BoomTown » Barack Obama

"Changing the World Through the Web": Video Interviews with Zuckerberg, Kutcher, Rospars and Shah

Kara Swisher — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000

Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

It turned out to be a lively session with the sharp digitally-focused group, which was the first tech panel at the six-year-old conference.

Here are video interviews I did with each of them (and you can see other video scenes from the conference here):

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Visits the Women's Conference (Questions for Ashton Kutcher, Please!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:57:20 +0000

This morning, BoomTown will be onstage at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, to moderate a panel titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of 1,800 people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues include Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher (pictured above, of course); Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In other words, as a group, they are all either prettier, smarter or better for the planet than anything I have ginned up so far.

But, to be safe, send some question suggestions quick that you think I should ask in the interview–via Twitter @karaswisher.

In any case, I shall press on and try to conduct myself with some kind of tech dignity, as I query the group on how the Web–especially social media–can empower people to change the world and be more than just one big pool of mundanities, meaningless status updates, silly apps and online gossip.

Speaking of which, it was a minor shock to run smack into reality show whatever-she-is Kate Gosselin at a speaker party last night, who is here to flack a book about–of course–her kids, titled “Eight Little Faces.”

No, I did not make that title up and I suppose it takes all kinds.

But it was especially surreal, since other speakers include–how shall I put this delicately?–much more serious and substantial women, such as primatology legend Dr. Jane Goodall, women’s rights activist Eve Ensler, Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, a spate of women news legends such as Katie Couric, and even–my personal favorite, for her cheery butter-loving nature–celebrity chef Paula Deen.

For those interested in seeing some of the all-day event online, there’s a live Webcast from the Web site, which you can access here (the Twitter hashtag is #wc09

I will, natch, post a video report later.

Welcome to the FCC, Julius: Now Get to Work on a National Broadband Plan, Please…

Kara Swisher — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:04:21 +0000

Last week, after much delay, longtime Internet exec Julius Genachowski (pictured here) was confirmed by the Senate as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

It is an important role for the future development of the Web, of course, although it took a dog’s age into the new Democratic administration to approve him.

Hopefully, he and the other commissioners can soon get to work on a wide range of major digital issues, such as a national broadband plan that does not cost Americans a fortune.

Genachowski, a close tech adviser to President Barack Obama, was seated along with Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican appointee who was confirmed for a second FCC term.

After the Senate approves two others–Democrat Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker for the GOP–in the next month, it will round out the five-member panel.

(The other FCC commissioner is a Dem, Michael Copps, who has been acting chairman while Genachowski got approval.)

Genachowski, a former FCC staffer, was most recently working as a VC at Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital. But he is best known to many in Silicon Valley as a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI).

He is likely to make his debut to chair his first meeting this coming Thursday, and it is a humdinger of dull:

According to the FCC’s Web site, the July open meeting, held in Washington, D.C., will consider three items:

1.) Amendment of the Commission’s Rules to Provide Spectrum for the Operation of Medical Body Area Networks: The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allocate spectrum and establish service and technical rules for the operation of Medical Body Area Networks to monitor patients’ physiological data.

2.) Amendment of Service and Eligibility Rules for FM Broadcast Stations: The Commission will consider a Report and Order concerning changes in the FM translator rules to allow AM broadcast stations to rebroadcast their signals on eligible FM translator stations.

3.) Amendment of Part 101 of the Commission’s Rules to Accommodate 30 Megahertz Channels in the 6525-6875 MHz Band: The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing whether to provide licensees with authority to operate on channels with bandwidths up to 30 megahertz in the Upper 6 GHz band and whether to extend conditional authority to two additional channel pairs in the 23 GHz band, as well as an Order addressing a related waiver reques.

But the site also mentioned that “the Meeting also will include a presentation on the status of the Commission’s process for developing a National Broadband Plan.”

Now, that is something BoomTown would like to know about since this country is effectively still in the dirt-road period, in terms of high-speed broadband access for Americans.

But, of course, the cost of what we do get–which is very substandard compared to a lot of other countries–is also very pricey.

Let’s hope Genachowski–who has a lot of other issues on his plate, especially as the media industry undergoes drastic reconfiguration too–can do something about it.

In a related note, Lawrence Strickling was also OK’d to run the telecom division of the Commerce Department, which is the agency with the dough ($4.7 billion in government funds) to help the create this supposed Internet infrastructure boom with the FCC.

I remain dubious of any movement in the arena, but still hopeful.

And, until there is some action from Genachowski, here is a highlights video from an onstage interview Walt Mossberg and I did with former FCC chairman Kevin Martin–along with Verizon (VZ) Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam–at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008.

Here is the D6 video:

[ See post to watch video ]

President Obama's Online Town Hall Now Open for Questions on the Economy (Answers–If There Are Any–On Thursday!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:47:51 +0000

WhiteHouse.gov just opened for questions for a “community-moderated online town hall,” setting up for a Web appearance by President Barack Obama on Thursday.

