ABC certainly has been taking its sweet time in releasing the first episode of “V,” a sci-fi television series that debuted earlier this week on the Web in any substantial way.
The premiere of a redo of a 1980s miniseries about a lizardy alien invasion disguised as a peace mission by outerspace hotties turned out to be a big broadcast hit, but it is hard to watch online.
Until tomorrow, that is.
Microsoft’s MSN is in preliminary talks with MySpace about using the social networking site’s music service, MySpace Music, to power music offerings on the giant portal.
While sources at both companies cautioned that the talks are still early, Microsoft–which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content–execs are interested in goosing its offering.
That’s because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.
There’s no question that Spotify is the latest hot start-up of the moment, which would be super annoying to BoomTown–who is easily irked by never-ending froth around Web 2.0 companies–if co-founder Daniel Ek were not so sharp and the digital-music-on-demand service he created not so nifty.
But, indeed, Ek turned out to be a very refreshing and level-headed serial entrepreneur in an interview I had with him yesterday in London.
Here’s the video.
Oh, BoomTown fears this is not going to end well for the weensy little smart phone Palm is debuting today on–what an amazing coincidence!–the very same day Apple is throwing its big product bash in San Francisco, at which Mac fanboys fervently hope that Supreme Leader Steve Jobs might even appear.
You don’t step on Superman of Silicon Valley’s cape, of course, but the device with the aggressively cute name of Pixi is apparently attempting just that.
Thus, this fairytale might have a not-so-happy ending.
Longtime Internet entrepreneur Al Warms paid a visit to BoomTown HQ today to show off a new company he has founded called Appolicious.
That is the unusual name Warms–who sold his Participate Media, along with its BuzzTracker content aggregator, to Yahoo in late 2007–has given to a start-up aimed at encouraging discovery and social networking in the Apple iPhone mobile apps market.
The site is kind of a combination of Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo, but devoted solely to organizing and making sense of the app galaxy in the universe of smart phones.
Last night, onstage at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, my most excellent partner, Walt Mossberg, interviewed well-known techno musician Moby about music and entertainment in the digital age.
The wide-ranging talk was part of an ongoing cultural festival series organized by The Wall Street Journal, called Summer Scoops Live.
Here are some video clips of the event and more.
As the final posting of the onstage interviews at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, here is one of the sessions that generated a lot of news: The first major interview about the Palm Pre with Elevation Managing Director Roger McNamee and Palm Chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein.
The pair are trying to remake Palm in a bet-the-company move to recover the Silicon Valley icon’s long-lost glory via innovation.
That would be Walt Mossberg and his well-known Personal Technology and Mossberg Mailbox columns–as well as BoomTown, John Paczkowski’s Digital Daily, Peter Kafka’s MediaMemo, Katherine Boehret’s Mossberg Solution and video and pictures from our famous D: All Things Digital conferences.
Today, All Things Digital is introducing its very own app for Apple’s iPhone and the iPod touch, offering all the posts and columns you get on this Web site–including news, product reviews, analysis and video–from our crack team.
Just smaller and cuter.
So download us and take us along everywhere you go–ATD really enjoys long walks on the beach.
With bootleg copies ripped on the Internet or not and with an $87 million opening weekend for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” it looks like the nerdiest summer movie season ever is off the races.
Hollywood, caught in the digital maelstrom, certainly is fine and dandy making bank by co-opting all the techie themes, gadgets and special effects, with a slate of movies over the next months that are like catnip to geeks of all kinds.
Including BoomTown, for example, which plans to fork over a lot of dough to pay for all the techtastic entertainment that those old media moguls can dish out before they collapse.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, of course, so here’s a lovely sentiment on a T-shirt from the fine folks at ThinkGeek.
(BoomTown is still in an Elmer’s glue coma from making 252 handmade cards with 33 pounds of glitter, which my sons’ school insists on instead of the store-bought kind from Walgreens that I prefer.)
In any case, big, sloppy hugs all around to the readers of All Things Digital.
And remember: Love is bling.
Boomtown extends apologies to the late Francis P. Church, who penned the original “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” editorial in the New York Sun in 1897. But with a little rejiggering, his eloquent words work perfectly as a translation for Apple’s press release about its withdrawal from Macworld yesterday, which doubtlessly shook the Apple faithful to the core. Oddly enough, it matches up surprisingly–and a little disturbingly–well. Thus, here’s a little holiday inspiration to help those poor souls make it through these darkest of days.
Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta will take the CEO job at a music discovery site called Playlist, a move that had been speculated last week, after he did not end up taking another position as head of MySpace Music.
Van Natta’s arrival at Playlist was not the only news for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up–former AOL exec Bob Pittman’s Pilot Investment Group is also investing an undisclosed amount of money in Playlist, and Pittman will join its board.
The site, which has been called Project Playlist, had previously raised several million dollars. The new round of funding super-sized that, sources said, hovering at about $18 million.
“Discovery around music is exploding on the Internet,” said Van Natta to BoomTown, in an interview this afternoon, giving it as his main reason for joining Playlist.
As usual before yet another big Apple event, the psychic friends network is in overdrive in anticipation of the iconic computer company’s “Let’s Rock” media gathering in San Francisco tomorrow.
At this point, I think Apple could announce a change in the color of its bathrooms at its Cupertino HQ and it would be mayhem among the Mac faithful.
But some of the focus is likely to be on its leader, Steve Jobs, whose gaunt appearance was the talk of Apple’s last event.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s the fourth and final part of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer.
The consumer electronics giant has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and still has not proved 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.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Amazon.com’s President, CEO, Chairman and, oh yes, Founder, Jeff Bezos.
The e-commerce giant seems of be firing on all cylinders of late, along with making some innovative moves, such as the recent introduction of its e-book reader, the Kindle.
In this video, Bezos talks about the consumer digital download business, including competition with Apple’s iTunes, Amazon.com’s Web services business and the impact of the economic slowdown on the online retailer.
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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