Get ready to boogie, toast ginger ale and connect to the internet at 30,000 feet because Virgin America has teamed up with YouTube for a Wi-Fi launch shindig in the sky. The airline plans to launch its Gogo Inflight Internet service November 22 on a flight over the Bay Area while live streaming all the party shenanigans to an audience rocking out at the YouTube Live concert in San Francisco.

The departure of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang fueled plenty of speculation that Microsoft could jump in with an acquisition offer, but CEO Steve Ballmer quashed all of that chatter, saying in a shareholder meeting Wednesday, “We thought we had something that made sense. Didn’t make sense to them. We’ve moved on.” Like any tumultuous relationship, Microsoft has moved on to a hotter model while Yahoo shareholders still yearn to take a roll in the hay with Bill Gates and co. The Yahoo-Microsoft affair could still end with a familiar line though in “let’s just be friends” as Ballmer stated he’s still open to a partnership in the Internet-search market. Let’s just hope the tryst doesn’t end with Sue Decker and John Chapple don’t end sobbing together in the corner bingeing on Ben & Jerry’s.

Investors in ailing Internet giant Yahoo want the search for Jerry Yang’s replacement to explore executive types outside of the company. A major shake-up led by someone with turnaround experience could lure Microsoft back to the negotiating table and give Yahoo the lift it needs to get back on track. Well, change is the buzzword of 2008.

Apple’s next Mac operating system, Snow Leopard, could debut six months earlier than expected if a slide shown by Apple’s director of engineering for Unix technologies last week at a San Diego conference wasn’t just a typo, temporary fit of insanity or intern screw up. Speaking at the Large Installation System Administration Conference, Jordan Hubbard presented a slide showing Snow Leopard’s release date at Q1 2009, meaning Apple’s latest OS offering could be the big news of the next MacWorld conference in San Francisco, which kicks off January 5.

The next time you find yourself browsing Yelp reviews for the best cupcake shop or tailor in town, you may want to put that scroll button to work and check out reviews lingering towards the bottom of the page. Business owners in Sonoma County, California claim the popular review site has launched a telemarketing blitz aimed at selling the ability to shift reviews around (something currently forbidden on the site) to owners for $300, allowing businesses to move up five-star reviews and quietly sweep negative reviews under the rug. Or under the end of your browser screen.

The go-to place for local service consumer reviews has landed $18 million in venture capitalist funding–the latest round of funding marks the second time this year that Angie’s List has reeled in financing. Launched in 1995 by Harvard MBA Angie Hicks, the company has grown to one of the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the U.S. Angie’s List’s subscription-based business structure has for the most part shielded it from the financial woes currently rippling through the ad-supported business world.

Yahoo stocks reacted with a smile and smirk to CEO Jerry Yang’s announced departure, gaining 11 percent to $11.82. Investors guess (and hope) the stocks will continue enjoying an upswing as an executive search team vets possible Yang replacement and buzz of a Microsoft buyout bubbles up again.

Simon Garfield probably shouldn’t expect a holiday card from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after penning an article laced with Zucks insults for The Guardian. Garfield opens the piece with a scathing assessment of the Harvard drop-out turned billionaire: “I was told not to expect a human whirlwind, but when Mark Zuckerberg walks into the room there is barely a breeze. He is 24, on the short side, shy in the way that short, ginger-haired people often are, and he walks with his head down.” Garfield spent as much time snootily talking about Zucks’ wardrobe and demeanor as he did detailing the CEO’s response to questions about the Facebook empire. The entire article reads like Bill O’Reilly covering Keith Olbermann or Jerry conducting an in-depth interview with Tom.

The Twitter Fail Whale has landed on the endangered e-species list–extinct creatures include the Pets.com sock puppet and the little-known Google Gremlin–as the microblogging service debuted two new cartoons to soothe users in times of Twitter meltdowns. The so-called “Twitterpillar,” a low-rent version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and “Moan Cone,” a schizophrenic ice cream cone, will join the Twitter family and subsequently move the Fail Whale closer to extinction. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone explained the new characters to Wired, “The whale was related to over-capacity performance issues. Twitter has successfully moved to a more reliable state and the so-called Fail Whale has become an endangered species…(the caterpillar and ice cream cone) is used when we take the site down for maintenance — planned or unplanned.”