According to the site, anyone can:

“Submit your own question about the economy and vote on submissions from others. We also encourage you to include a link to a video of yourself asking your question, but text submissions are all you need. Come back on Thursday to watch the President answer some of the most popular submissions live at WhiteHouse.gov.”

The site has held similar online events twice in the transition period, but questions were then answered by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and not Obama.

This time, it will be the President, taking questions picked from those voted most popular.

The site is using Google (GOOG) Moderator technology, although there is no branding of it, as well as Google-owned YouTube for the video from Obama posted below.

Exclusive: Dan Rosensweig Steps Up to Take His Licks as Guitar Hero Frontman

Kara Swisher — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:54:05 +0000

Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig (pictured here) 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, which is located in Silicon Valley, the result of its purchase of RedOctane in 2006, source said.

He is well known to Activision (ATVI) Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick, who served on the Yahoo board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. Both Rosensweig and Kotick have since left Yahoo.

It’s an interesting move for Rosensweig, who has been working in private equity since his departure from Yahoo (YHOO) in late 2006.

His name has been bandied about for several high-profile Web positions of late, and many thought he might take a political job, given that he was one of many digital execs involved in helping elect President Barack Obama.

But the weak market for investments and Rosensweig’s longtime experience and interest in eventually returning to operations–along with his well-known passion for music–are the likeliest motivators for the move to Guitar Hero.

Sources said Rosensweig will start his new job at Guitar Hero–which Activision could announce as early as tomorrow–in several weeks.

Running a major consumer brand like Guitar Hero seems tailor-made for Rosensweig, who worked at CNET Networks and Ziff-Davis before Yahoo. In addition, the jovial exec is well-respected in Silicon Valley, giving Activision a much more prominent presence here.

And the energetic Kotick (pictured below with me and, yes, Paula Abdul of “American Idol”–don’t ask) has long talked about turbocharging the largely retail Guitar Hero business online, as a way to further grow the music phenom.

User-generated music, as well as a plethora of online transactions and social networking, have been promising new revenue opportunities, Kotick has said.

(See video highlights of my interview with Kotick below on that topic and more at last year’s D: All Things Digital conference.)

Overall, despite the weak economy and a cautious forecast going forward, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Activision is growing, with revenues up in the last quarter, due in large part to the popularity of its Guitar Hero and Call of Duty videogames.

Its fast pace, in contrast to rival Electronic Arts (ERTS), has been helped by its merger with Vivendi SA’s Blizzard Entertainment last summer. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft online game is also one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world.

Here’s a highlights video from my interview with Kotick at D6:

[ See post to watch video ]

Dear Dad: You Lost the Election Because the GOP FailWhaled on the Web

Kara Swisher — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:45:44 +0000

Almost-First Daughter Meghan McCain (pictured here) gave the Republican Party the analog equivalent of an unhappy emoticon yesterday in a column in The Daily Beast, predicting the political party will lose power quicker than a faulty iPhone if it does not get more Web-savvy pronto.

BoomTown always liked GOP Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s sassy spawn, who had a pretty good blog–deliciously called McCain Blogette.com: Musings on Politics From a Pop CultureGirl–during the campaign and was always coming out with some little nugget that I am sure made her PR handlers cringe.

Well, there she goes again!

In a post titled, “Why Republicans Don’t Get the Internet,” Meghan McCain noted flatly:

The Republican party isn’t exactly Internet savvy. That’s no secret…This has been a source of personal frustration for me for a very long time. Unless the GOP evolves as the party that can successfully utilize the Web, we’ll continue to lose influence.”

Thankfully, it gets worse!

Writes Meghan:

I know this aggravates the old school political operatives to no end, but it’s true. The Obama administration understands that my generation spends most of its day on a laptop or a BlackBerry, and that using the web is easy way to communicate their ideas to their constituents. Making a website, Facebook group, or YouTube video entertaining and enticing is where grassroots campaigning begins. President Obama currently has around five-and-a-half million supporters on Facebook; my father has around five-hundred thousand.”

Sorry, Dad!

But apparently not all that much, because she ended her piece with a zinger about the GOP’s new Web effort, the Rebuild the Party site, essentially declaring the party a wizened Luddite with no hopes of ever beating the BlackBerry-loving Obama.

…The website is about as provocative as a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. At the time that I write this, the video on the homepage features various individuals, most of them I would guess between the ages of fifty and sixty, explaining why they consider themselves Republicans. Had I still been an independent, there is nothing about this website or video that would sway me as a twenty-four year old woman to join the GOP…Until the Republican party joins the twenty-first century and learns how to use the Internet, its members will keep getting older and the youth of America will just keep logging on to the other side.”

Meghan McCain is definitely right about the unusually sleepy video–which only pops when they focus on dead Republican former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt:

Where in the World Is America's CTO?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:30:39 +0000

With the naming of Oracle (ORCL) President Charles Phillips to President Barack Obama’s 16-Member Economic Recovery Advisory Board a few days ago, another Silicon Valley tech mandarin fell off the list to become America’s first chief technology officer.

