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Monday, October 12, 2009

Geek in Black: Barry Sonnenfeld Comes Out From Behind the Camera to…Vlog?

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For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”

Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Web Helped Kill Gourmet? If So, Now I Hate the Internet!

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Let’s all agree first to blame owner Condé Nast for deciding to shutter Gourmet–the elegant and iconic magazine, which has been around since 1941, after the November issue.

While circulation remained steady at Gourmet at just under one million monthly paying subscribers, Condé Nast Chief Executive Officer Chuck Townsend pointed to a fall-off in advertising spending by luxury brands that result in a money-losing mess.

But some are blaming a movement of readers to the Web. Is it true?

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Warren Buffett at Fortune Women’s Conference: On the Economy and George Clooney

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Folksy set was on the highest burner possible at Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women’s conference this morning, as legendary financial investor Warren Buffett took to the stage.

Buffett, who was interviewed by Fortune’s terrific Carol Loomis onstage in Carlsbad, Calif., held forth to the crowd–made up mostly of women–having instructed Loomis previously to “do anything with me…I like your crowd.”

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Friday, September 11, 2009

Yahoo’s Bartz (No. 8), Facebook’s Sandberg (No. 22), Google’s Mayer (No. 44) and More Techies Make Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women List

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Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine–which never met a list it did not like to make–had a solid group of women tech types on its “50 Most Powerful Women 2009” roster, the annual survey that it posted yesterday.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made the Top Ten this year, clocking in at No. 8, along with a lot of other tech-savvy women in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

A Preview of Time Warner Earnings: Bummer at AOL, Bummer at Magazines–Just a Bummer

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When Time Warner reports its second -quarter earnings tomorrow morning, before the markets open, most Wall Street analysts are not expecting much from the media giant, as it continues to slog toward a rejiggering of itself.

Time Warner–which owns assets like the Warner Bros. movie studio, the AOL online unit, the HBO and Turner cable networks and Time Inc. magazines–is expected to earn 37 cents per share, compared to 72 cents a year ago, according to a poll of analysts from Thomson Reuters.

Revenue is expected to be $6.97 billion, down from $11.56 billion in the same quarter last year. This drop is mostly due to the March spinoff of its cable unit, Time Warner Cable.

But AOL and its magazine unit are expected to continue to drag on Time Warner’s financial performance.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Twitter Co-Founder “Yes-There-Is-A” Biz Stone

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Twitter co-founder Biz Stone took the stage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference late this afternoon and was greeted by that old chestnut:

When is Twitter going to make some simoleons?

Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky posted a poll about that and a few other topics, and then asked a question he said was on the minds of many in Silicon Valley:

“Why the hell aren’t you guys making money?”

Here’s what Stone had to say.

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Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: AOL CEO and Chairman Tim “The Plumber” Armstrong

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It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant.

Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.”

In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Disney CEO Bob Iger Has “One Hand in the Present and One Hand in the Future”

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Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, is the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif.

The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries.

So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.”

Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn.

Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

“Inane and Half-Baked” Twitter Is the Forrest Gump of International Relations

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In what is quite possibly the most spot-on comment about Twitter that BoomTown has heard thus far, Harvard University Professor Jonathan Zittrain said about its use by Iranians protesting the election results there:

“It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”

In other words, Twitter is so simplistic and silly that it is a perfect digital tool to overthrow a government–which kind of makes the trendy microblogging service the Forrest Gump of international relations.

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Will the Twitter Twins Channel the “Zoolander” Duo at D7 Next Week?

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While getting ready for the spate of interviews at our seventh D: All Things Digital conference in just seven days, BoomTown has been doing a lot of research on the people taking the stage.

Some interviews will be quite serious (Eve Ensler, talking about the dire situation in the Congo) and some possibly funny (Mark Cuban, who simply defies definition).

But this picture that Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams posted today on his Flickr page is easily the most unusual bit of research I have come across.

It is aptly titled, “This doesn’t seem awkward at all.”

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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Ignore the Twitter Buyout Rumors: Here Are the Facts in Five Beyoncé-Madonna-Approved Steps

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Was it more than a month ago that the Google was rumored to be in “late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter”?

Not so much late-stage, I guess. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that it was time to fob yet another rumor that yet another moneybags of a company–this time, Apple–is in “late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter.”

But despite very serious interest in the hot microblogging service by every company that can afford considering such a thing, including Apple, getting across that late-stage line would require major investors in the hot start-up to be very involved, and they are not as yet.

So, rather than be on the edge of your seat about all these endless, alleged late-stage high jinks, here is a five-step list to cut out and keep when the questionable rumors of “late-stage negotiations” with Microsoft, News Corp., Verizon, Cisco and more inevitably show up.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Yahoo Telenovela to Get the Vanity Fair Treatment

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Misguided managers, Luddite corporate raiders, a thuggish hostile takeover from a software giant, a revolving door of employees, a dash of Internet moolah and a tough-talking lady CEO to the rescue! Also some Googzilla action thrown in for good measure.

Of course, it has all the elements of a good story for Vanity Fair magazine!

Actually, Yahoo has all the elements of a good Mexican telenovela, but it’s only a magazine article that is apparently in the cards to chronicle the stumbles and bumbles of the Internet giant.

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Law and Disorder: The Curse of the Winklevii

One thing that’s nice in these volatile times is that the Winklevoss identical twins–aka the Olympic rowing hunks whom Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seems to have repeatedly dunked since college–can always be relied upon to create nonstop entertainment for those riveted to their increasingly kooky lawsuit against the hot social-networking site.

In any case, it’s only the legal hijinks–either via rank incompetency or, more likely, creative leaking–that I want to know more about, especially since release of heretofore confidential information seems to keep seeping out of this case like some hole-plagued rowing shell.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Entire Time Inc. Layoff and Reorg Memo From Ann Moore

Time Inc., the largest magazine company in the world, is laying off hundreds and reorganizing itself drastically, due to tough economic conditions, especially in advertising, as well as the more inexorable diminishing of its business as readers move to the Web.

Time Inc. Chairman and CEO Ann Moore penned the email memo to employees tonight. She tried to tout gains in its digital business–part of the reason for the reorg is to move more of its content to Web platforms–noting 26 million people visit its Time Inc. sites monthly. Not good enough it seems.

Here’s the memo.

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Friday, October 24, 2008

Well Said: Ana Marie Cox on Bloggers Then and Now

The more things change, the more they actually do change.

At least, according to this excerpt from a 10-questions interview former Wonkette blogger Ana Marie Cox, who now contributes to Time magazine’s Swampland blog, did with Stop Smiling magazine.

In questions No. 7 and 8 here, she discusses the huge differences in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, in terms of blogs, and how the image of bloggers has shifted dramatically with mainstream media.

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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.

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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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