Is there gold in them thar tweets?

Maybe so, because–according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

These include a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

This means Yahoo (YHOO)–which recently struck a search-technology and online-advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company is in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but the company has certainly bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already having raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

The valuation also effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and is very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.

Now, with a new team of execs, the News Corp. (NWS) property is putting the finishing touches on a master plan, which will include a new redesign of its hopelessly messy interface and doubling down on a product strategy that will center on, said one source, “what we own”–namely, music and entertainment.

On the agenda, aptly enough, for the 150 ad sales employees, who will gather at Terranea in Palos Verdes, is Ben Sherwood, author of “The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life,” and founder of a Web site of the same name that describes itself as “the place for surviving and thriving.”

Also coming to the meeting will be several bands that have successfully leveraged MySpace as a platform, to talk about their experiences and to play for the crowd.

And, perhaps most importantly, the group might also get to meet its new boss by then, as several sources close to the situation said that MySpace has settled on an exec to fill the key job of running its ad business.

While it is unclear if the deal is completely done, sources said MySpace management will announce the pick this week.

Sources added that MySpace has been particularly interested in one exec from Viacom (VIA) and another from Microsoft (MSFT).

While the sources would not name the Viacom exec, several pointed to Keith Lorizio, Microsoft VP of U.S. sales, as someone MySpace has been targeting.

In late August, MySpace sales and marketing head Jeff Berman left the company as MySpace hired MediaLink, a New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy, to help get its ad sales business back on track.

That effort has been led by MediaLink President Wenda Millard, who is well known in the ad industry and was longtime leader of the ad sales force at Yahoo (YHOO).

Getting an experienced top ad exec in place will round out a recent spate of new hiring by MySpace, including a new CTO, Alex Maghen, who moved over from its MySpace Music joint venture, and a new CFO, Mark Rosenbaum.

This has been part of a wholesale flushing out of most of the top execs who worked under co-founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe by new CEO Owen Van Natta.

Van Natta, along with COO Michael Jones and Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn, have been squirreled away since late April, working at cleaning up the company by replacing management, restructuring its various units and cutting costs, including massive layoffs.

They have also been trying to come up with a plan to differentiate MySpace from Facebook, a good strategy since it is now well-nigh impossible for the Beverly Hills-based MySpace to catch up with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook’s galloping growth.

While the whole new offering will not be rolled out prominently until at least the first quarter of next year, said several sources, some changes will begin sooner, including a gradual redesign of the site.

Under the new plan, said several sources, the main idea will be to shift the focus to engagement over sheer audience numbers. While MySpace is still huge, with about 70 million monthly U.S. visitors, increasing how much time they spend on the site is the goal.

“It’s not like numbers are not important, but the better metric for MySpace will be how involved users are,” said one person close to the situation. “MySpace needs to win on minutes.”

And, rather than the wider and more scattershot approach of past years, the new direction being stressed is more scalable and focused.

“It is not about getting everyone and their mothers on MySpace,” said a source, “but about being a better site to those here.”

That will include stressing “ownership” of online categories, which for MySpace are music and entertainment, with the hope that advertisers will be attracted to more engaged users.

Unlike Facebook, which is often described as a utility platform for communications between friends, sources said MySpace will be aimed more at being a platform for communities of interest.

That includes using tools from other companies, such as MySpace’s recent two-way synch with Twitter, the hot microblogging service, to link those communities.

Presumably, the company’s August purchase of iLike, the social music start-up, is also part of that plan.

“Instead of the ability to just connect friend to friend in a single social graph, this will be about connecting a person to their communities of passion and interest and to others like them anywhere,” said one source.

Music is the obvious key leverage point, the still-bright spot of MySpace, followed by adding big entertainment categories like movies, television, gaming, video and other pop culture arenas.

(BoomTown request: Become the HQ for “Gossip Girl” addicts, um, fans, and I am so there.)

