Home /
valleywag.com rss archive / August-27-2007
Burning Man: No geeks yet
BLACK ROCK CITY -- No power-geek sightings to report, unless you count yours truly, blogging faithfully from Center Camp in Black Rock City, where the Burning Man sense of community has extended far enough to enable a pretty kickin' Wi-Fi signal. We're all checked in and assimilated into our home base. The tent has been staked deep into the fragile playa surface with rebar, and blown away. The tent has been staked down again, this time with longer rebar, and blown away. The tent has been tied to the van, staked down with longer rebar and filled with gallons of water. So far it has not yet made another bid for freedom. The weather is a balmy 82 degrees with cooling gusts of wind and intermittent lung-choking dust clouds. I am presently sitting in Media Mecca, where happy hour is in full swing. This is how Burning Man's overseers control their image, by plying reporters with Internet connectivity and alcohol. Most of the time, at least. We just had our first Internet outage of...
Burning Man: LiveJournal founder does it in the desert
BLACK ROCK CITY -- Rumors that the bigwigs of geekery are headed here en masse are rife in the fanciful world of Internet rumor -- but proof is spotty on the playa-dust ground. The strongest contender for Big Geek on Campus so far is Brad Fitzpatrick, formerly of Six Apart fame, and now at Google. This tidbit actually transcends rumor, as Fitzpatrick, the founder of LiveJournal, has posted his future playa address on his own LiveJournal blog. If he's a very clever boy, he will discover the Wi-Fi-fu that makes updating his LJ from the desert possible, but in the meantime, we are having daydreams of drunkenly invading his camp when he gets here and demanding that he friend us. (Photo by Brad Fitzpatrick)
: No Geeks Yet.
Black Rock City - Unless you count yours truly, blogging faithfully from Center Camp, where the Burning Man sense of community has extended far enough to enable a pretty kickin' wifi signal. We're all checked in and assimilated into our home base. The tent has been staked down with rebar, and blown away. The tent has been staked down again, this time with longer rebar, and blown away. The tent has been tied to the van, staked down with longer rebar and filled with gallons of water. So far it has not yet made its bid for freedom. The weather is a balmy 82 degrees with cooling gusts of wind and intermittent lung-choking dust clouds. I am presently sitting in Media Mecca, where happy hour is in full swing. We just had our first internet outage of the week, kids. There was swearing. Mark your scorecards accordingly. More as it makes itself apparent.
: Ljers do it in the desert.
Black Rock City - Rumors that Big Geeks are headed here en masse are rife in the fanciful world of internet rumor. The strongest contender so far is Brad Fitzpatrick, formerly of Six Apart fame, and now of Google. This tidbit actually trandscends rumor, as it's straight from the horses' mouth. Brad posted his playa address on his LJ. If he's a very clever boy he will discover the wifi-fu that makes updating his LJ from the desert possible, but in the meantime we are having daydreams of drunkenly invading his camp when he gets here, demanding that he friend us.
I Hate It Here: Nine ways the Internet is truly boring
The Internet is boring. Even the most interested/interesting man I know, artist and dandy Jonathan Grubb, is bored with it in eight ways. (Granted, he's also super-excited; the man equivocates like he's running for president.) Grubb's insidery analysis speaks to those embedded in the dot-com industry, but here's a wider view of why the Internet is boring, starting with the pinnacle of mediocrity called LOLCats.1. LOLCats"Those ladies who work at the reception desk in your office, they might be sharing these lolcats with their friends." -- David McRaney, Wall Street JournalThis:Equals:2. Prom Queen"Five girls will be nominated for Prom Queen, but only one of them will win. And on Prom Night, something terrible will happen." That's the plot of the would-be successor to LonelyGirl15, the indie series that launched with very little backing under guise of nonfiction, achieving an impressive stature as the first mainstream web-based narrative series. Prom Queen, hailed by some of...
To Do: An upcoming conference, TieCon Southwest, ...
An upcoming conference, TieCon Southwest, promises attendees that they'll hear from Sean Parker, the "cofounder of Facebook." One small problem with that agenda item: Parker's not a founder. [Marketwire]
: Black Rock City: No Geeks Yet
Unless you count yours truly, blogging faithfully from Center Camp, where the Burning Man sense of community has extended far enough to enable a pretty kickin' wifi signal. We're all checked in and assimilated into our home base. The tent has been staked down with rebar, and blown away. The tent has been staked down again, this time with longer rebar, and blown away. The tent has been tied to the van, staked down with longer rebar and filled with gallons of water. So far it has not yet made its bid for freedom. The weather is a balmy 82 degrees with cooling gusts of wind and intermittent lung-choking dust clouds. I am presently sitting in Media Mecca, where happy hour is in full swing. We just had our first internet outage of the week, kids. There was swearing. Mark your scorecards accordingly. More as it makes itself apparent.
Exits: Jeremiah Owyang strategizes his way out of PodTech
Self-described "Web strategist" Jeremiah Owyang, the director of corporate media strategy at beleaguered video site PodTech announced on his blog that he is leaving the troubled startup to become an analyst at Forrester Research. At last, a real company. Congratulations, Jeremiah! So, who's next to escape from PodTech? Should we start the countdown to job-seeking value-adding videoblogger Robert Scoble's departure?
Quotable: "For me, search ands ads are almost the same." ...
"For me, search ands ads are almost the same." -- Google executive Marissa Mayer, 2007. "We expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers." -- Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, 1998 [News.com]
Self-referential: Valleywag now optimized for "webcam sex" search
Readers, you amaze us. And fascinate us. And very occasionally, disappoint us. Our corporate overlords, who are all afroth about search engine optimization these days, sent us a list of the top search terms people use to find posts on Valleywag. Photobucket, whose sale to MySpace we broke exclusively, ranks highly, as does Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Fake Steve Jobs. But "webcam sex"? "Lick it"? "Hot Asians"? Really, people. Behave yourselves. The full list, after the jump."Top search queries" are terms people search on, ranked by popularity; "top search query clicks" ranks the terms by the frequency with which people click on them:Top search queries Average top position 1. photobucket 9 2. facebook 10 3. webcam sex 6 4. linked in 9 5. fake steve jobs 5 6. skyblog 7 7. lick it 5 8. red envelope 9 9. photbucket 410. lucky magazine 411. rotten com 812. soft...
