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

Kara Swisher — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:41:44 +0000

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 (MSFT) 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.

But the addition of Facebook raises the stakes considerably because it has the largest pool of status updates, despite all the hype around Twitter. Facebook has previously stated that it has 40 million updates a day, on average, from its 300 million-plus audience.

Twitter has been talking to Google (GOOG) about a similar arrangement, and, according to sources, so has Facebook.

But the deal is a definite blow to the dominant search engine, since–for the first time–data will be available on Bing that are not available on Google.

Neither of the services is expected to be up and running for weeks, if not months. But there is the possibility of a demo today by Qi Lu of what it will look like.

What’s interesting about the deals, which have been in the works for several weeks, is that they will be very different.

Much of what is posted on Twitter is public by design, while Facebook users prefer the closed nature of the service to disperse a wide variety of personal information only to their friends, and they want to control it.

Thus, sources said, not all Facebook updates will be included in the real-time feed to be searched by Bing, but only those its users choose to make available to the wider public. Facebook will apparently provide users with a number of new tools to do so.

BoomTown first reported several weeks ago that Twitter was in advanced talks with both the search rivals about such a real-time search arrangement.

When asked about the talks onstage at Web 2.0 yesterday, Twitter CEO Evan Williams turned coy, according to numerous reports, joking “Whose deals?”

But, in fact, the San Francisco-based microblogging service was very much engaged in dealmaking aimed at gaining more visibility for the billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

And so was Facebook, and it is probably a little irksome to Twitter that the rival social networking site will steal some of the thunder over the deal, which is sure to break out in the blogosphere today.

The two services represent the hugest trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from their massive data streams.

The deals with Microsoft might include a payment of several million dollars to both Facebook and Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give them a piece of the advertising revenue made from search results.

Doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for both companies to turbocharge their own search engines without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched the Bing search service.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give both companies an even huger footprint.

Microsoft did a small experiment this past summer by integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

And the company provides search services to the Silicon Valley-based Facebook, part of a major investment deal it made several years ago.

Both Microsoft and Google had separately contemplated buying Twitter and Facebook in deals that never materialized.

But, if they both strike data deals with Twitter and Facebook, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all that real-time information to the masses from its most innovative sources.

Update: Is Microsoft Poised to Integrate Twitter Into Bing?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:38:03 +0000

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.

Qi Lu, the head of Microsoft’s online services division, is being interviewed at the event at 11:30 am PDT.

Note: Lu is scheduled to appear onstage after Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is now too sick to attend, the company said. She also missed Yahoo’s third-quarter conference call due to an unspecified illness.

Thus, Lu is the main event of Web 2.0 tomorrow morning and it would be a good place to make a big announcement, if the talks are successful.

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 (MSFT) first and then Google (GOOG), which is the other company Twitter has been negotiating with.

BoomTown had previously reported that Twitter was in advanced talks with both the search rivals about just such a real-time search arrangement.

There could be other possibilities on the table, said sources, such as one of the big companies advertising on Twitter or any number of other Twitter partnerships with either one.

When asked about the talks onstage at Web 2.0 yesterday, Twitter CEO Evan Williams turned coy, according to numerous reports, joking “Whose deals?”

But, in fact, Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, is very much engaged in dealmaking in this regard.

Here is what I wrote previously, as to what and why:

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.

These include a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google and Microsoft.

This means Yahoo–which recently struck a search-technology and online-advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company is in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but the company has certainly bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already having raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

The valuation also effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and is very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

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

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:00:18 +0000

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.

I was at BlogWorld, which runs through tomorrow, to interview Ford Motor Company (F) digital guru Scott Monty, who compared social media to cocaine onstage.

There were a lot of other cool sessions and it was a surprisingly large and energetic and decidedly bloggy crowd, who were intent on schmoozing and trading tips in an analog venue.