“MySpace should represent pop culture online to customers and advertisers,” said one source. “The core strength has always been music and that is where the site will really excel, because it binds customers to the service.”

The even heavier music focus on the main juggernaut site, noted several sources, does create an odd situation with MySpace Music, the separate joint venture the site has with music labels to create a massive music community.

While sources do not think News Corp. will attempt to suck MySpace Music back into the main site, due to the complex partnership issues, the idea is to make them even more deeply integrated and to sell them to advertisers as one powerful marketing message.

In any case, several sources noted that one of the most successful parts of the new plan has been to convince News Corp. leaders that MySpace does not have to beat Facebook to be successful.

Sooner than later, of course, MySpace has to do just that.

Will it work? Who knows, but said one source close to the situation quite correctly:

“There is no silver bullet for MySpace–it just has to climb back step by step.”

(Full disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

One of Microsoft’s top execs, Debra Chrapaty (pictured here), who heads its infrastructure business, is leaving the software giant to take a top job at Cisco (CSCO), sources said.

Chrapaty–whose title is corporate VP of Global Foundation Services–is also one of increasingly few top women tech execs at Microsoft (MSFT), where she has worked for seven years.

The job put her in charge of, as a Microsoft site notes, “strategy and delivery of the foundational platform for Microsoft Live, Cloud and Online Services worldwide including physical infrastructure, security, operational management, global delivery and environmental considerations. Her organization supports over 200 online services and web portals from Microsoft for consumers and businesses.”

In other words: A lot of plumbing.

She was featured onstage with other key execs at Microsoft’s Financial Analysts Meeting earlier this summer.

Sources said Chrapaty will now shift to products at Cisco, running the collaboration software group.

That unit’s former exec, Doug Dennerline, recently moved to Salesforce.com (CRM) to take a job as its EVP of sales for the Americas.

At Cisco, as had Dennerline, Chrapaty is likely to play a large role in forming the networking giant’s cloud computing and software-as-a-service strategies.

Chrapaty has worked at a lot of tech companies, including Organic, AllBusiness and Etrade Technologies. She was also CTO of the National Basketball Association.

You don’t step on the 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.

In any case–reminding BoomTown simultaneously of an unfortunate haircut I had at seven years old, those sticky sticks of powdered candy and, of course, Tinkerbell–Pixi seems to be a smaller, less featured and cheaper version of the Palm (PALM) Pre device.

Except super-adorably skinny and featuring “Sex-and-the-City”-style fashionable back covers by artists.

(Paging Roger McNamee: Where is the mirror, please, because–as you insisted to me in an interview at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, the ladies love it!)

Pixi uses the Palm webOS platform and other software from third parties, such as Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO).

The Pixi is seen here trying to flirt with a manly cup of coffee, with more images posted below, which you can click on to make larger–although not much larger since it is a pixie, for goodness sake!

Palm said the Pixi is scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint (S) in time for the holidays (you can read more details in the full press release below).

But the launch today is clearly a happily-ever-after play–one that will surely cause Palm to catch all kinds of flak, if anyone actually pays any sustained attention today to Pixi given the outsized focus on whatever innovation in the iPod or iPhone or iTunes that Apple (AAPL) might or might not announce.

And, if Jobs does appear, all geek hell is sure to break loose and Palm staffers can pretty much quit for the day and go see “Julie & Julia” to familiarize themselves with the Pixi demographic.

By way of explanation, a Palm source wrote in an email to me last night, “timing’s a funny thing,” noting that this event has been long-planned to align with the demo debut of Pixi at Palm-sponsored Fashion Week in New York next week.

While one has to admire its minuscule chutzpah at going up against the Jobs-fueled juggernaut–a move even Google (GOOG) mobile plotter-in-chief Vic Gundotra wouldn’t attempt so overtly–let’s not hope the Pixi gets lost in the Apple sauce.

