All Things Digital

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:

Starting Monday, we’ll be posting all of the interviews from D5 in their entirety. I will be posting and commenting on each interview here in this blog, but the videos will also reside in our video player.

While we have already posted the joint interview of Microsoft’s Bill Gates-Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as a solo turn by Jobs and also one with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now you can watch lively discussions with film legend George Lucas, YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman and many more, as well as seeing our demos and other special video.

And you had no idea what you were going to watch in the midst of the summer doldrums. Now, let Cisco’s John Chambers liven up your day!

After having just visited WeeWorld in London, an avatar-based site that allows mostly young people to create online personas for social networking and other activities around the Web, it was interesting to see Walt Disney last week forking over up to $700 million to own another popular social-networking site for “tweens” called Club Penguin.

As much as I despise that icky marketing term to signify kids on the cusp of becoming teenagers, to spend that much money to get its hands on that market is an interesting indicator of the desperation of older media companies to latch onto a big trend and also the perplexing development of the social-networking business, where the cart is so far in front of the horse that it’s almost laughable.

I have to give Canadian-based Club Penguin props for building a site in only two years that has attracted 12 million registered users and about 5 million monthly unique visitors–700,000 of whom pay a monthly fee of almost $6 to play in the virtual online space.

But its purchase price is still way high compared to its revenues (especially since no advertising is one of the attractions of this site to parents) and now sticks a large no-discount sticker all over the Web for such sites.

Read more »

BoomTown has long been a big fan of Martha Stewart.

And we like her 25% more now, after seeing the new pictures she took for Wired’s latest issue, as well as a particularly sassy interview she did with the magazine.

The homemaking empress is on the cover of Wired, pictured here making a Wii-shaped cake. It looks delicious, but apparently is not from these recipe instructions that leave out the baking soda for architectural reasons.

And another picture here by Jill Greenberg has her pruning a robot hedge, along with this interview with Mark Frauenfelder on her gadget-freak status.

That’s been easy to see for many years. I ran into her first more than a decade ago at a Microsoft party at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and she has shown up at a variety of Silicon Valley events from time to time.

Read more »

Here is the fourth video about the possibility of launching an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference.

After visiting Dublin Castle and then perusing fancy hotels in the city of Dublin and then strolling the streets, Walt Mossberg and I head out to the Wicklow Mountains to see a bit of the lovely Irish countryside.

It’s the last stop on venue visits for us, to see a different kind of experience that is out of the city in a more rural setting. So we visited the construction site for a new Ritz-Carlton on the Powerscourt Estate, near the adorable village of Enniskerry, about 40 minutes south of Dublin.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship version, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

Here’s the next video:

Here is the third video about the possibility of launching an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference.

After visiting Dublin Castle and then the fancy hotels in the city of Dublin, Walt Mossberg and I take to the streets of the city to check out the scene and also sample the local fare.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship version, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

Here’s the next video:

In our laborious quest to consider sites for an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference, Walt Mossberg and I move from the historic environs of Dublin Castle (our visit there is chronicled here in text and video) to the fancy hotels in the city of Dublin.

So we sucked it up and headed to see the recently renovated and quite historic hotel, the Shelbourne, as well as the Four Seasons, where we are staying. (Our annual flagship D conference has been held for five years at the Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad, Calif., and will be again in late May of 2008.)

Both luxury hotels are obviously lovely, and present different experiences–one more urban and the other slightly out of the city center.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

So, here is our second video of our efforts to decide where to hold EuroD, if we end up doing it.

And, as at Dublin Castle, the venues are much fancier than we are:

So Walt Mossberg and I are here in Dublin, Ireland, and in my last post about our trip, I neglected to explain why:

Our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

We have had a lot of success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled to be held in late May of 2008.)

This past year was particularly memorable, especially because of the joint interview Walt and I did with longtime rivals and tech legends, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of Microsoft (pictured here, but you can see the highlights video of the interview here).

Thus, we are on what you might call a fact-finding mission, to see if we should make the leap and expand our successful conference brand by adding a new conference with a focus outside the United States.

So, here’s a longish video, with others to follow, of our quest (along with D staffers Lia Lorenzano and Jill Pendergast) to decide on where we would hold EuroD.

First up, a visit to the historic Dublin Castle (circa 1204), where we might hold part of the event and where we are woefully outclassed by the tony surroundings:

Read more »

I am headed to Dublin, Ireland, right now to check out the digital scene there with my AllThingsD and D partner, Walt Mossberg, and so posts might come at weird times over the next week, as I am also traveling to London.

Hopefully, I will find a Web connection in my travels there to post really interesting videos I did last week with Business.com’s Jake Winebaum and Polaris VC Mike Hirshland for tomorrow.

May the road rise to meet you!

Here is the entire interview Eric Schmidt did with Walt Mossberg on May 31 at D5 in Carlsbad, Calif. The Google CEO’s appearance is also posted here on YouTube (big surprise!) by Google.

The talk focused a lot on copyright, since Schmidt went on right after my interview with Philippe Dauman (that post has both text and video highlights). The CEO of Viacom, which is now suing Google for $1 billion for copyright violations, was very articulate about his problems with the search giant.

Still, Schmidt conceded no ground on the controversial issue, as you will see. But a lot of other things were discussed, including the future of search and online advertising, Google’s recent acquisition of DoubleClick and the fears over the growing power (and potentially evil behavior) of the Internet giant.

