All Things Digital

Earlier this week, BoomTown posted our speaker list for the sixth edition of D: All Things Digital, which will take place in a few weeks–May 27 to 29, to be exact–in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my partner Walt Mossberg and me.

D6 tech and media speakers include: Microsoft Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT); News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX); Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

Just recently, we added Jerry Yang, CEO and co-founder of Yahoo (YHOO), and now he is being joined onstage at the conference by Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here in a lovely Wall Street Journal dot-drawing).

The pairing should make for a lively session, given all the heat around Yahoo of late, largely related to the scuttled attempt by Microsoft to buy the company.

What would you like to know about that and anything else about Yahoo?

As it so happens, you can ask!

While the conference is sold out, you can submit questions that you would like answered to Yang and Decker or any of the speakers via text or video. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose.

Ask early and often here!

In addition, the whole conference will be online at AllThingsD during the conference, via live blogs and reports of breaking news (and there will be breaking news, as there always is), along with video highlights.

And videos of all the interviews will be posted soon after it is over.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT). News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX). Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang.

All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time, or we’d need a professional negotiator–at the 6th D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my amazing partner Walt Mossberg and me (see us here at D5) and will take place May 27 to 29.

The conference, as we describe it on our Web site, is “unlike any other executive conference.” What we mean by that is that we try to determine the next direction of the digital revolution via unscripted and informal, but pointed, conversations about the impact of digital technology with industry leaders.

In other words, Walt and I needling at the major players of the digital sector, until they give up the good stuff.

The other digital and media leaders coming? That would be: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

To say our timing is impeccably planned would be undeserved–we had no idea so much news related to all these companies and their leaders would break out, from the tough economy to takeover battles to court face-offs to mergers to trying to create a whole new way of reading.

Also, there will be some–as yet under wraps–amazing demos onstage too.

While the analog conference has been sold out for many months, the action will be on the AllThingsD.com site throughout the conference with round-the-clock live blogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, as well as video highlights from stage.

In addition, we’ll be pointing all over the Web to important tech and media news that breaks at D6.

And we will also stream the entire conference in the weeks after the conference takes place, so ATD’s audience can experience the whole thing, even if they cannot all attend.

But anyone’s questions can be there, though–this year, you can submit questions to any of the speakers via text or video that you would like answered. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose. Ask early and often here!

Walt and I are very excited for D6, even after last year, when we brought together industry legends Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, for an historic joint interview.

At the time, Walt and I joked that we would not be able to top that amazing event (the video of the entire interview is below).

That interview was nearly unbeatable, but we also think that with the top-level interviewees we have assembled for D6, that it is game on.

Until then, here’s the Gates/Jobs video from D5:

Oh, Max!

I just got through telling someone who asked me that I thought you, Slide founder Max Levchin, was one of the smarter Web 2.0 characters.

Then, of course, you get to be on the cover of Portfolio magazine for its “Brilliant” issue this month. Apparently, Max, you are Silicon Valley’s new “It” Boy.

But for all your apparently massive amount of brain cells, which should be on display at your keynote today at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, how can you be so dumb as to stumble into that same old rabbit hole as so many other Internet hotshots?

Yes, Max: The goofy photo.

In your case, you look good in the coat-and-tie get-up. But please tell me why, oh, why are you balancing a giant lightbulb on the top of your head, as seen here?

It just ain’t dignified!

(Levchin revealed to me via email last night that he actually balanced the monster bulb on his head–but I remain unimpressed.)

Still, you can be comforted to know, though, that you join a legion of other legendarily goony tech figures in the continued march of egregiously wacky pictures.

Such as:

Microsoft’s Bill Gates and his prom date, a PC:

That lovely couple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, and those irksome colorful exercise balls (not that there is anything wrong with that):

Digg’s Kevin Rose channels Wayne’s World:

Former Netscaper Marc Andreessen as Le Dauphin of France:

And, my personal choice for goofy-de-tutti-goofball photos–Amazon’s Jeff Bezos with his noggin in a box:

While in Los Angeles, BoomTown visited the offices of Hulu, the online video service that has been an unexpected bright spot for two Hollywood behemoths--NBC Universal (GE) and News Corp. (NWS) (owner of this site)--who launched the premium online video service as a joint venture last year.

