MediaFile

Getting jilted by your girlfriend. That’s how Yahoo’s Jerry Yang described the falling out with Microsoft mid-negotiations during the most highly anticipated session at D: All Things Digital conference.

How does it feel being left at the altar?
From AllThingsD’s live blog:

Yang: It’s like when you break up with your girlfriend in high school. It very quickly becomes he-said/she-said. I don’t want to look back. But I think we both understand that there is a tremendous amount of power in a combination like the one Microsoft proposed.

Despite the public drubbing for driving Microsoft away, Yang maintains he’s still the best person to lead Yahoo. And not just because he bleeds purple.

Why Yang’s the right person at the right time
From paidContent’s live blog:

Yang: I do think I am the best person to lead Yahoo, not only because I bleed purple and bleed Yahoo. There is a big opportunity to fulfill at Yahoo…I also felt it was my time to take the company to the next level. In so many ways, the right leadership team, with Sue (Decker, president) and (co-founder David) Filo, we can achieve that dream. I feel like I am most passionate and have the vision of where we want to be. We are starting to show that Yahoo can be on this past to be a different entity…”

We’ve written a lot lately about tiny Journal Register Co , the newspaper publisher that’s exploring its options — another way of saying that its survival is on the line. Among them is getting its lenders to restructure its debt so it won’t have to declare default. Another, which would depend on that, is taking $25 million from an Ohio-based investment firm and selling off a bunch of its failing newspapers.

The New Haven Advocate, which publishes in the same town as Journal Register’s largest paper, the New Haven Register, is reporting information that seems about as reliable as reports of multiple gunmen at Dealey Plaza:

One of the options that we never considered, but apparently someone out there is pushing, is selling either some or all of the company to the New York Times Co. Here’s what the New Haven Advocate wrote:The financial free-fall and dwindling readership of the Journal Register Co. and its flagship Register are old news, but that doesn’t mean somebody doesn’t think they can turn the business around. JRC honchos won’t tell The Nose a thing, but a source inside the Reg hints that no less a monolith than The New York Times Co. may be a suitor.

As the Microsoft-Yahoo will-they-won’t-they? saga drags on, Google’s role in any future talks becomes more apparent.

On Thursday Google CEO Eric Schmidt said a two-week trial selling search advertisements on rival Yahoo last month had given the companies good reason to discuss cooperation, but there was no deal yet.

That isn’t great news for some in the online advertising world.  As commentators have pointed out, a Google-Yahoo partnership (Yahoogle? Yoogle? Gahoo?) could concentrate too much power with just one team. This has led to some folk to paint Microsoft as the little guy. Yes, the same Microsoft, which is a Monopoly 101 case study for first-year economics college students.

Legendary media money manager Gordon Crawford blasted Yahoo Chief Jerry Yang for blowing the Microsoft deal in high profile interviews with the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“I am extremely angry at Jerry Yang and at the so-called independent board,” Crawford told the Times. ”I’m hoping that there is such an outpouring of outrage that the board is embarrassed into revisiting this thing …  but I’m not optimistic about that.”

It may not be wise to aggravate Crawford, portfolio manager for Capital Research Global Investors, a division of Capital Research & Management, which owns 16 percent of Yahoo.

Yahoo Chief Jerry Yang is leaving the door open to Microsoft, he tells us. In an interview with Reuters’ Michele Gershberg, Yang says he had been seeking common ground when Microsoft abruptly ended deal talks.

Yang: “We were negotiating a way to find common ground and then on Saturday they chose to walk away.”

Asked if they’re up for more from Microsoft, Yang says, “If they have anything new to say, we would be open … I am more than willing to listen.”

Now that Microsoft has broken off its pursuit of Yahoo, the only thing we know for sure is that those two technology icons will not be merging (right now). Every other possibility and option for the two companies is up in the air. (One thing is for sure, Yahoo’s stock is already down more than 20 percent .)

There are no shortage of opinions:

** Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is “under the gun” to spend the $46 billion earmarked for Yahoo. (New York Post)

** Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and his crew were “elated” when Microsoft withdrew its offer — but their joy may be short-lived. (Los Angeles Times) (NOTE – Yang in his own blog vaguely addresses reports of celebration breaking out in Yahoo’s camp:  “No one is celebrating about the outcome of these past three months… and no one should.”)

Microsoft dumped its offer to buy Yahoo on Saturday. A closer reading of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s letter to Yahoo’s Jerry Yang shows Microsoft is content to do nothing less than choke the air supply out of Yahoo’s trachea.

Consider these sweet bon mots in Ballmer’s letter, which is also a thinly veiled salvo at Google:

We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:

With earnings reports for Yahoo and Microsoft out of the way, all eyes are now on Saturday, Microsoft’s deadline for Yahoo to accept its $43 billion offer.

And just in case Yahoo felt Ballmer’s comments were vague, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell repeated: “We have yet to see tangible evidence that our bid substantially undervalues the company (Yahoo) … In fact, we see the opposite.”

Will they stay or will they go?

Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget is betting there’s a 60 percent chance Microsoft walks. After reporting a mixed quarter and below-target forecast, it’s looking unlikely Microsoft will raise its bid.

Will Microsoft stay and fight or dump its bid for Yahoo altogether?

Even as it mulls its next move, the software maker is cranking up the heat on Yahoo ahead of its Saturday deadline.

The software maker has lined up a proxy slate of candidates to nominate to Yahoo’s board in the event it pursues a hostile bid according to the Wall Street Journal. The list has 10 nominees and three alternates the paper said citing a person familiar with the matter.

Nominees include former Nextel Partners CEO John Chapple, from Grey Global Group CEO Edward Meyer, Jaynie Studenmund, the former COO at Overture Services, which was later acquired by Yahoo, and former Adelphia Communications Corp. Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Wittman, said the Journal.

If you take Steve Ballmer at his word, the only way Yahoo shareholders may be able to squeeze a bit more money out of Microsoft Corp is to pray for a stellar earnings report from the software company Thursday afternoon.

The Microsoft CEO has been talking tough all week from Morocco to Milan, saying he wouldn’t raise the company’s bid for Yahoo — now valued at $43.8 billion — even after the Web pioneer’s quarterly results came in a bit better than expected.

With 50 percent of the offer consisting of Microsoft shares (the rest is cash), Yahoo’s shareholders need a solid earnings report from Ballmer … or the value of the bid could fall further with Microsoft’s share price .