG Electronics Inc’s first smartphone aimed at the U.S. market in time for the holiday shopping season (Reuters)
• Forbes and TV Guide separately unveiled sweeping cutbacks yesterday, while The New York Times Co. shut down its critically acclaimed sports magazine Play (NY Post)
• PepsiCo has moved the high-profile advertising duties for Pepsi and Diet Pepsi to TBWA\Chiat\Day, an agency owned by Omnicom Group, as it looks to reinvigorate sales of its best-known soft drinks (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Yahoo: Shun me once, shame on you. Shun me three times in one day, shame on… uh, shame on all of you.

First, Google walked away from their search advertising partnership, saying that it had enough with interference from U.S. antitrust regulators. That’s no surprise — remember the deal was originally conceived as a way for Yahoo to fend off Microsoft’s takeover ambitions? On that score, Google can certainly say: mission accomplished.

Then, investors and bloggers started speculating that Google’s withdrawal could make room for Microsoft to return to the negotiating table. Shares of Yahoo jumped as much as 11 percent on rumors that the companies were in advanced talks … before several people familiar with the situation roundly denied that Microsoft was close to making an offer.

Finally, when News Corp was asked on its earnings call about the status of its previously reported discussions with Yahoo or Microsoft, Rupert Murdoch said, “There are no talks.”

That seems to leave Yahoo with only one possible partner: Time Warner’s AOL. The two companies are supposed to be in due diligence on a combination, but when questioned on its earnings call, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes was vague:

You know all of the usual suspects and things that go on, including even some breaking news today, in some of our competitors. So the opportunities or possibilities remain open for this whole business to restructure itself, and to build adequate scale to compete with whoever is in the lead position and I think we have all seen the interest at both, just to mention a few companies, Microsoft, Yahoo and even Google, to bulk up and increase scale. And we’re no different in that regard. So beyond that, we can’t really say what is possible, or what is under way.

In other words, guess again.

(Reuters photo: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang talks to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at 26th annual Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, July 10, 2008)

Cheaper? Easier?!??? Those words are the lifeblood of the advertising community.

Now Chief Executive Jerry Yang is using them to tout Yahoo’s new advertising system, telling Reuters in an interview that the so-called APT will make life better for advertisers and publisher.

“This system allows cross-selling between sales forces, it allows us to have visibility of what pricing is happening and where,” Yang said in the interview.

What Yahoo wants is a system as efficient for online display advertising as the one run by Google in search advertising. APT will roll out in the fourth quarter, and from early 2009, will place Yahoo’s own inventory on the system as well as other publishers and advertisers. Yahoo has teamed with nearly 800 newspaper websites.

But can they pull it off? That remains to be seen. As Ben Schachter, analyst at UBS says, “Given Yahoo’s scale and position as the leader in online display advertising, it is Yahoo’s position to lose. The problem is, given Yahoo’s execution history over the past few years, we are afraid that they could lose it.”

What do ad executives think? The New York Times spoke to one…

If Yahoo can use its data well, said Darren Herman, the head of digital media at the Media Kitchen agency, “they can target, hopefully, much more effectively, and when I’m calling up for an advertiser, they can give me the exact audience I want.”

Mr. Herman said, however, that Yahoo had made promising announcements for years, “but then it gets lost.”

 We’ll see if Yahoo can make good on this on.    

Keep an eye on: 

• News Corp’s MySpace unveiled a long-expected joint venture with all four major music companies in a bid to compete with Apple Inc’s market-leading iTunes store (Reuters)
• Publisher Scholastic Corp Thursday said its quarterly loss widened from a year-ago period that included sales of the blockbuster final Harry Potter book (Reuters)
• Fantasy sports, where fans select real athletes for make-believe teams, are exploding onto new platforms like smart phones and social networking sites, grabbing the attention of advertisers, wireless carriers and software companies (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters) 
 

Hey, did someone mention hanging chads?

Not yet, but one of Yahoo Inc’s largest and most critical shareholders, Capital Research Global Investors, has asked for a probe of last week’s shareholder vote, which was widely seen as a pat on the back for Chief Executive Jerry Yang.

Yang, who has been under pressure since Yahoo and Microsoft failed to agree to a deal, received 85.4 percent support in the results announced on Friday, with the remaining votes withheld in protest.

“I guess Jerry Yang didn’t come out of the meeting as unscathed as it seemed,” Canaccord Adams analyst Colin Gillis said of the uncertainty raised by calls for a recount.

The New York Times describes the situation this way: “The recount was requested because the total number of votes cast appeared too low, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to discuss it. The person said that Capital Research believed that any undercounting of votes was most likely due to a technical mistake, not any tampering with the vote.”

Questions over the vote – first reported by the D: All Things Digital blog – is the last headache Yang/Yahoo need. Yang’s position seems secure, even if the final vote count changes somewhat. But the point is that the company is still trying to put the Microsoft mess behind it, and would clearly rather avoid any more bad publicity.

Keep an eye on:

• Under a deal with the International Olympic Committee, YouTube will provide about three hours a day of exclusive content during the Games (WSJ.com)
• Friendster, the social network site, got a new chief executive and $20 million in financing (Silicon Alley Insider)
• Motorola tapped semiconductor industry executive Sanjay K. Jha to head its troubled mobile phone division and share chief executive duties for the entire company (NY Times)

(Photo: Reuters)

The following is a timeline of key events leading up to Yahoo’s Aug. 1 annual meeting.

2006 January - Yahoo Inc begins to report a string of weak quarterly results, reflecting competitive missteps by the company, market share gains by rival Google Inc, changes in the online advertising landscape and weakening spending in some ad segments.

