So, BoomTown–who cannot be unplugged from the matrix for very long without breaking into a cold sweat–was pretty excited to have free Wi-Fi on my Virgin America flight to Washington, D.C., early this morning.

The service from Gogo Inflight Internet is free since earlier this week until Jan. 15, courtesy of Google (GOOG), on Virgin, as well as at 47 airports. It usually costs anywhere from $6 to $13.

Like the search giant, other Web companies–presumably wanting to goose usage and, more to the point, their brands–have also leaped in.

Delta has a promotion with eBay (EBAY) on several hundred planes for a week around Thanksgiving, and Yahoo (YHOO) is footing the bill for anyone using computers or smartphones in Times Square in New York for one year.

Pretty much what the government and big cable and wireless companies should be doing, but let’s not look a digital gift horse in the mouth.

So far on the flight, the Internet has been pretty solid, although video plays even slower than my Comcast (CMCSA) connection at home.

Also, electricity on the flight has been in and out; when it doesn’t work, it pretty much negates Internet use on a long flight.

But more interesting, as most who use the Web in the air seem to feel, is the ability to make a lot of online connections, including with people on the same plane.

While I was no fan of the goofy seat-to-seat connections offered on some airlines, I did get an email from a Facebook public relations guy sitting in the row behind me on the same flight asking if I wanted to meet the social networking site’s DC staff.

Without ever seeing him I now have a meeting on Monday with them, so–apparently–mission accomplished!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Fortune magazine–which never met a list it did not like to make–had a solid group of women tech types on its “50 Most Powerful Women 2009” roster, the annual survey it posted yesterday.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made the Top Ten this year, clocking in at No. 8.

Other women geek types–many from Silicon Valley–on the list include:

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox (XRX) at No. 9; IBM (IBM) Global Sales and Distribution SVP Ginni Rometty at No. 11; Oracle (ORCL) President Safra Catz at No. 12; Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Technology Solutions Group EVP Ann Livermore at No. 13; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at No. 22; Charlene Begley, president and CEO, GE (GE) Enterprise Solutions at No. 27; Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay (EBAY) Marketplaces at No. 40; HP CFO Cathie Lesjack at No. 42; and, finally, Google (GOOG) Search Products and User Experience VP Marissa Mayer at No. 44.

The conference associated with the Fortune issue, spearheaded by Pattie Sellers, will take place next week, starting Monday, in Carlsbad, Calif.

Fortune is part of Time Inc., which is owned by Time Warner (TWX).

Bartz, Sandberg and others will be interviewed onstage, along with Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) chairman and CEO Warren Buffett.

Will BoomTown be in attendance, with my trusty Flip digital video at the ready? Yes, indeedy, so the lady geeks should beware–and I am talking to you, Sandberg!

Until then, here’s a cable television interview Bartz did today on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Clocking in at almost 12 minutes, it’s classic Carol, with sassy catchphrases and jokes about being a really tough lady, but with little new news–except for her saying she would have sold to Microsoft (MSFT) when it was offering $33 a share way back when, because she is not “stupid.”

Indeed not.

Here’s the video:

Every week, BoomTown is calling all those who make cool graphs, charts and stats done prettily about tech to send them to me pronto.

I am–truth be told–a secret stats fanatic. A bargraphaholic. Yes, even a closet pie-charter.

The last set of data I posted was a comparison of the share and consumer loyalty of the three big search engines–Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and, of course, Google (GOOG).

This week, in its annual survey of consumer technology attitudes and adoption, titled “The State of Consumers and Technology,” Forrester Research found that…wait for it, wait for it…the kids love the Internet!

As you can see in the chart labeled 4-1 below (click on the image to make it larger), new media beat traditional media for consumers younger than 40 years old, in terms of hours spent.

Still, the under-40 group also use traditional media, through both online and television channels, as you can see in the chart labeled 4-2, although TV is the most likely way everyone accesses most big-media offerings.

Well, except the Weather Channel, which leads in “cross-channel media use,” which means it is doing swimmingly in diversifying its distribution.

Lastly, in the 4-3 chart, as with the first chart, while Web sites like News Corp. (NWS) social networking site MySpace and its rival Facebook show up on the 10 most regularly consumed channels for the youngs, the olds are still mostly chomping on networks, newspapers and cable.

In other words, traditional media’s demographic is the group more likely to die first! But at least they’re loyal!

When Time Warner reports its second-quarter earnings tomorrow morning, before the markets open, most Wall Street analysts are not expecting much from the media giant, as it continues to slog toward a rejiggering of itself.

Time Warner (TWX)–which owns assets like the Warner Bros. movie studio, the AOL online unit, the HBO and Turner cable television networks and Time Inc. magazines–is expected to earn 37 cents per share, compared to 72 cents a year ago, according to a poll of analysts from Thomson Reuters (TRIN).

