In this ruthlessly funny video–especially for such a sweet-looking young lady–singer Taylor Swift manages to ice pretty much everyone who ever dissed her.
And Kanye West’s antics at the MTV Music Awards in September are not the only ones getting a musical smackdown from the 19-year-old, who won the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award last night.
Sing it, sister.
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!
While sales of Windows 7 are doing well, Apple is continuing to slap the Microsoft operating system software around.
There was a bunch of mean-spirited “Get a Mac” ads right when Windows 7 was released in late October, stressing consumers dying to switch to Apple when faced with the prospect of upgrading their Microsoft software.
Now there is a name for them: “PC Switchers.” It sounds a little naughty.
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.
Hollywood is selling the end times hard this week with the opening of “2012,” a blockbuster-style movie about the last days of the world for humanity.
Apparently, we were warned!
It’s based on junk theories about how the 5,125-year-long Mayan Long Count calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012, which can only mean that so goes the universe.
So, until the apocalypse, enjoy the trailers.
Google has a Web page up about today’s acquisition of AdMob for $750 million in stock, which includes this lovely image of the differences between what the Silicon Valley companies do in the mobile advertising space.
Here’s the quick translation: The Web search behemoth has been slower than molasses in the space, sticking with boring blue links of death, especially compared to the innovative and nimbler start-up, which is rocking the pretty ads.
So, we ate it.
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.
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.
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.
The Seattle area is going to get another jobless jolt today, with RealNetworks planning to lay off four percent of its workforce, sources said.
That’s a small number–just about 70 people out of its 1,700-person staff–but the move comes on the heels of layoffs of another 800 employees at nearby Microsoft yesterday.
The reasons for the layoffs at RealNetworks are, as was the case at Microsoft, to realign the workforce after the recent economic downturn and to control costs.
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.
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.
BoomTown is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant–this time by eBay.
With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the print, television and online marketing campaign starts today to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”
Interestingly, the ads have been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.
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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