We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview I did with Time Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes.

As you will see, Bewkes is a live wire, sassing me about the hard time I was giving him about the rough road AOL has had as a Time Warner property.

In this video, Bewkes takes questions from the audience about CNN, Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs, Bebo, content, the greening of Time Warner and he also gets in a stats tussle with Yahoo’s media head Scott Moore.

Read More »

On my recent trip to Seattle, I visited the offices of iLike, in the Capitol Hill section of that lovely Pacific Northwest city, to take a video gander at one of the more interesting start ups to emerge from the social networking arena.

The music discovery site, unlike a lot of others in its sector, has been plugging away for several years with much less funding (about $16 million from the founding Partovi twin brothers, former AOL wunderkind Bob Pittman and a big slug from Ticket Master), but a lot more impact.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview I did with Time Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes.

As you will see, Bewkes is a live wire, sassing me about the hard time I was giving him about the rough road AOL has had as a Time Warner property.

In this video, Bewkes talks about AOL, Time Warner’s talks with Yahoo, online content and also outlines more detailed plans for Bebo.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview I did with Time Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes.

As you will see, Bewkes is a live wire, sassing me about the hard time I was giving him about the rough road AOL has had as a Time Warner property.

This video of the interview opens opens with a very funny spoof video Bewkes brought using Time Warner’s TMZ unit, followed by his remarks on the continued impact of the rocky merger with AOL, the purchase of the Bebo social-networking site and how to best use content online.

Read More »

Now, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is a very natty executive.

But Bewkes is definitely looking 333 percent prettier to both Yahoo and Microsoft this morning, as their 2,365th round of talks to partner in some way–if you could call them that–collapsed yet again with more he-said-he-said recriminations.

Now, both Yahoo and Microsoft have got to be hightailing it across the dance floor to block the other from making a possible move on AOL.

Read More »

AOL announced today that it has forked over the $850 million dollars in cash for Bebo–presumably in small bills in big bags, so all the fully vested Bebo employees can’t run away quite as fast–completing its acquisition of the quirky #3 social networking site.

As part of the process, it has also created a new business unit, called the People Networks, which will be headed by Bebo President Joanna Shields.

Read More »

Today, in yet another episode of the Web 2.0 lottery, Social Gaming Network grabbed $15 million in funding for its widgety gaming apps that are popular on Facebook and other social networking sites.

The round, led by Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, Columbia Partners and Novak Biddle Venture Partners, will go toward expanding its offerings, which include the popular Warbook, and also its network for other developers to create and publish online games on.

Read More »

Yesterday, I traveled to Los Angeles for paidContent’s second Economics of Social Media conference, which opened last night and is being held all day today at the Skirball Cultural Center.
This morning, I am interviewing Steve Wadsworth, who helms Walt Disney’s (DIS) Internet businesses.
And after sating myself with as much Club Penguin info as possible, I [...]

Read More »

Valleywag got a hold of a sticker (see below) that Bebo employees are passing around in anticipation of the close of the purchase of the third-ranked social-networking site by AOL for $850 million in cash.
The motto: “I, for one, welcome our new AOL overlords.”
Why shouldn’t they? As BoomTown reported, every Bebo employee has had their [...]

Read More »

AOL is turning into the Oprah Winfrey of the digital world, it seems, opening up Time Warner’s (TWX) checkbook to as many start-ups as it can.

Last month, it was $850 million in cash for social-networking site Bebo.
And, today, it’s a much smaller slug for Sphere, which started as a blog search engine and morphed into [...]

Read More »

Everybody remain calm.

While it might have looked like it was the rapture for major Internet players yesterday–what with everyone and his mother getting sucked up into the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover tussle and disappearing into the ether of confusion that now reigns over the situation–it is best to keep moving toward the light of harsh reality for illumination.

Read More »

Gone, Tim Tuttle of Truveo. Gone, the Birches of Bebo. Gone, Dave Morgan of Tacoda. Gone, many Quigos.
One of the more interesting little problems that AOL has had over the last few years, in regards to its acquisition of hot Internet companies, has been that it is situated deep in the bowels of the Time [...]

Read More »

Yesterday, you could feel the testiness jump right over the phone from several people close to Microsoft whom I spoke to about Yahoo’s latest gambit to sell its blue-sky growth plan to Wall Street.

Like a lot of Yahoo’s various moves of late–dating promiscuously with other suitors, handing out pricey severance plans to all employees and continuing to spurn the advances of the software giant without a raise in its $31-a-share bid–the projections by Yahoo that its sunny future warranted at least $40 a share were not taken well in Redmond.

Read More »

OK, we Photoshopped it, but only because we could not get our head around what the official Yahoo/Microsoft post-merger picture might look like.

Read More »

After its AOL division paid out an insane $850 million for social networking site Bebo yesterday, one had to wonder if the true digital legacy of Time Warner will be as the perpetual gravy train for legions of Web players.

It certainly seems that way from the original AOL execs who “merged” their company with Time Warner in 2000 and cashed out at the peak right after the deal to the series of ad networking startup entrepreneurs who got acquired, took their payouts and skidaddled right on through to the two founders of Bebo–Michael and Xochi Birch–who didn’t even stay long enough for a latte after grabbing their chunk of the payday Time Warner was handing out in crisp bank notes for the social networking site they founded.

Read More »