All Things Digital

If it’s Oct. 1, it must be time for the DonorsChoose.org’s Blogger Challenge 2008!

DonorsChoose.org is a charity that funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors.

Last year, BoomTown did pretty well, raising $12,199 from 52 donors and impacting 1,940 students.

But Tomato Nation’s Sarah Bunting ran away with the overall competition by raising more than $100,000 from almost 1,100 donors, mostly by promising to dress up like a giant tomato.

In the tech arena, venture capitalist Fred Wilson beat me–despite my best efforts, including the use of BoomTown’s progeny as props in shameless videos over the course of the competition–by raising $18,538 from 92 donors.

Both Bunting and Wilson were awarded lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, the prize his company offered to the bloggers who garnered the biggest number of donors.

Since Yang was not talking to me last year, part of Yahoo’s crackerjack cave-dwelling press policy at the time, I tried but failed to capture the coveted lunch, so I could get a little time with the reluctant-to-speak exec.

But we do not give up at AllThingsD: The Yang pursuit lasted all year long. He finally relented in late May, after I cornered him onstage at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference and forced him to promise in front of an audience of more than 600 to have a lovely grilled cheese with me.

Yang’s price? That I donate $500 to DonorsChoose.org.

Thus, a deal was struck and, better yet, we ended up having a lovely dinner at John Bentley’s in Woodside two weeks ago.

Now I am back without an insane obsession, although I have my best begging tools at the ready–now both my kids can talk–and a long list of technology requests in high-need public schools.

You can click here to reach the giving page or use the widget on the lower right side of the ATD homepage or the left side of the main BoomTown page.

Time is of the essence! In the tech blogger space, Wilson is already up to his nefarious VC tricks. Worse still, the very sneaky Robert Scoble has entered the contest too.

I simply cannot get bested by a clown like Scoble, now can I?

(I mean, really, take a long gander at the frequently nude dude pictured here!)

I think I have just found my 2008 inspiration! Game on, naked boy!

Seriously, start giving until it hurts and then give more or I am in danger of being Scobleized.

Until then, here is a special video message from Yang himself, proof that determination and obnoxiousness always prevail:

Over the next week, I will be posting the most popular videos on BoomTown from 2007.

Here’s one of the two videos I did in which I egregiously used my two young sons to try to 1) raise money for underprivileged kids via DonorsChoose.org and 2) get a lunch date with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who is not pleased with BoomTown because of our pointed posts on Yahoo all through 2007.

Sorry, J! But it was for a good cause. The charity funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. (AllThingsD.com picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.)

In fact, you can still give to DonorsChoose.org for 2007 until tonight here.

Here Louie and Alex Swisher make a fervent plea for truth, justice and a nosh with the still-humorless Yang (who should have been on the horn with me as soon as this video went up!):

Big prolonged sigh.

We tried but failed to capture the coveted lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, which was part of the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org.

Major lunchroom snub!

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Can you believe it? DAY 99!

Yes, this is the day before the last full day of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s 100-day No-Sacred-Cows Vision Quest, which BoomTown has been keeping relentless track of, ever since he told investors in the summer that he was undertaking a top-to-bottom look at his troubled company and that all holy bovines had better watch out.

So far though, in terms of truly dramatic change, it’s Cows: 99, Yang: 0.

Sure, Yahoo has done some acquiring, like the $350 million purchase of emailer Zimbra; it has dumped some tiny products (music stuff, for example); there have been more management reorgs and departures (the latest being marketing head Cammie Dunaway, news of which we broke here); and recent third-quarter earnings have been touted as they-weren’t-as-bad-as-we-thought-they-would-be, which does not exactly set one’s hair on fire.

But no massive cuts, no major management upheavals, no drastic shift in business, no game-changing purchases and no being acquired either.

Then again, there’s still one more day to go!

For Yang, it seems, time flies when you’re not having fun.

At a recent gathering related to Yahoo’s Right Media acquisition, he noted: “It is a lonely job in the sense that you have to make some of the tough calls.”

Did he say lonely? Does he not know yet that BoomTown is at the ready to assuage Yang’s ennui and have a lively lunch, if only he would emerge from the cave he has been living in?