Silicon Valley Users Guide: How to play the pedophile card
Phillip Eide, a k a Xavier von Erch, the controversial figure behind Perverted-Justice.com, the website which gave rise to Dateline NBC's popular "To Catch a Predator" series, has to be one of the internet's most unassailable trolls. As we pointed out last fall, it's difficult to criticize Perverted-Justice's tactics without coming across as defending pedophiles, which no sane person wants to be accused of. Especially when the accusations are delivered in an immature name-calling method, as tech news blog Techdirt found out over the weekend.Techdirt reported on Perverted-Justice's decision to name and shame Wikipedia as a "Corporate Sex Offender" for allowing suspected pedophiles to serve as editors of the user-created encyclopedia. Perverted-Justice decided to redirect all inbound traffic from the online encyclopedia to a page detailing all of Wikipedia's supposed transgressions. The result of Techdirt's post? Comments 62-79 consist of the words "TECH DIRT IS FULL OF FILTHY...
Robert Scoble: Mahalo, Techmeme, and Facebook will not "kick Google's butt"
Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft evangelist and die-hard PodTech videoblogger, has ended his brief departure from the Web. Clearly he thinks he's "adding value" with his bold theory that "Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google's butt in four years." You won't be able to read his theory, of course, since he has, tiresomely, recorded it on video. But you can see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his voice, and watch him pull out the whiteboard and three, count 'em: three, colored markers! In truth, he's just revealing what he has always been: a confused evangelist who doesn't understand the underlying technology, doesn't have his facts straight, and can't keep his story consistent. But, boy, is he enthusiastic about it! Why? I think he's lobbying for his next job.Scoble's "theory" is that Facebook, a social network; Techmeme, a very small tech news aggregator; and Mahalo, the umpteenth attempt to organize the Web with human editors rather than robotic "crawlers...
Burning Man: Greetings from the middle of nowhere
BLACK ROCK CITY -- Ladies and gentlemen, Valleywag is live and on the scene at Burning Man 2007. Through the miracle of modern technology your intrepid girl reporter is blogging this from the middle of the desert, approximately 77 miles from everywhere, risking life, limb, and laptop to bring you the freshest in technohippie gossip from the alkali-dust floor of the prehistoric Lake Lahontan. It promises to be an event of thrills, chills and special magnificence, campers, so hang on to your hats, grab your dust masks, and get your hipster-hippie baiting sneers ready, because we have a whole week of this and we are dragging you all down with us into the playa-dust mud.This, friends, is Burning Man in a nutshell: part experiment in creative community, part test of endurance, part excuse to go out to the desert and do lots and lots of drugs.This year's theme is Green Man -- "raising awareness" about the "environment" and the "impact" that "participants" have on the landscape,...
Housekeeping: Welcome to Burning Man. Now go wild.
We at Valleywag have made clear our feelings towards Burners, the attendees of Burning Man, a weeklong arts festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert that's getting underway now: We think they're dirty, environment-hating hypocrites who are marginally employable at best. The main business implication of the event? That you're never, ever, ever going to get any software project finished in Silicon Valley during the last week of August. So why would we send a reporter to the event? Three words: geeks gone wild. The bacchanalia alone makes it worthwhile to dispatch a correspondent to Black Rock City. When we pitched our reporter, Simone Davalos, on the project, she wrote back worrying that her posts wouldn't fit on Valleywag:I am just worried they will not be as tech-centered as the usual Valleywag entries, since it's probably difficult to discuss mergers and acquisitions when you're on mushrooms and there's a brace of naked blue-painted chicks riding a pink fluffy bicycle sliding...
Party Report: Second Life's Masquerade
So, did you attend the 800-person strong Second Life Community Convention in Chicago this weekend? No? Neither did we, but CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy (no relation) braved the hot air and hype at Chicago's Hilton hotel to bring a first-person account of the Second Life gathering. She also took some lovely pictures at the conference's Masquerade Ball. Prominent Second Life advertisers like Cisco and IBM might want to take a look at the gallery -- seeing the players in real life, as opposed to avatar form, might help them to better tailor their "islands" -- Second Life creator Linden Lab's word for private areas in Second Life -- to potential customers. For instance, American Apparel might want to create a sweatshop-free ball gag for this guy and IBM might try marketing a furry-friendly keyboard for customers with larger than average paws. Photos by Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com
Blogging For Dollars: Who says you can't buy fame?
Are you a blogger for hire? Looking to con your way onto talk shows? Perhaps marginally raise your advertising rates? Well for a measly $15, you can give your career a much-needed jumpstart with Bloggings Most Wanted. In a scheme riffing (or ripping) off the Million Dollar Homepage, which sold 1 million pixels at $1 a piece, Bloggings Most Wanted offers up a 40-by-40-pixel square for ever $15 you spend. For your hard-earned money, your advert may not even be legible. The site has formatting issues, at least for Firefox users. Scrolling over the ad for the blog Day Job Nuker pops up a box with the brief description "I hate my job and am going to NUKE IT! If you hate your like I do then come watch me NUKE MY DAY JOB!" Unfortunately half of this riveting sentence is barely readable because the box is too small to contain the text.Bloggings Most Wanted is the brainchild of Ryan Shamus, who "is just a kick-ass guy who is trying to blast his blog in to the highest realms of the blogospher...
