In a genius pairing of subject and artist, here is the best online viral video this week from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show,” featuring actor William Shatner reciting outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent farewell speech verbatim.
You simply can’t make this stuff up.
Our friends at JibJab whipped up another odd video for us for the Thanksgiving holidays.
BoomTown is thankful for our great All Things D staff, as well as our amazing readers. Also this year, for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, without whom there would be no news.
We’ll be publishing more lightly after tonight, but there will still be news over the holiday, so keep checking back for posts all weekend long.
How much do I love the Internet?
Muchety-much after seeing this interview that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gave plastered all over the Web, in which the former Republican VP candidate gives a local Anchorage television station an interview as a Thanksgiving turkey is being slaughtered right behind her.
Still, ever the trouper (and sanguine hunter, it seems), Palin obliviously keeps up the turkey patter, having just “pardoned” another turkey earlier.
Such is fowl fate.
As BoomTown expected, the popularity of the chaste-yet-lustful vampire movie for screaming teen girls everywhere, “Twilight,” has inspired more online video spoofs than you can shake a braided rope of garlic at.
Rabid fans of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire book series flew into theaters all weekend, adding up to a $70.5 million U.S. box office tally so far.
Thus, we are in for more online videos in praise and in mockery of Edward and Bella than perhaps even Alaska Governor Sarah Palin engendered.
This weekend, YouTube is going analog, showing off a bunch of the freaky people who have become online phenoms, at YouTube Live, its “first ever official live community celebration.”
Taking place in San Francisco on Saturday, BoomTown and thousands more are going.
And, frankly, I am not sure I want to meet some of these folks, including the truly warped Fred Figglehorn (the No. 1 most subscribed channel in YouTube history), Obama Girl and Brandon Hardesty, the guy who does movie reenactments.
Will I be shooting online video? Oh, yes, my fellow freaks.
At least Yahoo got one day of stock euphoria, on the news that its CEO Jerry Yang was stepping down, before Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped yet another bomb on the troubled Internet giant by saying once more with feeling that he is not at all interested in buying it.
Yahoo shares plummeted on the news, dropping below $10 a share to close at $9.14, down $2.41 or an astonishing 21 percent.
While lack of interest in acquiring Yahoo is a sentiment that Ballmer has expressed more times than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said “maverick” in the presidential campaign, Wall Street continues to hold out hope that Microsoft might swoop in and make a new bid for all of Yahoo.
It will not. Let’s repeat. It. Will. Not.
About a month ago, BoomTown reported that MSN executive producer and general manager Jeff Dossett was contemplating joining Yahoo.
Microsoft released a statement that day saying Dossett was indeed stepping down from his MSN duties, as I had posted, but noted that he was staying put at the software giant.
Oops, it looks like I was right in my report: “The Secret Microsoft Invasion of Yahoo Continues: MSN GM Headed There Soon?”
Dossett has accepted a job as SVP, U.S. Audience at Yahoo, Yahoo said this afternoon, while also confirming my previous report that Yahoo Media Group head Scott Moore was departing.
As BoomTown has noted, one of the best things to come out of this election has been the very funny and very topical humor that has been on “Saturday Night Live” in this political cycle.
Headlined by Tina Fey’s perfect impression of Sarah Palin, it has been biting without stooping to the rank meanness from so many other places by both sides.
Last night, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain–who has been on SNL before (his “John McCain sings Streisand” skit was really a gem from that appearance)–was in two skits on the show and did a great job in both.
Here is the latest “Saturday Night Live” political video, with Will Ferrell reprising his excellent take on President George W. Bush, along with Tina Fey as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in a version of the endorsement of Sen. John McCain.
Once again, it is likely to be more popular online than on television, as it has been for all of the sketches, a striking trend for the long-running comedy show.
Saturday night was all Sarah Palin’s, after the Alaska governor and Republican VP candidate appeared on “Saturday Night Live” with a classy comic turn.
Now, the Democratic side–which has been overwhelmingly more active in creating funny online videos–is back with yet another political spoof: a boy band called, of course, Boybama.
Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin did a very smooth–if sweetly awkward–job in her appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last night.
It was a good decision to go low key and also do a bit of stunt casting by bringing in Mark Wahlberg, who was mocked in an impersonation last week by SNL, and also Alec Baldwin. Palin also appeared later, rocking out to a very funny rap.
Sometimes politics can be really ugly and sometimes silly–this time Palin managed to poke fun at herself without being either.
As former Disney CEO and online video investor Michael Eisner said in a recent onstage Q&A appearance about what works for video on the Web: “Sex seems to work. User-generated, sports, news, anything with Sarah Palin works.”
Indeed, anything with Sarah Palin.
Here is the latest Internet effort, an unusual interactive site called PalinAsPresident in which you click on various items in the Oval Office, where Palin is sitting behind the desk, to hear funny remarks from her.
Is there anything comic Sarah Silverman will not say?
Apparently not, from this aggressively pro-Sen. Barack Obama video that has become a huge hit on the Web, called “The Great Schlep.”
In it, the viciously funny Silverman plans to blame–I am not kidding–old Jewish grandparents–if Democratic nominee Obama loses the Presidential election.
Thus, she plots revenge.
The third time is charming, in fact, as has been every appearance on “Saturday Night Live” by Tina Fey impersonating Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
This one, of course, is on last week’s debate between Palin and Democratic VP candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, with Queen Latifah also doing a perfect double-taking turn as moderator Gwen Ifill.
BoomTown admits herewith that I am a teenage boy, given how much I really like Atom’s Kung-Fu Election site, an online fighting game for the general election.
In advance of tonight’s much-anticipated debate between the vice-presidential candidates–Democratic Sen. Joe Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin–here’s a video of them duking it out digitally in hiiii-ya style.
Let’s hope the verbal sparring to come is as gripping.
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.
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.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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