Plus, kids could benefit, if you help BoomTown in the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org.

So, click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

The charity funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. (AllThingsD.com picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.)

Besides raising funds for kids who need it, we also hope to win an award Yahoo is sponsoring for the tech blogger who garners the biggest number of donors–a free lunch with Yang!

So far, we’ve raised $12,291 from 49 donors, putting us second behind VC Fred Wilson in the tech sector.

So go now to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here or use the thermometer on the left side of this page to give early and often!

Not convinced by me? Then listen to my persuasive sons, who tout the charity again (here is their last appearance, engineered by their shameless mother).

Here’s the video:

Did I wangle a seat right next to soon-to-be Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch last night at the Web 2.0 Summit dinner?

Of course I did, continuing in the shameless BoomTown tradition of trying to get gratis meals with moguls (like our ongoing efforts to raise money for DonorsChoose.org and get a free lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang).

(Here’s a picture above that I nicked from Valleywag, as they called me “abrasive” in their post and said I was carrying water for News Corp.-owned MySpace with my incessant questions about rival Facebook’s business model and insane valuation. To the first, I say that’s like a commercial sander calling Comet abrasive and, to the second, I obviously now have to start slapping MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe’s handsome face around to maintain my scratchy cred.)

In any case, the News Corp. chairman and CEO could Web 2.0 it up with the rest of the geeks, as it turned out, and managed to touch on topics ranging from the Facebook valuation to the state of the media industry to the need for even more digitization across the landscape.

If you want to see Murdoch in action, here’s some snippets of his onstage interview, along with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe with conference co-host John Battelle. It’s a little hard to hear, but worth the watch.

He talks about such topics as his love of Silicon Valley, the future of MySpace (owned by News Corp.), the renewal of DeWolfe’s contract, Google, Facebook, his hope for the New York Times (Would he like to kill it? “That’d be nice,” he answered.), the “half-dead” CNBC (the main competitor of his new Fox Business channel) and, of course, his plans for his newest shiny toy, The Wall Street Journal (more culture!).

I asked him, no surprise, about the $15 billion Facebook valuation, which prompted Murdoch to say News Corp. was drastically undervalued. That’s cheeky!

Thanks also to the other Web 2.0 Co-Host Tim O’Reilly for asking Murdoch when he was going to fire BoomTown! Job security? Nope! Rupe’s answer: “There’s still time!” (Hopefully, after he shivs the Times and CNBC.)

Here the video:

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang emerged from his hibernation den over at Yahoo yesterday and didn’t see his shadow.

So do better-than-expected revenues mean spring is on the way for the struggling Web giant? We’ll see, but it means we might see a lot more of the shy-of-late Yang, who accepted a big keynote slot at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

On the first day of the gadgetfest, held every January and run by the Consumer Electronics Association, Yang will appear in a prime slot on Monday, Jan. 7, at 11 a.m., at the Las Vegas Hilton Theater.

Said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA: “As content and technology continue to intertwine and create new ways to connect consumers with information and each other, we look forward to hearing [Jerry] Yang’s views on the evolution of Internet technology and its impact on consumer technology products.”

So does BoomTown, who will be front and center at the show to see Yang, trying to get the attention of our favorite Web CEO. (Zuckerberg’s not even close!)

It would be nicer still to have lunch with him, of course, and we would if you give early and often to our efforts to raise money for DonorsChoose.org.

So go now and click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here or use the thermometer on the left side of this page to give early and often!

Why click here?

Because it is well and good to help help BoomTown in the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors.

(AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.)

Besides raising funds for kids who need it, we also hope to win an award Yahoo is sponsoring for the tech blogger who garners the biggest number of donors–a free lunch with Yang.

It’s either that or I will have to rush the stage at CES!

So, remember to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

OK, we’re going to cut to the chase.

Give here to DonorsChoose.org.

We’re now at $12,056 with 44 donors and solidly in the No. 2 slot, with VC Fred Wilson still king of our little tech charity mountain.

Let’s knock him off!