Revenue is expected to be $6.97 billion, down from $11.56 billion in the same quarter last year. This drop is mostly due to the March spinoff of its cable unit, Time Warner Cable.

With movies like “The Hangover” and the sixth in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” doing well, there is some strength at Time Warner.

But the advertising market has been weak all over, which hits the company hard.

That’s why both AOL and the magazines are expected to keep up their drag on Time Warner’s financial prospects–at least until the November spinoff of the online unit.

Until then, most expect another miserable quarter from AOL advertising revenue. Sources noted that any turnaround won’t show till end of year at the earliest, due to the weak economy and a retooling of the company and its sales force.

That restructuring is not over, most agree, with expectations of more layoffs of some of its 7,000 employees coming. With the 100-day overview by new CEO Tim Armstrong now over, sources said, the staff size is likely to be adjusted accordingly.

Most also expect to see continued weakness at the long-suffering Time Inc. magazine division.

People outside the company think that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes will want to sell or spin off Time Inc. once AOL is done.

And people inside the company talk about the fact that Time has some 125 titles, although most of the revenue and profit only come from a few titles, such as People, Sports Illustrated and Time.

According to sources at the magazine division, talk of a new round of layoffs has also been also circulating there of late.

[The t-shirt image courtesy of Zazzle.]

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS), was the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif.

The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries.

So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.”

Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn.

Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

But let’s set the scene: Iger looks like a very typical old-media mogul you might order from an online catalog–handsome, suave and sophisticated, a perfect mix of Hollywood and New York.

Thank goodness, then, that he never seems to have acquired that other irksome characteristic of some of his peers–a full-bored panic over the Internet.

In fact, Iger–whom I also interviewed onstage at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006–has been unusually fast-forward among many of the big media companies in facing the digital music and dancing.

Fortune writer Richard Siklos asked him about a mishmash of subjects, from subscription services to authentication to cable providers, all of which center around a basic question:

How the heck is Disney going to be paid for its wares–because someday those agelessly lucrative “kids” from “High School Musical” are not going to agree to yet another reunion?

“This is the beginning of the beginning,” said Iger, who noted that it would be folly to guess what’s coming next in the digital arena.

A most excellent point that he made several times, adding that it was important for companies like Disney to keep trying out all sorts of things digitally, until they got it right.

“This notion of protecting the present is something that I talk a lot about [with employees],” said Iger, who wants them not to do that so much.

He noted that running a modern media company meant you had to have “one hand in the present and one hand in the future.”

Iger forgot about the hand that you might need to protect yourself from partners of the present–like big-box retailers, television affiliates, cable networks–who are going to come at you with a cudgel for giving the stuff you sell them away free on, say, Hulu.

Hulu, of course, is the popular, tiny-money-making premium online video service, which is a joint partnership of News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and now Disney.

“We believe in Hulu,” said Iger, who thinks its business model–currently just online advertising–might evolve over time.

But, he added, he was “somewhat skeptical” of any one answer to what is ahead.

As in: Iger just does not know, which is probably the best thing a media mogul can say right now.

Except for one thing he said is always mindful of–to follow, “where the consumer is going.”

Consumers are going online, of course, which is certainly going to require all-hands-on-deck at Disney in the years ahead.

[Update: It seems Disney was keeping its hand in the present for today, as it apparently had YouTube take down a trailer for its new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, which was set to debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego tomorrow.]

Why can’t BoomTown stop watching the dopey machinations of the boys of “Entourage”?

Because, it’s always more of the same on the Time Warner (TWX) cable channel’s HBO show, which is oddly comforting.

And it’s a revelation that College Humor mocks perfectly in a very funny online video called “Every Week on Entourage.”

“So many twists and turns, you’ll forget they’ve been using the same formula for five seasons,” explains the humor site, which is proof that the truth is funnier than fiction.

Here is the video evidence (and don’t miss Vince as a tranny!):

As many already know, John Malone has been a cable legend since he first ran Tele-Communications Inc. back in the early 1970s.

Besides being there at the founding of many channels, the Liberty Media (LCAPA) chairman’s influence put most of them on the map and his forceful business skills willed cable into becoming a key consumer medium for entertainment and news.

Malone talked about that experience onstage at the seventh D: All Thing Digital conference and how it mirrors what is going on now as more content is being distributed on the Internet. And, more importantly, he discussed how it might or might not be paid for.

You should listen, because Malone is a genuine media pioneer who could teach Web players a thing or two.

Here’s the full D7 video of the session:

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090617/liberty-media-chairman-john-malone-the-full-d7-session/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090424/project-playlist-names-former-mtv-exec-sykes-as-ceo-replacing-van-natta/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090424/project-playlist-names-former-mtv-exec-sykes-as-ceo-replacing-van-natta/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:09:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=12842

Legendary MTV Networks exec and co-founder John Sykes (pictured here in an interview on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” show) will replace Owen Van Natta as CEO of the controversial music-sharing site, Project Playlist.