Helmed by former Amazon exec Jason Kilar, not much was expected of Hulu, given that traditional entertainment companies have been slower than slow in embracing the digitization of their businesses.

But, armed with the clout of its partners, along with $100 million in private equity from Providence Equity Partners, as I wrote back in late October, Hulu has been a pretty decent effort and has gained surprising traction, both in its distributed content and also on its site.

Yet despite its clean look, easy-to-use tools, relative openness and also addition of more and more premium content, it will still be a long slog for Hulu, as it tries to make a big business out of all of it and battle the increasing power of bigger sites like Google’s YouTube.

Nonetheless, so far, so good. And, so we visited its HQ in Santa Monica, Calif., with our No. 1 son, Louie Swisher (Hulu’s true audience) in tow to see how the service is put together and meet some of its employees.

Thus, this fine video, in which Louie does a very good dance interpretation of the service at the start–although what else would a mother say?

(Also, here is a longer interview with Kilar about Hulu and its future.)

So, as readers of this blog know by now, I can get a little obsessed with certain digital companies or topics, sort of like a geek version of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.”

Except, the werewolves BoomTown has been trying futilely to kill come in the form of juvenile widgets!

Over the last year, of course, I have been majoring in the foibles of Facebook and the tribulations of Yahoo, with a minor in studies of Internet video and online content creation in Hollywood.

While I have posted on a huge host of topics, companies and from all over the world, the drilling down has been a good thing in that the column has broken a lot of stories on our area of expertise and also has developed less idiotic analysis over time.

And don’t get me wrong–I love the relentlessness that blogging provides. Let’s be clear: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Jerry Yang of Yahoo remain on my most wanted list.

But it is time to widen the circle and add new Web companies to stalk to our repertoire and I welcome reader input.

So, here is a list of some digital companies I am thinking of zeroing in on next:

1. Amazon: For the love of Kindle, Jeff Bezos sure knows how to hold on and keep on trucking. In a previous life, BoomTown covered retail for seven years (that is a lot of time being forced to contemplate Wal-Mart) and even covered Bezos when he was just starting out.

2. eBay: A kissing cousin to Amazon, the development of commerce on the Web has not been properly scrutinized and it will be interesting to see how this company fares in its post-Meg Whitman phase.

3. HP: While it seems a tad dull, I like the idea of looking closer at this important tech company as it moves further into the digitization of all its businesses.

4. Microsoft: Need we ask? Between its wacky investment in Facebook to thwart Google to its full-scale attack on Yahoo to thwart Google to its nonstop efforts to thwart Google, something must have gotten in the water supply up in Redmond. Seriously, it is easy to portray the software giant as incompetent when it comes to Web issues, but we like its recent chutzpah.

5. Hollywood: Disney, CBS, Viacom, News Corp., Time Warner and the rest of those old-media outfits have always been a focus here, but as convergence ratchets up, it is important for techies to really be up to speed on what they are up to.

6. Apple: We can’t let that friggin’ Fake Steve Jobs get all the funny lines, can we? No, we cannot.

7. AOL: After two books, you might think I would be colossally bored with the perpetually stumbling icon. Not so! Until it vanishes, a la Netscape soon enough, I shall probably be compelled to follow it to the ends of the earth.

As to topics, here’s what I think is interesting going forward: multi-touch technology becoming more widespread; data portability (and not because of Scoble!); privacy related to social advertising; genomic and body hacking; and the opening up of the mobile experience.

As always, I welcome any and all suggestions. Except, of course, if it’s another werewolf widget.

Since BoomTown did an obsessive countdown after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang last year unwisely promised a 100-day, top-to-bottom look at the company, with “no sacred cows” spared (as it turned out, they all were), I decided that–after the month-mark had passed since Microsoft (MSFT) made its unsolicited bid for Yahoo (YHOO)–it was time for a count-up!

Thus, Day 32 (we’re counting from Friday, Feb. 1, when the offer was made public)!

And, frankly, with the added Leap Day this year to add to Yahoo’s agony, this battle is getting about as exciting as Yang’s 100-day slog–with nothing really page-turning on the horizon since Yahoo’s board kicked Microsoft’s $31-per-share offer to the curb several weeks ago.

