Last week, after much delay, longtime Internet exec Julius Genachowski 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.

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Last week, Walt Mossberg and I interviewed entrepreneur, high-definition television fanboy, dancing fool and reliable gadfly Mark Cuban at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

After our onstage interview, BoomTown also got him to be more specific about his thoughts on a variety of things he discussed, including Google’s underwriting of its YouTube video subsidiary, the problems with broadband and the Internet as a “utility.”

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With the naming of Oracle 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.

While everyone is rightly focusing on the economic crisis, inquiring minds still want to know who is getting the job as head geek.

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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.

It looks like Julius Genachowski will be tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The news was reported in several places late yesterday, and sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment to BoomTown.

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In an article in The Wall Street Journal today comes the news that “President-elect Barack Obama’s call to improve the nation’s broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up.”

To BoomTown, this is akin to Scrooge making his overnight transformation, except without any soul, sincerity or true intent to actually care about the consumer.

God help us, everyone.

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BoomTown is back in the blogosphere from a freezing and nondigital week on the east coast with the family.

Given I am still in Buffalo until Wednesday, still chilling (and not in a good way), let’s start the proceedings slowly, with some videos I did with the ebullient Sarah Lacy for Yahoo’s Tech Ticker site right before the holidays at the All Things Digital HQ (i.e., the cozy cottage behind my house) about what’s up for 2009 in tech.

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Is it just me or does the fact that President-Elect Barack Obama is broadcasting his weekly address on YouTube not seem like it should be the very biggest deal in the world?

While it is a first for the Commander-in-Chief, I am more depressed that it is a first–after all, skateboarding cats made it to YouTube eons ago–than utterly thrilled that he is doing it.

But, when it come to the glacial movement related to politicians and tech issues, disappointment seems to be a better stance than hope.

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

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds, high prices and the opening of networks.

This is the third of three parts.

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

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds, high prices and the opening of networks.

This is the second of three parts.

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

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds and high prices.

This is the first of three parts.

Read More »

Last night, Arizona Sen. John McCain officially accepted the GOP candidacy for President in a speech in which he pushed himself as a change agent, even though the Republicans have been in power for eight years.

Actually, the maverick image was one of the reasons we invited him to our fifth D: All Things Digital conference in 2007.

Since the speech last night had more generalities than specifics, as convention speeches often do, here’s an hour-plus interview with Sen. McCain by Walt Mossberg and me.

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Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 4 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

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