2006 - Microsoft Corp and Yahoo begin preliminary talks on various partnerships, including a merger.

2007 February - Yahoo, under the leadership of previous Chief Executive Terry Semel, tells Microsoft it is not the right time to discuss a takeover, as the Yahoo board sees great potential in its new advertising technology and by making internal organizational changes.

2007 June 12 - A strong minority of Yahoo shareholders challenges the company’s direction, as CEO Semel comes under fire. Nearly a third of votes cast at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting oppose some of Yahoo’s directors.

2007 June 18 - Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang takes over as chief executive as Semel steps aside. Semel remains Yahoo chairman.

2008
Jan. 31 - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer makes a $44.6 billion, $31-per-share, cash-and-stock takeover offer to Yahoo’s board. Semel resigns as chairman and is replaced by Roy Bostock.

Feb. 1 - Microsoft makes the offer public. Its shares fall 6.6 percent to $30.45; Yahoo shares rise 48 percent to $28.38.

Feb. 11 - Yahoo rejects the Microsoft offer as too low.

Mid-February - Yahoo begins talks with Time Warner Inc on a deal to combine the media conglomerate’s AOL unit with Yahoo in exchange for Time Warner taking a stake in the merged company. MySpace owner News Corp and Yahoo also discuss a tie-up.

March 18 - Yahoo releases financial forecasts until 2010, in an effort to prove it is worth more than Microsoft bid.

March 28 - One of seven face-to-face meetings takes place between the “senior-most” executives of Microsoft and Yahoo to discuss the bid. Yahoo asks how Microsoft would handle regulatory issues, including antitrust concerns, in a merger.

April 4-7 - Microsoft reevaluates its bid for Yahoo because the Internet company may have lost value since the offer was first made. Microsoft sets a three-week deadline for Yahoo to reach a deal or possibly face a proxy fight. Yahoo again rejects Microsoft’s bid.

April 9 - Yahoo says it will test Google search ads on its site, which could be more lucrative than selling its own search ads. Talks between Yahoo and Time Warner/AOL heat up.

April 15 - At another meeting between between Yahoo and Microsoft executives and their financial advisers, Yahoo asks about Microsoft’s integration plans and Yahoo raises a list of “key non-price deal terms” it believes are critical.

May 3 - After several earlier meetings, Yang meets Ballmer in Seattle. Microsoft verbally raises its offer to $33/share, or $47.5 billion, from its original $31/share bid. Yahoo wants $37/share, or about $5 billion more. Late in the day, Ballmer calls off the talks.

May 15 - Carl Icahn proposes a full dissident board slate for election at Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting in July. Icahn says he now holds a 4.3 percent stake in Yahoo, including 9.9 million shares and 49 million call options. Yahoo Chairman Bostock replies to Icahn that “none of the alternatives we are considering would preclude us from entering into a transaction with Microsoft or any other party.”

May 18 - Microsoft says it has raised with Yahoo an “alternative” deal that would not involve the software maker buying all of the web company but says it could reconsider pursuing a full acquisition. Microsoft proposed buying Yahoo’s search business and as part of the deal Microsoft would buy a stake in what remains of the company.

June 6 - Icahn says Yahoo should offer to sell itself to Microsoft of $34.375 a share. Throughout June, the two sides exchange a series of letters in an acrimonious war of words.

June 12 - Yahoo announces search advertising deal with Google for up to 10 years, and says talks with Microsoft have ended. U.S. lawmakers promise to scrutinize the deal on antitrust concerns. The companies say they will wait up to three-and-a-half months to put the deal into effect.

June 13 - Microsoft says it had offered to pay $8 billion, or $35 a share, for a 16 percent equity stake in Yahoo, and $1 billion in up-front payments to acquire Yahoo’s search advertising assets.

June 26 - Icahn says in a proxy filing that if his slate is elected, it will seek to hire a “talented and experienced CEO” to replace Yang, eliminate a severance plan, and sell Yahoo to Microsoft for at least $33 a share.

July 7 - Microsoft says it is interested in discussing a major transaction with Yahoo, such as the purchase of all or part of the company, only if Yahoo elects a new board. Microsoft says it has concluded that it cannot reach an agreement with Yahoo’s current management.

July 21 - Yahoo reaches settlement with Icahn that will put the billionaire activist investor and two other nominees on an expanded 11-member board in August, defusing a proxy battle showdown and making an immediate deal with Microsoft less likely.

July 22 - Yahoo’s second-quarter net profit fell 19 percent but investors took heart that it did not change its outlook despite a weakening U.S. economy and the distraction of Microsoft’s failed takeover bid.

Aug. 1 - Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting.

Sources: Statements from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Icahn; Reuters stories and data.

Photos: Reuters, Yahoo and Microsoft company materials, Google Maps.

Compiled by Eric Auchard, Peter Henderson and Tiffany Wu.

If you’re getting lost in all the nasty rhetoric between Yahoo, Microsoft and Carl Icahn, here’s our primer on what the fuss is all about.

They’re trading insults (again) after the latest deal talks broke down (again). Microsoft’s top lawyer is pressing the antitrust issue in Yahoo’s Google search partnership in Washington today, while Yahoo’s top lawyer accused Microsoft of trying to force a fire sale.

Don’t forget, this comes after Monday’s war of words over the latest Microsoft proposal to acquire Yahoo search, which was floated with the help of billionaire activist investor Icahn and rejected by Yahoo (again). Here’s what they’re saying about that deal:

Source: Statements from Yahoo, Microsoft and Icahn