Now, of course, Microsoft is returning the favor by loudly prepping a proxy fight and trotting out Silicon Valley companies like TellMe to report that a Microsoft takeover is just hunky-dory.

“We are pretty much doing everything we were doing before–just a lot more of it,” said TellMe head Mike McCue to the Associated Press, with the cheeriness of someone with acute Stockholm syndrome and $800 million in Microsoft money.

And if happy, shiny, Windows-cash-gorged tech people don’t impress, according to several sources close to Microsoft, perhaps a little fear factor will work better.

Said these sources, there will be “three to four big-name CEOs” on its list of new board members that Microsoft must nominate in the next two weeks for its slate of directors to replace Yahoo’s current board.

BoomTown recently reported that the software giant was sniffing around for prospects in Silicon Valley.

But, sorry to say, I still cannot figure out what CEOs these are, despite a lot of effort to find out.

So, I started trying to figure it out myself, focusing on tech and Web execs, who are the obvious choices.

Nonetheless, after going over a long list of possible execs, none of the ones I considered seems likely to turn on Yahoo.

Intel? No, CEO Paul Otellini is on the board of Google.

eBay? No, that’s too big a move for the new CEO John Donahoe.

Sun? No, after Scott McNealy’s funny diatribes against Microsoft for so long, CEO Jonathan Schwartz simply cannot.

Dell? No, CEO and Founder Michael Dell has his hands full.

Amazon? CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos is sassy and lives up near Microsoft, but it would be a real slap at another Web icon like Yang.

WPP Group’s Sir Martin Sorrell? Well, to include an ad biggie would be a good move and Sorrell likes to make pointed remarks about Google, but not that sharp.

Frankly, other than non-tech companies, of which there are probably many choices who owe Microsoft in some way, I am officially out of guesses.

Well, of course, except for one Web 2.0 CEO, who has a big name and is in great–and I mean, great–debt to Microsoft.

In fact, $240 million worth of IOUs. In other words, Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg.

It would be ironic (Yahoo tried to buy Facebook a little more than a year ago), it would be poetic (only in Silicon Valley does the young eat its old) and it would be really fun to watch the fireworks (Facebook is no friend of Google’s).

Most of all, Zuckerberg on the board of Microsoft’s Yahoo would be Steve Ballmer’s ultimate SuperPoke at Yahoo.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Yesterday, a source told me that Flixster, the fast-growing social network for movie lovers, was back in talks to be bought by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp.

Those IAC-Flixster rumors flew about a month ago and were entirely true.

But no deal, it seems. IAC has apparently found the price too high, according to other sources. But, said these sources, others are still in the game.

So if an acquisition deal does happen, two intelligent guesses to the possible winner for the company with 39.5 million user home pages, more than 1 billion user-generated movie ratings and a sassy motto of “Stop Watching Bad Movies”?

Blockbuster or News Corp.

(Sources said Viacom’s MTV unit gave Flixster a look too, but also thought the price too high.)

Read more »

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I co-hosted our annual holiday gadget fest for the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.

Now in its fifth year, it was called “Making a List: The Fifth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” and took place in Palo Alto, Calif. Our guest were Marissa Mayer of Google and tech consultant Greg Harper.

Walt and I typically show off several devices we think are interesting and try to identify some important trends.

Here’s a video of Walt, Greg and Marissa at the event:

(I still am having problems with the Brightcove player, so I uploaded the video to YouTube.)

Read more »

Below is a video interview with Amazon’s majordomo Jeff Bezos conducted by The Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Trachtenberg about the new $400 Kindle wireless electronic-book reader that the online retailer unveiled last week.

So far the reviews have been less than whelming–too clunky, too pricey, too wonky, to name a few of the complaints–but it’s interesting that tech types keep at their seemingly futile effort to replace the very useful device known as the book.

At D4, for example, Sony head Howard Stringer (pictured below) declared its $350 eReader was going to be a big hit. It was not. (Well, to be fair, he did not give an exact timetable on the success of the gadget, but we’re still waiting.)

So far, the meek little book still seems to be the winner over all e-book challengers.

Why is that, given the relentless digitization of every bit of content on the planet and the inevitable march in that direction?