So go now and click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here or use the thermometer on the left side of this page to give early and often!

Why click here?

Because it is well and good to help help BoomTown in the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors.

(AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.)

Besides raising funds for kids who need it, we also hope to win an award Yahoo is sponsoring for the tech blogger who garners the biggest number of donors–a free lunch with CEO Jerry Yang, who remains as grumpy as ever toward his old pal at BoomTown.

Soften him up with love, sweet love and give now!

So, remember to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

Yesterday, we conscripted blogger Arianna Huffington to plead for donations for DonorsChoose.org.

We’re now at $10,228 with 38 donors and solidly in the No. 2 slot, with VC Fred Wilson holding onto the top rung with a freakish Kung-Fu grip.

Thus, we must double our efforts! So go now and click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here or use the thermometer on the left side of this page to give early and often!

Today, I made a video showing you the future possibilities for the kids you could help, if you help BoomTown in the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org.

The charity funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. (AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.)

Besides raising funds for kids who need it, we also hope to win an award Yahoo is sponsoring for the tech blogger who garners the biggest number of donors–a free lunch with CEO Jerry Yang! I’ll have the caviar course, please!

So, remember to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

And here’s the video:

Yesterday, we slapped around VC Fred Wilson in our ongoing efforts to overtake him in our increasingly annoying journey to extract donors and dollars from geeks for a charity called DonorsChoose.org.

It’s working! We’re now hovering near $10,000 with 35 donors and solidly in the No. 2 slot, although Wilson does march on like Sherman to the sea with $16,566 and 61 donors.

So go now and to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here or use the thermometer on the left side of this page to give early and often!

We are nearing the halfway point of the October Tech Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Besides raising funds for kids who need it, we also hope to win an award Yahoo is sponsoring for the tech blogger who garners the biggest number of donors–a free lunch with CEO Jerry Yang! And it must be ours!

Thus, it’s time for a Web celebrity endorsement! So, here’s Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, which recently got into a little bit of controversy when one of its top execs said they’d never pay their bloggers!

Well, I didn’t pay her either and absolutely did not hand her her lines at all–except, well, all of them.

Although New York Times poobah Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who was passing by when I was making the video at Google’s Zeitgeist event yesterday, did jokingly chastise me for telling her what to say, it was actually the whole point of egregious fund-raising tactics. (But thanks, Arthur, for keeping me honest!)

So, remember to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

And here’s the video:

Yesterday, I used my two adorable children starring in a video in what is clearly a bald-faced attempt to wrench donors and dollars from the dear readers of BoomTown for a charity called DonorsChoose.org.

How easily you are moved, as it turns out, and good thing!

Yesterday, the Swisher boys’ charm managed to more than double the donations to $7,344, making us No. 2 in a tech blogger fund-raising challenge for the month of October on the site. We also almost doubled our number of donors to 29.

To recap: Last week, I wrote about October Tech Blogger Challenge on the the charity site called DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Our readers’ generosity in the race to raise as much money as possible has made the top tech blogger fund-raiser Fred Wilson very nervous, so much so that he impugned my kids!

Over at A VC blog, he was clearly sweating when he posted on the competitive juices flowing in the challenge, saying I was trying to turn my kids into Jerry Lewis to raise funds!

Jerry Lewis! Them’s fighting words! Anyway, try some fund-raisers more current like, say, Brangelina!

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Is there no end to my groveling?

Apparently not, if it has the effect yesterday’s round of begging had by more than doubling our donor numbers and adding more than $1,500 to the AllThingsD kitty in only one day, after this post in which I egregiously use the musical stylings of Barbra Streisand to plague Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang.

Whatever for? Well, it is fun, of course, but it is also for a good cause too.

Last week, I wrote about October Tech Blogger Challenge on the the charity site called DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors. AllThingsD picked tech projects in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

So far, our AllThingsD page on the DonorsChoose site (and you can also access it using the nifty fund-raising thermometer above, on the left rail of this site) has raised $3,520 from 16 donors.

We have passed TechCrunch in donor numbers and just nosed aside Endgadget in donation totals.