The job–which was promised by President Barack Obama during his campaign and underscored when he released a memorandum on transparency and open government that outlined some of the CTO duties the day after he was sworn in–remains unfilled.

In fact, so does the Federal Communications Commission chairman’s post, which insiders said a month ago would go to former IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) exec Julius Genachowski. But he has not been nominated yet.

Both Genachowski and Phillips were on a short list floated in November by The Wall Street Journal for CTO. The third name on it, Level 3 (LVLT) exec Don Gips, has since been named to a high-level White House job.

While the continuing economic crisis has sucked all the oxygen from the room, the Obama administration has still made a lot of promises about tech issues, from improving broadband to making the government more transparent and digital.

So, who is getting the job as head geek?

Could it be well-known entrepreneur Mitch Kapor? Google (GOOG) guru-in-resident and Internet father Vint Cerf? Or some other tech-savvy Silicon Valley figure?

BoomTown is, of course, rooting for Steve “Woz” Wozniak. Once he wins “Dancing With the Stars” this season, he will be the only nerd capable of the two-stepping one needs to survive in Washington.

Post new guesses in comments below.

And, until someone is appointed to fix the nation’s computers, here is the Jan. 21 memo Obama released about some of the tasks ahead for America’s CTO:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

[Photo of the t-shirt from ThinkGeek.]

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Bubble-Pops at Democratic Policy Confab: The Full Speech

Kara Swisher — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:14:28 +0000

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an appearance at the three-day U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Retreat today to talk about innovation and, let’s be real, the very bad economy and the impact on businesses like the tech giant.

Held at the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., the confab has already seen an appearance by President Barack Obama yesterday and one by Vice President Joe Biden this morning. Ballmer got the lunch spot.

The annual gathering is more crucial this year, given the pressure to pass the massive economic stimulus package to try to revive the moribund economy.

Ballmer was not reassuring. “The bubble has burst,” said Ballmer. “We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.”

And also: “In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset.”

Microsoft (MSFT) should know all about that. The powerful company recently announced weak earnings, a foggy outlook and layoffs of 5,000 employees.

Here’s Ballmer’s speech to the group:

Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you. It’s a real honor to have a chance to share some thoughts on the economy and on innovation, and hopefully spur some thoughts on how we all participate in restarting long term economic growth.

As Jay was telling my story, so to speak, I thought I’d put in one parenthetic that might be of interest. When I got to Microsoft and we were this tiny little company, we didn’t have the budget to put people up in hotels, so I lived with Bill. And every time I sat down, in every corner, nook and cranny of couches, tables, I’d find these little yellow pieces of paper with Bill’s writing that had a bunch of people’s names and companies’ names and numbers.

So, finally–I think of myself as pretty good pattern matching. Actually I was sitting next to Congressman Frank, and we were both trying to see which of the six states that are going to be still bigger than North Carolina by 2015. So, we’re going through the pattern matching game, and I just couldn’t figure out what these numbers were.

So, finally I said to Bill, what is this? He says, Steve, I’m really always worried about whether we’re going to have enough cash to pay people. So, every night I write down everybody who works for us and how much we pay them, and every contract we have and how much it’s worth. I’ve got to count the pennies tightly and that’s why you’re here now.

In this economic climate, whether you’re talking about businesses or consumers, everybody I think is having the little yellow sheets of paper out, and counting pennies pretty tightly.

I’m going to make one thing clear up-front: I’m not going to claim to be an economist. On the other hand, I think it’s sort of the responsibility of every businessperson to really form a model of what’s going on in the economy, if you’re going to provide proper stewardship to your business; big company, small company, it’s important to have a model of what’s going on, and certainly have been thinking a lot about the economy in the context of how we think about and plan for the future of Microsoft.

For the past 25 years, the world has certainly enjoyed incredible, incredible global growth. Average incomes around the world grew at unprecedented rates, millions of people moved from out of poverty into the middle class for the very first time.

I think that expansion was built on three things: innovation, globalization, and debt, increasing debt.

American technology was certainly at the heart of the innovation that played the central role in the process. The PC, the Internet, fiber optics: Those things were things that continue to keep America at the forefront of technology, and really at the lead of a growing global economy.

But over time, over the last period of time, the balance has really shifted. Instead of innovation and productivity driving growth, it’s really been unsustainable levels, particularly of private debt, that have been a key driver of economic growth.

The hard truth is this, in my opinion: The private sector of our economy has borrowed too much money, businesses and consumers alike, fueled by the a lot of different things, some notion that housing prices would go up forever, that you could borrow money cheaply.

I gave a speech at Stanford Business School a few years back, and I was talking, we’re a company that has been conservative, per the yellow pieces of paper. We like to keep cash. And a very smart Ph.D. in the audience puts his hand up and said, “Why don’t you borrow money?” I said, “I don’t like to borrow money.” He said, “But it’s so cheap; you’re depriving your shareholders.” I think it reminds us that essentially consumers and businesses alike have really borrowed too much money.

The bubble has burst. We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.

