Barry Diller reckons that his online conglomerate, IAC/InterActive Corp., will be sitting on a cash pile of $2.2 billion by next March, but says that he won't cave into investor demands to buy back the company's stock in order to boost its flagging stock price. Instead, Diller tells Reuters that he's biding his time so that IAC can pounce on what he expects will be a "cascade" of acquisition opportunities as asset prices fall further in the weak economy. "My sense is that we wouldn't be purchasers of our own stock and that's because tomorrow will present unknown opportunities," Diller …

As expected, Qi Lu was unveiled as Microsoft's Corp.'s head of online services shortly after BoomTown broke the news yesterday afternoon, although his appointment to the company's top digital post came several days earlier than expected. Lu succeeds Kevin Johnson, who left Microsoft in September after the Yahoo merger talks had broken down. As a result of Lu's appointment, Microsoft Senior Vice President Brian McAndrews, who sought the same position, will leave the company. McAndrews, who had been CEO of aQuantive Inc., which Microsoft bought for $6 billion last year, is now thought to be a candidate for the vacant …

On Thursday, Facebook announced the general availability of Facebook Connect, a service that allows its users to stay logged into their Facebook accounts while surfing other sites. The idea here is to save users from having to fill out yet another registration form or memorize another username and password. It essentially allows them to visit other sites using their existing Facebook identity. The Economist calls Facebook Connect "an ingenious stab at solving several nagging problems at once." Prior to FB Connect, users could post links back to their social network by clicking a button that said "Share This" or something …

On the same day that Facebook officially unveiled Facebook Connect, Google followed up with the official launch of a similar tool with a similar name, Friend Connect. Google, Ars Technica says, is taking "a more distributed approach" to its standards-based portable registration platform. Google's take on simplifying the social Web allows Web site owners to embed tools like review forms, comments, or photo-sharing widgets that pull data from participating social networks. Friend Connect uses standards like OpenID that allows users to simply log-in to participate in the distributed social networking platform. Ars weighs in on the pros and cons …

Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock wants a new Yahoo CEO to be named by the beginning of next year, Kara Swisher reports, which means the company's board has just 28 days left to appoint a successor to Jerry Yang, who stepped down as Yahoo CEO last month. Bostock and board member Gary Wilson are heading the executive search along with the rest of the board and the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. "It's almost like a Berkeley collective!" Swisher says. According to sources both inside and outside the company, the Yahoo board has drawn up a list of six criteria …

Microsoft is finally ready to name its new digital head. Sources both inside and outside the company tell Kara Swisher that former Yahoo Qi Lu will be unveiled by the software giant as early as next Monday. Details are still being ironed out, Swisher says, including whether or not Lu will be "paired" with another Microsoft exec with "more general business experience." Lu has managed large teams and overseen large projects at his former employer, but "he does not have advertising sales and media experience that will be a big part of his purview at Microsoft," according to Swisher's report. …

So, just how close did Google come to facing an antitrust suit from the Department of Justice? According to a report from the American Lawyer's AmLaw Daily, the search giant came within three hours of being branded a monopoly by the federal organization, which is why the company decided to scrap plans to provide search advertising on Yahoo on Nov. 5. In an interview with AmLaw Daily, Sandy Litvack, the lawyer hired by the DoJ to look into the Google-Yahoo search advertising pact, said, "We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day. We …