While in Washington, D.C., BoomTown can’t just visit the policy wonks from Internet companies, so I paid a visit to Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that works to promote privacy and protection online.
In other words, a professional–and much needed–thorn in the side of Facebook, Google and these days, MicroHoo.
Yesterday, BoomTown paid a visit to the Washington, D.C., office of Facebook to meet its reps in the nation’s capital.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the social networking site has a very small staff–for now, just a trio of on-the-young-side dudes–battening down the hatches from a funky office in a funky section of D.C., Dupont Circle, far from the tonier and lobbyist-rich K Street corridor.
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is certainly giving her Facebook fan page a workout this week, as she nears one million fans.
Using the site to flack her new book, “Going Rogue,” which comes out officially today, it got a big boost from her interview today with Oprah Winfrey, clocking in at close to 995,000 fans last night.
In comparison, her Twitter page was as empty of followers as the great outdoors.
When in San Diego recently, BoomTown paid a visit to Qualcomm and its Chairman and CEO, Paul Jacobs, to talk about a new “smartbook” device the wireless-technology company unveiled last week, but that won’t make its debut until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January.
There, Jacobs will show off what is essentially a combination of a smartphone and a netbook.
Obviously, it’s going to be a competitive market and, really, Apple, with its upcoming tablet computer, is also pushing into this mobile-phone-that-ate-computers space.
Last week, New Yorker writer Ken Auletta launched his new book on the search giant: “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.”
But one final chapter was actually cut from the book, which Auletta posted this past weekend on his Web site. It’s made up of 25 media maxims by Auletta.
While at a book party for author Ken Auletta in San Francisco last night, BoomTown took the opportunity to ask those gathered whether they were scared or not of Google and its growing power.
The Auletta book covers a lot about the search giant, but also drills in on how many have become increasingly wary of Google’s hegemony over key businesses on the Web.
Nonetheless, the Silicon Valley types I queried were not even slightly worried and, oddly enough, many mentioned how they loved the food served up at the Googleplex.
Hmmmm….
Guess what? Google has too many Spocks and not enough Captain Kirks.
This is one of the many interesting insights BoomTown gleaned from a video interview last night at a San Francisco book party for well-known New Yorker scribe Ken Auletta, who has just written a new book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.”
This “lack of emotional intelligence,” said Auletta, reminded him a lot of the subject of one of his previous books: Microsoft.
Oh, the delicious irony!
If spinning is an intense political skill, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is doing her very best at trying to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
As Om Malik reports on GigaOm, Whitman–who is trying to nab the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California–told a radio interviewer recently that “actually I think Skype will prove to be a good acquisition for eBay.”
Well, good if you mean the $2.6 billion purchase of the Interent telephony that didn’t ever work as Whitman had effusively promised in 2005. Or the ugly lawsuits over it. Or the successful shakedown by its co-founders to get a big chunk back.
You get the idea.
RealNetworks just lobbed its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the case revolving around its DVD-copying software, RealDVD.
A U.S. District judge issued a preliminary injunction against RealNetworks in August to stop sales, and renewed it in October.
In the appeal, which is embedded after the jump, RealNetworks said the judge was using the wrong legal standard and more.
Essentially–although AOL is located in New York and not California–it’s going to be like tremors before the Big One at the online company today as about 100 employees are set to be laid off by management.
It is part of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s “Project Everest”–the code name for cost-cutting across the company. After this small cut, there could be a call for voluntary departures, followed by a much more drastic layoff.
The action comes in the same timeframe as the online site’s spinoff from Time Warner.
Who said the venture capital industry is sucking wind lately?
Well, it is–but not today and, especially, not Accel Partners, which sold two of its portfolio start-ups to large public companies for a total of $1.5 billion.
That would be the sale of AdMob to search behemoth Google for $750 million in stock, and the acquisition of Playfish by gaming giant Electronic Arts for about $300 million.
While Accel is not getting all that dough, it’s not a bad haul for the day.
Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million, a huge price for an innovative start-up that hass pioneered online ads on mobile and now smart phones.
BoomTown visited AdMob last fall and posted about how it was likely to eventually be acquired by…Google!
The move is a major one for the search giant, which has been pushing hard into the mobile advertising space as it seeks to grow its already considerable Web business. AdMob is arguably the fastest out of the gate in the nascent arena.
Plus, here’s AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui in a video interview with me last November, as well as the official press release on the sale.
Silicon Valley legend and now VC Marc Andreessen was making the interview rounds after the settlement between the litigation-addled co-founders of Skype and all the various people they were suing was announced this morning.
In an interview with BoomTown, when asked about the aggressive legal tactics of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that resulted in them finally seizing a stake in the Internet telephony giant by suing him and many other Silicon Valley players, Andreessen said:
“We did not take it personally. It’s a clean sheet of paper.”
Well, it is actually a torn, stained and very worn out piece of paper, but bygones!
Today, All Things Digital debuts a new feature called “Almost Famous” in our Voices section.
No, it is not about Kate Hudson and nascent rock stars.
Well, you might meet geek rock stars to be.
Focused on innovative, interesting or just plain odd start-ups, we thought it was a good way for our readers to get a gander at some up-and-coming ideas and trends. It will be penned by Drake Martinet every Friday.
Tony Conrad, CEO and co-founder of Sphere–the contextually relevant content engine AOL bought in the spring of 2008 for upward of $25 million–left the Time Warner online unit last month, several sources have told BoomTown in recent weeks.
But, in an effort by AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong to hold onto entrepreneurial talent, Conrad has agreed to become “Special Advisor” to its AOL Ventures Unit.
Apparently, he is also mulling a new start-up and remains a VC too.
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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