He is a high-profile choice to take over for Van Natta, who was officially named CEO of MySpace this morning by News Corp. (NWS).

Van Natta, who also worked at Facebook, will remain an adviser to Playlist, which is based in Silicon Valley. It is not clear where Sykes will be located.

Sykes–who is on the Playlist board–was one of the original executives who launched the iconic music-focused cable channel 25 years ago, before leaving last year. He was also a key exec at both VH1 and Infinity Broadcasting.

He is well regarded in the music industry, an important criterion since Playlist has been dealing with legal attacks from some music labels. Settling with them will be key to the start-up’s survival.

Former AOL and MTV exec Bob Pittman, who is an investor in Playlist, worked closely with Sykes at the Viacom (VIA) unit.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Playlist Names Board Member and Veteran Media Executive
John Sykes as CEO

MTV Co-founder and Former VH-1 President Replaces Owen Van Natta

Palo Alto, Calif., April 24, 2009–Playlist, the leading social media network where over 43 million music fans discover, create and share playlists, announced today that Board Member and industry veteran John Sykes has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. As a Co-founder of MTV, President of VH1, and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting, Sykes brings extensive operating experience and industry relationships to the company as it partners with the music industry to provide advertising, subscription and e-commerce services to music consumers.

Owen Van Natta will serve as an Advisor to Playlist.

“John was a pioneer of the MTV revolution that forever changed the music industry landscape by giving fans a whole new way to discover and enjoy music,” said Bob Zangrillo, Chairman of Playlist. “Playlist looks forward to leveraging John’s tremendous track record operating media businesses and deep relationships in the music industry as it builds out the world’s premier social media service.”

“Creating and sharing playlists has become a phenomenon in our culture. With over 43 million registered users, Playlist is the number one site where fans go to discover, share and enjoy their favorite music,” said John Sykes, CEO of Playlist. “Leveraging our newly forged partnerships with the music community, we can now offer consumers deep access to their music and provide the industry with powerful new revenue streams.”

Playlist, one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet, continues to establish partnerships with the entertainment industry in an effort to offer a comprehensive collection of content that can be discovered, shared and monetized at www.playlist.com.

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090424/project-playlist-names-former-mtv-exec-sykes-as-ceo-replacing-van-natta/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090416/i-cant-believe-i-am-now-following-ashton-kutcher-on-twitter-because-cnn-just-cannot-win/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090416/i-cant-believe-i-am-now-following-ashton-kutcher-on-twitter-because-cnn-just-cannot-win/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:36:16 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=12357

Actor Ashton Kutcher crossed the million-follower-on-Twitter line at 11:12 p.m. PDT, beating CNN.

Kutcher simply tweeted: “Victory is ours!!!!!!!!

The CNN cable news channel went over the million mark soon after, but still a clear second.

Here is a pix, below, from Twitter HQ of the Kutcher win, on its database (courtesy of Twitter’s Jessica Verrilli).

The race was getting close as midnight neared on the West Coast.

Not a real race, but a race of the Twits.

That would be Kutcher vs. CNN.

CNN was all over the issue on airwaves tonight touting its Twitter feed, because–you know–there is no more important news to cover, like the weak economy or anything.

And at Twitter’s offices in San Francisco, staff was up monitoring the race to one million “followers,” those who sign up to receive a person’s or organization’s tweets on the hot microblogging service.

Kutcher is scheduled to be on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” later today, along with Twitter CEO and co-founder Evan Williams, when the talk show host will do her first tweet.

Oprah, of course, will get to one million users in 4.67 seconds, which is making everyone on Twitter worry about the looming Fail Whale of all time.

(Oprah Friend-in-Chief Gayle King is already up and tweeting via @kinggayle–with her first one going over 140 characters, oops, just as we all did.)

In a moment of temporary insanity, BoomTown actually clicked the follow button for Kutcher.

What can I say? I like “Punk’d” and want Larry King to go down like a ton of bricks.

Now I am officially worried about what Kutcher–whose Twitter handle is aplusk–will do with his one million minions. Order us all to play idiotic practical jokes on people? Rent Demi Moore movies, even the unwatchable ones (”G.I. Jane” anyone?), over and over? Get 1970s mullets?

If you are so inclined, here’s a chart of the situation now from chartbeat, with the numbers ticking up like a clock, which you can track here (click on the chart to make it larger):

While we wait, here is a video of the famous haircutting scene from “G.I. Jane”:

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090416/i-cant-believe-i-am-now-following-ashton-kutcher-on-twitter-because-cnn-just-cannot-win/feed/ 3 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081230/the-promise-of-broadband-is-the-umpteenth-time-a-charm/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081230/the-promise-of-broadband-is-the-umpteenth-time-a-charm/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:01:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=7994

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 Ebenezer Scrooge making his overnight transformation, except without any soul, sincerity or true intent to actually care about the consumer.

