All Things Digital

Last night, BoomTown loaded the kids into the car–you try finding a sitter on a Tuesday night!–and went early to a pair of dot-com parties being thrown at some trendy spots in San Francisco related to the Web 2.0 Expo taking place this week.

Our quest was to find out what some savvy Web 2.0 types thought would–or should–happen next in the Microsoft (MSFT)-Yahoo (YHOO) takeover battle, following Yahoo’s earnings report yesterday.

Thus, we made the scene–at widgetmaker RockYou’s “Rockin’ Spring Mixer” at Bong Su and news site Digg’s get-together at Mighty–to get some advice on what’s going to happen next.

Frankly, BoomTown is running low on ideas and we got a good range of predictions to bolster our bare cupboard.

So here’s a good mix of interviews on the topic, with folks such as RockYou CEO Lance Tokuda, Broadband Mechanics’ Marc Canter, Digg Founder Kevin Rose (in the very, very dark and noisy club–sorry!–but you can hear him at least), Digg CEO Jay Adelson and others.

And, at the end of the video, using a dinosaur toy as a metaphor, Louie and Alex Swisher, who pretty much have the situation down cold.

Here’s the video:

On the day that Google announced its roping of MySpace and Bebo into its not-Facebook coalition of companies that were united behind its OpenSocial play to make social-networking programming open and ubiquitous, I had a long-planned lunch date with colorful Web entrepreneur Marc Canter.

How perfect! Canter has been a nettlesome presence of late on the Web 2.0 scene, with his longtime effort to pester all these social-networking platforms to interoperate and open their social graphs. His mantra: “Bringing social to software.”

And OpenSocial obviously soothed the savage beast, as you will see in the video interview I did with him below.

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Ah, I knew Marc Canter would eventually take my joke about Tasering him into a stupor the right way!

In his response last week to my response to his original post about how I did not want him to bellow out questions at a party in Silicon Valley recently, Canter (pictured here) seemed to like my smacking back.

Me too!

As Canter wrote:

I make unsubstantiated claims and accusations, ranting and raving (I don’t drink alcohol–this is actually how I am in real life) demanding attention like some spoiled brat–pouting over being yelled at, misunderstood or the worst–ignored.

“And some come back and defend themselves.

“Kara was the object of my wrath and she’s come back in eloquent, above-it-all style, deflecting the negative and turning the energy into a positive swing on her conference.”

As to him continuing to dwell on the subject of insider politics and not getting to the real story, I still disagree. While it is not enough, a lot of blogs and a lot of mainstream tech journalists are covering stories with a gimlet eye.

I am also trying in this column to call it as I see it. I think most would agree that the coverage of a company like Yahoo has been tough, for example, and is an attempt to find out what’s actually happening at the troubled Web giant.

In addition, while not every interview is a barnburner, we do try to get to the truth at our D conference and sometimes news actually occurs.

As Canter notes about some other conferences, we don’t pay anyone to be onstage and you can’t get there by being a sponsor, either (although some execs from companies who have sponsored D have been onstage, it is only because they are newsworthy and, in the case of many–such as former HP CEO Carly Fiorina–they often get pretty tough treatment).

Finally, Canter added a list of story ideas, some of which I like and some of which I am not so interested in.

I definitely love his notion of the “Chess Game of Social Networking” and about the critical need for open standards in the space.

And I could not agree more about the notion of Facebook as a “digital lifestyle aggregator,” a phrase coined by Canter, which he says means “Portals 2.0, but without the cookie-cutter attitude–based upon integration, aggregation and customization–using open standards to inter-connect.”

It is a critically important concept going forward, so thanks Marc for underscoring it.

In a you-hurt-my-feelings post on his blog earlier this week, entrepreneur Marc Canter (pictured here) turned my one little quip to his bellowing question at the recent iLike party into a huge deal about why he was not invited to the D: All Things Digital conference that I co-produce with Walt Mossberg.

At the party, Canter got up and asked a question (and it was a good one about developing iLike apps for platforms other than Facebook). It came in the middle of a very short speech iLike co-founder Ali Partovi was giving, essentially thanking everyone for coming, most especially Facebook, where the social music site has seen great growth.

Canter had every right to ask a question in his usual unique style (let’s just say he is not a shrinking violet).

To be fair, neither am I, so I think it fine that I said: Someone get out the Canter Taser! It was a joke, however funny you might find it or not.

But I did not say it because I thought he was being rude or because I thought he should not DARE (his caps in his post) to ask a question. He can dare and I don’t care.

Nonethless, Canter took the ball and barreled down the field at full bore, first by incorrectly saying I did not want him to ask the question:

“But I don’t play by those rules. So no wonder I don’t get invited to AllThngsD [sic]. And why Kara never videotapes me. Clearly I have nothing to say!,” he wrote. “Kara knows she can’t control me and that I don’t play by the ‘be nice to the VCs and high level execs and maybe they’ve invest in you’ rules.”

Here’s the problem: D is not an invitation-only event and never has been. Anyone can sign up for it, much like any other tech conference, as long as they buy a ticket.

But, since its inception, D quickly sells out, and we have a long, long wait list. And we can’t offer more seats because of restricted space in the hotel we throw the annual event in.

This a good problem to have, but it means not everyone can get a seat. The same is true for the huge amount of press and bloggers we let in for free–another long wait list.

That’s why we have posted the entire D5 conference–every interview and every demo–in its entirety on this site, located here. At the conference, we also immediately posted short highlight videos immediately after sessions were over. We also have much of the other four conferences there, too.

As to videotaping Canter–I would be happy to, so I would prefer he not make it up that I will not. I simply have not gotten to him. I think of Canter as an interesting figure in Silicon Valley and an important inventor.

So I urge him to contact me when he thinks I should be covering something. I won’t always cover it, but I will always listen to what he has to say.

Also, Canter might take a gander at the videos from all the D conferences I referenced above. While we might not pass Canter’s tough test, I think they are pretty good.

In addition, any reader of this blog will know that I have not been a wet noodle to either Facebook or Yahoo of late.

At end of his post, Canter noted: “I’m not interested in pre-canned, shilled company pitches.” Well, you can Taser me if I am lying, but neither am I.

On a lighter note, if you did not see it, here is the post and below is the video I did from the iLike party. By the way, Canter might notice I headlined the post, “iLike Kisses Up to [Facebook Founder and CEO Mark] Zuckerberg,” which is exactly the point he was making: