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Mark Twain famously quipped,”The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Executives at Yahoo may be ready to say the same thing about their company. No matter how much time passes, takeover rumors just won’t seem to go away; even ideas conceived way outside the box seem fair game.

Last month it was Velocity Interactive dubbed the suitor.  The VC firm’s internal fundraising efforts were incorrectly re-imagined as a search for financiers to back a Yahoo buyout.  This month, according to a new Tech Crunch report, it’s a group of unnamed Silicon Valley executives and bankers circling.

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As years end and the holiday cycle takes over, the pace of events downshifts to a crawl.  People rest, taking time with friends and family to reflect and recharge.  Vacation’s take over, businesses shutter.  Business events and politics, pause.  Similarly, the news industry reporting on it all, retrenches. In papers and on websites around the world, pages and mastheads usually dotted with zippy headlines and urgent ledes loan space to nostalgic recaps and forward projections; accounts of the year that was and prognostication for the year that will be.

It’s that time of year.

The lists of 2008’s highlights and shortcomings promise to be long.  Many will emphasize the historic U.S. elections and the plight of the global economy.  There will be talk of Wall Street’s upheaval and the auto industry’s implosion, Madoff’s mess and fortunes lost. There will be assessments of the Mideast, reference to oil and gas and the environment. There will be summaries of mergers and acquisitions, those that succeeded and those that failed, highlight reels and shames, box office booms and busts.

So goes the year end process.

In this fervent generation of lists, hopefully,  the news media won’t overlook reviewing itself.  History has yet to write the footnotes, but 2008 is a year that could end up standing out as a part of a watershed period in the evolution of print media, a year when Internet news became a more relied upon source than print (according to a recent Pew Internet survey), a time when digitally rooted upheaval may have finally reached such a pinnacle that it will begin to force the transformation of the industry.

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Over the past year, in an effort to establish exclusive, long term multiple-rights partnerships (so called “360” deals) with select A-list artists, Live Nation has dangled generous advance payments and equity as bait.  Some of music’s biggest names bit in to the lure.   Madonna, and Jay-Z, Shakira, Nickelback and U2 all signed up.  Now, it seems a couple of the deals may have been even more generous than Live Nation intended. SEC filings indicate U2 will be the first to cash in.

U2’s next studio album, “No Line on the Horizon,” is officially slated for a March 2nd  release. The band’s promotional and touring partnership with Live Nation won’t really pick up steam until then.  Still, before the revenue starts running, nearly $25mllion is going U2’s way now.

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UK Gamemaker SCi Entertainment Group outbid Elevation Partners to acquire Eidos Interactive in 2005.  Less than two weeks ago, SCi filed papers to officially change their company name to Eidos – aligning the corporate name with their consumer face.  If ongoing trade rumors are any indication, however, there may be little need to rush out and print new letterhead.  Recent rumors have been circling that SCi/Eidos is on the block and the list of potential suitors includes EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix and Warner Brothers.  Other bigger game companies could be interested too.  Is there truth in the grapevine?

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Last March, the Newspaper Association of America singled out 2007 as the worst downturn in the newspaper print ad business in over 50 years. That was three months into 2008, well before the continued deterioration of the economy this summer and fall, before the banking and automotive industries imploded. 2008 is guaranteed to register as worse.

Newsprint costs have been up. Income down. (Newspaper ad sales were off 18% in Q3(Bloomberg)). Classified ads have further migrated to the Internet. Consumption habits are changing. Traditional local ad buyers (like car dealers) are spending much less.

Punctuating how bad it’s become, the history books will record 2008 as home to the first substantial newspaper bankruptcy in years, decades.

Monday, hindered with debt from last year’s leveraged buyout, the Tribune Company, parent to the Chicago Tribune, The LA Times and the Baltimore Sun, made truths out of early rumors and sought the protection of the Delaware court.

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Next  to Jerry Yang, Steve Ballmer and Carl Icahn, few names have been mentioned more frequently in Yahoo’s ongoing survival story than Jon Miller.  The partner at Velocity Interactive, and former AOL chief (2002 to 2006) was mentioned as an adviser in the failed Micro-hoo combination.  In Carl Icahn’s proxy fight he was expected to be a Yahoo board appointee until blocked by a non-compete.  Presently, he’s among the leading candidates in the press to assume the Yahoo CEO position.   And now, he’s also rumored to be a buyer.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources “familiar with the matter,” is reporting Jon has been “sounding out” private equity and sovereign wealth funds for months, all in an effort to raise a buyout fund to takeover Yahoo.

The deal being pitched, the WSJ story writes, is a potential acquisition in the rage of $20 to $22 a share.

Is Jon Miller really looking to assemble as much as $30 billion in this market to acquire Yahoo?

It’s certainly possible.  Any rumor that passes through the editorial filters and finds its way onto the pages of A-list publications like the WSJ usually has to pass the sniff tests of plausibility.  Even so, plausible and probable are sometimes far apart….like here.

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It takes strength or ingenuity to swim upstream and navigate a strong current.  More often than not, companies raising sizable venture rounds in this economic climate are relying on their strength (at least when measured by the scale of prior capital commitments).   Last week it was hopeful television visionary Sezmi confirming reports of a $33m round.  This week, it is aspiring media empire Huffington Post that’s claiming their due.

In a series C round committed singly from Oak Investment Partners, Huffington Post has reported a $25million draw.

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