This week’s viral video is for filmmaker Michael Moore’s latest, which takes direct aim at the banking bailout.
Called “Save Our CEOs,” the teaser notes: “This time it’s personal.”
Well, Moore is always personal, so slapping around Wall Street and the politicians responsible for the econalypse should be interesting, to say the least.
Last year, Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider and then-Media Group head Scott Moore had a summery seaside dinner with Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt in Santa Monica, Calif., right around the corner from the online publishing company’s HQ.
While many speculated that Yahoo could be doing some friendly kibitzing to get a sense of where the eclectic network of general- and special-interest sites was headed, for a possible acquisition, nothing came of it.
But now, a year later, with recent indications that a major strategy for new CEO Carol Bartz will finally follow through on making Yahoo’s massive but disparate service more social, especially in its content offerings, several sources close to the company tell me another look-see at Demand is likelier than ever.
Happy days aren’t here again, it seems.
Still, I am not quite sure what to make of his big, happy smile on Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur’s face, which went with a story in the New York Times about start-ups cutting costs.
In fact, the whole Seesmic crew is grinning awfully hard, putting a very game face on recent layoffs that cut the staff at the video blog service by more than a third.
When I was in Los Angeles recently, I stopped by the Santa Monica offices of Demand Media, the network of social networking sites and apps maker, because of the rumors that I had heard swirling around that Yahoo was looking to purchase it for up to $2 billion.
As it turned out, reports of that possibility were greatly exaggerated.
In fact, Rosenblatt played down the idea of any Yahoo offer on the record, noting he was not interested in selling at this point anyway. And Yahoo sources confirm this and said that there has been no offer floated.
Recently, while I was at a conference in Los Angeles, I caught up with Veoh Founder Dmitry Shapiro.
BoomTown will be focusing a lot on online video this year and Veoh is one of the several online video sharing sites–a group of smaller players that includes sites like Joost, Hulu, Dailymotion, Vimeo and others that I like to call not-YouTube.
Still, it is making progress.
Today, the Los Angeles-based Veoh announced that the ABC television network would put full episodes of its hot primetime shows–such as “Ugly Betty” (love it) and “Desperate Housewives” (not so much)–up on the site.
You would have to have been under a rock not to have heard about the controversial piece in Vanity Fair magazine this month about the troubling personal and professional escapades of former President Bill Clinton since he left office.
And the reason for these disturbing developments, besides Clinton himself? The piece actually placed a good bit of the blame on Clinton’s close friend, grocery magnate and billionaire Ron Burkle, who also has been one of the key directors at Yahoo in its takeover fight with Microsoft.
So, no surprise, according to multiple sources I talked to yesterday, the roadshow by top Yahoo execs–CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker and CFO Blake Jorgensen–to tout the new growth plan the company unveiled last week was not such a hit with shareholders.
While the group met with polite audiences, most investors I talked to were unenthusiastic about the plan and dubious that Yahoo’s blue-sky hopes would come through. “I think we wanted to give Jerry a hearing, but mostly to save face,” said one investor, in a sentiment that was typical.
Even with Abu Dhabi buying up shares of tech firms like Advanced Micro Devices and the bubbly euphoria in Silicon Valley’s Web 2.0 sector, the tech picture is getting less pretty, according to a report by Barron’s Eric Savitz on the downgrading of software stocks by Goldman Sachs.
Noting a softening in capital spending, Savitz [...]
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.
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