Been reading up on one of my favorite discussion lists about the cool new offering from New York Times online.

It's not a way back machine but the latest offering from NYTimes.com is pretty close: "Times Machine."


Available to home delivery subscribers, the online system lets users look at editions back to the 1850's. You have to be a home subscriber to use it (and, oddly enough, I've recently started getting the print version again). But here's a peek at what the newspaper published 100 years ago today.

Is Yahoo founder Jerry Yang feeling more heat after the Microsoft bid went away last weekend? Is Bill Gates just confusing things?

Maybe it's just the static coming out of the bitter bankers behind both sides grinding their axes after Microsoft walked away from its $47.5 billion bid last weekend. This, after Yahoo's Jerry Yang reportedly insisted on more.

Both companies' PR machines have been cranking up in the past few days, busy being the "people familiar"-sourced stories. (Generally speaking, you get Microsoft's side in The Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo's side of things in The New York Times.)

Come Monday, with Yahoo's stock diving by 17 percent, Yang did an interview with Reuters, sounding every bit the lover who, after dumping the boyfriend, realizes the mistake and wants him back.

Yang told Reuters that he had "mixed feelings" about the weekend outcome, after investors showed their disappointment over the break-up of negotiations by sending Yahoo shares down 15 percent.

Now, with Yahoo's stock still at least $3.00 below where it left off Friday, Yang's critics are growing louder.

Take The Wall Street Journal's biting commentary today. In a piece headlined, "Jerry Yang's Scorched Earth,"
Holman Jenkins Jr writes:

 

Mr. Ballmer didn't count on Jerry Yang, whose idea of what his company was worth became inflated by the perception that Microsoft needed it so much. When Mr. Yang said Microsoft's offer "undervalued" Yahoo, he meant it underestimated Yahoo's value to Microsoft, not to anybody else.

In a fashion, he outsmarted not only Mr. Ballmer but his own Yahoo shareholders and board. Having discovered how much Yahoo was worth to Redmond (and no one else), he set about destroying that unique value by ceding Yahoo's position in search to Google through an outsourcing deal.

All this so Jerry Yang can fulfill his dream of having an independent Yahoo whose halls he can continue to walk as the revered "founder."

 

Ouch.

(It's not as if Microsoft gets a pass in the piece. Jenkins raises again the Split Microsoft argument. If the brainiacs in Redmond are looking for a way to really shake up the competition, while keeping an eye on spending, maybe it’s time to do it: Split the company.)

Then, Bill Gates  went and told a pool of reporters in Japan that Microsoft would be open to other possible tie-ups, then later said the company would go it alone, all while The Wall Street Journal was reporting that Microsoft and Facebook had been chatting recently over a possible deal. (The Motley Fool has a funny take on Gates' attempts at a poker face in all this.)

Yang's got shareholders in an uproar, Microsoft has the upper hand in the post-breakup he-said, she-said, and Google's still watching from a distance. The beat goes on.

The 12th Annual Webby Awards are out with a must-see list of winners at the WebbyAwards.com Web site.

The awards site has the annual interactive winner's gallery. For those of you who study and appreciate good Web site design (and don't mind Flash), it's worth the trip.

Stephen Colbert's popularity juggernaut is steaming on. He is The Webby Person of the Year award, "for the innovative way he has used the Internet to interact with fans of The Colbert Report -- from Google bombing to make him the top search result for 'greatest living American' to challenging the 'truthiness' of Wikipedia,: according to the Webby Awards release.

Some winners look like winners, but some of the awards are curious. Take the ahead-of-all-thinkers conference Ted.com , which picked up an award for best navigation/structure. It's innovative, no question. Plus, you have different choices of navigation, based on themes. So hopefully I'll find one I like.

In the Social Networking category, interesting that Flock.com won, but that Facebook took the same award, only as the people's choice in the matter.

It wasn't the only category in which the judges and public parted ways, according to the Webby's own release about it:

For Viral Video, pop phenomenon "Chocolate Rain" earned the public's top votes, while dotcom spoof "Here Comes another Bubble" was selected by the judges. For Weird, the Academy chose Passive-Aggressive Notes, while fans selected I Can Has Cheezburger?