At our own place, what we think about PC sales, they are discretionary in most home budgets, the second, the third PC. Consumer electronics has that characteristic. Fifty percent of capital spending in this country is on information technology. Less capital, less spend on information technology. No sector will be immune.

There’s a natural tendency to want to blame somebody for the economic crisis. In reality, I think you have to say we’ve all contributed to a culture of spending and private debt. And I distinguish private debt and government debt, because I think you have to be much more–the private sector has less ability to be thoughtful, and the government sector needs to be quite thoughtful. But there certainly has been too much use of debt.

At Microsoft, we’ve studied these developments. We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime economic event, but it’s not unique frankly in U.S. history. The current situation looks a lot like several–not one but several previous cycles of long-term private sector debt.

In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent. Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent; far more leverage. And you can see it’s been a steady increase basically since almost the end of World War II.

In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset. The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate.

This may not be the thing that people really want to hear, but it’s certainly what we’re planning on, and it’s the truth on which we’re basing sort of our model, if you will, at Microsoft.

In our opinion, in order to reach the reset point, three things need to happen. First, the economy must be deleveraged. Private debt as a percentage of GDP has to be reduced. Restoring health to the nation’s financial system is a fundamental part of this.

Just for historical note, not only during the Depression, but actually in 1837 and in 1873 we had similar style resets in the economy. We actually have at least three historic periods that we can study in which similar phenomenon occurred. I think it was 1873 where even the state of Florida filed for Bankruptcy. So, we need to be thoughtful about being students I think of the history.

Second, confidence must be restored. The stimulus package, in my opinion, is vital. It will provide a cushion as we reach the reset point and it will help restart our economic engine. I certainly want to applaud the steps that the House has taken under the speaker’s leadership to quickly pass a strong stimulus package and to help shore up our financial institutions.

Third, America really has to return to growth that’s built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt. That must happen.

The good news is that the U.S. economy is still the world leader in innovation. Our universities are the envy of the rest of the world. The American workforce is the best on the planet, and U.S. companies continue to drive technological progress in almost every industry.

But the time has come when we need to renew our innovation capacity.

We went back and studied what innovation companies did during the time of the Great Depression. One company that stands out, if you study the Depression, is RCA.

Now, the fact that RCA is not around today, this has nothing to do with their behavior during the Depression. There’s probably good learnings for a lot of technology companies in that.

But during the time of the Depression, RCA was probably the most broad-based R&D-centric company in America. And while it cut costs certainly to survive the Depression, it never retreated from its commitment to core research and development. And as a result, after the Depression had ended, it really led and the U.S. led TV technology developments for the next 25 years.

That was good for RCA; it was good for America.

In my view, American companies aren’t going to be able to weather this economic downturn just by cutting costs either. You may have heard that Microsoft, our company has decided that we need to reduce 5,000 positions. What you may not know is that at the same time we’ve decided we’ll also create two to three thousand new jobs–mostly in the U.S.–as we continue to push into new areas that require investment.

In addition, despite the tough economy–I might even say because of the tough economy–our company will continue to invest more than $9 billion a year in R&D, because we think it’s that R&D spending that will cause us to remain strong.

People ask me, are you upbeat or not, and I say, about technology I’m super upbeat. The industry that we’re in, information technology, stands at the threshold of again a new revolution.

I joined Microsoft essentially for the PC revolution. The Internet revolution, we have the revolution of what I might call pervasive computing. Computers that are as thin and light as this on which you can have access to the world’s information will be kind of expected over the next five and 10 years.

So, being optimistic and positive about what technology can accomplish is very, very important.

If you take a look at it today, there is increasing ubiquity and power in the computing platforms. A laptop today has more computer power than a mainframe did when I came to Microsoft. Mobile phones today are more powerful than the PCs that existed 10 or 12 years ago, at the start of the Internet era.

But over the next few years, we’ll continue to go into uncharted territory as many-core chipsets and devices become common, and we develop new ways to write programs to help us model the world’s climate, the world’s population, the world’s energy needs; all of that will be super possible.

This is going to lead to breakthrough applications, more intelligent, more aware of their environment, and where we can really help anticipate the information you need and the capabilities that you really want to have.

The next few years are going to see dramatic changes in the way you interact with technology: touch, gestures, handwriting, speech recognition. Instead of telling my secretary to get me ready for my trip to the House Democratic Caucus, I’ll just type it in or speak it to my computer. It can look up, it turns out, who you all are, and where you’re all from, and it’s got all–it’s all out there. We just need to automate it in ways that real people can get access to information.

Some of this I’m sure sounds a bit like science fiction, but we’re rapidly nearing a time when interacting with technology really will be like interacting with people, which will make technology more accessible and really unlock the potential of computers to individuals and communities to help solve tough problems.

A third trend, as I talked about, is screens and displays. Literally every wall, every tabletop, you’ll be able to roll up your computer, if you will, and put it in your purse or put it in your pocket. That’s what we have to look forward to.

All of these trends are going to help create a computing platform that extends from PCs and phones and TVs out into the massive storage and connectivity out in the Internet.

