Reading books and newspapers on a handheld device has gotten to be a hot arena in the consumer electronics business, especially after the introduction of the Kindle from Amazon.
Plastic Logic will come on the market next year with its e-reader offering, so the Silicon Valley-based company gave a sneak preview of the device, including a first look at the gadget’s innovative touchscreen user interface.
Look ma, no keyboard!
Allen Olivo, SVP of global brand marketing at Yahoo, is leaving the company, according to sources.
The departure is the latest at Yahoo, as major executive changes continue. It was announced today internally, which Yahoo confirmed to BoomTown.
Olivo was responsible for all aspects of its advertising and brand marketing strategy worldwide for Yahoo, which is about to undergo a major new push under CEO Carol Bartz.
Oh, Scooby-Don’t…
You could not be more wrong in your post last week–titled, “Why Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are wrong about naming Web 3.0 ‘Web 3.0′”–about Walt and I being wrong about naming Web 3.0 “Web 3.0″ in an essay we posted at the start of our D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week.
I know writing “Kara Swisher,” “Walt Mossberg” and “Wrong” is well-nigh irresistible, but your solution of calling the digital era we are in the “2010 Web” is equally confusing and incorrect.
This week, I went on a trek to downtown San Francisco–from ATD HQ, located in the wilds of the Castro–to visit David Sifry, the jovial Web entrepreneur who recently launched Offbeat Guides.
The San Francisco-based start-up makes “personalized, up-to-date travel guides that cover over 30,000 travel destinations, using a combination of search technology and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts.”
In other words, on-demand travel books with a touch of humanity.
Oh dear, I always forget that the camera is turned on 24/7 these days, knows all and sees all and then sticks it on YouTube.
Like this moment for me that came during a speech I gave last week at the Software & Information Industry Association’s NetGain conference in San Francisco, which was titled, “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Tweet: What Interactivity Really Means for Real Businesses.”
In 140 words or fewer, I insult Amazon’s Kindle, Apple and even myself for being a Steve Jobs fanboy.
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.
New MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta starts his first day on the job at MySpace bright and early this morning, coming to its Beverly Hills HQ as he takes over for co-founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe.
Along with him will also be a new COO, former AOL exec Mike Jones, whose appointment will be announced this morning, sources said.
Jones was the founder of Userplane, a social-networking application maker that was bought by then-AOL head Jon Miller in 2006. Miller is now the digital chief at News Corp., which owns MySpace.
With a strong product and technology background, Jones is an excellent choice to be a partner to Van Natta–who was hired by Miller last week in a flurry of change at the social-networking site.
Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta has finally been officially named as CEO of MySpace, as BoomTown reported yesterday and News Corp. announced this morning.
He will replace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe, who stepped down from the job earlier this week. DeWolfe will remain a strategic adviser at MySpace.
Here’s the full press release.
Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta will be named CEO of MySpace as early as tomorrow said sources close to the situation.
He will replace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe, who stepped down from the job yesterday. DeWolfe will remain a strategic adviser at MySpace.
No other top execs at the huge social-networking site will be named yet, as some have reported.
Finally, Owen Van Natta is about to win out over a founder.
The former Facebook COO is poised to become the CEO of MySpace, replacing co-founder and current CEO Chris DeWolfe.
DeWolfe will likely get a title as a special adviser to MySpace in a deal that is still coming together.
But the die seems cast for Van Natta to take over the thorny job of rehauling MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.
It’s familiar territory for him.
Another Goog-Bye.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, president of Google’s Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations, is leaving the company and joining Silicon Valley venture firm Accel Partners as a CEO-in-residence.
Cassidy, 39, is one of the search giant’s more visible execs and one of its higher-ranking women leaders and also the second top Google exec to depart the company recently.
While exec exodus from Google is much noticed, the moves are probably not surprising given that the powerful company–as it matures–has limited avenues for its typically ambitious managers.
“I was at the end of my streak [at Google] and ready to take the next step and run or grow my own company,” Cassidy said in an interview with BoomTown late tonight. “It is key for me to be stepping out and spreading my wings now.”
Last week, the economy took a much needed breather from its toilet-circling behavior of late, with the stock market showing gains for several days running.
Who knows what today will bring, given all the volatility, but most of the big consumer-focused digital companies saw solid upticks over the last five days.
You could also feel the revelry at the South by Southwest gathering that started this weekend in Austin, Texas, with lots of Web 2.0 partying and discussions of a Twitterific-Facebooktastic future.
Maybe happy days are here again? Um, nope.
Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.
I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to jokingly nicknaming it “Project A.”
Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.
“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.
Many years ago in the midst of the Web 1.0 boom, when working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, BoomTown redubbed an annual dinner that book agent John Brockman threw at the TED conference.
It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”
That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?
Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.
Today, most companies in the tech and Internet sector will close the books on what is likely to be a very disappointing fourth quarter and also close out what has turned out to be a mucho depressing year, which got hammered starting in the third.
While financial results will not out for some weeks, one does not have to be a psychic to know what’s coming: A lot of weakness, with hopes for better days ahead.
It’s a far cry from how 2008 started out, with high valuations for all. Those were the days my friend, Silicon Valley thought they’d never end, to sing and dance forever and a day. As it turned out, it was more of a swan song for Web 2.0.
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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