BoomTown is wearing all-black today, in profound mourning for the prospect of no Paula Abdul on “American Idol” next season.
“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return,” tweeted Abdul yesterday, bidding goodbye, natch, on Twitter.
Here is a cool video look at her and co-judge Simon Cowell and one of her appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference. (I kid you not!)
Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.
We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”
Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.
Well, we’re still going–making the same long-term bet that the digital revolution will keep rolling as we did at D1. Here’s our lineup for D7.
As reported Sunday night by BoomTown, former Yahoo exec and Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will become CEO and president of the Guitar Hero division of gaming giant Activision Blizzard.
I chatted with both Rosensweig and Activision president and CEO Bobby Kotick yesterday about the move and where the gaming company is going in the year ahead.
“I love music and I love big brands,” said Rosensweig, whose enthusiasm for music, especially for Bruce Springsteen, is well known in the digital industry.
Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig 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, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick.
The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.
It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.
The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.
In this third video, Kotick publicly demos “Guitar Hero IV” for the first time, with the help of special guest stars Paula Abdul of “American Idol” and skateboarding star Tony Hawk.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.
It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.
The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.
It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.
The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.
Okay, a show of hands of those who don’t want to hear another word about how incompetent the other side is in the now-settled proxy fight between activist investor Carl Icahn and Yahoo.
Icahn, whom Yahoo insisted last week was unfit to even turn on a computer, now appears to be perfectly capable of leading the troubled Internet company as a board member, along with two cronies of his choosing (with Yahoo’s consent).
What’s not clear–except for removing uncertainty and noise–is exactly what this means for shareholders or how it gets Yahoo back on track or even how a possible deal with Microsoft is now struck.
The Wall Street Journal published a special tab about our sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place live two weeks ago.
The Journal editors selected about half of the interviews done there by Walt Mossberg and me, either separately or together, and edited the longer transcripts down to the parts they thought readers would like best.
Former New Yorker and now Los Angeleno Bobby Kotick is a very funny guy, always cracking wise about everything from politicians to art to his skills as a parent.
During an interview yesterday, he even got a few good ones off about the funny foibles of Activision, the gaming company he runs, even though it has [...]
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.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