(Okay, sue me, but that line was too good to resist.)

Here are some more images to peruse, and below them, the full press release on the Pixi from Palm:

Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips

Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sep 09, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today introduced the Palm(R) Pixi(TM) phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS(TM) platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.

“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”

In addition to linking your information from Google(TM), Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy(TM) and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk(TM) or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)

Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.

Personalization with Style

For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).

You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp(TM).(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)

“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”

The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.

Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.

Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.

Palm Pixi Features

• High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
• 2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
• Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
• Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
• Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
• High-performance, desktop-class web browser
• Integrated GPS(8)
• Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
• Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
• Bluetooth(R) 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
• 8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
• USB mass storage mode
• MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
• The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627(TM) chipset
• Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
• Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
• Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
• Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
• Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
• Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
• Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
• Sprint services, including Sprint TV(R) and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

Availability and Pricing

The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.

In addition, effective today the Palm Pre(TM) phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos and video are available from Palm’s media gallery at www.palm.com/mml.

Please add the tag #Palm #Pixi to your tweets or “Palm Pixi” to your blog posts about the all-new Palm Pixi phone running on Palm webOS, and follow Palm on Twitter at www.twitter.com/palm.

(1) Within wireless coverage area only. Email, mobile number, and related information required for setup and activation. Required data plan not included; unlimited plan strongly recommended.
(2) Limitations apply. Layered calendars and linked contacts for Outlook require Exchange ActiveSync and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or later, sold separately.
(3) Within wireless coverage area only.
(4) Performance varies based upon actual usage.
(5) Third-party software available separately. Within wireless coverage area only.
(6) Compatible with iTunes 8.2.1 on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X version 10.3.9-10.5.7. Within wireless coverage area only. Music sold separately. Please respect copyright laws when downloading music.
(7) “Dependable” based on independent, third-party drive tests for 3G data connection success, session reliability and signal strength for the top 50 most populous markets from Jan. ‘08 to Feb. ‘09. Not all services available on 3G and coverage may default to separate network when 3G unavailable.
(8) Coverage not available in all areas at all times.
(9) Outlook requires Exchange ActiveSync and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or later, sold separately.
(10) Storage estimate subject to change based on system software and application usage.

In a risky but interesting move that has some at the company nervous and others excited, Yahoo is in the process of moving key development responsibility for its juggernaut Yahoo News unit to Taiwan.

Under the new system, product management, engineering and user interface design for the powerful Yahoo (YHOO) property will become the responsibility of staffers there.

Editorial employees for Yahoo News–which is the No. 1 news site on the Web with 48.4 unique monthly visitors, according to comScore data (SCOR)–will remain in the U.S., largely located at its Santa Monica, Calif., office.

Sources had alerted BoomTown to the change at Yahoo’s flagship content offering this week and many I spoke to about it were deeply worried about further separating key functions in the creation of Yahoo News.

“We are losing more and more of our ability to make quick changes and react to new technologies, which has worked pretty well so far, since we are #1,” said one staffer. “First, we all worked together across a room, then hundreds of miles away and now it is thousands.”

Previously, as was first reported here in February, the distributed and regional method of developing content was shifted to a central global product development organization, with product management, engineering and UI design centered at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ under CTO Ari Balogh.

The argument for the shift posits that centralizing the product development of a Yahoo media offering drives efficiencies, saves money, eliminates redundancies and accelerates growth across the world.

Those who do not like the idea think it is wrong to separate the development of a product from the programming because the two are intricately dependent and need to be tweaked delicately.

In addition, they argue, it makes Yahoo media offerings, which have been largely successful, less unique and more dull.

Well, tough tomatoes, because Yahoo confirmed the transition to me when I inquired about it. It was announced internally several weeks ago.

In an interview I did yesterday afternoon with Jeff Kinder, SVP of media products and solutions, who is spearheading the change, he said it was key that Yahoo News streamline how it makes its products in order to be more innovative and responsive on a global basis.