: Greetings From the Middle of Nowhere
Ladies and gentlemen, Valleywag is live and on the scene at Burning Man 2007. Through the miracle of modern technology your intrepid girl reporter is blogging this from the middle of the desert, approximately 77 miles from everywhere, risking life, limb, and laptop to bring you the freshest in techno-hippie gossip from the alkali-dust floor of the prehistoric Lake Lahontan. It promises to be an event of thrills, chills and special magnificence, campers, so hang on to your hats, grab your dust masks, and get your hipster-hippie baiting sneers ready because we have a whole week of this and we are dragging you all down with us.This, friends is Burning Man in a nutshell: part experiment in creative community, part test of endurance, part excuse to go out to the desert and do lots and lots of drugs.This year's theme is Green Man - "raising awareness" about the "environment" and the "impact" that "participants" have on the landscape, both on the "playa" and off. If you take the...
Exclusive: RockYou's secret rate card for Facebook apps
Those who can't do, teach. And those who teach, when it comes to Facebook, are charging handsomely for the privilege. RockYou, a maker of Web "widgets," those Web pages in miniature that clutter up blogs and MySpace pages, has not, apparently, figured out how to make money directly off of the Facebook apps they've created like Super Wall and Zombies. The Sequoia Capital-backed startup has, however, figured out how to make money from Facebook app developers. How? By charging them to sign up users by advertising their apps on RockYou's Facebook apps. The fee? Half a buck per user. It sounds like the perfect Ponzi scheme: As long as venture capitalists and clueless big companies are overpaying for startups based on the number of Facebook users they've signed up, it should work brilliantly. After the jump, slides from RockYou's pitch to fellow application creators."It's all you!" RockYou proclaims. Unless, that is, you're a Facebook app developer too inept to figure out how to...
Politics: Why is an ad calling Sue Decker racist?
On San Jose's cable system this weekend, a commercial in the style of political attack ads has been running suggesting that Yahoo president Sue Decker is a racist. The charge is ridiculous, of course. The claim is being put forward by Consumers for Responsible Government, a political action committee. In its ad, the PAC tries to link Decker, an Intel board member, to an objectionable ad Intel ran showing black sprinters bowing before a white manager. The PAC's real agenda in smearing Decker?Trying to stop a California ballot measure that would make filing class-action lawsuits harder. What that has to do with Decker, or Intel's ill-thought-out ad, escapes me. But it's telling that tactics from political campaigns are now entering the realm of business -- and smearing one of Silicon Valley's highest-profile executives in the process.
Rumormonger: Steve Chen, millionaire laptop "borrower"?
YouTube founder Steve Chen worked, briefly, at hot social network Facebook, after cofounding YouTube but before the video site took off. His short tenure there made, nevertheless, a lasting impression on the staff. "Steve Chen is notorious for never turning in his laptop," one Facebooker remarked when the YouTube founder's name came up in conversation. Chen, according to Facebook office gossip, never returned his Facebook-issued computer after leaving the company, despite requests for its return. A Google spokesman disputed, saying that Chen did return the laptop, and that Facebook CEO "Mark Zuckerberg is aware of it." Asked when the computer was returned, the Google spokesperson replied, "I assume when he left the company." And what do they say about assuming?Our source explains that Chen worked at Facebook because he needed to pull down a steady paycheck while he was creating YouTube. (We've all been there, Steve.) We're still waiting for a Facebook spokesperson to confirm...
Online Video: NBC's fall season gets slutty on the Web
Broadcast network NBC has inked promotional deals with almost every major Internet player to distribute the pilot episodes for its new fall lineup. Almost, that is, because it appears to be shunning Google's YouTube online-video site, as well as the News Corp.-owned MySpace. According to The Hollywood Reporter, episodes of new shows "Chuck," "Life," and "Journeyman" will be available for download on Amazon beginning September 10. If you'd prefer to download using Apple's iTunes software, sign up for the Apple Students group on social network Facebook. Members of that group get a one-week headstart on downloading the pilots. Prefer to stream your entertainment? Beginning in mid-September, you can catch "Life" on AOL, "Journeyman" on MSN, and "Chuck" on Yahoo. But it's the omissions that are really interesting.First, there's Google. Why leave out the huge YouTube audience? Because, one presumes, NBC is growing wary of Google's power over online video. Odder still, though, is...
Hypocrisy: Spam is evil unless Jason Calacanis sends it
Jason Calacanis, the blowhard blogger, has called spammers and SEOs "slime buckets," "snake oil salesman," and "low-class idiots." He has now joined them, however. Calacanis has been flooding inboxes with unsolicited spam advertising his company's Mahalo Follow software, a browser extension. And here we thought Mahalo was supposed to combat spam, not produce it. Reports are coming in across the Web that people who have never used Mahalo nor requested information about Mahalo are receiving spam from Calacanis. "Apparently 'Mahalo' is Hawaiian for 'douchebag,'" says one irate spam recipient. If you've received the message, do what a responsible Internet citizen like Jason Calacanis would do: report the abusive spam and delete it.
Media: The relentless return of micropayments
Charging for content generates disdain, or worse, disinterest among Web users. When so much news and entertainment is freely available, the idea of getting charged for any of it seems like nothing more than corporate greed. But advertising-hating journalists, who dream of getting paid directly by readers, keep bringing up the idea. Dan Mitchell writes in his latest column that Internet users are slowly being conditioned to accept micropayments. The most noticeable example is our willingness to purchase songs off iTunes for 99 cents a pop. The argument is that we're willing to pay for things that we view as valuable -- mainly music and videos, not, alas, the written word. So much for the dreams of ink-stained wretches.Despite this, saavy content providers should be able to find content that users do value. The comedy site Something Awful charges $10 -- not for its videos, but to register on its forums. Since its community is, for reasons that escape us, viewed as a valuable resource,...
