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.
Lonely Planet, best known as a traditional travel guidebook publisher, is announcing a new U.S. head tomorrow–John Boris of Zagat Survey–as it increasingly moves to reposition the company as much more of a “cross-media” platform.
As the paid versus free content online debate gets louder over the next year, how well known brands like Lonely Planet–which has a strong reputation among consumers–handle the fallout will be more and more interesting to watch.
For a long time now, it has been Microsoft constantly raiding the Yahoo talent pool, as one top tech exec after another has left its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ to join the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant.
Well, turnabout is fair play for Yahoo, as it nabs a top Microsoft ad exec.
Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.
But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
There’s a great excerpt in the New Yorker this week.
Yesterday, BoomTown checked in with Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar about the document sharing start-up.
Today, it’s Trip Adler, CEO of its much larger rival, Scribd.
Launched in early 2007, the San Francisco-based online publishing company allows customers to share a wider range of documents, including books and manuscripts. It now claims to have 10 million documents.
Starting today and through next week, BoomTown is headed south down California’s lovely Highway 1 for as much of a vacation as I can possibly take.
Which is to say, just a week off from posting.
In other words: Partovis, Wenda, Owen, play nice! Yahoos, please hold your internal memos. And I hope Apple’s tablet is not delivered from on high this week while I relax beachside (it won’t be).
Oh, it’s the middle of August, so why not report this little tidbit: Former Google exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has been appointed to the board of the J. Crew Group, the well-known New York-based specialty retailer.
She is now a CEO-in-Residence at Accel Partners in Silicon Valley, after leaving her longtime job at Google, where she was president of its Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations.
Cassidy was also one of Google’s more visible execs and highest-ranking women leaders, so BoomTown is more interested in where the the 39-year-old will land next as a top exec at a Web operation.
While in Southern California last week, BoomTown sat down with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs to have a chat about the booming market for smart phones and, well, smart everything.
With all the swirl around iPhones from Apple, the Palm Pre, the various new BlackBerrys from Research in Motion and whatever else gets cooked up by Amazon, Google and others in the critical smart and mobile device market, it’s interesting to hear what Jacobs has to say–especially since his company is going to be one of the ones to benefit from such an explosion.
Yesterday, shares of Netflix got their semiregular rocket boost–with its stock up more than five percent to close at just over $42–from rumors that Amazon was interested in acquiring Netflix.
Oh, it’s a seemingly dreamy match–the top online retailer snapping up the upstart U.S. mail-order DVD movie and television show service.
But there are some serious issues in an Amazon-Netflix marriage, so those interested in seeing the independent company in the embrace of a larger one might want to consider a more suitable and very interested candidate: Microsoft.
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.
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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