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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Center for Digital Democracy’s Jeff Chester Talks About MicroHoo and More!

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While in Washington, D.C., BoomTown can’t just visit the policy wonks from Internet companies, so I paid a visit to Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that works to promote privacy and protection online.

In other words, a professional–and much needed–thorn in the side of Facebook, Google and these days, MicroHoo.

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Exclusive: Yahoo and Microsoft Poised to Finally Sign Definitive Search and Ad Agreement

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Yahoo and Microsoft are poised to finally sign the definitive agreement that will govern the complex and far-reaching search and online advertising partnership they struck in late July, said sources close to the situation.

If all goes well, the various Microsoft and Yahoo execs–who have been ferreted away over the last weeks, busy dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s in the massive document–could even turn in the delayed deal homework to their bosses for signature by the end of the week.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Kara Visits Facebook’s Washington, D.C., Office and Talks Policy!

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Yesterday, BoomTown paid a visit to the Washington, D.C., office of Facebook to meet its reps in the nation’s capital.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the social networking site has a very small staff–for now, just a trio of on-the-young-side dudes–battening down the hatches from a funky office in a funky section of D.C., Dupont Circle, far from the tonier and lobbyist-rich K Street corridor.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

No Tech Tapeworms Here! We Update Voices Policies on All Things Digital.

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As of today, we have made important changes to the All Things Digital Voices section.

Why? Well, a few weeks ago, ATD was caught up in a bit of the controversy that broke out due to louder-than-usual complaints by several traditional media companies about how their content is treated on the Web.

Without going into a long explanation: They expressed displeasure that some sites were misusing their content via aggregation. Those complaining included the editor-in-chief of Dow Jones, which owns this site.

The ensuing debate made us realize we needed to be a lot clearer and more explicit about what we are doing in our Voices section, which includes short excerpts of third-party content from outside our site, and to make those policies more prominent and transparent.

Some will disagree with the changes we have made and some will not think they go far enough. But we hope we have addressed the key issues.

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

One Last Yahoo Reorg Missive: Bartz Tells Employees What She Already Said. Again.

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Goodness gracious, make it stop!

You must know by now how much BoomTown loves internal Yahoo memos. But this is getting ridiculous.

It’s been like a flash flood after a long drought at Sunnyvale HQ today, as Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz turns on the firehose of a whole lot of communicating.

“I know you guys have reorg fatigue,” wrote Bartz in the latest email to employees about the management reorganization finally announced this morning.

Also memo fatigue at All Things Digital HQ, if you can believe it.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

New Blog “Microsoft on the Issues” Needs Some Sassier Issues (BoomTown to the Rescue!)

With a new administration coming into power, it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to launch its new “Microsoft on the Issues” blog this week.

But, so far, with only two posts and few comments, it’s a tad dry–and, by that, I actually mean dull–and in desperate need of some spicy sauce to jazz up the joint.

Here are some modest BoomTown suggestions for livelier posts (including a Ballmer “BOMB-er” blog).

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Monday, November 3, 2008

John McCain and Barack Obama Talk Tech

In advance of tomorrow’s elections, here’s a pair of videos of the two presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, talking about tech.

While Obama has many more supporters in the tech and Internet sectors in terms of overall numbers, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, McCain’s tech fans include Cisco CEO John Chambers, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and former H-P head Carly Fiorina.

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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. Read more »

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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