Posted at 7:00 AM PT 
The plot thickens!
While two official Apple pages tout an ability to use Facebook to find friends on its new social music offering in ITunes called Ping, which would be very useful, the feature is now not available on the service.
CEO Steve Jobs told me that “onerous terms” prevented the integration at Apple launch event yesterday.
Which is why it is odd that Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said in the interview below that I also did at the confab minutes before that “you can use your Facebook contacts to find friends who are also on Ping and hook up to them.”
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 5:30 AM PT
In a surprisingly quick and even stealthy move, AOL has renewed and expanded its search agreement with Google, even though many had expected there to be more competitive bidding throughout the fall to win the deal.
The five-year deal, which is actually the third between the companies since 2002, to provide search technology and search advertising by powering AOL Search is more wide-ranging than the one it replaces.
It also includes improved search products, global search, mobile search and also a video distribution arrangement with YouTube, which could evolve over time to include content partnerships.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 3:05 AM PT
Yesterday, at the Apple music event in San Francisco, I had a short chat with Apple CEO Steve Jobs about its new social music service, called Ping.
Essentially, it is a vertical version–in this case for music–of Facebook.
But, except for Apple borrowing the blue color scheme from the powerful social networking site, Facebook is nowhere on Ping.
So, Jobs explained why.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 12:15 AM PT
Here is a lovely movie from the Apple iPod, iPad, iTumes, TV and, now, Ping event yesterday in San Francisco.
(Yes, this is a photo of me channeling Walt Mossberg in a chat with CEO Steve Jobs in the demo area.)
It includes the you-are-there shots of Jobs onstage, as well as scenes from the media throng and more, as the tech giant unveiled updates, additions and renovations of old stuff and also launched new stuff.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 9:19 PM PT
BoomTown does not plan to get into the endless so-and-so launches an Apple iPad app news cycle, because it is not really news, except to the more breathless fanboy tech bloggers.
But Twitter’s intro of one tonight in the App Store is probably more important than most.
“Twitter for iPad,” said the company, “makes it even easier for people to explore Tweets and discover new content and accounts on Twitter.”
We’ll reserve judgement on that.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 9:16 PM PT
Within the next several weeks, the New Yorker magazine will be publishing big pieces about a pair of digital icons located on the East and West coasts–an assessment of the turnaround at AOL by staff writer Ken Auletta and a profile of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Huffington Post senior contributing editor Jose Antonio Vargas.
So fire up the iPad!
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 6:05 AM PT
BoomTown has never set foot in the dusty dustfest in the desert that is Burning Man, due to the lack of a Four Seasons in the vicinity.
Thank goodness, then, for the live stream of the annual event this week, direct from Black Rock City, which you can see after the jump and also on Burning Man’s Web site.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 1:21 AM PT
Of course, it makes perfect sense for Mark Cuban to appear in a very long and involved cameo as himself on the HBO original comedy series “Entourage.”
Heck, the fun-loving Internet billionaire could easily slip into the pack of young Hollywood dudes on the show and seem part of the gang.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 2:55 PM PT
For a secretive company, Apple sure has had a lot of events, launches and communications with the people in 2010.
Such as tomorrow’s music-focused event in San Francisco, where oodles of announcements around the iPod and iTunes are expected.
In a lot of ways, the company kind of reminds me of Angelina Jolie, the glamorous global celebrity.
Let me explain.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 8:00 AM PT
Today at 8 am PT, Twitter will turn on OAuth for user authentication, which would seem like something only nerds should care about.
In fact, everyone should.
With third-party apps no longer given access to Twitter passwords, in this highly unprotected digital world, the consumer is a little bit more protected.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 5:15 AM PT
Craiglist CEO Jim Buckmaster let one fly yesterday at CNN reporter Amber Lyon for a report on child sex trafficking she did that focused on the role played by the online-classified giant.
It included using a May interview with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark that Buckmaster characterized as an ambush.
He ended by noting that if “[CNN anchor] Anderson Cooper would like to come out to SF and sit with us for an interview worthy of CNN’s viewers, we’ll consider it.”
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 12:53 AM PT
In the interests of political fairness, here is a trailer for a documentary coming out in mid-October that takes aim at President Barack Obama’s economic policies.
Titled “I Want Your Money,” the controversial trailer has already gotten over 1.76 million views on YouTube. (Take that, Michael Moore!)
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 11:48 AM PT
You got your Android in my Bing–no, you got your Bing in my Android.
If you can’t beat them, well, you know….
That’s now the official policy of Microsoft, it seems, as its Bing search engine offers an app for Google Android for Verizon customers.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 9:00 AM PT
Last week, SCVNGR integrated its third-party social geolocation game service into the Facebook Places mega-location offering.
As it turned out, BoomTown was in Beantown–as in Boston–for a lovely wedding, so I took some prenuptial time to visit SCVNGR’s HQ in Cambridge, Mass., to talk to its founder, Seth Priebatsch.
Read the rest of this post »
Posted at 5:15 AM PT
The clips from the 2010 Emmy Awards went up fast and furious all over the Internet last night, almost as soon as the acts were performed live on Sunday evening from Los Angeles.
That especially includes the one from the opening, after the jump, in which MC Jimmy Fallon enlists an odd mix of celebs, some from the cast of the television hit “Glee,” for a take-off on, yes, “Glee.”
While NBC’s online site was not so quick with the clips from the broadcast–although it eventually had many–others were, which is pretty much how these events go now.
Read the rest of this post »