Here’s the video, which is a little over 50 minutes long:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Here is the entire interview Steve Jobs did with Walt Mossberg on May 30 at D5 in Carlsbad, Calif. For those who have not seen the Apple CEO in action, this is a good opportunity.

Among the wide range of topics: the iPhone, of course, and Jobs talked a lot about it; Apple growth since the Intel transition; the iPod; whether Apple should drop Computer from its corporate name, given all its popular noncomputer products; and a major dig at Microsoft, wherein Jobs called the Windows operating system “hell” and Apple’s popular iTunes software on Windows “a glass of ice water.”

There is also a demo of new AppleTV features, including the ability to access YouTube with expected goofy videos such as a human slingshot. Also, Jobs said he reads the Fake Steve Jobs blog, but–surprise–does not write it.

If you want to also read Walt’s recent review of the iPhone, here is the link, a picture gallery and also a more recent text Q&A with Jobs by Walt.

Here’s the video, which is 67 minutes long:

Two years ago at the D5 conference in an interview onstage, I asked Steve Jobs when Apple was going to release a mobile device.

Jobs demurred, as you can see here in a snippet of this longish video of highlights below from the first four D events.

He then famously noted that he was not too good at going through “orifices,” his most perfect word to describe the uncomfortable struggles handset makers had to go through to work with the powerful and vexing cellphone companies (which Walt has dubbed “Soviet ministries”).

Obviously, the Apple CEO found his own way and will be debuting Apple’s effort Friday when the iPhone goes on sale at their stores and at AT&T outlets. You might have heard about it?

In any case, you can read four reviews from top tech reviewers, including our own Walt and also Katie Boehret, here in a roundup in John Paczkowski’s Digital Daily.

There is also a beauty pageant of pictures our Web genius Adam Tow compiled here, as well as a short Q&A with Jobs that Walt did posted in Mossblog.

And, because we like to keep adding to the pile of material, we’ll be posting this week in this column the complete video interview Walt did with Jobs recently at D5. It’s long, more than an hour, of course, but full of information.

Until then, you can see video highlights of the interview posted below, as well as in text here and as a short text excerpt in a recent tab on D5 in The Wall Street Journal.

And, also below, a short movie I did while in sunny Palo Alto yesterday, checking out the crazy scene of anticipation at the Apple store.

Um, there was none.

Today, in the week of the first coming of the iPhone from Apple, John Paczkowski gives us a glimpse of Steve Jobs’s awesome hypnotic power over the cellphone carriers the Apple CEO called “orifices” at our D conference two years ago in John’s Digital Daily video.

That Jobs got AT&T to bend to his enormous will about rate plans and sign-ups was, indeed, a minor miracle.

Here is a direct link to today’s video, which is also below (we’re a full-service linker here at AllThingsD.com).

Here is his text post about it in Paczkowski’s Digital Daily column.

He also posts on the day of silence on Internet radio, a protest against a giant rise in fees for use of content and also Google’s legal jab at Microsoft’s new Vista operating system.

The big question for me is: What will all the iPhonatics do after the much-hyped iPhone from Apple debuts this Friday to continue to feed their state of expectant euphoria?

iPhone 2.0!

But until then, we might as well wallow in it.

So here is a funny report from Engadget about the imagined possibilities for the next cheaper versions of the iPhone. Many are, of course, already speculating on what’s next for the product, even before it hits the stores June 29, and some are saying that Apple is already at work on new ones.

Sounds like another good Saturday Night Live parody in the making, like this one:

The helpful Brian Lam of Gizmodo provides a daily “pill” of iPhone info, so I don’t have to, while MacRumors gives the lowdown on accessories (carrying case, carrying case, carrying case, pricey Bluetooth headset, blah, blah, blah).

Meanwhile, USA Today discusses the girding going on at AT&T stores as they prepare for the onslaught of buyers.

But you can’t miss this long article by John Heilemann in New York magazine, which ran on the cover with this picture and the line: iGod.

I am not so sure of that from the piece, which depicts Jobs as almost decrepit in his recent onstage appearance at the D5 conference, with Heilemann writing, “The senescence on display is jarring…”

That means Jobs-with-a-walker, I think.

I am not sure Heilemann actually attended our conference to see Jobs in action, but he looked pretty good to me up close in both his sessions–one alone with Walt and another with us both and also Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Aside from being kind of busy over the last few years (along with a major illness), you be the judge of Jobs’s dotage in these two videos from D5:

The Wall Street Journal has a special “D: All Things Digital” tab today, with excerpts from several of the interviews that took place onstage a few weeks ago at our fifth conference. I did a video for it, embedded below.

The interviews featured are with famed filmmaker George Lucas, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and a solo interview with Apple legend Steve Jobs.

Here’s the video I did for the tab on the conference, focusing on the strides made by traditional media in dealing with the Web and its impact.

In related D news, our official conference page has now been relocated to this site from its old one, and you can now access it here. You can get all sorts of information, as well as pictures and videos from the first through the fourth D conferences.

We will not be opening registration for D6, which will take place May 27 to 29, 2008, until the fall, although Walt and I are already thinking about next year’s program.

Full pictures and video for D5 will be up on this site soon, first for conference attendees and then for everyone. Until then, check out our highlights of the conference with blogs, video and pictures here.