All of this will enable us to transcend the barriers that exist between technology today, and seamlessly connect people to the information and applications that you’re interested in, no matter where you are, no matter what kind of screen you have in front of us.

It’s very important. As the computing environment becomes richer and more pervasive, and more universally useful, it will enable citizens to be more active participants in our national economic recovery. If we do our jobs right, the computer revolution will help amplify our ability as individuals and as a nation to tackle the pressing problems of society: education, health care, energy independence; and at the same time, continue to enhance our productivity and economic competitiveness.

They say GDP is consumption plus investment, plus government spending, plus productivity growth and innovation, and I’m very bullish on what will happen in our industry.

Imagine, for example, an intelligent energy system in your home that’s linked to a smart energy grid. With that infrastructure, your dishwasher and washing machine would know to run when electricity is cheapest. That kind of intelligence and control could really have a major impact on residential power consumption, which is a very large piece of energy consumption in this country.

There are similar scenarios in healthcare, where genomic research will open the door to personalized treatment; and in education for sure, where technology will enable all teachers to use the very best teaching methods and connect with students in new ways.

The truth though, we can barely guess what is possible. With the kinds of technologies we envision, other people, many people in many fields, fields of science and social science and many, many others, will come forth with an incredible outpouring of new ideas and innovation that will continue to expand the universe of what’s possible. So, the enablement not only of information technology and the productivity it brings directly, but other new forms of innovation I think will really be important for long term growth and prosperity across many, many fields of endeavor.

To harness this potential of this transformation, I think it’s going to take a lot more than investment by the private sector. We need investment and we need leadership by government as well. I don’t understand all of the issues and interests that you have to deal with. As I was sitting listening this morning, I understand more that there are hundreds of unwritten things that citizens just don’t really know about what it takes to catalyze these things to happen. But I would at least like to offer a couple suggestions on some things I think are important.

First, we really need the federal government to invest in human capital, in the citizens of our country.

I sit here and talk, talk, talk about innovation, but it’s people who turn ideas into positive and productive innovation. And in today’s knowledge-driven world, innovation will depend on people who are actually technologically sophisticated, have strong critical thinking skills, have expertise in math and science and engineering.

This is true not only for people who live in places like Seattle and work at places like Microsoft, but live in places like Detroit, where I grew up, and work for companies like Ford Motor Company, where my father worked when I was a child. I think this is going to be true for anyone, anywhere in this country, who hopes to earn a wage that can really properly support their family.

This means investment in education is critical, and I’m really encouraged by the very heavy emphasis on education that’s in the stimulus package.

We really need to transform math and science education in America. We need to improve teacher training, teacher quality.

I was talking earlier in the day with some folks about just how many of our math and science teachers don’t have the correct training and accreditation, and that stands in the way of us really breaking through.

For those who are already in the workforce, we need programs that provide ongoing education and training, so they can be successful in this knowledge-based economy. For those who are unemployed, we need new technical skills training to give those people a start back up the economic ladder. And we are going to need lifelong learning programs to keep people fresh, as innovation and technology continues to power the economy.

The second thing we need–and I’ll tell the Speaker this was written even before our meeting this morning–we need greater government investment in our nation’s science and technology infrastructure.

I came in, flew in red eye, was a little groggy this morning when I got here. I sat down with the speaker at 8:00 AM, and she woke me right up. She said there are four things I want you to make sure you understand are a priority: science, science, science, and science. I was awake by the end of the fourth science for sure, and I couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly.

Science and technology is the backbone for productivity and innovation; has been, not always information technology, but science and technology has been a driver of economic success. Government investment in science and engineering as a percentage of GDP is half, in this country, what it was in 1970, and it would be growing rapidly, particularly in countries in Asia, off a small base albeit, but in places like India and China and Korea the trend is the other direction.

We need to pursue breakthroughs over the coming years in green technology, alternative energy, bioengineering, parallel computing, quantum computing. Without greater government investment in the basic research, there is a danger that important advances will happen in other countries. This is truly I think not only an issue of competitiveness, but also in a sense of national security. Companies like ours and others can do our fair share in terms of funding of basic research, but government needs to take the lead.

This is also a moment when government should invest, I think, in information technology to help transform healthcare. We deliver information technology that we think can help create a connected health system that delivers predictive, preventive, and personalized care, a system that I think can improve the health of Americans and reduce the cost of health care in this country.

Government support for innovative development, rapid adoption of information technology in health care is important. I was talking to Congressman McDermott this morning. Government has a big role to play, including the fact that Medicare and Medicaid pay over 50 percent of all health. If Medicare and Medicaid want to take on some issues and use its authority to push health information standards, I’m sure this industry and this area of technology innovation can move even more quickly.

There’s always broadband. My number one encouragement to you is start with government itself. Every school, every hospital, every government building, is it wired, have we funded that infrastructure; very important.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. There is a lot of history around that, and frankly if you stop and think about it, 1837, ‘73, ‘29, 2008, it’s almost exactly a whole lifetime between each of the major economic difficulties that we face. But I think it’s also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think about our priorities again and make the investments that put us on the right foot.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said we need to assume more responsibility and make the hard decisions that have been postponed for too long.