God help us, everyone.

Because if these same companies had been around during, say, the critical rollout of the federal highway system or universal telephone access, we’d all be tooling down dirt roads and talking via tin cans.

Still, a whiff of interest from a new administration–a move that is much too long in coming, due to a complete lack of leadership by the Feds, who have egregiously ignored exactly how important broadband ubiquity is to the U.S. economy–and we are apparently off to the races.

It’s high time, given, as the Journal article points out, “the U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

We are tops in costs of these services, though!

Ouch.

Of course, the cable and phone giants are pushing for the government to pay for a lot of it–as they reap big bucks from high-penetration areas and try to get public dollars to pay for areas that have no broadband access.

As usual, the government will be the piggy bank–as it should have done much earlier–doling out tax credits and incentives and backing bonds, grants and vouchers.

Still, said the Journal, the cable and phone giants are bickering over the definition of speed, even as they continue to try to block public broadband projects and public-interest groups try to force the government to impose conditions on private companies.

So, while a new intent by the new leadership in Washington is a good thing, a little bah-humbug on the part of consumers is probably still in order.

Speaking of that, here are two videos of highlights of an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, along with Verizon Wireless head Lowell McAdam, about these very issues at last May’s D: All Things Digital conference.

Here are the videos:

Part 1

Part 2

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081230/the-promise-of-broadband-is-the-umpteenth-time-a-charm/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081105/the-beam-me-up-scotty-hologram-on-cnn-cool-or-creepy/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081105/the-beam-me-up-scotty-hologram-on-cnn-cool-or-creepy/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:15:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=6086

BoomTown has finally gotten used to the silly gee-gaws television networks use on election night, like touchscreen maps and drawing all over the screen and jump-up numbers.

But one used by CNN last night–a hologram of various people beamed into the studio to look like they were with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper–was downright freaky.

Using lots of high-definition cameras, fancy computers and, I guess, magic, CNN reporter Jessica Yellin (see video below) was the first one to get the “Star Trek” treatment, beaming in from Chicago to New York.

Later, hip-hop musician Will.i.am was beamed in and preferred a “Star Wars” analogy. But the encounter was still kind of awkward, although you honestly could not look away either, as you can see from the video below (also coming in from Chicago).

Jessica Yellin:

Will.i.am:

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081105/the-beam-me-up-scotty-hologram-on-cnn-cool-or-creepy/feed/ 1 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080925/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-4-of-4/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080925/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-4-of-4/#comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:05:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=4366 We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers about the iconic but often-struggling pioneer and leader in the digital video recorder market.

The video of the interview is in four parts, which have all been posted this week.

In this fourth part, Rogers takes questions from the audience about difficulties in installing TiVo (TIVO) with new cable cards, watching television over the Internet, TiVo’s plans in the United Kingdom and internationally, cable box integration, programming being delivered to TiVo boxes by service providers and making the DVR easier to use.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080925/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-4-of-4/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080924/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-3-of-4/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080924/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-3-of-4/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:17:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=4238 We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers about the iconic but often-struggling pioneer and leader in the digital video recorder market.

The video of the interview is in four parts, which will all be posted this week.

In this third part, Rogers talks about how TiVo (TIVO) is trying to become the “one-stop” interface for cable companies, such as Comcast, and the troubled state of the broadcast television industry.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080924/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-3-of-4/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080923/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-2-of-4/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080923/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-2-of-4/#comments Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:30:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=4207 We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers about the iconic but often-struggling pioneer and leader in the digital video recorder market.

The video of the interview is in four parts, which will all be posted this week.

In this second part, Rogers talks about how TiVo (TIVO) can help the television industry instead of disrupting it, what’s popular on the service and what commercials work best, the company’s successful intellectual property lawsuit against EchoStar to protect its groundbreaking technologies, cable partnerships, and the shifting of its business model, including TiVo’s potential as the future user interface for television.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080923/the-entire-d6-interview-with-tivos-tom-rogers-2-of-4/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080905/the-entire-d6-interview-with-sonys-sir-howard-stringer-4-of-4/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080905/the-entire-d6-interview-with-sonys-sir-howard-stringer-4-of-4/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:04:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=3354 We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s the fourth and final part of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I posted one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week except Monday, starting Tuesday and concluding today.)

Sony (SNE) has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and the consumer electronics giant still has not proved that it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer takes questions from the audience about audio quality, cable versus telephone, software and iTunes.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080905/the-entire-d6-interview-with-sonys-sir-howard-stringer-4-of-4/feed/ 0