Facebook has a new look, Yahoo is still independent and BT may be able to predict the future. Sort of. See what happened this week in interactive.

Nobody has answered the monetization question for social networks, but that hasn't stopped Facebook from pursuing its aggressive growth plans, which include a site redesign launched earlier this week.

"We are going to see the big social networks start to decentralize into a series of social applications across the web," Zuckerberg told attendees at Facebook's F8 developer conference. "I think we are at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry."

The big news from the conference was Facebook Connect, a new service that lets other websites integrate with Facebook by allowing users to enter their names and passwords on those sites. The new service drew praise from Adam Broitman, director of emerging and creative strategy at Morpheus Media, but he stopped short of calling it a win for marketers.

"Many marketers will not be able to realize the power of Facebook Connect, as their web properties are simply not worthy of conversation to begin with, and they will not be able to offer consumers added value through social elements," Broitman said. "This type of marketer will need to revisit their playbook and ask, 'what value am I offering consumers that would want to make them have a conversation with me, or in my environment?'"

Soap opera canceled?
It's hard to say there's such a thing as closure when it comes to the soap opera that has become Yahoo these days. But the company's bitter battle with Microsoft, Carl Icahn and Wall Street may have taken a breather this week with news that the activist investor ended his proxy fight in exchange for three seats on the Yahoo board. That news was quickly followed by a so-so quarterly report that co-founder Jerry Yang called "promising."

Unfortunately for Yang, few outside of Yahoo shared that sentiment. But for now, the heat appears to be off what has become the web's longest running drama.

As for Microsoft, CEO Steve Ballmer has gotten rid of Kevin Johnson, the executive in charge of the company's online operations. TechCrunch is reporting that Ballmer is looking for a new executive to take down Google.

Privacy fight continues, BT gets better
In the meantime, another drama seems to be heating up. As industry consolidation continues and the total ad dollars pouring into digital increases, lawmakers in Washington are wondering how (or if) they should regulate the space.

While officials at the FTC have been pushing for industry self-regulation, Congress has been mulling the idea of telling Google and Microsoft exactly how they can and cannot use the mountains of personal data they collect.

That discussion is a source of concern for behavioral targeting providers like ValueClick Media, which announced its Precision BT product earlier this week. According to Joshua Koran, VP of targeting and optimization at ValueClick, the company sees its anonymous targeting platform as a selling point to advertisers concerned about the growing privacy debate.

The company is also hoping that its new product will help advertisers hone in on users who will be most receptive to messaging for a particular brand or product at the right time.

In earlier testing, the company reported a 400 percent improvement in clickthroughs and a 209 percent spike in conversions. That could make Predictive BT an increasingly valuable tool at a time when targeting is expected to skyrocket. Targeting veteran Dave Morgan, who founded Tacoda and later sold the firm to AOL, recently predicted that targeting could grow from a $700 million per year industry to a whopping $10 billion by 2012.

Acquisitions
Hardly a week goes by in digital without at least one rumor of an acquisition, and this week was no exception.

Google and Digg once again renewed their long-term courtship. This time, widespread reports had the search giant paying as much as $200 million for Digg. According to Matt Tatham, director of media relations at Hitwise, Digg would rank No. 13 among Google's Top 20 media properties. But one interesting note about the rumored deal is that Google News received six times more traffic than Digg did last month.

This week also saw the usual rumblings from a major advertising holding company. What was unusual was the company is Omnicom, which has stayed away from the mergers and acquisitions frenzy of the past few years.

According to John Wren, president and CEO of Omnicom, the holding company could pick up some digital assets (he declined to identify a specific target) should the slumping U.S. economy bring prices down to his "stark expectations." Given the fact that Digg was once rumored to be going for somewhere in the $300 million neighborhood last year, Wren's bet may not be far off the mark.

Michael Estrin is deputy editor at iMediaConnection.