I’d say it’s pretty simple. Books work fine–they are portable, cheap, easy to read, their batteries never die and they’re kind of pretty.

The pluses of an electronic version of a book are not so much of a plus. It’s portable, but not more so than a book. It’s expensive. It’s complex to figure out and sometimes not so easy to read. Its batteries always die. Also, let’s be honest: Not so pretty.

And, though you can hold more books on them–the big selling point–who usually is reading more than one or two books at a time? The same is true for searchability–unless it is a textbook, I can’t think of a time when I really wanted to search a book.

Still, the efforts to storm the castle of reading continues, as you will see here:

As a Thanksgiving special, an extra cartoon this week from the cartoon dudette and dude–Nitrozac and Snaggy–over at Geek Culture’s Joy of Tech, whose work will be appearing more regularly on this site, since we all could use a good laugh.

Today, they make kindling out of Amazon’s new electronic book-reading device!

Click on the image to make it bigger:

Summer is officially over, kids, so back to school (including my own son Louie–pictured below as a sword-fighting Mexican wrestler and astronaut–who starts kindergarten this morning!).

And no more Burning Man, either (we completely ignored the annual techie Valhalla in this blog, because it evoked a very dusty and peyote feeling that we just have never felt the need to learn about close up and personal)!

In other words, time to get serious about the business at hand!

Namely, cranking the volume up to 11 on our ongoing efforts to figure out a few choice things about several different Internet companies.

Much as the television networks tout their crappy fall slate, here’s my September lineup:

1. Yahoo–natch! Could we possibly give up on this ongoing dramedy, when we are almost at the midway point of CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang’s 100-day Vision Quest to turn around the troubled Web icon? I think not! Like that new let’s-just-dispense-with-subtlety series on ABC called “Dirty Sexy Money,” it has everything: Money! Power! Sex! (Ok, not so much sex.) But: Money! Power! Search!

Tomorrow is officially Day 50 for Yang, and we’re going to spend the week asking smart people what they’d do to fix Yahoo.

Also, of course, we have requested interviews with everyone from Hilary Schneider to Sue Decker to Yang, and, curiously, the phone is not ringing with calls.

Nonetheless, we will not rest in our efforts to bring Yahoo to you–Garlinghouse! Ismail! Horowitz! Fake! Bhat! Boerries! Those not-Lloyd guys down in Santa Monica!

2. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Also Mark Zuckerberg, unavoidable, of course. And those other guys there, whose names escape you because only Zuckerberg says cheese for the magazine covers. Will they IPO or will they sell or will they stand pat? Kind of like “Deal or No Deal,” but without the suspense.

They will. One of those choices. Or not.

3. Hey, what about MySpace? Aren’t they No. 1? By far? I am itching to try to figure out what’s going on down there in Beverly Hills, what with all the attention and momentum Facebook seems to have of late.

So how is MySpace really faring? And what are its prospects for growth? What are its weaknesses (the chatter in the Valley, the Silicon one, is increasing technology challenges as it grows ever larger)? Is owner Rupert Murdoch angling to unload it? Or perhaps double-down with a play for Facebook, too? (I know, stupid, as it’s too costly now even for the master dealmaker.)

Television comparison: The return of “Grey’s Anatomy”–has it jumped the shark with that left-at-the-altar trick? Much in the same way, with its concerts and new offerings, can the hits keep on coming from MySpace?

4. AOL reminds me a little bit of “Desperate Housewives”–I stopped watching long ago, but I still really hope Felicity Huffman is doing OK (not so much Teri Hatcher).

I guess it was the two books I wrote on the online pioneer that hooked me, but I am truly interested in seeing what will happen to the service as it continues to stumble on.

Will CEO Randy Falco’s online entertainment plans work? (No, but they should!) Will AOL’s ad business take off? (No, but it should!). Will its cool side companies like Truveo and Userplane get the attention they deserve? (No, but they should, too!) Will it ever be spun off from the suffocating arms of its parent Time Warner? (You know the answer by now!)

5. Google. Microsoft. It’s going to be like a war between the 2007 one (Michelle Ryan) and the 1997 “Bionic Woman” (Lindsay Wagner). We don’t need to elaborate further, except to say pull up a chair and enjoy the show, as some cyborgs are going to really be kicking some you-know-what. And it’s going to be pretty!