Before the shift to a global system, he pointed out that Yahoo had 26 different news products worldwide, using nine content management systems.

“This is part of building a global media platform,” said Kinder, who leads development of Yahoo’s anchor media properties, as well as its listings and regional products around the world.

Kinder said the staff in Taiwan was selected to take on Yahoo News because it had been creating top-level news products and was passionate about the arena.

Nonetheless, similar functions for other major Yahoo content categories–Sports, Finance and Entertainment–will remain in the United States.

In addition, he noted, with employees in Taiwan taking over these functions at Yahoo News, it would “free up some of the talent” in Silicon Valley to work on other critical content projects.

Kinder dismissed worries about any logjams in the ability of U.S.-based Yahoo News staffers to make changes to offerings, either for consumers or advertising partners, noting there were weekly calls between the teams and plenty of ways to communicate online.

But those worried about the change said the reason for the move was more to cut costs in the content arena, which–like many parts of Yahoo–has undergone layoffs and expense reductions.

Countered Kinder: “We are all driving to the same goal….This is not about cost savings, but about accelerating change and leveraging a global team.”

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 (AAPL) iPhone mobile apps market.

Warms left Yahoo (YHOO) last fall and started Appolicious in May of this year with about $500,000 in seed funding.

The site is kind of a combination of Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo, with some Yelp sprinkled in, but devoted solely to organizing and making sense of the app galaxy in the universe of smart phones.

Right now, the innovative site just focuses on iPhone apps–are there any others?–but Warms said he will soon include other mobile platforms, such as the BlackBerry from Research in Motion (RIMM).

Using premium content, recommendations of friends and also people like you–as well as a variety of lists, feeds, popularity rankings, images and videos–the idea is to do what the iTunes store does not.

Namely, make sense of the plenitude of apps out there, most of which are on the iPhone.

To make that happen, users of the service also can list all the iPhone apps they have in an App Library so others can see if they too own the iFart app (message to self: Hide that app deep in the library).

Warms hopes to make money on the site from advertising, including focusing on attracting brands that want to be in front of apps consumers.

Here is a video interview I did with Warms, where we discuss all this and more:

And, here are three screenshots of the site below (click on the images to make them larger):

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090901/serial-entrepreneur-al-warms-debuts-appolicious-hoping-iphone-apps-fans-will-find-it-delicious/feed/ 1 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090812/get-out-of-our-biz-stone-talks-twitter-attacks-on-tavis-smiley/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090812/get-out-of-our-biz-stone-talks-twitter-attacks-on-tavis-smiley/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:33:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17488

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone can be seen tomorrow night in an interview with Tavis Smiley on his PBS show, talking about the denial-of-service attacks on the hot microblogging service recently.

In the interview, noting that Twitter had spent 2008 scaling up its platform to deal with its popularity, Stone said the San Francisco-based start-up was now trying to get up to speed on malicious attackers, who have managed to shut down Twitter for short periods of time.

“You’ve got to tune your systems to be able to handle this level of assault, this scale of assault,” said Stone, who added that the company was working behind the scenes with other Web companies like Google (GOOG) to deal with the attacks.

Here’s the video clip from the interview:

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090812/get-out-of-our-biz-stone-talks-twitter-attacks-on-tavis-smiley/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090807/boomtown-decodes-twitters-denial-of-service-blog-post-so-you-dont-have-to/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090807/boomtown-decodes-twitters-denial-of-service-blog-post-so-you-dont-have-to/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:17:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17142

This morning, in a blog post titled “The Adventure Continues,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone gave more of an explanation for the outage that the microblogging service endured due to a denial-of-service attack yesterday.

Fortunately, BoomTown can read between the lines in order to decipher the secret message herein!

Biz wrote: The Adventure Continues.

Translation: By “adventure,” I mean yet-another-friggin’-Twitter-birdie-crisis.