Digital Music: AllofMP3 rises from the grave to haunt record labels
You've got to applaud those wily Russians behind music download site AllofMP3. They're clearly not afraid to spit in the faces of American copyright lawyers. Shut down by the Russian government so the country could enter the World Trade Organization, AllofMP3 has reportedly continued under the new name MP3sparks.com. But now that the site's owner Denis Kvasov was ruled not guilty of copyright infringement in Russian courts, AllofMP3 is getting ballsy. The site has reopened, and although no downloads are yet available, it's promising to be back in operation soon.
Deathwatch: Bon voyage, Vonage!
The internet phone provider Vonage is hanging on for dear life, somehow fending off a Titanic-like doom. Hauled into court by Verizon, Vonage was found guilty of patent infringements. Although fined $58 million penalty and forced to abandon any infringing technology, the VOIP Internet-telephone service provider overturned a ruling that would have barred it from conducting business altogether. Not that it's conducting business in a particularly admirable manner. It's currently in the midst of another lawsuit accusing the company of stealing and soliciting the customer base of the now defunct Internet phone service SunRocket, after negotiations to purchase SunRocket's subscriber base and other assets fell apart. And now Vonage is hoping to attract new customers by rolling out a copycat version of the iPhone's helpful "visual voicemail" feature, which displays voicemails in a list rather than forcing subscribers to dial into a voicemail box. Vonage's version supposedly does Apple...
Online Advertising: News Corp. may allow users to sell goods ...
News Corp. may allow users to sell goods and advertise their websites on MySpace, reports The Los Angeles Times. It explains that users have already found ways to work around the current ban on peddling wares, so MySpace might as well find a way to make money off any resulting commerce. [The Los Angeles Times]
Blogfight: Mark Cuban vs. Fred Wilson, a classic blog battle
Is the Internet boring? Well, generally speaking, duh. Except, of course, when blogging luminaries get into a scrap over whether it is. Billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban started things a month ago when, in an offhand sentence, he declared the Internet "dead as a growth platform" because of a stagnation in the speed of home broadband connections. He reiterated his comments to Portfolio.com, and then repeated them on his blog. Say something often enough, and people start to notice. People like Web 2.0 venture capitalist Fred Wilson. A classic blogfight -- observing the three rules of the genre -- ensued.First, a recap of Cuban's actual argument -- what people actually said being one of those nuances that's lost in a blogfight:We have reached a point of diminishing returns with today's internet. The speed of broadband to your home won't increase much more in the next five years than it has in the last five years. That is not enough to work as a platform...
Larry Sonsini: A federal judge is "unlikely to dismiss" ...
A federal judge is "unlikely to dismiss" a shareholder-filed suit against the board of directors of Brocade Communications, including high-powered lawyer and Silicon Valley demigod Larry Sonsini, over it's alleged tolerance of backdating stock options. [San Jose Mercury News]
Dear Jason Calacanis: Stop inviting everyone at Gawker Media to ...
Stop inviting everyone at Gawker Media to download your Mahalo Firefox plugin. [Context goes here]
Breakdowns: The Australian government recently spent ...
The Australian government recently spent about $70 million to distribute Internet filter software so parents could save their children from the evils of online pornography. It took a student 30 minutes to crack the software. [Techdirt]
Online Video: South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt ...
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have opened up SouthParkStudios.com, an "Internet hub" -- what's wrong with just calling it a "website"? -- to promote the show online and combat rampant piracy of the cartoon show on YouTube. It will also host new projects prior to their TV launch. [PaidContent]
Media: Business 2.0 staff faces Fortune-ate fate
There's no official word on the fate of Business 2.0, the Time Inc.-owned magazine where I used to work. The publication, once fated to shut down after its September issue, is still alive, thanks to a hastily granted extension of life support. The staff is working on the October issue, while higher-ups consider offers to buy the magazine that streamed in after word of its impending demise leaked. But they seem to have resigned themselves to the fate of being absorbed into larger sister publication Fortune, based on this sign: A magazine logo near the entrance has been altered to read "Fortune 2.0."
Venture Capital: Alsop Louie Partners attempts to look hip, fails
Is it just me, or do venture capitalists Stewart Alsop and Gilman Louie of Alsop Louie Partners, pictured here in matching leather jackets, remind anyone else of the leather-suit-buying wannabe rock stars Bret and Jemaine from HBO's "Flight of the Conchords"?
Conflicts Of Interest: ChaCha supporters circle the wagons
Boosterism is a proud middle-American tradition, deftly parodied by Garrison Keillor. But even a fabulist like Keillor would be hard-pressed to come up with townspeople as self-satisfied and uncritical as the boosters of Bloomington, Indiana, who have stood relentlessly behind local search startup ChaCha. Despite the questions Valleywag and others have raised about a deal between ChaCha and Indiana University, whose president, Michael McRobbie, is a former ChaCha board member, the townfolk have stood steadfastly behind their local tech hero. Take, for example, the reaction to a story in the Indiana Herald-Times calling for "agressive disclosure" (subscription required) regarding the deal. The conclusion was similar to ours and seemed obvious -- but not obvious to at least one local booster.The Herald-Times wrote:The lesson here is not that there was anything legally or ethically wrong, at least until such evidence surfaces, which it has not. Rather, it is one of recognition...
Your Privacy Is An Illusion: Google Street View now removes faces, if you ask nicely
Even when you're outdoors and offline, it's impossible to escape Internet-based privacy invasion, thanks to Google Maps' new Street View feature. Google's roving cameras, though meant simply to capture streetscapes for the convenience of direction-seekers, have lensed all kinds of tomfoolery. Although Google has always removed identifiable faces or license plates upon request, if you can substantiate your identity -- a slight catch-22 for the chap apparently caught breaking and entering -- the company now says it will remove any face, license plate, or other personal detail it's notified about, without requiring proof of identity. Still, Google won't be proactively deleting faces, as privacy advocates suggest. It's like YouTube's copyright-infringement policy: if no one notices, it's not a problem.