The president’s remarks actually reminded me of something I heard a lot from my dad when I was growing up. My dad was an immigrant to this country. He came from Switzerland after World War II. He went and was an interpreter with the US military at the war trials in Nuremberg; came to Detroit with some of the soldiers he had met there, who sponsored him in this country; went to work at Ford Motor Company, was there for 30 years. Never finished high school never went to college, but he had a simple model: “If you’re going to do a job, do a job. If you’re not going to do a job, don’t do a job.”

You could say, okay, that’s probably a good thing to tell a 10-year-old, but what it really came to mean to me was that if you want to accomplish anything at all, you’ve got to be committed, you’ve got to be motivated, you’ve got to be tenacious, you’ve got to be smart. And, of course, that’s not really just my dad’s message to me and my sister as we were growing up; it’s really the essence of the American work ethic, and I think it’s been passed down to millions of American children every generation.

This country has what it takes to succeed. We have talent, we have technology, we’ve got the track record. We’ve got to be really honest about where we are. We’ve got to take the kind of bold steps that the vice president so well characterized in his remarks this morning, and we certainly have to roll up our sleeves and put ourselves back on the path of the kind of innovation that will drive the kind of economic success that I know we all want.

I thank you again for the opportunity. It’s been my pleasure.

Should Facebook–or Someone Else–Take Another Run at Twitter?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:15 +0000

Twitter–the non-money-making start-up that lets a user update status in a pithy manner–had a banner day last week with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, which followed all the tweets about the successful airline crash in the Hudson River in Manhattan, which came after…well, you get the point.

That kind of frenetic news cycle has kept Twitter growing quickly, last week surpassing the formerly hot–at least, according to the dopey echo chamber that is Web 2.0, which is as restless as a teenaged girl looking for the next Jonas Brother–Digg in Web traffic.

And that has apparently setting the stage for raising a big new round of funding.

The presumable third round of investment, according to MediaMemo, would nab Twitter $20 million in added cash and give it a $200 million to $250 million valuation.

That’s certainly a lot of simoleons for a company that makes no simoleons, of course, even though Twitter folks are always going on about how they don’t need money since the burn rate is so low and because they could turn on the revenue spigot any old time they want to.

Well, Twitter might want to ask Facebook about how burn rates can rise quicker than you think and how hard it is to get that pump of revenue truly going in a sustainable way.

Still, you have to love the chutzpah of Twitter, which is correct to get if the getting is good in this not-so-good economy.

But before the valuation becomes so rich as to make Twitter completely impossible to buy by anyone, the company might want to reconsider what it considered and abandoned late last year, as BoomTown reported in endless detail, which was an acquisition of Twitter by Facebook.

Why? Because:

1.) The pair actually do fit nicely together, creating the most powerful universal address book ever, and pairing the two fastest growing social-networking assets on the Web.

2.) While the likelihood of Facebook going public anytime soon remains dim, due to the weak economy and lack-of-enough-revenue issues, the idea of Twitter doing so is laughable.

3.) Some larger company, I would bet my favorite Barry Manilow album, will eventually buy Twitter–my vote would be Google (GOOG)–but higher valuations make an exit harder. Before that happens, Twitter should get itself the home where it would have the most autonomy and influence, which still is Facebook.

Well, no one is listening to me, obviously!

The initial deal between Facebook and Twitter fail-whaled after Twitter decided that the $500 million in cash and stock offer from Facebook was not to its liking.

That liking was for more cash and also, presumably, the lack of interest in being bossed around by Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Everyone had a different take on the nonconsummation of the marriage of Facebook and Twitter.

Some thought Twitter was right to take a shot at building its business as well as it has its traffic, while others thought that goal and refusal to sell were the height of trend-induced hubris.

Whatever the case, Twitter is now making a definitive choice that it can make itself into an even tastier target or even a real company someday with this new round of funding.

And while it might seem another infusion of investment dollars might take the pressure off Twitter, I actually think the pressure has never been higher.

Welcome to Microsoft's Nightmare: Weak Quarter and Still More Yahoo Questions!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:15:37 +0000

Exactly what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was talking to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes about last week in their mysterious New York tete-a-tete will likely be one of the many irksome questions execs at the software giant will be getting when it reports second-quarter earnings tomorrow afternoon.

Sources close to the situation said more intense chit-chatting has been going on among the trio about possible alliances and deals, but the outlook for something actually getting done is still unclear.

Oh, yes, there is also the expectation that Microsoft (MSFT) will show a missed target on its profits, as well as announce big job cuts to its 95,000-employee worldwide workforce.

Then, of course, all eyes will be on its forecast of what is to come as the econalypse continues.

There are less impressive outlooks for Microsoft’s Windows business, as well as revenue weakness, which goes right to the bottom line.

That means inevitable cutbacks in staff, as well as other cost-slashing all over the giant company in order for Microsoft to regain some momentum and revive its weak stock performance, which has been hit harder.

