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Monday, June 1, 2009

More Mark Cuban (Trapped in the Green Room at D7 with BoomTown and the Flip Video Camera)!

mark-cuban

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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Monday, May 11, 2009

Happy Virtual Mother’s Day: Modern Mom Site Gets a Celebrity Relaunch

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What’s one of the ways you might attract a lot of attention online? Here’s one possible equation: Celebrity + Mom + Tips Galore.

That’s the formula behind a new site relaunching today called Modern Mom, which is backed by “Dancing With the Stars” winner Brooke Burke and partner Lisa Rosenblatt, wading into what the pair hopes will be a lucrative market.

It’s an interesting effort to watch in online publishing, to see if the pair can attract both an audience and advertisers without a big brand name in the mother space and by leveraging Burke’s online and offline popularity.

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Woz Gets Hipchecked Off the Dance Floor: Big, Big Sigh…

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Oh horror of horrors–Steve Wozniak got sent home last night on the ABC celebrity hoofer-fest, “Dancing with the Stars.”

Whatever will BoomTown do without the peculiar gyrations of the Apple co-founder to praise effusively and mock relentlessly at the very same time?

But with a truly terrible Tango and the lowest judges’ score (12 out of 30) of the remaining 11 contestants from his Monday night outing, Woz’s only chance was the voters at home.

They let Woz down.

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Woz to DWTS Judges: “I’m Still Standing” (And Still Dancing as Bad as He Can!)

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak revved his damn-the-judges juggernaut into high gear this week with yet another low-scoring performance on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and a full-bore mangle of the Argentine tango last night.

Interestingly, as the trio of judges dinged him for the fourth week in a row, they also tried to compliment Wozniak at the same time, telling him they loved his spirit.

Oh, these judges know that a Silicon Valley mob riding Segways could run them down at any minute if they got too mean.

“The judges have forsaken me,” said Woz, sounding more and more like a very appealing nerd cult leader. “But the geeks shall inherit the earth.”

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Woz Lives to Stumble Around, Oops, Tango, Another Day!

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Getting a foot fracture, pulling a hamstring, claiming there was a voting conspiracy, getting an abysmal score of 10 out of 30 from the judges (the lowest score ever) and, of course, dancing with as much grace as a block of cement were not enough to sink the Good Ship Wozniak last night on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Instead, the people spoke loud and proud for continued goofiness by voting for the clod-hopping Apple co-founder in droves and tossing off actress and Charlie Sheen nemesis, Denise Richards.

Next up: Tango Argentina!

Or, most likely in Woz’s version: Mangled Argentina.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Sam-bad: Woz Gets a 10 Out of 30 on “DWTS”

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At least Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak can pun through the pain of his foot fracture and pulled hamstring.

“Hey, well, one thing I learned is that if you mix a little dancing with a little Smirnoff, you might end up in an ambulance,” he joked, riffing on the name of his partner, Karina Smirnoff.

What he can’t do, of course, is dance very well, which was why he got the low, low score of 10 out of 30 last night from the judges on his third week of “Dancing with the Stars.”

Oh, it was a bad samba. A very bad samba.

But who cares? Vote for your right to Sam-bad!

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Monday, March 23, 2009

“DWTS” Diva Woz “Hams” It Up–Another Injury, Vote-Rigging and Teletubbies!

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Self-described Teletubby, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sure knows how to make things dramatic.

For the second time, after a foot fracture, his continued appearance on the ABC celebrity show “Dancing With the Stars” appears in jeopardy, due to an apparent hamstring injury he suffered at practice on Friday.

Curiously, a picture of Woz on a stretcher and an update of his injured status were taken off his Woz.org blog sometime over the weekend (I saw the picture on Saturday night on my iPhone, but it is impossible to find now).

Also previously 86ed was a letter he had posted and then unposted about his contention that some vote-rigging was taking place on the show.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Woz-Tastic? Well, No–But Steve Lives to Dance Another Day!

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Doing the quickstep and wearing taped nerd glasses to the tune of Buddy Holly’s “Oh, Boy,” Steve Wozniak’s dance stylings on “Dancing With the Stars” this week was more like “Oh, Brother!”

Nonetheless, support of geeks world-wide and an infectious spirit kept the Apple co-founder in the running on the ABC television competition, besting former Go-Go Belinda Carlisle in dance-off elimination.

Woz is dancing as badly as he can with a pink boa, Silicon Valley, so get out there and make your 13 votes count!

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Monday, March 16, 2009

An Injured Woz Dances On: You Owe Him Your Vote!

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Last week, BoomTown turned partisan in what is perhaps our only truly fair election these days: “Dancing With the Stars.”

Because he is so lovably dorktastic, it seems as if Silicon Valley has to pull out all the stops to make sure the anti-Fred Astaire stylings of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak remain in the competition.

Woe to everyone when it was revealed that he had hurt himself dancing, with a fractured leg. But, he will–pink silk shirt and all–survive!

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Who Cares if He Didn’t Invent the Mac or Can’t Dance: Vote Early and Often for Woz on DWTS!

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Forget all the noise in the blogosphere about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s lack of involvement in the computer company of late.

And try to ignore the fact that the man has what appear to be at least seven left feet, as you will see in the video here of his first painful cha-cha-cha outing on “Dancing With the Stars” last night.

Because, as DWTS judge Carrie Ann Inaba noted: Woz has some very cheerful gumption to be up there in the first place, boogeying to Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”

Oh, you definitely ain’t seen nothing like this yet, and it must continue.

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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Where in the World Is America’s CTO?

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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Monday, February 9, 2009

Nerdy Dancing: All That Woz

Dear Mark Cuban:

Apparently, Steve Wozniak, the ever-wackier-as-the-years-go-by co-founder of Apple, is taking up your geek banner on “Dancing With the Stars” and is a contestant on the eighth outing for the popular celebrity hoofing show on ABC.

He is among 13 “stars” who will start up their samba-and-tango death match on March 9.

Can Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang be far behind?

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

My Predictions for 2008: That There Won’t Be Any From BoomTown!

Predictions, schmedictions.

As a holiday gift to all readers, BoomTown will refrain from making any big pronouncements about what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector, because, um, well, I have no idea what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector. No one could have Miss Cleo-ed all the twists and turns of 2007, for certain.

Could [...]

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Mark Cuban Already Knows How to Tap Dance

Oh how very delicious comes the news that once obstreperous Internet entrepreneur and now obstreperous Mavericks owner Mark Cuban might appear as a contestant on the guilty-pleasure television show “Dancing With the Stars.”
According to Sports Illustrated, Cuban might join–I have truly died and gone to heaven–singer Wayne Newton and “Beverly Hills, 90210″ star Jennie Garth [...]

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About Kara

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 »

Ethics Statement

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.

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