Where's the honey, honey?

A long anticipated deal, whereby Time Warner folds AOL into Yahoo, is now in the planning stages.

Yahoo's board meets today. Among other topics, members will decide whether the AOL absorption is its most attractive option — and whether it can secure a good price, reports Kara Swisher at All Things Digital.

Swisher adds that the management team, led by CEO Jerry Yang, is "acutely aware" it has only a few months to demonstrate it can jump-start the ailing company. In July, Yang attributed Yahoo's poor earnings to "extraordinary circumstances." Rumor-mongers at the time also claimed he'd be ousted — a fate he's so far managed to avoid.

To stimulate growth in its own coffers, Yahoo recently formed a sponsored search liaison with Google — a move that, instead of appeasing investors, only compelled outsiders to cry foul.

Sources say Time Warner is seeking $10 billion in exchange for AOL, a rate Yahoo is unprepared to pay. The pair will also suffer regulatory and integration issues. A combination of AOL and Yahoo's email and messaging forces alone, for example, would create a new Goliath.

But the deal would yield more experienced executives to Yahoo, which lost a great many this year. What's more, five percent of AOL is owned by Google. Given Yahoo's sponsored search deal with the latter, the triumvirate may effectively weaken what hold Microsoft has in the online ad space.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, Microsoft won't make the Yahoo/AOL deal easy. The company — which spent the first half of 2008 courting Yahoo aggressively — is expected to offer Time Warner "$500 million more than Yahoo's bid" for AOL.

Much has changed since Yahoo turned down Microsoft's takeover offer, which hovered around $30 per share. Yahoo now trades at around $19. At Yahoo's board meeting today, investor Carl Icahn, who joined the board over the summer, will likely try persuading the company to pursue a Microsoft liaison with renewed vigor.