But what investors are actually looking for from the company–much as the nation is from newly installed President Barack Obama–is a big dose of hope and change.

In Microsoft’s case, that would still be: the articulation of a clear online strategy.

Microsoft mistakenly got everyone to focus intently on that for all of 2008 with its failed takeover attempt to buy Yahoo (YHOO), mostly for its search business, as it has turned out.

Ballmer has recently and frequently and publicly said he covets Yahoo’s search share in order to bolster his company’s distant third-place position.

Why has that been an error so far? Well, without a move at all after so much frantic and endless movement, Microsoft has only underscored its lack of strategy and its woeful position in relation to archrival Google (GOOG).

As my piano teacher used to say about me: A lot of activity, but very little productivity (and very bad music-making too).

Thus, whether Microsoft will actually produce anything more than dissonance with Yahoo or not–or Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL either–should be the most pressing question from Wall Street.

Because, while the economic downturn will eventually pass, Microsoft will have to answer to what it has been doing all this time when it comes to Yahoo and the Internet at large.

Gadget-Loving President Obama Gets a Futuristic New Limo Ride

Kara Swisher — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:41:22 +0000

Besides getting, well, the whole country to run today, President Barack Obama is now taking a geek-tastic new ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to his new home, which should more than satisfy his clearly gadget-loving persona.

Obama, who has an ongoing obsessive relationship with his BlackBerry, much as the rest of us do, just got a spanking new presidential limo (pictured above), which the Secret Service is calling the “Beast.”

The last time General Motors (GM) improved on the car was at outgoing President George W. Bush’s 2005 inauguration, which means the struggling automaker is faster at upgrading than Microsoft (MSFT) is with Windows!

But, let us just say, it’s not very Prius-like, despite Obama’s speech today about focusing on the environment.

Indeed, the Cadillac limo has heavy armor five inches thick, run-flat tires, bullet-proof glass, an interior that seals, in case of a chemical attack, and other stuff that is too top secret to apparently reveal.

BoomTown is thinking, um, working Wi-Fi?

Refrigerated cup holders (and more of them, please!)?

A food machine that makes pizza from thin air like on “Star Trek”?

Or, miracle of miracles, that giant Apple (AAPL) iPod embedded in the steering wheel?

Post your suggestions as to what gadgets should be in the President’s new ride below.

She's Still Got a Crush on Obama

Kara Swisher — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:30:17 +0000

Oh, BoomTown just had to.

What with all the serious noting of the historical, societal and universal significance of the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama in a few short hours, here’s some less important (but funnier) ruminating in the latest video from Obama Girl.

(I also added a very good remix of it.)

Online phenom Obama Girl got her 15 minutes of fame with a viral video hit from the folks at BarelyPolitical.com, all about her crush on Obama when he was only a candidate.

Good pick, as it looks like Obama Girl has got at least four more years of spoofing ahead of her.

Go to the Inauguration Online With Live Earth

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:42:37 +0000

Live Earth–famous for its huge global entertainment concerts in 2007–will open its 2009 Green Inaugural Ball to the online community by taking video submissions, some of which will be shown at the event taking place in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19.

Partnering with Magnify.net as part of a larger deal with the online video company, Live Earth is creating a global video channel for the inauguration.

Anyone can submit a new or existing short film or video to the Live Earth video site, which launches this morning, “expressing ideas as to how President Barack Obama and his administration can use clean energy and green technology to change the country, save the economy, and solve the climate crisis.”

That’s right, my friends, welcome to the Internet-astic, BlackBerry-loving, You-Tubing, Twittering Obama administration. Luddites need not apply.

Genachowski to Head FCC–Maybe He Can Finally Fix My Broadband!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:02:02 +0000

Finally, someone who might actually understand the Internet will be taking charge of the thus-far lackadaisical government body that plays the largest role in spurring its growth.

The Washington Post is reporting that Julius Genachowski (pictured here) will be tapped to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment, which will be announced in the next few days, to BoomTown.

Genachowski has previously worked for the FCC as its chief counsel under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. But he is better known to Silicon Valley as a longtime Internet exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI).

He is now a founder of a Washington, D.C.-based venture firm called LaunchBox Digital, which has invested in a plethora of unusually trendy Web 2.0 companies.

One of its investments, the social news aggregation service Socialmedian, was recently acquired by the German-based business networking site Xing for $7.5 million.

And Genachowski is also a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, another venture firm, and a special adviser at General Atlantic.

Perhaps most notably, he went to law school with President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thus, Genachowski worked the tech sector tirelessly for Obama’s election, along with organizing the campaign’s successful social-networking and online fund-raising campaign.

He was also clearly on the short list to be America’s first chief technology officer, which might be too light on policy-making and too heavy on pontificating for Genachowski’s tastes.

As top telecom and, really, Internet regulator, Genachowski will have a lot more power and even more on his plate, including the rocky shift from analog to digital television, now set to take place next month, as well as dealing with net neutrality and a range of other key Web issues.

