Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.

But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

There’s a great excerpt in the New Yorker this week.

Read More »

This weekend on Twitter, someone paid BoomTown a compliment of a sort: “I read you because you are a solid fact-based reporter with a Miss Cleo intuition ”

Yipes, because of being fact-based and since I had brought her up in an originating tweet, I had to point out that the well-known-via-infomercials Psychic Friends Network shaman turned out to be a bit of a fraud, although she’s always entertaining, with her jaunty Jamaican accent (she was not, of course, from there).

Nonetheless, it got me thinking about how I would predict what would result from all the deal-making that is suddenly in the air, after six months of ennui from the current economic downturn.

Read More »

Many years ago in the midst of the Web 1.0 boom, when working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, BoomTown redubbed an annual dinner that book agent John Brockman threw at the TED conference.

It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”

That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?

Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.

Read More »

Here’s a video I did while attending YouTube Live on Saturday–well, live–at the Herbst Pavilion at the Fort Mason Center, right on the San Francisco Bay.

The last time I had attended a big tech industry event here, it was the launch of Windows 97 from Microsoft–which was quite a different scene than this entertaining but freaky show, in which online celebrities jumped a little shakily into the analog word.

Read More »

Obviously, the dream CEO for Yahoo is News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin.

And, no surprise, he is the No. 1 choice of most inside and outside Yahoo in the wake of the news late yesterday that its current CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang is stepping down.

Well, Yahoo would certainly be a challenge for Chernin, in terms of a corporate cleanup challenge, especially compared to figuring out how to make bank on plush toys from “The Simpsons.”

But there are many other contenders for the job, despite the slog it could be. Here’s BoomTown’s list…

Read More »

It used to be, many years ago, that longtime Silicon Valley tech exec Eric Schmidt could work up a very significant head of steam when talking about the thuggish monopolistic practices of Microsoft and its negative impact on the tech industry.

And, for the most part, Schmidt was dead right.

Thus, BoomTown is both gobsmacked and a bit in awe that Schmidt–now sitting atop at the high-tech pig pile as CEO of the powerful search giant, Google–can, with a straight face, make the argument that everyone is wrong to be nervous about its deal with Yahoo to serve some of its search ads, even though the pair make up more than 80 percent of the search market.

Still, at a press conference yesterday, Schmidt went on the offensive to defend the Yahoo deal, which is set to begin in a few weeks, in a most peculiar way.

Read More »

Here is a video I did while I was attending and liveblogging the Google launch of and press conference for its new “not-a-Windows-killer” Chrome browser, held at its Mountain View, Calif., HQ yesterday morning.

Google released its own software to navigate the Internet yesterday, setting itself up for yet another bruising competition with Microsoft.

See Googlers, snacks and more…

Read More »

Finally, Google Co-Founder Larry Page takes the microphone and thanks the Chrome browser team and compliments them for their efforts.

This is, as anyone on the receiving end of Page’s sometimes pointed manner knows (and BoomTown has been), a big deal.

Page also starts to talk about how browser choice and innovation could make the planet a better place.

Of course! World peace through better browsing!

Read More »

Now, we have two guys (sorry, I will fill in their names later, but they talked fast) who are demoing Google’s new Chrome browser and its features and user interface.

“Friendly” tabs, knowing your history better graphically, auto-typing, simplicity, easier downloading with a new window that one guy is calling a real app like “Pinocchio, because I wanted to build a real boy.”

Well, Pinocchio was wood for most of that story, but I like the effort!

Read More »

Starting Tuesday this week, all the major players in the Yahoo-Microsoft-Everyone-And-Their-Mother circus will line their private jets up in Sun Valley for the high-powered 26th annual Allen & Co. confab of tech and media moguls.

That would be Microsoft, Yahoo, News Corp., Time Warner (which owns AOL), as well as Google.

It could be like that five families sitdown in the “Godfather” movies, except none of the parties can even seem to metaphorically whack each other, as the Yahoo saga drags on interminably.

Read More »

Maybe it would be easier to sell Facebook to Microsoft for billions and billions, even though it is not likely you will.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s take the opposing position about the best future for the hot social-networking site.

In other words, make a friendly Microsoft takeover of Facebook your own version of an IPO, as John Furrier has suggested, and walk away a Silicon Valley legend.

Read More »

All week, Yahoo’s investors have waited for the other shoe to drop–its much-hyped ad deal with Google, in which Yahoo would outsource some of its online search ad monetization business to the search giant.

But will that deal land with a thud instead?

Today, The Wall Street Journal reports that Google executives “are now divided over whether to pursue a search-advertising deal with Yahoo.”

Actually, that depends what you mean by divided, of course, and which Google execs are on which side.

Read More »

Oh, Max!
I just got through telling someone who asked me that I thought you, Slide founder Max Levchin, was one of the smarter Web 2.0 characters.
Then, of course, you get to be on the cover of Portfolio magazine for its “Brilliant” issue this month. Apparently, Max, you are Silicon Valley’s new “It” Boy.

But for all [...]

Read More »

Here is a video of me and Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker, discussing the DNA of the Google (GOOG) founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and the impact on the company’s recent stock meltdown.
Our diagnosis: Not crazy, but iconoclastic.
Here’s the video:

Read More »

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I co-hosted our annual holiday gadget fest for the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.
Now in its fifth year, it was called “Making a List: The Fifth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” and took place in Palo Alto, Calif. Our guest were Marissa Mayer of Google and [...]

Read More »