Here is a quick video interview I did with BlogWorld honchos Dave Cynkin and Rick Calvert about where blogging is going:

[ See post to watch video ]

NPR's Honchos Talk Digital at "Think In" in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:14:24 +0000

Last Friday, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller and Digital Media SVP and GM Kinsey WiIson 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?

These and other questions were discussed at frog design Friday with a passel of Web types like investor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, Toni Schneider of Automattic, craigslist founder Craig Newmark and LinkedIn founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Also, ubiquitous blogger Robert Scoble, who wants NPR to open itself up like a can of beans.

The Think In participants were charged with making suggestions related to five main topics: Social media and connection to the audience, NPR’s national network of more than 800 stations, the potential of its open API, expansion of platforms and how to diversify its revenue model.

BoomTown always likes crowdsourcing innovation, even among the digital elite.

While at the event in the morning, I talked to Schiller, who came to NPR last year after a stint as general manager of the New York Times online unit, and also to Wilson, who previously worked as executive editor for USA Today and ran its digital efforts before that.

Along with my video interview with them, below, you can check out some more detailed information from the event here.

Here’s my video:

[ See post to watch video ]

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

Kara Swisher — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:48:06 +0000

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.

These include a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

This means Yahoo (YHOO)–which recently struck a search-technology and online-advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company is in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but the company has certainly bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already having raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

The valuation also effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and is very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

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

Kara Swisher — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:33:30 +0000

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.

As a completely virtual company, it’s nice to get together to gnaw on some ribs and trade 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.

“I’m vertical, back at Apple and loving every day of it,” declared Jobs, before introducing a variety of new features and software innovations to the company’s already strong repertoire, most specifically for iTunes and iPods.

(I guess some still stubbornly self-righteous bloggers were a little premature with their hysterical death’s-door assertions about the Silicon Valley icon and business-challenged certainty that Apple would wither too.)

Overall, from reading the coverage about the Apple (AAPL) gathering, the Jobs performance sounded kind of dramatic, even if there was no launch of a new device, such as the coming-up-next mystery iTablet.

Both Walt Mossberg and Digital Daily’s John “Patches” Paczkowski were at the event, along with Mossberg Solution’s Katherine Boehret and our Webmaster, master photog and Newton fanboy, Adam Tow (see his amazing images of the confab here).

(Walt actually punked me at the BBQ by pretending he actually had a demo of the alleged Apple tablet in his bag–at which I almost lunged like a lunatic–when he had no such thing. Ha. Ha.)

In any case, here’s their frank ruminations on what went down–not too much new, really, but still interesting, as always, from Apple.

And, separately, after the Apple event was over, Patches went to a meeting with Palm (PALM) to take a gander at the new Pixi smart phone and gives his first thoughts on that too.

Here’s the video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]

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

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:07:59 +0000

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.

In any case, it was held in the San Francisco offices of MySpace and covered such topics such as: How blogging and citizen journalism have changed the landscape, what works in the highly connected digital media space, and, of course, the ups and down of being a woman in the male-choked tech industry in Silicon Valley.

The panelists included former San Francisco Chronicle tech editor Deborah Gage, ZDNet’s Jennifer Leggio, Ubergizmo Editor Eliane Fiolet, VentureBeat’s Camille Ricketts and TechieDiva’s Gina Hughes.

It was a lively discussion, with highlights such as Fiolet telling a hilarious story about an encounter of the irksome kind at a gaming conference and jokingly recommending violence as a solution, and Hughes talking about the sometimes trollish commenters of Yahoo (YHOO) when she blogged there.

Overall takeaway: Be loud, be proud and ignore all the noise. That, or make some more–and, preferably, via Twitter.

I also did a short interview at the event with social media blogger and PR guy Brian Solis about his latest book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.”

Natch, here is a lovely video I did–interviewing Solis, Hughes and Ricketts–which also includes yet another cruel “no comment” from Facebook’s talk-to-the-hand PR terror Brandee Barker:

[ See post to watch video ]

Internet Punching Bag Twitter Attacked Again

Kara Swisher — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:47:42 +0000

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.

