Here’s the new trailer for the upcoming videogame-to-live-action Disney fantasy adventure movie, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”
It still looks an awful lot like a videogame and is chock full of special effects–but the adaptation also seems to feature much in the way of shirtlessness and mascara-wearing on the part of star Jake Gyllenhaal.
Uh-oh, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was expected to appear on the Internet giant’s third-quarter earnings call, but she apparently “came down with something,” according to CFO Tim Morse.
BoomTown is sending over chicken soup right now, but let’s hope she gets her vaccinations tout de suite!
Thus, no sassy quotes or cursing, but a very earnest Morse, who sounded like he was once a Boy Scout.
For the past few months, the Huffington Post has been on a bit of a tear–both in terms of traffic gains and in its hiring of some big talent for key positions.
Now, those execs are focusing on using that consumer momentum to achieve what has eluded the Huffington Post thus far: Making some serious bank from the privately held news and media site.
Here’s a chat I had with new President and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman about how he is aiming to do just that.
For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”
Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.
Yahoo introduced its new $100 million marketing and branding campaign in New York today with “It’s Y!ou” as the new motto, making use of the Internet giant’s famous exclamation point and aimed at its customers.
Sure, it’s clever and all, but All Things Digital has come up with a much better advertising idea focused on Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, a sassy and ofttimes salty exec whose pugnacious utterances have become legend quickly.
Oh, BoomTown fears this is not going to end well for the weensy little smart phone Palm is debuting today on–what an amazing coincidence!–the very same day Apple is throwing its big product bash in San Francisco, at which Mac fanboys fervently hope that Supreme Leader Steve Jobs might even appear.
You don’t step on Superman of Silicon Valley’s cape, of course, but the device with the aggressively cute name of Pixi is apparently attempting just that.
Thus, this fairytale might have a not-so-happy ending.
Longtime Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.
As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending, although it seems more frantic than ever of late.
In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference, and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”
Oh, dear; now my mom is going to be really pissed at me for not making her a Twitter sensation.
Unlike Justin Halpern–who has been tweeting wacky quips uttered by his dad without him knowing much about it, under the handle: @s—mydadsays.
And, lo and behold, with only 28 tweets, the cranky 73-year-old has attracted almost 250,000 followers.
My brother and I did the same for my mom this summer, but obviously have to step up our game pronto.
Eve Ensler, playwright, activist and creator of V-Day, appeared at the the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May to talk about the links between what goes into making mobile phones and human rights violations.
There, she shed much needed light on the dire situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where some of the worst atrocities are now being committed on the population in a terrible civil war.
She predicted it would get worse without massive international intervention.
Tragically, she was right.
Yesterday–in a somewhat rambling and also riveting blog post about charging for content–serial entrepreneur and perennial gadfly Mark Cuban made a very important point that execs at every large media company should take to heart as they try to cope with the digital challenge.
Use your noggins, why dontcha?
He also threw out some very good ideas for doing so.
Like grandmother, like grandson.
Yesterday, I told my No. 1 son, Louie, that Twitter was down, after a denial-of-service attack.
He was–shall we say–not very sympathetic, as you will see in the video following the jump.
Interestingly, Louie’s response was similar to my mother’s, who mocked the microblogging service at a gas station on the way to my interview with its founders at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.
As it turns out, though, data actually back them up.
(Plus, see their videos too.)
BoomTown is wearing all-black today, in profound mourning for the prospect of no Paula Abdul on “American Idol” next season.
“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return,” tweeted Abdul yesterday, bidding goodbye, natch, on Twitter.
Here is a cool video look at her and co-judge Simon Cowell and one of her appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference. (I kid you not!)
One of the reasons Wall Street investors have gone sour on Yahoo’s stock since its online advertising and search partnership was struck with Microsoft was a comment that CEO Carol Bartz made at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May.
In an onstage interview with me, I asked Bartz about what it would take to do a deal.
She answered quite emphatically that “if there’s boatloads of money, and there’s the right technology and there’s the right information we’d have, sure.”
Here’s the video of that, as well details about how the deal talks went bad at D7 too.
BoomTown was so glad we had this time together with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, just to have a laugh or sing a song about a major search and advertising deal.
I liveblogged the conference call, which I updated as it happened.
Did Ballmer scream and jump up and down? Did Carol say something naughty?
Read on!
According to several sources close to the situation–under the terms of a pending large-scale deal, in which Yahoo would sell search advertising for its sites and some of Microsoft’s, while Microsoft search technology would power it–Yahoo would get to keep pretty much all the revenue and more for the next three years.
Sources said that in the first two years of the partnership, which is expected to be announced tomorrow, Yahoo would keep 110 percent of all revenue. And, in the third, Yahoo would get 90 percent.
That could represent many billions of dollars, since Yahoo will be selling for both companies.
For Microsoft, the payment will–within four years–allow the company to become the de facto No. 2 search technology player after Google.
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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