Online Advertising: Facebook proves its banners have no value worth mentioning
Too cheap to spend $150,000 on a sponsored group? For today's savvy ad buyers, Facebook offers the bargain-basement "Flyer.". A mere $5 buys you 2,500 ads, served up to your network of choice. A sweet deal, unless you're a discerning marketer who demands his $5 worth. To know if their online ad dollars are well spent, most people turn to click-through rates. But Facebook, conveniently, doesn't offer such data to Flyer purchasers. "Unfortunately we can't provide you with a click-through-rate for your Flyer. These rates vary drastically from one Flyer to the next because they depend on the interest that is generated by the ad's content." Um. Isn't that the case with all Internet advertising? Anyways, this strengthens the widely held assumption that Facebook has a smug, Mark-Zuckerberg-knows-best attitude -- and that Facebook's banner ads are ineffective. Except, perhaps, for tarnishing one's brand.
Format Wars: Director Michael Bay changes his tune on HD-DVD
In an effort to prove he's as fickle as he is talented, Transformers director Michael Bay has retracted what he calls a Kool-Aid-fueled denouncement of Paramount's deal to support, exclusively, the HD-DVD format for high-definition movie discs. When Bay first heard the news, he posted, "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For [Paramount] to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!" In what could only have been a fit of rage, he then decreed there would be no Transformers 2. Why the change in tune?Bay later explained that his rant was spurred by a dinner conversation with a few "Blu-ray owners" who were upset over the announcement. He "over reacted [sic]." He then sat down and watched 300 on HD-DVD and declared himself a convert. Good news. He's back on the Paramount bandwagon, spouting something about $200 HD players and that he "liked what he heard." Was it the sound of money? Cause he's reconsidering his rash decision about Transformers 2 as well. Money...
Media: What Yahoo's Jerry Yang is really thinking
AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, tired of playing ambush journalist with her handheld videocamera, tries her hand at pretending to be Dan Lyons, the fabulous Forbes fabulist behind "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs." Sort of. Except here, she's Fake Jerry Yang, a faux version of Yahoo's CEO, not Fake Steve Jobs The best bit comes when Swisher imagines Yang's reaction to Brad Garlinghouse, the controversial Yahoo executive who called for major changes in what's now called "The Peanut Butter Memo."I should just throttle Brad Garlinghouse or, at least, force feed him some of that peanut butter he was so obsessed with in that memo that kicked off this whole mess. Spread too thin, are we? Here's my new response every time I see him strolling around with that I-told-you-all-so grin: You got peanut butter on my company! You got company in my peanut butter!
Your Privacy Is An Illusion: Monster's initial, capricious response to ...
Monster's initial, capricious response to a phishing attack targeted at users of the job site: "In fact, the information that is gathered from Monster is no different than that displayed in a phone book." Two days later, "Monster respects your privacy and understands the risk involved in making your personal information public" as it finally responds to halt the flow of user data and bad PR. [PC World]
YouTube: Mary Meeker makes a math mistake
Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker has been caught in an embarrassingly basic math mistake -- by Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget, a former analyst (who, to be fair, made some mistakes of his own in the last boom). Meeker's estimate of the impact of YouTube's new "overlay" ads? She says they could boost Google's gross revenues by $4.8 billion next year. But her math, Blodget discovered, was off by a factor of a thousand. The error apparently stemmed from forgetting the meaning of CPM, or "cost per thousand," a commonly used term in advertising rate cards. Given Meeker's assumptions, the actual impact of YouTube's ads? A mere $4.8 million in gross revenue, and $720,000 in net revenue. In other words, a drop in the bucket, and nothing that comes close to justifying YouTube's $1.65 billion purchase price.
Patents: Amazon's 1-Click lawyers need their beauty sleep
For an hourly rate (PDF) of $245-$465+ per hour, most people would be champing at the bit to start work at 6 o' clock in the morning. Not the high-powered but sleep-deprived attorneys of Fenwick & West, however. They'redefending Amazon's 1-Click patent, which covers Amazon's vaunted click-and-buy ordering process. Not only are Amazon's San Francisco-based attorneys unwilling to travel to D.C. for a September 13 hearing they requested, they've asked the Patent and Trademark Office to move the hearing time from 9 a.m. Eastern to 1 p.m., lest they be forced to endure what a Fenwick & West partner characterized as the "undue hardship" of being ready at 6 a.m. Pacific Time. Just another way Amazon's making good on CEO Jeff Bezos's pledge of making "less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office."
Superficial: Who's the hunkiest New York Googler?
Tim Armstrong, left, the Google sales chief ridden with conflicts of interest, is drawing unconflicted interest from junior staffers. Apparently the hunky executive is being tracked via Twitter, so ga-ga Googlers can maximize their eyefuls of Armstrong. Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget, whom we hadn't previously thought as a connoisseur of manflesh, also recommends Google's Tom Phillips, right, a cofounder of Spy, as a target for Twitter stalking. So, readers, any other denizens of Google's Chelsea office handsome enough to deserve such excess SMS interest? Leave a comment or send in a tip, and we'll run a poll later.
Careers: Second Life hosted its first interactive ...
Second Life hosted its first interactive job fair, organized by recruiting firm TMP Media, this week. "You get to know a candidate better," says Polly Pearson, a VP at storage-hardware maker EMC. "You see what they chose to wear, you see what they laugh at or what they interact with." This includes dressing as teddy bears and handing out beer. [NPR]
Social Networks: Is AOL trying to get back into the game?
A D.C. metro-area job listing on 37signals:In need of a top notch individual to lead a highly visible development effort. Project is for the office of the CEO for a well-known, large, successful company who is seeking to diversify their efforts and needs you to assist them in building their own Social Networking Site to accomplish that goal.Our best guess is that the company in question is AOL, whose efforts to build social networks around its instant-messenger software appear to be going nowhere. Any other ideas?