Let’s hope everyone in the advertising business has a loving person to go home to and cuddle because news floating around the office can’t make anyone in the industry feel all warm and fuzzy. A new television advertising forecast from eMarketer’s Television’s New Picture report predicts TV ad spending in 2009 will shrink 4.6 percent, going from $69.8 billion ad dollars down to $66.9 billion next year.

Sources inside the music industry seem to get their kicks off spreading the rumor that little known startup Project Playlist is sizing up bigger, more established iMeem for possible acquisition. The rumor has popped up before with some thinking Project Playlist’s recent hiring of former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta indicates the company is looking to make some big moves, but iMeem has continually pish-posed any acquisition talk. iMeem spokesman Matt Graves put it bluntly: “(We have) built a strong and growing ad sales business over the past two years, have money in the bank, and are moving towards profitability. Project Playlist is a small startup with a limited amount of money in the bank. A small fish like PP doesn’t have the means to make a play for a larger, more established company like iMeem.” Ouch.

If you’ve committed to a diet to get in shape for the holiday season, then you might want to consider not skipping the commercials on your TiVo because you may just find yourself suckered in to a midnight pizza binge. Domino’s has teamed up with TiVo to sell pizza to those couch potatoes zipping through commercials. How does it work? Glad you asked–when a customer fast fowards through a Domino’s commercial, TiVo will pop-up an ad asking the TV watcher if he wants a little grub from Domino’s and, if that lure of easy pizza ordering proves to strong to resist, the customer can order directly from a Domino’s delivery menu on the television.

Jerry Yang’s cheered departure from his position as Yahoo CEO likely has board members on double duty–helping pack up Yang’s collection of Microsoft voodoo dolls in an effort to scoot him out of the office at breakneck pace and anxiously eying the progress made by the executive search team. The prospects for who could take the helm of the shaky Yahoo ship include high-profile names both inside and outside the ailing Sunnyvale-based corporation. Yahoo employees on the short list include company president Sue Decker, whose contributions to Yahoo’s demise will likely serve as a deal breaker, and former Nextel CEO John Chapple, a handpicked by Carl Icahn Yahoo board member. Outside of Yahoo, the potential CEO list is a bit longer, due in part to many experts believing Yahoo needs a earthquake-sized shake-up. That list of non-Yahoo-ers features long-shot picks like former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and News Corp’s number two exec Peter Chernin, but both have rumored lofty goals–Whitman as governor of California and Chernin hoping Rupert Murdoch doesn’t appoint one of his children as a replacement–and won’t likely want to deal with the Yahoo mess. More likely selections would be Velocity Interactive VC partner Jon Miller, top Google ad exec Tim Armstrong and former Microsoft exec Kevin Johnson.

Good news and bad news has leaked out of Yahoo. Good news: the layoff-happy company is hiring–well, only one person, but still a step in the right direction. Bad News: Jerry Yang is about to lose his gig as Yahoo CEO. Actually, that’s good news for everyone other than Yang who has come under fierce criticism for his inability to close the deal with Microsoft and overall questionable executive decisions. Yang will reportedly step down as soon as the search engine giant can find a replacement, a process that will be handled by executive search firm Heirdrick & Struggles. So long Jerry, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

Free stuff you can get on Facebook: booze, the pleasure in knowing that popular skank you went to high school with is fat, solicitations from strangers in Nigeria and, now, pizza! Papa John’s has launched a new yummy (and deadly, if you eat too much of that garlic butter dip) promotion that offers a free medium pizza with any online order to Facebook users that become a “fan” of the pizza chain’s official page. Papa John’s has already dabbled in ways to reach wired customers with an online ordering widget and text-message ordering, but the Facebook promotion could bring in a whole new slew of hungry freegans.

In the midst of the current economic downturn, Silicon Valley’s noticing the squeeze with major companies initiating layoffs, and Venture Capitalists being tighter with their money. However, it looks like there’s one group of individuals who are flush with cash and eager to invest high growth web companies: Nigerian Scam Artists. These self-styled “Kings of the Internet” reportedly have plans to pool their money, rumored to be as much as $700 million, and make investments high-growth web-technology companies.