Update (12:17p): We’re back up and analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack.

Later updates by staff of the San Francisco-based microblogging service confirmed it was another denial-of-service attack, like the one last week aimed at a Russian blogger. It also affected other sites, such as Facebook.

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

Kara Swisher — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:06:15 +0000

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 (MSFT) 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.

Recent tweets will be prominently displayed near the top of the search page, but could also be spread throughout the results.

The feature is now rolling out, so might not be able to be accessed immediately. It will be updated every minute, said Microsoft.

Microsoft is the first major search service to do this on a regular basis, using public programming interfaces, or API’s, available to anyone from Twitter–and it is an aggressive move, which seems to be part of its major push by Bing (which is, in fact, seeing some share gain in yet another report released today).

But, all are moving in that direction. While neither Google (GOOG) nor Yahoo (YHOO) is regularly indexing any part of the microblogging service’s real-time data stream yet, both have been testing the idea internally.

All three, though, do index static Twitter profiles in some way in their search results. They also can show older tweets that have specific keywords in them.

The Microsoft effort is different, and, um–and I had absolutely no idea that the company was doing this–appears to include BoomTown tweets, as well as those from other tech bloggers like Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan and a “few thousand people to start.”

Still, in a mission-accomplished effort to creep me out, Microsoft’s Sean Suchter, general manager of its Silicon Valley Search Technology Center, noted in the blog, “starting today, when you search for these folks names in association with Twitter, you’ll see their latest Tweets come up in real time on Bing’s search results.”

He then used my name and Twitter profile as an example, displaying some of my duller tweets of stories I had posted on All Things Digital.

(My testy roundelay with TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld about the veracity of its Twitter-about-to-sell-to-Google post a while back would have been much more interesting, and pertinent too!)

In an interview with me this afternoon, Suchter described the addition of the specific tweets as a “first step” in adding a lot more real-time data to Bing.

“Given Twitter is the big gorilla here and it is a really interesting frontier for search, we thought it was important to get something out there,” he said. “It is also about us learning how users interact with it that will also be really interesting.”

Suchter said Twitter is aware of the move, but that Microsoft did not need any extra help from the San Francisco start-up to launch it.

Suchter said it would begin with a limited number of tweets for now and will not include search results of tweets about a person–although that is possible. And Microsoft, he said, was not able to index all of Twitter at the present time.

“We would like to grow this, because this area is so exciting, so we wanted to get the plumbing working to show we could do it,” said Suchter. “And since there is a lot of useful content in Twitter and in this real-time corpus, it has to be a big part of the search experience in the future.”

This is obviously a first shot in what will be a long war over real-time search among Google, Microsoft and Yahoo–each of which has also been talking to Twitter about a variety of partnership deals that have yet to be struck.

Here is Suchter’s blog on the Twitter real-time data addition:

Bringing a Bit of Twitter to Bing

There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created primarily by Twitter. We’ve been watching this phenomenon with great interest, and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space. Today we’re unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres. This includes Tweets from folks from our own search technology and business sphere like Danny Sullivan or Kara Swisher as well as those from spheres of more general consumer appeal like Al Gore or Ryan Seacrest.

Starting today, when you search for these folks names in association with Twitter, you’ll see their latest Tweets come up in real time on Bing’s search results. For example, if you type “Kara Swisher Twitter” or “Kara Swisher Tweets” or even “@karaswisher” as your search query, you’ll see something like this:

The answer will include that person’s latest Tweets, along with an easy link to “See more tweets” from that individual.

We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time… just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search. We’d love to hear your feedback as we think through future possibilities in real time search.

And while we may not be famous, we are prolific, so don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for all the latest news from Bing!

Sean Suchter, General Manager, Search Technology Center, Silicon Valley

Speaking of creepy stalking, please enjoy this nail-biting trailer for “Play Misty for Me”:

HDNet Chairman Mark Cuban: The Full D7 Session

Kara Swisher — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:19:44 +0000

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 (GOOG) to the next big innovation.

