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:

BoomTown had a lovely lunch yesterday with Jim Lanzone, former CEO of Ask, the little search engine that, well, tries, at least.

Lanzone had been at the company, which is owned by Barry Diller’s InteractiveCorp (IACI), for more than a half-dozen years, before stepping down in January in a management reshuffle at the company that put Match.com CEO Jim Safka at the top of Ask.

At the time, Diller praised Lanzone copiously in a statement, but noted that “these changes are intended to strengthen and streamline the operating structure at IAC, both leading up to our intended spinoffs, and beyond.”

For those not following IAC’s tribulations of late, Diller is currently embroiled in a vitriolic fight over control of the company with one of its biggest shareholders, Liberty Media, and its voluble leader John Malone.

That’s no longer Lanzone’s problem, although he remains a consultant to Ask for a little while longer and is also an entrepreneur-in-residence at Redpoint Ventures. He told BoomTown that he is still trying to figure out what to do next, but wants to remain on the product side of the consumer Internet business.

I like Lanzone a lot, especially given the more innovative and even aggressive efforts Ask has made to gain ground and try to put a dent in Google’s market share in recent years, laudable efforts a larger player like Yahoo might have been trying as hard.

While we despised the high-concept Kato Kaelin ads (see it once again posted below the Lanzone video to see why) Ask used this summer, BoomTown does not blame Lanzone for them–paging Barry Diller! All is forgiven anyway, since they were junked.

In any case, here is a video interview with Lanzone done yesterday, in which we talked about where search was headed:

How’s this for a juicy quote?:

“I am beginning to think these people are insane. … Everything they cite is hogwash.”

That’s what is known as a classic Barry Diller, who can be relied on to come out with a good one when provoked.

In this case, the provocateur is Liberty Media’s John Malone (pictured on the right in this comic with Diller), whose company has headed to court to try to remove Diller from his job as chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

As chronicled by the always deft Jessica Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal today, the fight between the longtime partners is getting uglier still with–oh, let’s just admit it–totally confusing moves and countermoves about the fate of IAC and its subsidiaries.

Liberty has a giant stake in all of these entities and Diller, of course, has control of that stake. A recipe for mogul mud wrestling, if ever there was one.

But the fight is a serious one for a number of high-profile Web companies within IAC, which was being restructured to stop just this kind of fighting between Diller and Malone.

Just how Diller has gone about rejiggering it all, in complicated spin-offs in a way that allegedly undercuts Liberty’s control yet again, is what set the new round of tensions off.

Those sites embroiled in the fighting include: Expedia, TicketMaster, LendingTree and Ask.

As luck would have it, Diller will be interviewed onstage at the sixth edition of D: All Things Digital in late May, so there will be plenty to talk about!

The last time I interviewed him at the Monaco Media Forum last November, Diller let loose too, when he memorably scoffed at the $15 billion valuation for Facebook and Microsoft’s $240 million investment in the hot social network.

“If it was real money, it would be insane, but since it isn’t really, then why bother [worrying about it],” said Diller. “It doesn’t mean anything, it is a phantom, false valuation. Let them sell for $14 billion, $998 million, and then I’ll believe them.”

One of the great things about interviewing Barry Diller, the Hollywood mogul turned Internet impresario (via InterActiveCorp), is that he actually answers questions you ask him.

Here is a sampling of quotes from my one-on-one interview with him onstage at the Monaco Media Forum on Friday morning, taken from the not-so-audible audio of my Flip video camera. But you’ll get the idea of why Diller (pictured here) remains one of the more robust characters out there.

We began talking about the split of IAC into five parts, lopping off unrelated businesses, with the backdrop of a struggle he has been engaged in with Liberty Media’s John Malone.

Why do it? “We were being superficial managers,” said Diller. For example, of the mortgage business around LendingTree, he said: “I have little to no interest and that is not how I want to live my life.”

(Very few execs, I can assure you, will admit to rank corporate boredom about their businesses.)

But Diller was just getting started, taking shots at everything from the “dumb” Hollywood writers’ strike to the insanity of Facebook’s $15 billion valuation, as well as his own corporate shortcomings.

Read more »

OK, I am definitely not Princess Grace-worthy (well, who is? But here’s a picture of her, because it just makes life more pleasant).

But I am headed right now to her glam neck of the woods for the Monaco Media Forum, which is set to take place from tomorrow through Saturday in Monte-Carlo.

Hosted by HSH Prince Albert II, its subhead this year is “Leadership for the Digital Revolution,” and the group gathered is pretty heady and packed with American Webheads, as well as from around the globe. It has all been wrangled by Wired’s Spencer Reiss.

Speakers include Google’s ad guy Tim Armstrong, RealNetworks’ CEO Rob Glaser, CBS interactive guru Quincy Smith, pundit Esther Dyson, Babelgum Chairman Silvio Scaglia, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, NetVibes CEO Tariq Krim and News Corp.’s British Sky Broadcasting CEO James Murdoch (whose father is BoomTown’s new bossman).

