Just before Monday’s announcement of Terry Semel’s departure from Yahoo daily operations crossed the wire Monday, CNBC’s David Faber posted a speculative piece suggesting that Yahoo would be forced to consider “strategic alternatives.” The wildest among them: according to several of Faber’s sources, News Corp. has studied the possibility of selling MySpace to Yahoo for a “significant stake” in the company—suggesting a MySpace valued at $10 billion would equal 25 percent of Yahoo. (Faber’s the same reporter who broke the story of News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones, moving it from the secret realm into the glaring public light.) Of course, a chunk of any MySpace valuation would come from the $900 million deal with Google that likely would disappear. The solution: Yahoo would outsource search to Google. Faber said a similar idea has come up at TW regarding AOL and Yahoo.

It’s likely that the management changes will park that trial balloon for at least the near future. Still, several news organizations have confirmed Faber’s report; they’ve also confirmed that the approaches/discussions were informal and hadn’t gone anywhere. Then again, stranger things have happened. 

Times of London: The News Corp. newspaper says “other News Corp digital assets, including the games network IGN, bought in 2005 for $650 million, are also thought to have been offered to Yahoo.” A 25 percent stake in Yahoo would be worth $12.5 billion and “would demonstrate a remarkably swift return on News Corp’s investment in MySpace.” (It also would mean the dismantling of News Corp.’s core online strategy but that’s another story.)

NYT: One aspect of the MySpace idea has Yahoo turning search over to Google. “A Yahoo executive who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity said that ceding the search business to Google was not an option being considered now. But that could change, the executive said, adding: ‘The Panama effort is actually really working. The question is whether the slope of the improvement is such that we’ll catch up, or get close enough. My guess is that the executive team is going to give it six or nine months and see if we are there, and if not, they’ll ask the question again.’”