Cuban hardly needs an introduction–he’s been a Web mogul, an entrepreneur, a sports team owner, a blogger, a theater owner, a high-definition evangelist and most of all, a digital gadfly.

Here’s the full D7 video session:

[ See post to watch video ]

From the Desk of Former Yahoo President Sue Decker

Kara Swisher — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:00:42 +0000

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 (MSFT) in its failed takeover battle for Yahoo (YHOO), a fact that was highlighted in a post I did last year.

Instead, Decker has been keeping a low profile since she announced she was resigning from her post the very day new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz arrived.

Decker was also a candidate for the top job, which she sought after sticking by former Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang through some very rough times for both.

Her last day at Yahoo, after nine years there, was April 1.

In the email, Decker explained that she has not yet made any future work-related plans, but had simply taken up an offer from Blackstone’s President Tony James, as well as Greenthal, who suggested she could set up a small office there to attend to board work. The three all used to work together at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

Even without an executive perch, Decker could use such a desk given that she sits on some very major boards, including Intel (INTC) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A).

More than that, Decker–who sounded pretty happy to me–is not saying. Yet.

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

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:15:35 +0000

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.

Here it is, aptly titled, “This doesn’t seem awkward at all”:

Taken at Time magazine’s Time 100 fete in New York recently, where the pair were among this year’s honorees, Williams and fellow Twitter founder Biz Stone were looking, well, I could not say at first just what the microblogging potentates were looking like.

That is, until I compared the photo with the one below of Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller, who played supermodels Hansel and Derek in the nearly perfect movie, “Zoolander.”

Is it the “Blue Steel” pose?

How lucky that All Things Digital readers can see the pair strut their stuff onstage in real-time (how Twittery of us!), starting next Tuesday night in posts and videos, in the opening night interview Walt Mossberg and I will conduct with Williams and Stone.

In their honor we’ve already tweeted–in fewer than 140 characters each–their bios thusly for our program–I hope they appreciate our editorial license with their short and sweet lives:

Williams was raised on a farm in Nebraska, dropped out of college, was co-founder of Pyra Labs, which created Blogger and sold to Google.

Stone helped found things besides Twitter: Xanga, Blogger and Odeo. He worked for Google with Blogger. He once won a debate at Oxford Union.

You can also see the rest of the D7 speaker list and click to more bios here.

[Photo of Williams and Stone courtesy of Evan Williams on Flickr.]

Exclusive: BlogHer Nabs $7 Million in New Funding

Kara Swisher — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:00:10 +0000

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 (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.

“This is a true grassroots effort that shows the growing influence of women in social media,” said Stone. “We want to focus on taking advantage of that growth and momentum with this new funding.”

According to the start-up–which was founded in 2005 by Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins and now has 30 employees, located mostly in Silicon Valley–the BlogHer Network reaches more than 14 million unique visitors a month.

Besides the site, BlogHer also runs a popular conference and is hoping to expand its suite of social-networking tools as well as its publishing and advertising network.

“We have been trying to create a place for women to participate in social media with civil respect and also to engage readers,” said Stone.

While it is not yet profitable, Stone added, BlogHer is ahead of its internal financial projections, and “I hope next year I can raise a glass of champagne to meeting that goal.”

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

Kara Swisher — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:20:43 +0000

Was it Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in Fraiche Yogurt with a Macbook Air? Or Tesla Motors 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 always controversial Valleywag 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 GE (GE) unit NBC Universal’s new Bay Area Web site, whose motto is “Locals Only.”

There, the 37-year-old Thomas will run a site that focuses on news from around the San Francisco region, with a mix of national stories. But, sources said, he is still going to continue to drill down on tech too, so those burned before by him should not relax too much.

Thomas has been running Valleywag since mid-2007. Its staff got pretty large for a while, until it was recently downsized and its content stuffed into Gawker, the flagship site of Gawker Media. The Valleywag site remains, though, and will continue to.

