ABC certainly has been taking its sweet time in releasing the first episode of “V,” a sci-fi television series that debuted earlier this week on the Web in any substantial way.
The premiere of a redo of a 1980s miniseries about a lizardy alien invasion disguised as a peace mission by outerspace hotties turned out to be a big broadcast hit, but it is hard to watch online.
Until tomorrow, that is.
The new MSN homepage debuts tonight and you would be completely correct in thinking the recipe Microsoft has cooked up to inform its design ethos–white, clean and hiply modern–has definite echoes of a certain longtime tech rival.
That would be Apple, of course, with a big dollop of Twitter and Facebook tossed in, and finished off with a generous sprinkling of Microsoft’s new Bing search service.
For those who care: The MSN butterfly logo remains, although it appears to have lost a lot of weight.
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.
Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California’s Women’s Conference titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.
The panelists included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Here are video interviews I did with each of them.
Microsoft’s MSN is in preliminary talks with MySpace about using the social networking site’s music service, MySpace Music, to power music offerings on the giant portal.
While sources at both companies cautioned that the talks are still early, Microsoft–which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content–execs are interested in goosing its offering.
That’s because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.
One word: Shameful.
So, no surprise that Yahoo, which is trying mightily to burnish its image worldwide, quickly apologized for the presence of lap dancers onstage at its Open Hack Day in Taiwan last weekend.
Top Yahoo execs were at the hack event, although it’s not clear if they attended the lap-dancing part of the program, which seems to have a history of this sort of Pussycat-Dolls-meets-geeks tone.
This week, “Saturday Night Live” reprised one of its better skits, “The Rock Obama,” spoofing the health-care debate.
In it, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson does to some politicians just what a lot of us would like to do.
It looks like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will have her hands full with pretty dicey nuclear and terrorism issues in North Korea and Pakistan this week, but she managed to find time last week to try her diplomatic hand at working out the state of emergency between late-night television talk show host Conan O’Brien and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
Here are the videos.
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.
Like a lot of fans of the “Archie” comic book series–yes, BoomTown is that old–I was irked when Riverdale’s endless teen goofball picked spoiled Veronica over sweet Betty in a recent issue in August.
Not because I like Betty more, but because it ended the long-running love triangle that has been going for almost 70 years.
But apparently, the story is not over, because the whole thing is part of a six-story arc, which includes Archie marrying both Veronica and Betty and having twins with each.
And, you can see it all on your iPhone.
In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.
The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.
On the possible agenda: A new strategy aimed at music and entertainment; a new look; and, perhaps, a new boss for the ad sales team.
Four years ago, the movie, “Snakes on a Plane,” became a genuine Internet phenom well before the movie was in theaters.
Which, in the end, only showed that online buzz had negligible impact on the viewing public, given that the movie’s box office turned out to be tepid at best.
But will another small film, about a demon-plagued couple with an infrared-equipped videocamera, called “Paranormal Activity,” prove that the chatter of Facebook and Twitter has more legs today?
Here’s the latest Internet sensation that spoofs Beyoncé’s “All the Single Ladies” hit music video.
This time it is tiny Cory Elliott, getting down with a diaper when he was 13 months old.
In the ongoing fight between Redbox–which rents DVDs from kiosks for $1–and major Hollywood studios, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment just filed a brief to dismiss Redbox’s lawsuit against it.
The fascinating legal battle between Redbox and the studios centers around the issues of steep discounting, windowing and the price for premium content.
Memo to all Cyborg Geeks:
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology….We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”
Wait, that’s “The Six Million Dollar Man” motto!
But it might as well apply to the Hollywood outfit that owns the “Terminator” movie franchise.
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.
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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