Considering all the fail whales, the stolen documents and now this, I would have to say we have now taken Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL’s title as Internet company most likely to experience technical difficulties. Do not adjust your screens! Please stand by!

Biz wrote: In the past 24 hours, we’ve been contending with a variety of attacks that continue to change in nature and intensity. We’re working to restore access to apps built on the Twitter platform that were affected by defensive measures–there was some overcompensation on our part as we tune our system to deal with this scale of attack.

Translation: We’d like to blame this one on TechCrunch somehow, and are hard at work on another impolitic internal memo about how to do so that also manages to insult potential acquirers, such as Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and our investors.

The reason we doused this crisis with extra amounts of weed killer is because no one will be able to accuse us of sitting by in our usual chill manner, which is exemplified by the official Twitter company motto: “Scoble dude, relax, it’s only 140 characters.”

Biz wrote: The ongoing, massively coordinated attacks on Twitter this week appear to have been geopolitical in motivation. However, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to engage in speculative discussion about these motivations. The open exchange of information can have a positive impact globally and our job is to keep Twitter services running reliably to the best of our ability.

Translation: And if blaming TechCrunch does not work, there is always Iran to point the finger at!

However, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to engage in speculative discussion of these motivations–mostly because it will just piss off the hackers more and they will crush our little technical operation like it is papier maché.

Which, let’s be honest, it is. Anybody got any spare Elmer’s Glue?

Biz wrote: As a reminder, no data or personal information of any kind has been compromised. Denial of Service attacks are a known quantity on the web and they are not going away any time soon. Nevertheless, we can and will improve system response to these assaults such that they don’t interfere with our normal, everyday Twittering.

Translation: No data or personal information of any kind have been compromised, except–of course–for Ashton Kuchter’s.

But, to be fair, that dude overshares like Perez and Paris Hilton combined and on steroids.

Not that we mind him tweeting pictures of his wife’s posterior, but he makes John Mayer seem shy.

Denial-of-service attacks are a known quantity on the Web, much the way our fail whale is.

Nevertheless, we can and will fail again, so there will be yet another spate of articles and blog posts about the indignity of life without Twittering to show just how indispensable we are.

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090807/boomtown-decodes-twitters-denial-of-service-blog-post-so-you-dont-have-to/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:32:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16685

BoomTown was so glad we had this time together with Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, just to have a laugh or sing a song about a major Web search and advertising deal.

I liveblogged the conference call, which I updated as it happened.

Did Ballmer scream and jump up and down? Did Carol say something naughty?

Or as the companies said:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash., Jul 29, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft will host a conference call for accredited media and financial and industry analysts at 8:30 a.m. ET/5:30 a.m. PT today, July 29, 2009, to discuss the search agreement the companies recently announced. In addition, b-roll footage will be available. The satellite feed of b-roll footage will contain broadcast footage of remarks from Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, as well as corporate Yahoo! and Microsoft b-roll footage.

B-roll? More like, were Bartz and Ballmer on a roll?

To find out, read on!

5:28 am PDT: It was EARLY on the West Coast and we were being forced at first to listen to really sleepy music like you might hear in a dentist’s office.

Zzzzzzzzz…

5:34 am PDT: Memo Impresario Eric Brown was late! But, as soon as he gets on, the new Yahoo PR head began with an enthusiastic hello about the deal.

Bartz was up first, followed by Ballmer. They were clearly together in the same place, likely in Silicon Valley at some bunker.

“This is a great day for Yahoo,” she said. “It’s a game-changer and I am glad to finally be able to talk to you about it.”

Her patter was clearly scripted, but Bartz was pretty jaunty in her delivery.

And sassy enough to make the first of many dings to former Yahoo savior Google (GOOG)–not by name, but as either “the market leader” or “the competitor.”

Why not just go right to calling the search giant this deal is aimed at battling what Bartz really meant: The Borg.

