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Saturday, December 13, 2008

Ex-Yahoos Weigh In on Their Choices for New Yahoo CEO

With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for. After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex? The response was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, from a basic turnaround expert to–drum roll, please–his digital Holiness, Steve Jobs of Apple. No kidding.

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Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Michael Wolff Has Been Trash-Talking the Internet Since 1998–See the Video!

Ah, Michael Wolff! Always throwing stink bombs and making deliciously wackadoo declarations about the Internet.

In a recent dinner interview the author had with BusinessWeek’s media columnist Jon Fine this week, Wolff slaps around News Corp. social network MySpace, with a series of his trash-buckling phrases, some of which are true and some a bit more of a stretch.

But it’s par for the course for Wolff, as you can see here in an appearance with BoomTown on the “Charlie Rose” show a decade ago.

“It’s craziness, it’s loco, it makes no sense,” said Wolff about the Internet, circa July 27, 1998. And later: “I think the myth of the Internet is that it is going to come into everybody’s home.”

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Yahoo’s Peter (Chernin) Principle–And Other CEO Choices

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…

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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Entire D6 Demo of 23andMe

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at the D6 conference.

Next up is the demo for 23andMe, the Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome site, which showed off its new 23andWe service.

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Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Yahoo Circus Pulls Into Sun Valley Next Week

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.

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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (6 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 6 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

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The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (5 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 4 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

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MicroHoo Back From the Dead? Dream On, Jerry!

Like the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead” who will not die, the notion of a big, sloppy deal for Microsoft to buy Yahoo is revived yet again in an article in The Wall Street Journal today.

Unfortunately for both Yahoo and Microsoft, it mostly serves to point out once again just how messy and pathetic the proceedings have been and continues to be.

But, as to the central idea, that Microsoft is aching to do a multi-part deal with various partners that would render Yahoo asunder, BoomTown is altogether dubious that this will ever come to pass.

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The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (4 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 4 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

Read More »

The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (3 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 3 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

Read More »

The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (2 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 2 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

Read More »

Monday, June 30, 2008

The Entire D6 Interview With News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (Part 1 of 6)

Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.

Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s Part 1 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.

Read More »

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

BoomTown’s Short List of Yahoo CEOs (Sorry Jerry, but Fortune Favors the Prepared)

marccuban

As Yahoo continues to be in limbo, pressure is sure to mount heavily on its CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang, and it is not a stretch to imagine he will not remain in the top job at the troubled company for the long term.

So who would be good to replace him?

I have six candidates I like, so here’s my short list (and remember, the last time I made one for the job of the No. 2 leader for Facebook, its current COO Sheryl Sandberg was high on my list).

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Monday, June 9, 2008

Special D6 Tab in The Wall Street Journal

d6

The Wall Street Journal published a special tab about our sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place live two weeks ago.

The Journal editors selected about half of the interviews done there by Walt Mossberg and me, either separately or together, and edited the longer transcripts down to the parts they thought readers would like best.

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Monday, June 2, 2008

MicroHoo: A Deal Must Be Done

microhoo.jpg

While Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang hemmed and hawed about what had happened in their disastrous takeover battle that ended not with a bang, but a whimper, everyone else who appeared onstage at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference last week was a bit more definitive about what should occur now:

Get it done.

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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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