But the wily venture capitalist Fred Wilson is still on top with 36 donors and $11,247 (we don’t want Valleywag to start wagging, but we hear donating is a requirement of term-sheet signing, not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Wilson is foiling BoomTown’s genius master plan of winning the award Yahoo is sponsoring for the bloggers who inspire the most readers to give. The winner will get a free lunch with CEO Jerry Yang, from whom we currently cannot get the time of day.

Wilson, like any decent VC, probably has got the phone number to Yang’s golf cart!

Well, two can play at that game!

I’m bringing in the cute kids–namely mine–to plead for donations and donors!

Remember to click on through to our AllThingsD page on DonorsChoose.org here to give early and often!

To inspire you, here are the Swisher boys, only one of whom can really talk, who are not coached in any way to ask you to be generous:

Today, we post below our most pathetic video ever in our attempt to garner donations for DonorsChoose.org, using (and abusing) our favorite icon, Miss Barbra Streisand.

Last week, I wrote about October Tech Blogger Challenge on the the charity site called DonorsChoose.org, which funds classroom projects in high-need public schools, using the Web to match teacher project requests with donors.

I picked tech projects in both San Francisco (where I live) and Washington, D.C. (where Walt Mossberg lives) and have set a goal of $25,000. So far, our AllThingsD page on the DonorsChoose site (and you can also access it using the nifty fund-raising thermometer on the left rail of the main BoomTown page here) has raised $1,928 from seven donors.

That puts us fourth, just behind Endgadget ($2,830 from 22), TechCrunch ($2,875 from eight) and the putting-us-to-shame Fred Wilson ($9,283 from 32).

We want to thank all who have given, but we’re asking for more from more now both to help the kids and also for our more nefarious purposes, which require sheer numbers.

That’s due to BoomTown’s dastardly master plan of winning the award Yahoo is giving. The company is sponsoring an award for the bloggers who inspire the most readers to give and the winner will get a free lunch with CEO Jerry Yang.

Here on the Tech Leaderboard in terms of donor numbers, we are fifth (Anil Dash drops in with 14). But Fred Wilson is still leading by a mile!

Like Yang needs to have lunch with another VC!

So here is our video plea to stop this unfortunate event (and where all that will be discussed is widget valuations and real estate):

I will admit it–most funding announcements for tech start-ups bore the living daylights out of me.

Writing about however many millions of dollars go to however many frivolous widget companies is about as interesting as watching Robert Scoble’s blog video lectures. (Sorry, Bob!)

So it is nice to see a good (and good-for-you) charity site like DonorsChoose get some money and, hopefully, attention.

The site, which lets teachers upload proposals for resources and projects–from books to playgrounds–they need funding for and matches them with donors, has to be limited in geography. But today, it will open its services to every public school in the U.S. to allow teachers nationwide to get their wish lists fulfilled online.

With the national expansion, the nonprofit hopes be on track to becoming 100% self-sustaining, according to its founder, a former Bronx schoolteacher named Charles Best.

That’s due to $11 million in possible funding from a panoply of big Web players. EBay Founder Pierre Omidyar has promised to pony up $6 million, with Yahoo’s David Filo, longtime VC Vinod Khosla and Netflix’s Reed Hastings adding in the rest. (Khosla was an early supporter, allowing the site to expand to the San Francisco area from its New York base.)

The catch for the funding? Omidyar will release the bulk of his commitment only if DonorsChoose completes the round by Nov. 30.

It seems like a pretty good investment to me, using the Internet to clarify and amplify the donating process. Sort of like eBay meets Match.com meets Amazon. So far, the site has given away $14.5 million to projects.

Best says DonorsChoose authenticates every project proposal before posting it. Then it purchases the resources when a project is funded and sends the goods off to teachers, with some donors also adding in more money to pay for fulfillment costs.

That will now be a lot cheaper and more efficient due to a donation by Ariba of fulfillment software and services to DonorsChoose that the site values at over $2 million. That follows a donation by Filo, said Best, of five Yahoo engineers who were lent to DonorsChoose full-time for five months to rewrite its code base.

But Best is more articulate than I can be, so here is a video of him talking about his site: