Yahoo's Santa Monica campus, which was built under Semel and Braun's tenure is now a News Corp. outpost, and while BermanBraun signed Web content deals last summer, I've yet to see as much as a press release from the pair since. Microsoft can be forgiven for biting on Michael Eisner's pitch hook, line and sinker, but struggling Yahoo should really know better. (Photo by Getty/Jean-Paul Aussenard)

Moore, an 11-year Microsoft veteran before joining Yahoo in 2005, was hired by the disgraced and departed Braun, it's true. But the fact that he outlasted Braun and has continued to rise is a testament to the political skills he acquired at the software giant. Moore will take over much of Yahoo's enterainment division, including music, TV, movies, games, and gossip site OMG, which has garnered little buzz but appears to have overtaken AOL's TMZ in the ratings.

Moore displaces SVP Vince Broady, who remains with the company for now, but without a portfolio. He'll continue to report to Jeff Weiner, who'd best watch his back. They play corporate politics for keeps up in Redmond.

Just like Christmas in July, New Year predictions deserve a mid-year refresher — especially since Valleywag wasn't here for New Year's. Valleywag predicts that by the end of 2006:

• Rocketboomers Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon finally give into the sexual tension and get hitched. Media critic Jeff Jarvis reprises his role from "Moonlighting" by appearing on Rocketboom to explain it all. Rocketboom's ratings tank.
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, feeling threatened by a tidal wave of journalists predicting that he'll step down by December, barricades his office in November and insists on running the company from within. Sharp-eared employees can hear him urinating into bottles, wiping down his keyboard with sanitizer, and muttering, "The way of the future. The way of the future."
• Oracle founder Larry Ellison rediscovers his giving spirit and pledges a $200 million donation to Stanford, one week before the deadline for Forbes' next "Most generous billionaires" list.

The rest is after the jump.

• "Long Tail" breaks free of its scare quotes by Halloween.
• Blog mogul Jason Calacanis, realizing that AOL has given him the entire budget left over from the Access department, starts paying his circle of friends for "doing what they already do." Competitor Nick Denton starts eating lunch with Jason for $80 an hour.
• Three hours after YouTube and Facebook merge, the entire student population of America walks out of class in a rush to update their FaceTube profiles.
• After Lloyd Braun greenlights three expensive shows against everyone's advice, the Yahoo Media Group head finally gets fired. Weeks later, the shows go live, and Braun's "Puppet News Nightly" quickly becomes America's favorite Internet show.
• Dave Winer joins the Black Panthers, changes his name to Faqih, and leaves blogging for the promising medium of hand-out flyers.
• The Valley goes carb-counting-crazy when portly Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak loses 120 pounds and publishes his diet book, "Slim Down the Woz Way."

Photos: Amanda and Andrew by Scott Beale, Jeff Jarvis by Mary Hodder

In case you guys hadn't heard, the work is finally finished on the permanent YMG space in Santa Monica. We've been moved around to a couple of different permanent spaces in the last year, but we've finally moved into Lloyd's vision of the future of the Yahoo! Media Group. And in that future, former TV execs will treat internet employees with as much contempt as his network staffers undoubtedly suffered. (I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this.)

Here are some quick highlights of the new work space:

• The 6th floor is the exclusive domain of the executives. Regular employees' security badges won't open the doors, and the receptionists up there make it clear that none of us peons should be up there.

• Cubicle walls have been shortened to about 4', so now you have no privacy, and it's pretty much impossible to do ANYTHING louder than typing without completely distracting or annoying your neighbors. Having to whisper while on conference calls is particularly fun. I'm not sure why we didn't just get desks.
• We used to have a nice, big breakroom with a few tables, and some games and a flatscreen TV. It served as a lunchroom and lounge (a lot of us watched the World Cup in there); but that's gone. Apparently we're not supposed to get together with co-workers anymore.

I bring this stuff up because in spite of a lot of chaos in the last few years, Yahoo! has been a cool, creative place to work; now it's pretty obvious that Lloyd & Terry [Semel, CEO] think that there's no excuse for us to actually enjoy our jobs. I guess the message is that we all just need to shut the fuck up and get back to work. (On stupid shit like The Nine.) Anyone else that's going to move down here from Sunnyvale is in for an ugly surprise.

Let's bring TV to Yahoo" might not get laid off after all. Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun must be cheering over the new Pepsi-branded show hosted by Yahoo, "The 9." This daily show features a pretty woman discussing popular news items from around the Internet. (This, of course, has never been done.)

Good news for Braun, whose job seemed in danger when Yahoo announced it would avoid original video productions. Yahoo must have considered this outside-sponsored show a worthy exception, so the Media Group slipped this show onto the site and got its first episode featured on the front page (pictured).

The only question is who deserves the credit for this coup. Is it Braun, or is it his recent hire Vince Broady? When Broady joined Yahoo to lead several Media Group departments, those in the know said he "runs circles around Lloyd."

The 9 [Yahoo]
Earlier: Why Vince Broady might steal Yahoo Media Group [Valleywag]

Lloyd's daughter started as a lifestyles intern last week in Santa Monica. Internships at Yahoo! are highly coveted, especially in the business and marketing units. It seems that daddy's little girl may not have the chops to compete with all the top MBAs, so they stuck her in the lifestyles division.

Nepotism is common in TV, so maybe Lloyd's previous experience is helping him after all.

Yahoo landing Vince Broady is HUGE. The guy is a big swinging dick. Founder of Gamespot and one of the biggest sources of revenue for CNET. Basically, this guy can run circles around Lloyd. I don't think Lloyd's stock is rising at all — if I were Lloyd I'd be sprucing up the resume.

Vince is an asshole, but he's a brilliant product guy — unlike Lloyd. And he rejoins his Gamespot cofounder Pete Deemer, who is VP of products at Yahoo.

Meanwhile, a commenter writes that Lloyd Braun brought David Katz to Yahoo, and that Katz's new Yahoo Studios falls under Braun's domain. So while Lloyd isn't out of the woods yet, he's got his original content studio. Now, Lloyd, just don't make that puppet-anchored news show and you're safe.

Earlier: Hot tip: Lloyd Braun back in business [Valleywag]

I work in the NY office of Yahoo (media sales) and just got word that Lloyd's group just went through a reorg. Shawn Hardin is gone. A new guy from CNET is going to run Entertainment and Games. Scott Moore to run Lifestyles in addition to his current duties (includes News & Finance). David Katz to head a new group called Yahoo! Studios - fashioned as an internal programming and production house for original content. Hmmm...so much for abandoning original content.

What? Oh...Lloyd's not heading Yahoo Studios? But... wasn't that...why Yahoo hired him?

Lloyd Braun background: Yahoo's media boss: so out [Valleywag]

Please don't make it look like television... This medium better look like something new.... If what we're doing looks like television, that would be a huge mistake.

Lloyd Braun's resumé before joining the Yahoo Media Group:

• Chairman of ABC Entertainment Television Group
• Chairman of Disney's Buena Vista Television Productions
• President of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment (film and television talent management firm)
• Legal representative for actors, directors, and writers (including Seinfeld writer Larry David) at Silverberg, Katz, Thompson & Braun
• Inspiration for television character Lloyd Braun on Seinfeld

Don't sweat it, Lloyd. In a week or two, TV will be cool again and you'll be just fine.

Breakfast with Yahoo [Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine]

Got introduced to Mr BBC, Mr Yahoo and Mr Other Important Suit. Mr BBC was a Guido RSS subscriber and everyone else's boss, Mr Yahoo had windswept hair and looked like he had badly overdone the sunbed. Clearly had no idea where he was or why. Perhaps he was fire damaged. Judging by the simpering of Media Tarts around them, these were important suits.

Who in the world could Mr. Yahoo be? A certain Yahoo Media Group head is reportedly hanging in Britain this week.

How blogging will save the world [Guido Fawkes' blog]

We created Yahoo Tech to make life a little less complicated for our users.
— Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo Media Group

Easy: For "our users," substitute "my boss." You know, the one pictured above, who tapes his passwords to his laptop.

Yahoo! Tech Launched [iMedia]

So when ABC goes and launches a global Internet game, wouldn't Lloyd lock that down for Yahoo? Somehow, neither he nor his company are mentioned in ABC's own news story.

What, again, is Lloyd actually doing at Yahoo?

'Lost' Game Lets Fans Hunt for Clues [ABC News]

Time to update the "Leaving any day now" scoreboard:

Might McNealy step down at Sun? [Mercury News]

• Sorry about the outage last hour. I was wrestling Steve Ballmer and we snapped a cord.
• Tipsters: If you want to be credited by name, let me know when you tip by e-mail. If you're aching for a self-inflicted firing, I won't stand in your way.
• Jason Calacanis: You were in San Francisco for a day and didn't call? The hurt runs deep, Jason. The hurt runs deep.
• Speaking of which, I could use a mole in AOL.
• Why hasn't anyone talked about Lloyd Braun (pictured, last seen looking quizzical) lately? In Hollywood (and he never really left Hollywood), the only thing worse than bad press is no press.

"Original content is the salt and pepper on the meal," he said. "It is certainly not the engine driving this."

Salt and pepper...car engine...too many images, Lloyd! Turn your brain off before it hurts someone!

Then there's the gleeful peanut gallery. For example, AOL exec Jason "two booms under my belt" Calacanis gets all nostalgic for those 90s days of "user-generated content" and the transformative medium.

And PaidContent blogger Rafat Ali just loves Lloyd's line, "I didn't fully appreciate what success in this medium is really going to look like." Yes, Lloyd has just admitted what we're all saying — HE HAS NO BUSINESS DOING THIS JOB.

Earlier: Lloyd Braun becomes (more) useless to Yahoo [Valleywag]
1996 or 2006? [Jason Calacanis]
Oops, never mind [PaidContent]

1. Yahoo won't use Lloyd Braun's original-content ideas for TV-style web shows — the ideas that, presumably, got Braun hired.
2. Lloyd Braun isn't leaving Yahoo.

No, I have no idea how these two facts logically cohere, but the Yahoo Media Group head's announcement hit the front of the New York Times business section.

"We are very happy with Lloyd, and Lloyd is very happy with Yahoo," said COO Daniel Rosensweig. And by "happy with," he means "rejecting every idea from the mouth of." Like the puppet-anchored news shows. And the nation-wide manhunt reality show. All of Lloyd's contributions, basically, have been cancelled.

Lloyd flatly admits: "This is not about creating one-off hits like in my old business." But weren't one-off hits the whole point of hiring him? Isn't this the man known for greenlighting Lost and Desperate Housewives?

So if Yahoo drops the original-content focus...then why, exactly, does it need Lloyd Braun?

Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows [NYT]

Have you heard of Brad Garlinghouse at Yahoo? He is seriously cute.

It looks like Lloyd Braun isn't the only person soon-to-be-leaving Yahoo. I work at MySpace, and there has been lots of chatter in the news about us getting into email and instant messaging. All legit. Brad was here in our offices, meeting with our founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson.

Brad runs Yahoo's email and instant messenger, along with a couple of other things and I hear he's our top pick to do the same for MySpace. I also hear he's supposed to be back in a couple weeks and that we're trying to get him to meet with the big guns in New York.

We're going to steal Yahoo's cutest employees AND all their users.

"Seriously cute"? Not by Yahoo standards (since Yahoo's basically L.A. in a bottle). But defecting to Myspace? I can believe that.

(By the way, as for Yahoo's transient Media Group head, word is that all the "Lloyd's out of Yahoo" rumors have kept Lloyd solidly in Yahoo. Say a prayer, Lloyd, to the gods of irony.)

One time, several years back, we greeted Lloyd at an ABC party. Shaking hands, he frowned and mumbled something about a story we'd written. "You really rope-a-doped me on that one," he said. We cast our mind back in time, trying to figure out how the boxing metaphor might apply. And we finally concluded that — it didn't!

No news, sadly, on whether Lloyd's finally getting K.O.'ed at Yahoo. Have updates on Lloyd's long goodbye? E-mail tips@valleywag.com.

Is Lloyd Lost at Yahoo? [LA Times]

One of the killer ideas the Yahoo Media carpetbagger proposed: animated puppets delivering the news. (Because having Elmo report on a flood in India wouldn't be, you know, creepy.) It's not exactly "Lost." And ideas like that aren't winning him any points at Yahoo.

Spokespeople are pulling out the "great team" language again: "Lloyd has assembled a terrific team of senior leaders," said one. For the remedial class, that means "Bye-bye, Braun. Thanks for bringing your friends."

Can Yahoo do content? [ZDNet]
Earlier: Yahoo's media boss: so out [Valleywag]

A key qualification needed: "Ability to handle highly confidential material in a discreet manner."

Damn. Any readers want to snag this job? Hopefully this assistant will be as discreet as all the other Yahoo gossip sources staffers.