Bartz stressed that this deal only covers search and the search ad business and not, say, display advertising.

And, she added, while Microsoft’s AdCenter technology will power the money-making, “search will continue to be an integral part of the Yahoo consumer experience.”

Boiling it down, Bartz said: “What this deal is really about for everyone is scale.”

Cue the next Google dig: “The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo search puts the choice back into the hands of consumers, increasingly concerned about the influence of a single player.”

Single player=Darth Vader.

5:40 am PDT: Ballmer was next. “I am so delighted to see [the deal] come to fruition,” he said.

He does not say much more except that he hoped it would “flourish and come to life over the many years.”

Ballmer sounded like someone speaking at a ribbon cutting of a copy store at the mall.

The livelier Bartz came back on, discussing the terms, hewing pretty much to what was already in the press release.

Microsoft’s AdCenter as technology. Integration. 10 years. No display deal. Separate user experience.

Now to the bucks, as Bartz noted, they add $500 million to Yahoo’s operating income, save $200 million in capital expenditures and improve annual operating cash flow by $275 million.

“At its full implementation,” she added. There is always a catch!

Bartz said Yahoo would use the money to invest in its other properties, although she was not specific.

Then, it was onto regulatory issues and getting this party started.

Bartz put on the brakes. “This deal will not happen overnight,” she said.

Actually, not even close. She predicted a closing in early 2010 and it being rolled out over the following three to six months.

Finally, Bartz thanked the tireless teams who did the deal. “With a lot of help from Steve and I,” she said and then quipped, “not always so.”

She and Ballmer were now sounding like a hip mom and dad.

5:45 am PDT: Question time!

The first one was about why the pair did not do a display deal and also how they were going to bridge the huge gap in how much each made per search compared to each other and Google.

Bartz said that the point was to keep the deal idiot-proof. “Frankly, we wanted it as straightforward and simple as possible,” she said.

Ballmer concurred: “We are taking a big bite here.”

As to the earnings gap in search, he said, “The deal in and of itself will let us close gap with the market leader.”

Ballmer tried not to say the word “Google,” but stumbled and did anyway.

The next question was about Bartz’s shift from her “boatloads of cash” quote–which she said, in an interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May, was a must for a deal with Microsoft–to her new “boatloads of value.”

Simple, she said, trying to gloss it over–Yahoo did not need a big cash payment up front (and it did not get it either).

“As far as we are concerned, the boatload of cash is us preserving our revenue line,” said Bartz.

The next question was about what Microsoft gets out of this deal.

“We clearly see an upside as execution really builds,” said Ballmer.

After more money questions, there is finally one on regulator issues.

Back to Google-bashing from Ballmer.

“I suspect the competitor who may not like more competition is Google,” he said.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith then jumped in and talked about working together and filings in D.C. and making the case.

He said he “looks forward to the debate,” which is just what a lawyer would say.

5:58 am PDT: Finally, the layoff question.

Bartz is clear here. Some Yahoo search employees will be dragooned over to Microsoft, some will move to other parts of Yahoo and some will be let go.

“Unfortunately, there are some redundancies,” said Bartz.

More financial questions, one on the mobile search market, one on innovation, one on scale and one on advertisers.

“Advertisers, especially smaller ones, want to make sure there is enough meaningful market for them and they don’t want to learn three platforms,” said Bartz. “They know how to enter into the Google system.”

She said “Google system” like she was talking about a gulag.

Meanwhile, Ballmer talked about how good it was to now be No. 2. Really, he did, since he was a distant No. 3 before this deal.

6:11 am PDT: Some technology question. Ballmer noted that the deal was not a “rip and replace” of Yahoo’s search for Microsoft. It will be an “integration.”

Next was a question about how this deal measured up to last year’s more money-laden offer by Microsoft.

Bartz said she didn’t just want an upfront payment, but a “true partnership,” with control over the Yahoo user interface and “real skin in the game.”

