Social networking? What's that?

Is Terry Semel any smarter about digital media now than he was a year ago, when he left Yahoo with his head hung in shame? His new investors had better hope so. The New York Post reports that former Yahoo boss Semel is assembling sovereign-wealth-fund megabucks to bid on Hollywood's IMG talent agency, whose clients include celebrities Elisabeth Hassleback and Tiger Woods.

According to the Post, Semel wants to transform IMG into "a media and content company" and also "bolster its digital operations." But Semel, a former studio boss who ran Yahoo from 2001 to 2007, utterly failed to turn Yahoo into a Hollywood-style media and content company while Google trounced it in the all-important ad sales and profitability departments.

One former high-placed Yahoo executive told Portfolio.com about a meeting of top Yahoo executives last year that exemplified Yahoo under Semel. Semel was asking why Facebook and MySpace had become so popular while Yahoo's attempts at social networking were so lame. A debate broke out about who was in charge of social networking. Execs from Sunnyvale headquarters said the Los Angeles office was in charge; execs from Los Angeles said Sunnyvale was in charge.

Clearly, nobody was in charge. Semel soon resigned after transforming Yahoo from Internet leader into takeover bait.

Message to investors at United Arab Emirates: Be careful with your money.