But top of the agenda will likely be how to make real Obama’s promise to drastically improve broadband access across this nation and lowering prices.

The slow speeds and high costs are an appalling legacy of Washington regulators and politicians, who have lived too long and too deep in the pockets of big telecom companies.

That has made the U.S. exactly what Softbank founder Masa Son once called in an interview I did with him at a D: All Things Digital conference: the “Third World of broadband.”

Hey, Julius, you’ll fix that, right?

Goodbye BlackBerry (and Hello iFart App?)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:11 +0000

Hello, my name is BoomTown and I am a reformed CrackBerryaholic.

How bad was it? Here’s the worst story: I was holding my BlackBerry in my hand, inadvertently for once, when I gave birth to my son in 2002.

Long story short: I was emailing away throughout labor, suddenly had to have emergency surgery, was quickly drugged into paralysis and forgot it was gripped in my hand–all until the anesthesiologist looked at me like I was a freak.

I should have been embarrassed by that. I was not. Hence, that makes me a full-fledged Blackberry addict.

Actually, I was one.

Because over the weekend, while casting about for a good New Year’s resolution (Work less? Nope! Exercise more? Double nope!!), I impulsively decided to dump what is pathetically one of my more satisfying and reliable relationships ever for a questionable new one.

That’s right, I have finally abandoned the BlackBerry for the iPhone.

I have no idea what possessed me, but suddenly I had to change dramatically and change now. (I could blame the influence of fellow CrackBerry user President-Elect Barack Obama for that mood.)

So, I finally made the dreaded switcheroo from the devices made by the fine folks at Research In Motion (RIMM), which I have used since the first stubby little block of greyish plastic until the last stubby bigger block of reddish plastic.

To be honest, I have been flirting with the idea of leaving my longtime love for a while now.

Almost sneakily, I bought an iPhone from the get-go when it came out from Apple (AAPL) in June of 2007, because it was just too cool a device to pass up.

I was instantly delighted by the touchscreen swooshing and squinching, its breakthrough quality as a handheld media player, the Internet access that finally worked and the generally clever way of organizing contact and other information. I also liked the voicemail recording a lot.

Not so much the AT&T (T) cellular network, of course, but that was livable. What was not, as it was for a lot of people, was the poor email experience, specifically the virtual keyboard.

To say my entire life revolves around email and texting is to go overboard. But not by much. It is, in fact, the bane of my partner, who has learned to live with it grudgingly.

My obsession has even turned into mimicry by my other son, a three-year-old, who grabbed a small and rectangular block of wood recently and started tapping on it with his fingers, proudly declaring, “I’m Mama working!”

Oh dear. Like I said, I am pathetic in this regard (on the plus side, I don’t drink, do drugs or watch “Dancing with the Stars”).

But my issues with the dullish BlackBerry slowly mounted, from its too-small screen, to the substandard Internet experience to the limited ways to store emails to the overall clunkiness of it.

And when the apps came out for the iPhone, it got worse, since the ones on BlackBerry just are not as robust at all.

And with those apps, I now did not even have to really launch a browser and click away in frustration. Instead, I could largely rely on an increasingly interesting array of software that made my digital life a lot easier.

I am not including the iFart app in this group, of course, the kind of toddler programming that I had thought I had left behind when I started ignoring Facebook apps. Verdict: Eww.

In any case, my BlackBerry still had those lovely clickety-clack keys that have always been a joy to press and with which I could write a book in a very short time, I had become so adept at using them.

So, I had great hopes for the BlackBerry Storm, with a clicking-like virtual keyboard, as the solution to all my problems. Or so I thought.

When I first saw it, I knew this was not what I had been waiting for, which was underscored by Walt Mossberg’s review.

The weird push on the glass screen made me feel like it was going to break with every click. What I really wanted was the tactile feel of the keys and not the click feel.

The G1 smartphone from Google (GOOG), of course, offered a real keyboard and the big touchscreen. But it just looks and feels too much like–let’s be honest–a pair of clogs I once wore in seventh grade and have regretted ever since.

And, while there is a Palm device reportedly coming out this week with a touchscreen and a slip-down keyboard, I guess I have finally become tired of waiting for something that is perhaps not possible: A virtual keyboard that feels real.

Thus, I gave into the iPhone and learned to live with my all-thumbs typing.

And, as many have said, I am actually getting better at that. Not speedy, as I was with the BlackBerry, which–ironically–has caused me not to use the iPhone as obsessively and to put it down a lot more.

Except that, as soon as I do put it down, it is immediately picked up by my now six-year-old, the very person who had endured my incessant pregnant clicking.

As it turns out, he is obsessed with the many game apps I have downloaded for him onto the iPhone–currently “Crazy Penguin Catapult.” (Verdict: Unusually fun.)

So much so that he sneaked into my bedroom yesterday morning and spirited my iPhone away for a session while I slept late.

What can I say? Like mother, like son.

In this regard, let’s hope not.

[Photo credit: Cool, but creepy BlackBerry Baby image is from All Media.]