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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Exclusive: Guess Who Else Is Coming to Dinner? Twitter-Microsoft Bing Deal Confirmed, but so Is Facebook-Bing.

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In a stunning one-two punch, Microsoft will announce separate nonexclusive deals today with both Facebook and Twitter to integrate their real-time feeds of status updates into the Bing search service.

According to sources, Microsoft digital head Qi Lu will announce the deal onstage in a few hours at the Web 2.0 Summit.

BoomTown reported earlier today that the Microsoft data-mining deal with Twitter was poised to be announced.

The first-mover deal by Microsoft, needless to say, is a solid blow to Google, which has also been talking with both companies about a similar arrangement, because–for the first time–data will be available on Bing that are not available on the search giant.

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Update: Is Microsoft Poised to Integrate Twitter Into Bing?

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According to sources, Microsoft is close to striking a nonexclusive data-mining deal with Twitter to integrate the microblogging service’s full feed into the results of its Bing search service.

News of the deal, which was still being worked on by engineers and execs at both the software giant and the start-up as late as yesterday, could even come as early as today at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco.

But sources close to the situation caution that the deal could still run into a snag and was not yet complete, although it seems more likely than not that a deal will soon be struck with Microsoft first and then Google, which is the other company Twitter has also been talking to.

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Friday, October 16, 2009

What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas: Kara Visits BlogWorld Expo

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Yesterday, BoomTown traveled to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center–and it was not even time for the annual Consumer Electronics Show!

Instead, I was attending BlogWorld Expo, an annual event for bloggers of all kinds–from military bloggers to political bloggers to a roving pack of mommy bloggers–who gather to find out about all kinds of social media software and tools and, most importantly, how to monetize their sites.

Needless to say, it was blogtastic!

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Monday, October 12, 2009

NPR’s Honchos Talk Digital at “Think In” in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)

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Last Friday, National Public Radio top execs came to San Francisco for a “Digital Think In” to pick the brains of some Silicon Valley types about where the public radio icon should go, digitally speaking.

While NPR actually has been pretty fast-forward with podcasts and a robust Web site, it still has to think about what social networking means to it and whether a day is coming when broadcasting online will be bigger than offline.

Also, what’s up with Twitter?

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Twitter Talking Separately to Microsoft and Google About Big Data-Mining Deals

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Is there gold in them thar tweets?

Maybe so, because–according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Video: Mossberg and Patches Opine About AppleFest 2009 at the ATD Annual BBQ

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Here’s a lovely video BoomTown did last night at our All Things Digital annual BBQ, at which the crackerjack team at our little rogue operation inside Dow Jones goes analog, gnaws on some ribs and trades tech tales.

Last night, of course, much of the chatter was about what went down at the Apple event in San Francisco yesterday, at which CEO and Supreme Leader Steve Jobs made a grand reappearance onstage after a liver transplant.

Walt Mossberg and Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski were there and give their spicy reports.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Girls in Tech “Journalism 2.0″ Panel: Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick

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Last night, BoomTown moderated a really interesting panel for an organization called Girls in Tech, titled “Journalism 2.0 RoundTable.”

Girls in Tech describes itself as a “social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent & influential women.”

With those lofty requirements–combined with the fact that I was a girl when we had yet to land on the moon–I have no idea what I was doing there.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Internet Punching Bag Twitter Attacked Again

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Twitter seems to be like one of those toy Bozo Bop Bags for cyber-attackers, as it temporarily went down again today.

In a post on its status site titled “Responding to site downtime,” Twitter wrote:

“We’re working to recover from a site outage and will update as we learn more.”

Twitter is now back up, noting that it is “analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack.”

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Microsoft Adds Some Twitter Real-Time Data to Bing (And Stalks BoomTown in the Process)

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Microsoft just announced in a blog post that it was “integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.”

Microsoft said it is not indexing all of Twitter in its new Bing search service–not yet, that is–nor has it made any kind of exclusive deal with Twitter to add this real-time feed.

The software giant is the first major search service to do this on a regular basis, using public APIs from Twitter–and it is an aggressive move, which seems to be part of its major push by Bing.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

HDNet Chairman Mark Cuban: The Full D7 Session

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What can one say about Mark Cuban that he can’t say himself?

Not much, as you will see from this sassy onstage interview he did with Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, where he talked about everything from the idiots of the Internet to the subsidization of Web video by Google.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

From the Desk of Former Yahoo President Sue Decker

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Recently–in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley–several people told BoomTown quite separately that former Yahoo President Sue Decker had become an executive-in-residence at the Blackstone Group.

Actually, when reached via email, Decker told me she has yet to decide her next step after leaving Yahoo and had simply set up a no-strings-attached desk at the private equity firm’s San Francisco office, but is definitely not an EIR there.

And who says bloggers don’t check?

In fact, a move to join Blackstone formally would have been very ironic for Decker given that the firm–specifically, longtime friend and former colleague, Jill Greenthal–was one of the advisers to Microsoft in its failed takeover battle for Yahoo.

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Will the Twitter Twins Channel the “Zoolander” Duo at D7 Next Week?

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While getting ready for the spate of interviews at our seventh D: All Things Digital conference in just seven days, BoomTown has been doing a lot of research on the people taking the stage.

Some interviews will be quite serious (Eve Ensler, talking about the dire situation in the Congo) and some possibly funny (Mark Cuban, who simply defies definition).

But this picture that Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams posted today on his Flickr page is easily the most unusual bit of research I have come across.

It is aptly titled, “This doesn’t seem awkward at all.”

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Exclusive: BlogHer Nabs $7 Million in New Funding

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BlogHer, which bills itself as “the community for women who blog,” has gotten $7 million more in a Series C funding, which will bring the total investment in the site to about $15.5 million.

The new round includes a return by two existing investors, Venrock and Peacock Equity, a fund run by GE and its NBC Universal unit. Azure Capital is joining as a new investor.

In an interview with BoomTown, BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone said the site’s recent fast growth was the impetus for the new round, in order to improve tools offered to its 2,500 vetted bloggers as well as investing in better research and advertising technology.

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Friday, May 1, 2009

Who Shot Valleywag? Gossip Bloggers Thomas (Outgoing) and Tate (Incoming) Speak!

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Was it Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in Fraiche Yogurt with a Macbook Air? Or Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the streets of San Francisco with a Model S? Or, most likely of all, Marissa Mayer of Google in the penthouse with a Manolo Blahnik spiked heel?

For all the invective this trio has taken from him, all would certainly be prime suspects if some nefarious fate befell Valleywag’s always controversial gossip blogger, Owen Thomas.

Actually, the truth is a little more mundane: The self-described “scourge of [Silicon] Valley” is moving onto another digital job as head of NBC Universal’s new Bay Area Web site, whose motto is “Locals Only.” Deceptively fresh-faced Ryan Tate is his replacement.

Here are Thomas’s last words on the controversial gossip site.

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Would Microsoft’s New Search Name Smell as Sweet if It Were Named After a Cherry or a Soprano?

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What’s in a name?

Well, a lot, actually, and BoomTown supposes it would be just like those Pacific Northwest types at Microsoft to name the new version of its search service “Bing,” presumably after the cherry that is a big product in the company’s home state.

That moniker is one of many being bandied about in a group the software giant could be considering for the big relaunch of its search service, which it has been prepping.

But Microsoft should forget the fruity metaphor, also rename its MSN online service “Bada” and use this motto: “Bada Bing, Bada Boom, Notta Bada Algorithm!”

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About Kara

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.

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Ethics Statement

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.

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