And it will now be the domain of deceptively fresh-faced Ryan Tate, Thomas’s replacement. The Berkeley resident, 32, has been the night editor for Gawker since early last year.

Interestingly, Tate was an intern for The Wall Street Journal’s California edition and also worked for tech-oriented publications like Business 2.0, Upside and the San Francisco Business Times.

Thomas is reportedly staying on at Valleywag through the middle of the month and then it will be Tate’s turn to make mischief with tech’s more puffed-up mandarins.

In an effort to scare Tate into steering clear of BoomTown, I invited the pair to All Things Digital HQ this rainy afternoon for a little sit-down to discuss where the controversial site has been and where it is going.

Here’s the video (and below it, a video interview I did with Thomas and then-Valleywag writer Megan McCarthy, when he got the job):

[ See post to watch video ]

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

Kara Swisher — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:03:40 +0000

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 the company has been prepping.

Microsoft’s search service is currently called–zzzzz–Live Search.

“All About Microsoft” crack blogger Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet recently wrote about the Bing name, which is registered to the company, as well as “Hook” and the one that Microsoft is using now as its test name, Kumo.

Kumo means “cloud” and “spider” in Japanese, which seems a wee bit esoteric.

Today, paidContent.org dropped “Sift” into the mix, although it seems to be related to mobile phones, along with “Swivel.”

I, for one, am feeling both like flour and getting dizzy at the thought of those names.

Foley at ZDnet feels the same, noting today in a post:

“(Would Microsoft be crazy enough to trademark its general Web search engine and its search engine for mobile with two different names, say Bing and Sift? As Windows Live has shown, truth can be stranger than fiction….)”

Microsoft (MSFT), of course, is keeping the name for its search service under tight wraps, but it is obviously going to be spending a shipload of money on its branding in another attempt to catch market leaders Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

Microsoft has been recently talking to Yahoo about a search partnership deal, although they are likely both to keep their brands and search products in any event.

Nonetheless, execs and minions in the know laugh at me loudly when I ask them to leak it to me.

(Note to anyone at Microsoft: Pretty please, someone leak it to me, even if it’s in the form of a memo from the leaky cauldron that is Yahoo.)

I doubt someone will, though. “It’s like Fort Knox secret,” said one Softie source, referring to the Kentucky fortress where the largest amount of the United States gold reserves are stored.

Hey, if Auric Goldfinger, OddJob and Pussy Galore could get into Fort Knox in that most excellent James Bond film, I can certainly find out the name of Microsoft’s search service!

Personally, I like Bing, and cherries from Washington state are indeed tasty (and coming soon too!)

According to the Heart of Washington Web site, its state’s cherries rate. Some fun factoids:

- Washington State produces more than 50 percent of all the sweet cherries in the United States.
- The Rainier cherry, which is yellow with a red blush, was made from a cross between two dark red cherries, the Van and Bing.
- Americans eat approximately 2.6 pounds of cherries per year.
- There are approximately 53 pitted cherries in one pound of cherries.
- The Bing cherry, which all cherries are measured against, was first developed in 1874 in Milwaukie, Ore.
- The Bing cherry was named after one of Seth Lewelling’s workers. The Bing cherry was developed by Seth Lewelling.
- Washington cherries are shipped around the world; the top three foreign markets are Canada, Taiwan and Japan.
- In 2001, there were 29,000 acres of sweet cherries in the state.
- The Washington cherry season begins in late May with some product seen at farmer’s markets. Commercial shipping begins around June 5, and will continue until mid-August. The peak of the season runs from June 20 to Aug. 1.

Plus, if Microsoft uses Bing, they could also rebrand their MSN online service, “Bada” and their email product, “Boom.”

Then, they can get Tony Soprano as their spokesman with the motto: “Bada Bing, Bada Boom, Notta Bada Algorithm!”

Or better still: “If you use Google, we’ll whack you!”

Now, that’s more like it.