Ballmer called last year’s deal more investor-focused than operational. “The deal was different for Microsoft, not better,” he said, leaving out the cheaper part.

Finally, I get called on, and ask about who will lead the integration and how it will get done, so as not to create a huge distraction.

Bartz said it would be a “smooth transition…not that different from when Yahoo went from Overture to Panama.”

I did not have the heart to tell her that the transition of the Yahoo ad platform was anything but smooth and one of the reasons Yahoo got into the trouble it has gotten in.

Ballmer noted that the leadership that put together the deal is the leadership of the companies in the digital arena.

I also asked how the deal finally came together, especially after such historical rancor.

“It was like a snowball down a hill,” said Bartz.

But it was also a complex ball of ice, she added, noting “it was not a two-page term sheet.”

More like hundreds of pages. “There was not a high level of abstraction,” said Ballmer.

Finally, finding a kind of married groove–from that time before the random bickering sets in–Bartz noted that “dating is one thing, but having a partnership is another.”

She added: “The good news once we reached a point we believed to be advantageous, [we did a deal]…that’s how partnerships work.”

Well, exactly how it all works out, of course, still remains to be seen.

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090721/yahoo-acquires-xoopit/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090721/yahoo-acquires-xoopit/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:00:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16233

Yahoo plans on announcing Thursday that it has bought Xoopit for a price in the $20 million range, according to several sources, one of its first acquisitions in a long while.

Reached late this afternoon by BoomTown, a Yahoo (YHOO) spokeswoman declined to comment about the acquisition. Xoopit did not respond to emails earlier today.

But sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, video, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them on many sites. It also has other products that essentially enliven email.

Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.

According to sources, Yahoo was first impressed with its innovative plug-in that works with Gmail from Google (GOOG), and has been looking at the company for a while, previously offering about $10 million for it.

Xoopit also makes a similar photo-sharing application for Yahoo! Mail, which it launched late last year.

The opening up of its popular email product to a variety of third-party applications, in order to make it more robust, has been a goal of Yahoo recently, as it seeks to socialize one of its most popular products.

One source said Xoopit was a good fit for Yahoo because it allowed the company’s email to be the platform that could knit together other social networking services, such as Facebook. This is seen as a core feature, although the Silicon Valley-based company is also opening its email products up to outside developers.

Yahoo has been planning on announcing the acquisition on Thursday at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, where SVP of Applications Products Bryan Lamkin is appearing on a panel titled, “Dollars & Demographics: Capitalizing on Demographic Trends.”

Lamkin, a former Adobe Systems (ADBE) exec, now runs the Yahoo unit that includes email and other communications and communities products. He was hired in April by CEO Carol Bartz.

That panel topic is a little ironic, several sources joked, since Xoopit is not profitable and has very small revenues thus far.

The Wall Street Journal also reported on the deal, although it said Yahoo and Xoopit were still in late-stage talks and the deal was not complete yet.

But, according to my sources, it is done.

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090721/yahoo-acquires-xoopit/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090719/aol-chairman-and-ceo-tim-armstrong-talks-the-100-day-check-in/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090719/aol-chairman-and-ceo-tim-armstrong-talks-the-100-day-check-in/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:00:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=15949

After his 100-day VisionQuest to figure out what to do at AOL, Tim Armstrong is in a chattier mood.

The former Google (GOOG) advertising exec took over the perpetually troubled Internet icon in the spring and has been on a worldwide tour of its offices, meeting employees and trying to get a lay of the land of where the Time Warner (TWX) unit has been and where it should be going.

So, BoomTown did not waste a New York–where AOL has its HQ, in fact–minute in getting on the horn with Armstrong to finally hear his take.

There’s not a lot of new stuff to reveal, of course, beyond what Armstrong has already said over the last months about AOL’s new direction.

That would be a spinoff in November, a focus on advertising, content, local, communications and starting a venture unit.