Deathwatch: Playboy launches a college-only network
PlayboyU is stealing a page from Facebook -- Facebook circa 2004, that is -- and launching a college-only social network, restricted to people with ".edu" addresses. With help from Ning, it's starting PlayboyU -- but not, sadly enough, delivering the goods in the form of nude coed shots. No matter. The college-only restriction limits the potential audience. And why would college kids, when Facebook and MySpace exist, bother to sign up for this website? The association with a porn brand alone should be enough to scare most students off. One thing Playboy forgot: ".edu" addresses include professors and alumni, who might take an interest in students' extracurricular activities on the site. We're placing the site on immediate deathwatch.
Valleywag Jobs: Today in Valleywag Jobs
Tired of your boring company? Try Valleywag Jobs: SportsWrap Blogger - beRecruited.com, San Jose, CA (SF Bay Area, nationwide, wfh) Web Designer - Opera Software, San Francisco, CA (Mountain View) Backend Software Engineer - Digital Music Store - A2Z Development, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (financial district) Sr. Java Engineer - NileGuide, San Francisco, CA (SoMa District) Senior Manager of Web Engineering, Community Systems - Netflix, Los Gatos, CA Product Development Lead / Managing Producer - New Interactive, New York, NY...and moreFor only $25 your job could be here! Submit it today.
Media Relations: The blogger-focused BlogWorld tradeshow and ...
The blogger-focused BlogWorld tradeshow and expo in Las Vegas is only giving press passes to "accredited members of the professional media" -- not to the bloggers trying to usurp them. [Reuters]
Yahoo: Toby Coppel builds a Canadian empire
Yahoo has decided to lump the hosers in with the Eurotrash, adding Canada to the Yahoo Europe team now headed by exec Toby Coppel. Why? Ostensibly because "Canada's multicultural diversity parallels Europe; and Canadian sites operate in English and French," Coppel claims in an inadvertently hilarious memo sent to all European and Canadian employees. The real reason, we suspect: Feeling his position threatened after career patron Terry Semel stepped down as Yahoo's CEO, and having been unceremoniously booted off Yahoo's "Management Team" page, Coppel is now begging for scraps of authority. Full memo after the jump.From: Toby R. Coppel [mailto:toby@yahoo-inc.com]Sent: 23 August 2007 05:29To: Ruth Sarfaty; Dan Foehner; Mark Rabe; Charles Thomas; Jim L'Heureux; Damian De Rosaire; Tim Mihok; Maria Marshall; Chris Karl; Beth Lawrence; Vish Makhijani; Vince Broady; Tapan Bhat; Scott Moore; Ira L Kurgan; Eckart Walther; Brad Garlinghouse; Rollanda Harris; Jeff Weiner; David Windley;...
Great Moments In Pr: Business 2.0 decision coming next week, or not
Folio reports that Time Inc., the parent company of Business 2.0, will be making a decision on the fate of the magazine next week, according to a source. The article, however, then quotes a Time Inc. spokesperson saying that the company "absolutely will not" be making a decision next week. The spokesperson in question is, of course, fibbing flack Danielle Perissi, so take her statement with a very large grain of salt. Heck, store it away in a Morton's warehouse.
Rumormonger: Has Craig Newmark quit Craigslist?
A fascinating tidbit buried in a story about Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin's allegations of child prostitution on Craigslist: Susan MacTavish Best, Craigslist spokeswoman and girlfriend of CEO Jim Buckmaster, claims that Craig Newmark "is no longer is involved in the company's daily affairs," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And indeed, Newmark, the company's founder, though he was listed on the Craigslist management page a week ago, no longer appears there. Newmark has certainly made enough money, thanks to a 2004 stock purchase by eBay, to retire on. And his "team bio," still online, notes that he's "embarrassed" that the site is named after him. But for the geeks who still idolize him, the idea of a Craigslist without Craig would be hard to bear. Update: We heard from Newmark. His comments, after the jump.In a couple of conversations on phone and Facebook, Newmark said he was still working at the company as a "customer service representative." He had no explanatio...
Virtual Worlds: IBM marketers seem to be buying into the ...
IBM marketers seem to be buying into the Second Life marketing slogan, "Engage." It's now staffing its virtual business center 24 hours a day during the working week. One hopes they're using cheap offshore labor, as we really don't want to meet people willing to work a graveyard shift in Second Life. [Virtual Worlds News]
DVR: TiVo's turf becomes the latest Sony-Microsoft battleground
Sony's recent announcement that its PlayStation 3 console will soon act as a digital video recorder in Europe is little surprise to anyone following the industry. It's long been believed that the PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 could act as DVRs. The real question is how this move will affect a soon-to-be crowded DVR marketplace. TiVo, the best-known DVR brand, has struggled financially as cable and satellite distributors released their own recorders. Although its future may be a bit brighter thanks to a recent licensing deal with Comcast and the potential of a renewed DirecTV contract, there's more competition for TiVo than ever -- and from the unlikeliest of places.Services like iTunes, working with the Apple TV set-top box, and Xbox 360's Marketplace, offer a limited but growing library of TV shows and movies. Netflix, the DVD rent-by-mail service, is hiring hardware engineers. Amazon, currently a TiVo partner, is rumored to be working on a media-playing device of its own. And...
Blogging For Dollars: The Internet Society of China forced blog ...