Job Details [Careers at Yahoo]

I swear to you Lloyd looked as if he had just snorted coke before he went on. he brushed his nose at least 8 times during his speech, and had tourette's like facial twitches the whole time. I talked to others present, and they came independently to the same conclusion. He said he hadn't slept or eaten either and made all kinds of self revealing comments about how he kinda neglects his kids.

Much as we love our tipsters, we've got to pour a little cold water on this particular report. It's a little too easy to assume that any Hollywood executive must by definition be a cokehead. Just like people assume that Silicon Valley geeks over-indulge in the free snack rooms. Lloyd Braun may indeed have looked like he was on coke. But see the comments for an innocent explanation.

Earlier: Lloyd go home: Braun bombs at conference [Valleywag]

Yahoo: Internal fights are real. Lloyd out for sure, but the real winner is Weiner. Old line yahoo killing YMG on all deals. Recent oscar showdown — YMG put real money behind it and on nomination day, YMG get no pop on the home page of yahoo. In it's place — promotion for yahoo messenger. A big FU to LB

Geez, it's like a decoder ring. "Lloyd" is, of course, Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun, who is so out of Yahoo. "Weiner" is senior VP Jeff Weiner, overseeing the Search and Marketplace group. And pushing Oscar coverage off Yahoo's front page to feature an AIM wannabe? That's gotta be one tough political move.

So when will Lloyd get the hell out of there? Do we need to start a betting pool?

Earlier: Lloyd go home: Braun bombs at conference [Valleywag]

He left shortly after his speech and after having a fight with richard after he bombed. A shame really because the yahoo folks are smart and get it and he didn't serve them. Others can tell you the details of how his speech missed the mark. Its some combo of his not being at the conf and getting the conversation, the fact that the session 10 minutes before his zereod in on the rise of the audience and instead of adding to that theme (a natural for yahoo) he wandered back to 1998 in vision, and perhaps that he gets web 2.0 in his head but not his gut. He and wurman had a spat. He was pissed richard didn't interview him and just sent him out to give a talk, and wurman was pissed that braun was not at the conf all along and thus felt an interview inappropriate since and interview should tie to earlier speakers.

After his talk dropped by the yahoo party for a moment and left never to be seen again for three days. Though his, ugh, memory lingered on and was a topic of much conversation till the very end.

The only question is, why did Yahoo's next ex-executive even bother showing up?

Update: USA Today's Kevin Maney says that during his speech, Braun was "exhausted, unprepared and seemingly clueless about the audience's sophistication level."

Presenters [EG 2006]
Previously: Yahoo's media boss: so out [Valleywag]
And: Missing: Lloyd Braun [Valleywag]

To recap, Braun was brought in by CEO Terry Semel to take Yahoo into media. Funny, I thought Yahoo already was in media. But, by media, they meant real media: original, expensive, and with minimal impact on traffic. And Lloyd Braun, former head of programming at ABC, was just the man to do it. (Actually, that isn't quite fair: ABC did launch Lost and Desperate Housewives during his tenure.)

Braun spent lots of money on a fancy new campus in Santa Monica for Yahoo, swanned around Hollywood talking content deals with his movie industry buddies, converted a conference room with a patio into his office and reserved a parking space close to the elevators for his car. Those frumpy Yahoo geeks then reported him to the press for Hollywood behavior.

Braun has been on his way out for the last six months. During the last earnings call, Yahoo's CFO hardly bothered to pretend. Braun had assembled a great team, she said, for which, read: he's so out of here. Chris McGurk, another acquaintance of Semel from Hollywood and COO of MGM, the studio, is tipped for the job. Sure, a change like this is as complicated as a chain of sales in the real estate market, and Semel wants to allow Braun a graceful exit to Paramount. But hurry up already: this is slow torture.

But no one at Yahoo offered the Times Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo Media Group and supposedly one of Yahoo's bright new faces. The former ABC exec can't even show up in a story about Yahoo's media ties. The message is clear, and the only question now is, why the hell haven't they fired him yet?

When Terry Met Jerry, Yahoo! [NYT]

The show is an audience-run hunt for Yahoo's operative, who for the love of God should avoid Sidekick-dotted San Francisco if he plans to escape flash-mob capture. Then again, setting a man loose in the Midwest and paying people to capture him? If we were Yahoo, we'd buy kidnapped-by-rednecks insurance.

Yahoo! Plans Mega Online Reality Series [iMedia]