I will be doing a one-on-one interview Friday morning with InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller with the title “Reality Check.”

Videos to come, of course, as BoomTown gets some European class.

Oh, how much do we love when moguls clash?

Much, much, much.

Yesterday, the battle between InterActiveCorp’s Barry Diller and John Malone of Liberty Media (pictured here in cartoon form) got much more interesting.

As luck would have it, I will be interviewing Diller onstage at the Monaco Media Forum in Monte-Carlo this week–yes, it’s as glamorous as it sounds–so now there will be lots more to talk to him about at the digital gathering.

Read more »

Don’t miss this most excellent article by Jessica E. Vascellaro in The Wall Street Journal this past weekend about the mogul-tussle–an Olympic sport!–between IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Barry Diller and John Malone of Liberty Media (both pictured here).

It’s called: “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” And what are they fighting over? Control, of course, and big piles of money related to IAC (see revenue chart below)!

It’s always nice when two extravagantly colorful business icons take off the gloves so extravagantly in public and don’t shrink from controversy.

In the piece, the normally quippy Diller comes off almost calm, though, compared to the particularly obstreperous Malone, who is clearly trying to spur Diller into doing something rash by ranting in public.

My advice: Keep a lid on it, Barry!

In any case, some choice quotes from Malone:

“There was a time when there was, I think, a 20% Barry premium. Today you could argue there is a Barry discount.”

“The hook is set. It is our company. Barry ain’t going to be able to spit the hook.”

“Barry doesn’t use his balance sheet effectively. He is not a financial guy.”

“There is not quite as much love for Barry on average [at Liberty]. [Liberty CEO] Greg [Maffei] has made it clear that he isn’t as enchanted with Barry as I am.”

“It is a little uncomfortable for Barry. Right now we are the shadow that walks around behind him.”

Now, in living color, the entire historic joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of Apple.

D: All Things Digital, the annual tech and media conference Walt Mossberg and I host, has been sold out with a long wait list every year we have put it on.

That has meant only a few hundred people can see the interviews we do live onstage with some of the tech and media industry’s most interesting and important players.

That has included Gates and Jobs, as well as Eric Schmidt of Google, IAC’s Barry Diller, Meg Whitman of eBay, Cisco’s John Chambers and many others.

We usually post the photos and videos of the interviews six or more months after they take place on a separate conference site. This year, our Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski liveblogged D5 and also posted video highlights from all of the sessions immediately on our newly launched site here.

Now, today, we are posting videos of every session of the 2007 conference here, in full, and we have made all our photo galleries, hosted by SmugMug and mostly shot by our fabulous Asa Mathat, public too. You can also access our videos via the site’s master player here.

We’ve done this early with our popular interview with Gates and Jobs for download on iTunes (where it is among the most popular video podcasts ever for download), as well Walt’s solo interview with Jobs and Schmidt on this site.

Now, everyday, I am going to highlight a different interview from the conference. And, today, I obviously must kick off with the interview that attracted the most attention: our joint discussion with Gates and Jobs.

There is not much to say about it that has not been said. It’s 83 minutes. It’s historic. It’s funny. It is visionary (and not the cat fight expected between the longtime rivals). It’s surprisingly poignant in parts.

Here you are:

For those who missed it in “The Sopranos” frenzy (and stop arguing now–it was a good ending), CBS’s “60 Minutes” did a pretty warm and fuzzy profile of media and Internet mogul Barry Diller on Sunday.

He comes off charming and smooth, expertly batting away all suggestions by interviewer Lesley Stahl that he is tough to work for, or too imperious, or paid too much, or that his various Internet companies under the InterActiveCorp banner are too disparate.

“Have you ever heard your meetings described as making people crawl over barbed wire?” Stahl asks in the CBS report.

“Oh, please. For some people I think it is that, but look, it is absolutely process,” Diller parries, using “oh, please” as the best verbal cudgel ever.

CBS does not give out its code to embed this video, but you can watch it here and read about it here.

Calling the Internet Diller’s “third act,” even though he has been onstage in the digital space for some time now, it’s still a nice synopsis of a lot of things Diller has said onstage at two past D conferences (D1 and D3). IAC owns five dozen sites, such as Ask.com, Ticketmaster, Citysearch, Evite, Match.com and LendingTree, and it recently bought CollegeHumor.com.

(He is also developing a personal finance site for young people with Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

While there is a lot of old stuff in the interview, the most interesting material centers on what Diller has been saying a lot of late: That content will rule with the eventual rise of online hits. Diller, a longtime Hollywood player, knows from content.

And he has repeatedly told me that he likes the idea of cheaper production and vast and inexpensive distribution (and without gatekeepers like he used to be) the Web promises.

“We’re going to invest probably hundreds of millions of dollars in this over the next years,” Diller told Stahl.