The Internet Society of China forced blog service providers like Yahoo and MSN to sign a "self-disciplinary pact," says Reporters Without Borders. The pact requires blog hosts to "censor content and identify bloggers." Alas, it does not require bloggers to "add value." [Boing Boing]
Dossier: PodTech's future may lie in new CEO's past
PodTech may finally have rid itself of founder John Furrier's so-called leadership. But how will new CEO James McCormick fare? We've already pointed out that, despite 23 years of experience, he has never been the public face of a company. His past as an operations and finance executive is also littered with repeated failures: disgruntled employees, lawsuits, bad mergers, and other flameouts. McCormick may get by for a time simply by not being Furrier, but the failures linked to him through his resume do not bode well for the troubled videoblogging network.Quiet Solution: Can't hold onto employees and intellectual property. The maker of soundproofing materials couldn't get its employees to keep its solution quiet. Quiet Solution recently filed suit against a competitor, Suppress, founded by a former employee for allegedly taking patents and other staff and along with him.Perfect Commerce: Spiralling to nowhere. In the mundane business of "supplier relationship management," Perfect...
Hires: Will Intuit's new CEO prove a Google guy?
It's odd, sometimes, the contortions reporters will go through to make a story out of nothing -- especially when they miss the real one. Take, for example, this report from IDG News about the planned departure of Intuit CEO Steve Bennett. The subhead of the article: "Intuit chief executive's resignation is not tied to April tax database snafu." The first sentence: "Four months after a database problem prevented thousands of U.S. users from paying their taxes on time, Intuit Inc.'s chief executive announced plans to step down." Obsessed with an embarrassing, expensive, but ultimately meaningless, glitch in Intuit's tax-prep software, IDG misses what's interesting about Bennett stepping down in December to make way for Intuit SVP Brad Smith.Intuit has long had unusually close links with Google. The company's chairman, Bill Campbell, though not credited for it, has long been an important advisor to Google CEO Eric Schmidt and company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And the...
Wireless: Googlephone rumors offshored to India
After persistent rumors of a Googlephone -- Google's supposed answer to Apple's iPhone -- failed to pan out in the U.S., the true Googlephone believers are looking abroad. Rediff, an Indian news and information portal, reports that Google will launch a "Gphone" in India in two weeks. Unlikely, unless, like Valleywag, you believe that Google's strategy is to turn every phone into a Googlephone.
The Red-eye: Richard Branson gets a bit wet over Virgin America
newVideoPlayer("water_fight_gawker.flv", 475, 376);We missed this the first time around: Virgin founder Richard Branson, touting the new San Francisco-based airline Virgin America, drenches Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert with a bottle of water. Whatever it takes, Sir Richard, as long as you keep provoking United and American into suicidal fare wars on the SFO-JFK route.
Quotable: Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote ...
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote a blog post to explain why the server hardware maker has changed its stock ticker from SUNW to JAVA, emphasizing its Java programming language and software suite. Luckily, he left comments enabled on the post, leading to gems like this: "This is a move right out of the Dilbert school of management." [Jonathan's Blog via Fake Steve]
Sponsors: Valleywag-linked sponsors fail to hack site
Security personnel at Valleywag recently detected unusual IP traffic from a machine in New York's SoHo district. We intercepted it and found the following list of sponsors to thank:American ApparelAsk.comBank of AmericaBlackBerryMioPentaxSnagItSprintTiVoToyotaZuneDetailed instructions on how this brazen computer attack went down can be found here: Advertise on Valleywag.
Followup: Fark legal net tightens on Fox-linked hacker
Richard Thompson, a blogger who tracks the Memphis, Tenn. news scene at Mediaverse Memphis, has done a follow-up interview with Drew Curtis, the founder of Fark.com. Last week, Curtis, left, fingered Darrell Phillips, to his right, a new media manager at News Corp.-owned TV station WHBQ Fox13, as an all-but-certain suspect behind attempts to hack into the site. He based his accusation on an all-but-conclusive trail of electronic evidence. Thompson, at first skeptical of the accusation, seems to be giving it more credence, as Curtis confirmed that Fark has plans underway to seek legal action. After the jump, the latest revelations.Thompson: What's the possibility that Fark could be wrong? And if that happens, what can be done to redress Phillips' damaged reputation?Curtis: Our chances of being wrong are close to nil. Even with the information we currently have we're standing at 99.9%. Our data indicates that only one individual was using the dphillips Fark account for the entire...
Virtual Worlds: "There will soon be more avatars than humans, ...
"There will soon be more avatars than humans, at least in the industrialized world," writes The Guardian's Victor Keegan, riffing off Gartner Research's proclamation that 80 percent of active internet users will participate in virtual worlds by 2011. Keegan's bet is that Google Earth will become the next virtual meeting ground. [The Guardian]
Crime: A man who pleaded guilty to illegally downloading ...
A man who pleaded guilty to illegally downloading a copy of Star Wars: Episode III is being forced to use Windows as his operating system as a condition of his probation. Now that's cruel and unusual punishment. [VNUnet]
Media: The New York Times proves its digital knowhow ...
The New York Times proves its digital knowhow with the public launch of MyTimes. Web users haven't enjoyed this kind of newsfeed personalization since, oh, say, Excite.com in 1998. [Techdirt]
Hype: The social-networks phenomenon is influencing ...
The social-networks phenomenon is influencing the most unlikely candidates. Nielsen, the company behind TV ratings and other media data, is working on a network called HeyNielsen that will measure product "buzz." [PaidContent]
Zooomr: Photo site shares NSFW images
I've always wondered what kind of people use Zooomr, the also-ran photo-sharing site run by underaged and reportedly credit-deprived developer Kris Tate. Apparently, people who feel they've got something to share with the rest of the world. Something very personal, and something they're attached to. Intimately. Recent visitors to the site's "Discover" page were greeted by a collage of images that included some unpleasant and definitely not safe for work contributions. If you're easily shocked, move along now. But if you're curious to see what Tate apparently considers acceptable on his "No Limits Photo Sharing" site, click through to the jump. (Photo of Kris Tate by geodog)
Virtual Economies: Regulating Second Life
The recent run on Second Life's Ginko bank, one of the virtual world's financial institutions, has prompted many residents to ponder whether their magical playland might not need some regulations after all. Their fears aren't fueled by lewd acts or incessant griefer attacks. Rather, they're about the one thing that truly matters: money. CFO magazine recently looked into the bank's failure as evidence that some form of outside oversight is needed to guard against fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and incidents like Ginko and the recent theft from the World Stock Exchange. An excellent suggestion. But the article fails to deliver on its promise.CFO fails to actually answer the question it poses, which is how to regulate Second Life. Sure, there are a few comments from Second Life creator Linden Lab; a spokesman says the company has no desire to police Second Life. An SEC spokesman makes some noncommittal remarks. Before concluding that Second Life regulation is up to Linden...