Have you ever gone to a concert where you don your finest threads and brag all week about the big show to your coworkers only to show up, ready to rock, and find out the headliner passed out backstage on binge and won’t take the stage? Well, that’s what it felt like for some iPhone users over the weekend who read all the hype about Google’s voice recognition search application and eagerly awaited the anticipated Friday release, but, as Saturday and Sunday passed with no app, excitement turned to disappointment. While no official word has emerged explaining the little delay, word from within the situation puts the blame on Apple’s lack of communication. The Google app should arrive Monday, but don’t put any money on it. Update: Google app has arrived…enjoy!

Motrin released an ad campaign targeting “baby-wearing moms,” the ad turned into a huge debacle with Twitter moms tweeting at a furious pace about the ad’s “tone” and how “this is proof we need more women in advertising.” Instead of relating to these women, Motrin disenchanted their target audience and raised a fury on of rallying calls on Twitter, so much so that the pain killer company’s site went down for a period of time this morning.

Ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky has the unenviably task of pitching Zunes to a culture hooked on iPods. The Miami-based agency has worked on past Microsoft gigs like the “I’m a PC” campaign and, the less successful, Seinfeld-Gates spots. Despite tossing $41 million behind Zune last year, the MP3 player has failed to gain traction against its Apple rival.

Nick Denton’s gloom and doom train apparently hasn’t scared off interest in his Gawker Media-owned Consumerist site. Denton’s prediction of internet ad revenue armageddon may have some folks flocking to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting, but others, like Weblogs, Inc. and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis, look at the bright side of Gawker’s sell-offs and consolidations. Calacanis tweeted about rumors of a “For Sale” sign going up in Consumerist’s virtual window, saying he would “consider” making a grab for the blog “if Denton wanted to offload it.”

Barack Obama continues building his army of tech nerds, adding another handful of tech executives to his transition team this week. Key players joining the team include Stonebridge International COO Michael Warren, senior director at Yahoo’s Washington public policy office Louisa Terrell, venture capitalist Tom Wheeler and Level 3 Communications exec Donald Gips. Transition team members will segment into groups of advisors that plan to review key federal departments, agencies, and commissions and make recommendations to Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their top advisers about decisions on policy, personnel and budget issues. Obama should certainly heed caution though because we all know how crazy tech execs can be when thrown in a room together–like Girls Gone Wild, only replace the whole boob flashing part with a start-up pitch-athon.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing nations and boasts a booming cell phone market ripe for tapping, but so far the reception for Apple’s iPhone has lingered between underwhelming and tepid. Wildly popular in the States and across Europe, Apple has failed to aggressively market the device in India and, since the 3G’s September debut, only moved 11,000 iPhones off the shelves or about the number sold in a week at San Francisco’s Apple retailer.

Twitter CEO Ev Williams has announced plans to wean the microblogging service off the teat of venture capitalists (now that’s a visual!) and that could mean charging companies for access to the rapidly growing Twitter community. As the turbulent economy causes VCs to snap their wallets shut, companies like Twitter have to look at alternative ways of bringing in revenue and with big name companies like Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks already using the site, it seems silly for a potential cash cow like Twitter to give away the milk for free. Sorry for all the milk references.

Apple’s product development kitchen never stops cooking and talk of what hot new product or gadget will debut next generates plenty of rumors, so, although buzz of an Apple search engine makes sense, it likely won’t happen any time soon. TechCrunch received a slew of “tips” indicating Apple had a secret search engine up its sleeve, but after scouring for evidence, the techie sleuths discovered that Apple hasn’t hired a single search experts or engineers. So, unless Steve Jobs has a top-secret factory of search engine building elves somewhere in Silicon Valley, consider the rumor quashed.

If one little button caused your company to lose out on $110 million in potential annual revenue, you would probably kick that silly button to the curb, right? Well, not if you’re Google. About one percent of users click the search engine’s “I’m Feeling Lucky Button,” but because the button takes searchers directly to the top result, bypassing search ads, the button doesn’t generate the same revenue as regular queries. Feelin’ lucky then suddenly feels like losin’ $110 million in possible annual revenue. In most businesses, that costly little bugger would lose its job faster than a vampire working at a blood bank, but Google exec Marissa Meyer pish-posed the idea of not letting users get lucky anymore, explaining, “It’s possible to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. I think what’s delightful about ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ is that it reminds you there are real people here.”