Courtney Love went into a Twitter frenzy yesterday, threatening to sue Activision Blizzard over of its use of the image of her late husband and grunge music legend Kurt Cobain in the latest version of its popular music game, Guitar Hero.
Except, oops, Love signed the contract herself and also, sources said, the check has long been cashed from Activision.
Longtime Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.
As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending, although it seems more frantic than ever of late.
In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference, and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”
Yesterday, BoomTown did a tour of the Mountain View, Calif., HQ of Guitar Hero, which is poised for a series of launches, including the fifth version of Guitar Hero and new music games Band Hero and DJ Hero.
While there, I interviewed CEO Dan Rosensweig, the well-known Silicon Valley exec who was once COO of Yahoo and who took over the high-profile division of Activision Blizzard in May in what was a bit of a surprise move into the music gaming industry.
Here’s a video of an interview I did with him about it all.
Despite the challenges the music gaming industry has been facing of late–such as sales dropping, yipes, almost 50 percent in the U.S. this year–the top companies in the field are still churning out new products like it’s nobody’s business.
Case in point is a spate of new products from the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard, which is coming out this fall with three separate major launches, starting tomorrow with the GH5 and including the hip-hop flavored DJ Hero in late October.
Here’s BoomTown’s sneak peek from GH’s HQ in Silicon Valley.
From vacation, that is–an activity that I highly recommend (and getting toasted at Burning Man this week does not count, although that is also apparently highly recommended in order to endure that digital dustfest).
In any case, we begin Yahoo memo-bombing in five minutes.
That is all.
The board of iLike planned a meeting earlier tonight to go over a buyout offer by MySpace, several sources close to the situation said. But it was suddenly canceled because of some thorny tax implications related to the talent-retention part of the deal to purchase the social music start-up.
This does not mean the pending acquisition is in jeopardy, sources said, and it could be on track to be signed as early as today, barring any more complications.
What’s also been unclear is the actual price the social networking giant is paying for iLike, which has been reported as about $20 million. In fact, only $13.5 million will be paid in cash, with $6 million slated for forward payments to retain key talent.
BoomTown is wearing all-black today, in profound mourning for the prospect of no Paula Abdul on “American Idol” next season.
“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return,” tweeted Abdul yesterday, bidding goodbye, natch, on Twitter.
Here is a cool video look at her and co-judge Simon Cowell and one of her appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference. (I kid you not!)
Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.
We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”
Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.
Well, we’re still going–making the same long-term bet that the digital revolution will keep rolling as we did at D1. Here’s our lineup for D7.
As reported Sunday night by BoomTown, former Yahoo exec and Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will become CEO and president of the Guitar Hero division of gaming giant Activision Blizzard.
I chatted with both Rosensweig and Activision president and CEO Bobby Kotick yesterday about the move and where the gaming company is going in the year ahead.
“I love music and I love big brands,” said Rosensweig, whose enthusiasm for music, especially for Bruce Springsteen, is well known in the digital industry.
Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will take over as CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s powerful Guitar Hero franchise, according to sources close to the situation.
Rosensweig will run the hot gaming company’s division, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick.
The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.
Former New Yorker and now Los Angeleno Bobby Kotick is a very funny guy, always cracking wise about everything from politicians to art to his skills as a parent.
During an interview yesterday, he even got a few good ones off about the funny foibles of Activision, the gaming company he runs, even though it has [...]
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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