6. Let’s not leave out the oldies like eBay, Amazon (Jeff, don’t think I have forgotten you!) and IAC, as well as newcomers like Joost, Hulu and the plethora of other interesting new companies now on the scene (with more to come).

With topics like copyright, privacy, innovation, growth and the continued Hollywood-Silicon Valley tussling, it’ll be a great time, as usual, to be watching the digital arena.

And even NBC Universal and Apple’s fighting over price, which now means I will not get to watch “Heroes” on my iPhone, will not deter me.

Although I beg and plead with the thickheaded pair: Save the cheerleader! Save the world! Save my $1.99 an episode!

So yesterday in a very short post, I said the $1 billion valuation that NBC Universal and News Corp. were reportedly putting on its online video joint venture was, shall we say, premature.

Here’s why: No users, no track record and no revelations about what it is actually going to look like. Also no firm launch date either, it now seems.

And did I mention no name?

Well, at least as of yesterday, the No-no-no-no-no company had a new CEO–former Amazon executive Jason Kilar (right).

The 36-year-old left the online retailer last year, after almost a decade at the Seattle-based company. While there, he had a lot of different jobs, including heading up Amazon’s foray into the video and DVD businesses. Before Amazon, he worked for a short time at Walt Disney.

He’ll need all the digital and Hollywood mojo he has to get this project flying, I suspect, given that it is an attempt to get two traditional media companies–neither of which is exactly a shrinking violet–to cooperate to try to catch up in the race to distribute video on the Web.

While No-Name is often called a YouTube-killer (and good luck with that, given that the powerhouse MySpace can hardly keep up), that’s not really its aim nor should it be.

The company is probably more like Joost, except without the closed-system approach that effort is using, to find the best ways to put their professional television and film content across the Internet. As I understand it, there will be no new original or user-generated content at first.

As one smart online exec with knowledge of the venture told me, it is much more about compiling a distribution network rather than creating a destination site, which is a good idea, because there are very few of those that succeed.

Since few big Hollywood companies want to rely on YouTube and its owner Google to get their fare out there and reap the ad dollars hoped, it is imperative that they find as many ways as possible to make their content available digitally.

According to News Corp.’s COO Peter Chernin and NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker, the project has 30 employees in new offices in Santa Monica, Calif., and a dozen charter advertisers.

Some possibly worrisome news: It might or might not launch in September, as some had suggested.

“We’ll launch when we’re prepared to launch with a world-class product,” said Chernin on a conference call yesterday.

At least, he didn’t say no.

Please see this disclosure related to me and YouTube (which is owned by Google).

The merger fever in the Internet might feel like it is 1999, but, let’s be honest, we are a whole lot older and wiser than before.

OK, maybe not, judging from the mini-frenzy that resulted from wispy whiffs of rumors that online DVD renting and downloading service Netflix was in talks to be acquired by online retail giant Amazon. Netflix’s stock popped, of course, on the idea that the company–worth about $1.6 billion–could fetch more than $2 billion in an Amazon bid.

If it were to happen, that is (which my sources said is premature). More to the point, it is part of an endless cycle about what will eventually happen to the sassy Netflix, which can’t possibly survive alone, although it has so far, mostly besting competitors and even making a tidy profit.

But in this buy-or-be-sold mindset, the practice run of such an offer was nicely deconstructed by a most excellent report by Dana Cimilluca of the The Wall Street Journal’s online Deal Journal.

Amazon might make a decent buyer for Netflix (it certainly has had trouble competing with it) and its stock has been up by double in the last year (market cap: $30 billion), giving it a stronger currency to make purchases. On the other hand, Netflix’s stock is down over investors’ concern about increased competition and lackluster recent results.

But one vampire of a merger rumor just won’t die–the sale of social-networking site Facebook–even with a million stakes through its heart, such as my post here. This week, we’re back to Yahoo coming around again to look over the suddenly-hotter-than-ever company and upping the ante to closer to $2 billion.

Hey, rumormongers out there, listen up: This is just not going to happen, as Facebook has just launched a new and possibly promising initiative to broaden its scope by bringing in third-party developers to offer widgets and services to its 22 million users.

So, let me reiterate when you hear this one again–Just say no.