Quotable: On Jessica Mah's Ustream.tv live chat, PodTech ...
On Jessica Mah's Ustream.tv live chat, PodTech spokesblogger Robert Scoble breaks his recent vow of silence to observe, "Yeah. Well, it's a tough life to write everyday. Eventually you end up demonstrating you're human and looking stupid." Proving the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. [Ustream.tv]
Mysteries: Who's behind TheFunded.com? Not Jason Calacanis
Inc. magazine is digging into the mystery of who's running TheFunded.com, a website which lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists. Writer Max Chafkin makes four guesses: Gawker Media publisher and Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton; Digg founder Kevin Rose; Blogger and Twitter founder Evan Williams; and blog blowhard Jason Calacanis. Asked by Chafkin, Calacanis denied being "Ted," the mysterious man behind the site. A curious stance, since until recently, Calacanis was eagerly attempting to take credit for TheFunded.com. Never one for subtlety, he told friends of his plan to leak a rumor to Valleywag that he was behind the site. Alas, no, Jason: You only wish you were clever enough to come up with an idea like TheFunded.com.
Social Networks: Playboy wants coeds to "commune" on the Web
newVideoPlayer("owen_playboy_gawker.flv", 475, 376);In this clip from CNBC, a Playboy executive describes his company's new social network, PlayboyU, as a place where college students can "commune" with each other. Right. If that's what you want to call it. My take? "The bunny's not going to get much of a bang," I told CNBC.
The Future: The mindset of the Class of 2029
Every year, we at Beloit College publish a "mindset list" to identify the worldviews of the year's entering college freshmen. The "class of 2029" refers to students entering college this fall, in 2025. Most of these students are 18, which means they were born in 2007. For them, Anna Nicole Smith, Steve Irwin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Saddam Hussein, and Robin Williams's career have always been dead.No one's ever worn a digital watch."I'm Rick James, bitch" is just something old people say.To relax, they've always turned on the nightly news. The news has always been delivered by comedians.They don't know what a LOLCat is or why it talks that way.They've always been able to use a cell phone on a plane.Tattoos have always been normal.Mr. Rogers has never taken them to the Land of Make-Believe.Good sitcoms have never had laugh tracks.Apple has always been a big deal, as have Google and Facebook.They've never paid for a classified ad.They've never danced to "Numa Numa."Who's Mario?Katie...
Deathwatch: Ziff-Davis stanches cash hemorrhage, bleeds people for a change
More bad news for Ziff-Davis, the storied, and troubled, tech publisher: Two executives in its videogames group have left the company. General manager Ira Becker and editorial director John Davison announced they're departing to start a new venture, thought to be a family-oriented videogame site. Opportune timing considering Ziff's uncertain future. It's also sure to dampen any enthusiasm among potential buyers for the technology publisher's shrinking game portfolio, which have been on the block since late last year. Becker and Davison, you see, were responsible for the website 1UP.com, the only segment of the group that has shown consistent growth. Ziff-Davis has been trying to sell off its magazines (Electronic Gaming Monthly and Games for Windows) as well as 1UP.
Your Privacy Is An Illusion: "Monster.com waited five days to tell its ...
"Monster.com waited five days to tell its users about a security breach that resulted in the theft of confidential information from some 1.3 million job seekers," reports Reuters. It wasn't until after computer security firm Symantec issued a warning that Monster took action. If no one knows about it, it's apparently not a problem. [Boing Boing]
Acquisitions: Acer boss turns the PC business into a knife fight
J.T. Wang, the chairman of Acer, looks like such a nice guy. But appearances are deceiving. The Taiwanese businessman is determined to keep his PC maker from becoming an also-ran. His company just announced plans to buy Gateway, the once-famed PC seller bruised by competition with Dell and Hewlett-Packard, for $710 million. The deal cuts at Chinese archrival Lenovo twice -- first, by vaulting Acer past Lenovo into third place for PC market share. Second, by disrupting Lenovo's plans to buy Packard Bell, a fading PC brand that's still strong in Europe. Gateway, from a past acquisition, got rights of first refusal on any deal to buy Packard Bell -- and Acer now plans to exercise those rights. Let's see -- for a mere $710 million, Wang gets bragging rights, a bigger share of the vital U.S. market, and a way to bloody a rival's nose. Sounds cheap to me.
Confirmed: France's Hi-Media buys Fotolog for $90 million
Our tipster was right that Fotolog, the New York-based photo-sharing site had been sold -- but wrong, alas, about the buyer, and the price. We'd heard of a Latin American buyer paying north of $100 million. Instead, it's Hi-Media, a French Internet concern, paying $90 million in cash and stock -- a rich price for a company with 10 million users but only $2.3 million in revenues projected for this year. Hi-media is publicly traded on the Euronext stock exchange, so its shares are as good as cash. But Fotolog backers 3i and BV Capital say they plan to hang onto their shares and "participate in the development" of the combined company. So now the most interesting question is, who cashed out? We wouldn't be shocked if CEO John Borthwick, above, and founder Scott Heiferman were among those receiving an immediate cash payout. Borthwick has a host of other startup ventures, and Heiferman is the CEO of Meetup.