Revenge is a dish best served cold–except, of course, when one decides to serve it piping hot.
And that’s just what part of one of the losing sides of the $2 billion deal to buy Skype from eBay is doing in an unusual attack on Michelangelo Volpi, a well-known tech exec in Silicon Valley.
It’s Joost-y, for sure, so step right up to this sorry spectacle.
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.
As many already know, John Malone has been a cable legend since he first ran Tele-Communications Inc. back in the early 1970s. His influence put most cable channels 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. You should listen, because Malone is a genuine media pioneer who could teach Web players a thing or two.
For a tall man, Tim Armstrong has been on an awful lot of online companies’ short lists.
For a big Web exec job, that is. Indeed, whenever one opens up in the Internet space, the 6-foot 3-inch Google ad sales exec always pops up on it as a possible candidate to lead a variety of digital companies and start-ups.
Finally today–after longtime speculation that Armstrong had long wanted and would eventually leave his post at Google in order to try his hand at being top dog–he took over as chairman and CEO of the once-mighty, but now-not-so-much, AOL.
Armstrong, who will start at AOL on April 7, talked to BoomTown this afternoon about his new job.
It took a lot of guts for Yahoo President Sue Decker to resign immediately yesterday and without the usual polite waiting period that happens in most major corporate management shifts.
In doing so, Decker left new CEO Carol Bartz with the cleanest slate she could.
It would be nice, then, if the man who was also just as, if not much more, responsible for the disaster that has been Yahoo for too long–Chairman Roy Bostock–would take a clue from Decker and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang and head out the door too.
From our Monday post called “Say Hello to the Yahoo Board Members”:
Recently, [former CEO Terry] Semel revived his Los Angeles-based new media investment firm, Windsor Media, and rumors abound to his intentions–including possibly making a play for a Hollywood studio. Big question: Will Semel continue as chairman of Yahoo in 2008?…
“What to make of Roy [...]
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. Read more »
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 »
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