Here is the interview, which we did by phone on Friday:

BoomTown: So, what’s your overall assessment of AOL and its prospects after your 100-day look-see?

Armstrong: Well, to start, I feel good about the company and where we are at. What I mean by that is that I feel good about what the company’s opportunities are.

B: What were you most surprised by on the downside and on the upside?

A: I think basically things were about 50 percent more negative and 50 percent more positive than I thought.

On the negative side, it has mostly been a crisis of confidence. I think people at AOL had started to believe the business press that it was just an incremental part of the Internet.

On the plus side, there are very surprising assets, which have been neglected, but are amazing. Such as Winamp, ICQ and the really incredible engineering talent all over the world–in India, Tel Aviv, Dublin.

B: What was the one thing you took away as the most important thing to do first?

A: Well, it is important for everyone to understand that AOL should not be in every business out there. That there are a limited set of things we have to commit to do better than anyone else.

Over the years, for example, there were so many acquisitions. But a lot of them became businesses that we were not fully committed to, and we have to start making clear choices and letting the rest go.

B: Such as?

A: Well, we are going to be focused on scaling content, advertising, email, messaging and local, but making it easier and less complicated.

In the ad business, for example, we have 100 products. I think we can be much more successful with less.

And we have different publishing platforms all over the world, just as the Web has become about having centralized technology. We have been missing the core characteristic of the Internet, which is about one platform.

B: Talk a little about what you are doing in the content space. AOL, via its MediaGlow unit, has been creating a lot of small blogs in a variety of categories, but also has big sites.

A: We are going to do both things. One thing I would say is that we have a content strategy that spans the content we create, the content we are buying and partnering on, and I think we have clear plans in terms of investing in each area.

B: What about communications?

A: I think you are very quickly going to see us cleaning up email products. And in the messaging space, one of the things we will be doing is integrating it more with other AOL properties.

Historically, the management has looked at messaging as how to drive monetization and it has been a bad experience. I think that it more important as a recirculation tool.

B: How realistic were you about AOL when you arrived compared to now?

A: I went into this job with my eyes wide open and I am not saying now that I have answers to every problem.

But I have been trying to do what it takes to solve the big ones, such as recruiting and building a team. I have also spent a lot of time finding talent in the company already here.

And, I have worked with people outside the company. I consider my job being whatever it takes and educate myself.

B: So what’s next, besides the already announced spinoff? Is AOL still an acquisition target?

A: I look at it in two different ways.

We need to stay very laser-focused on strategy and execution, as well as innovation.

And we have to build this company as a powerful independent one.

AOL has been looked at as a target for a long time, where AOL has been the prey. It might also change in that we can be the hunter too.

B: What about the online advertising and search deal with Google?

A: Well, it ends in December of 2010, as everyone knows.

I have to say that the partnership has been extremely successful on many fronts.

They have been our partners for eight years and there has been a lot of momentum.

But we also have to think about how to continue that for the right outcome for what we need in future, because AOL has changed since the partnership started.

Of course, we will look at other partners, but we also really know we have a great relationship that exists with a partner that is also going to be listening to us about what we need.

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090719/aol-chairman-and-ceo-tim-armstrong-talks-the-100-day-check-in/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090622/rim-president-and-co-ceo-mike-lazaridis-the-full-d7-session/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090622/rim-president-and-co-ceo-mike-lazaridis-the-full-d7-session/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:30:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14790

We kick off the week of full posts of the onstage interviews at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference with Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIMM), which is best known as the maker of the BlackBerry.

Lazaridis has been key to developing the BlackBerry, which means he is directly responsible for the CrackBerry problem too. And it means he’s in the thick of the new handheld platform wars.

In this interview, Walt Mossberg talked to him about all that and the competitors, such as Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Palm (PALM), all of which are competing aggressively in the fast-growing and innovative smartphone space.

Here’s the D7 interview with Lazaridis:

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