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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Don’t-Worry-Jack Yahoogle Argument (BoomTown Is Still Not Reassured)

With more critics piling onto the just-say-no-to-Yahoogle bandwagon–questioning the controversial ad deal for Yahoo to outsource some of its search ads to Google–sources said some top Google execs are now hightailing it to Washington, D.C., to smooth over any regulatory feathers the company might have ruffled with its aggressive, damn-the-torpedoes approach to pushing the deal forward.

Meanwhile, Yahoo creates a don’t-worry-jack digital ad council.

So why is BoomTown still worried?

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Monday, August 11, 2008

Apple iPhone Apps: Fast-Growing but Not Quite Fast Enough for the ADD Set

Someone get a dose of Ritalin stat to the noisy but deeply misguided critics who took news of a huge number of downloads of apps for the Apple iPhone and immediately concluded it was just not good enough.

Thus, as reported today in The Wall Street Journal, 60 million downloads in 30 days–mostly for free apps, but with about $30 million in revenue, and a runway of three million more new iPhones out there too–is a chance to talk about how it all is just so unexciting and how the apps market is officially saturated?

Am I missing something here? One would assume that were these pundits pioneers, they would get to Ohio and declare that going farther west held very little promise, thank you very much!

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

AlleyCorp’s Kevin Ryan Speaks!

With the sale of paidContent to the Guardian Media Group and the talks TechCrunch has been in with AOL, there certainly is a lot of hubbub around tech blogging sites of late.

One of the more interesting sites that has gone up over the last year has been Silicon Alley Insider, which is headlined by former Internet analyst Henry Blodget (yes, that Henry Blodget).

But perhaps most compelling is that the site is backed by Web 1.0 entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, former CEO of DoubleClick, who has nested SAI inside a networks of new Web efforts at AlleyCorp.

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Friday, July 11, 2008

PaidContent’s Rafat Ali Speaks! So, Here’s Who’s Next…

Earlier today, BoomTown broke the stunning-for-blogs news that ContentNext, owner of the popular online digital media news site paidContent, was being bought by the Guardian Media Group for about $30 million in an earn-out acquisition.

But the deal–which comes after the mid-May sale of Ars Technica to Condé Nast for a reported $25 million–begs the question of which tech blog might be next to be acquired.

And, after much noisy poking around today, BoomTown is giving the nod to one of the sector’s larger and splashier sites: TechCrunch.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Could Microsoft Get Control of Yahoo Without Buying It Whole? Investors Think So.

So exactly when will Microsoft and Yahoo really start talking again?

Much sooner than later, if investors have their way.

While the pair have not had any substantive talks as yet, despite reports they had, I would expect pressure from those shareholders (if not a dose of sanity in the face of the Google juggernaut) will bring them to the table within the next week.

While the software giant has no interest in buying all of the Internet portal, under a scenario being suggested to Microsoft by major Yahoo shareholders, a more substantial search deal could effectively give Microsoft control over Yahoo.

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Weiner Will Leave Yahoo, but Might Not Be Replaced

schneider

Jeff Weiner, as BoomTown reported in a story broken by BoomTown Tuesday and also yesterday, will be leaving Yahoo to become an entrepreneur in residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

But, despite a lot of speculation, sources at the company said that Weiner will not likely be replaced as Network division head by one of his four direct reports.

Instead, sources at the company think much of Weiner’s organization could be headed by Hilary Schneider, who is EVP Global Partner Solutions, in order to better align Yahoo’s ad revenue-producing units with its products, software, search and services side.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

BoomTown’s Thumbs-Up “Weekend King” (But for Appalling Reasons)

Thanks to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington for pointing us to “Weekend King,” a San Francisco-made movie, which sounds just delicious from the trailer below.

It’s about a repulsive but rich computer programmer named Rupert Coleman from Silicon Valley who buys a bankrupt town in Utah and hopes to become its beloved ruler

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Memo to Don Graham: Thar He Blows…

volcano

Another day, another tech blog eruption featuring Michael “The Volcano” Arrington of TechCrunch and, this time, Wired’s Betsy “Ain’t-Backing-Down” Schiffman.

When last we checked in with Arrington, he was elegantly telling Chris Shipley that her longstanding tech conference might want to take a dirt nap. Specifically: “Demo needs to die.”

But that’s not all!

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Rumors of Jerry Yang’s Dethroning Are Greatly Exaggerated

Off with the Yahoo CEO’s head!
OK, maybe not so much, at least today.
Indeed, according to many sources, Jerry Yang’s head still sits squarely on his neck.
And, moreover, his job as CEO has not been usurped by Yahoo (YHOO) Chairman Roy Bostock, who was allegedly–as one rumor went–authorized by Yahoo’s board, instead of Yang, to restart [...]

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Thursday, April 3, 2008

Memo to Chris Shipley: Luca Brasi Sleeps With the Fishes!

“Demo needs to die,” said TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington yesterday.
Oh, my. Oh, dear. Not more bloody tangoing!?!
The pugnacious tech blogger–who was last seen slapping around other tech bloggers who deigned to also raise money for their ventures, much as he has been doing–made this classy statement in an interview with Daniel Terdiman of CNET’s [...]

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

BoomTown Decodes TechCrunch’s Dream Team Memo (So You Don’t Have To)

So what prompted TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington to pen a pugnacious piece on how blogs should not be raising so much venture capital and instead roll themselves into a “Dream Team,” with the unusual title of “More Bloggers Raising Money. Here Comes Politics. And Here Comes My Rant” yesterday?
Well, besides garnering Arrington a big dollop [...]

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Microsoft Board Names?

BoomTown wrote a few weeks ago that Microsoft (MSFT) was fishing in Silicon Valley and also for “three to four big-name CEOs” for directors to nominate for its own Yahoo (YHOO) board slate, in the event the software giant took off the gloves and tried to oust Yahoo’s current board and replace [...]

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Free Sarah Lacy!

I could not agree more with both Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Valleywag’s Owen Thomas, an unlikely and motley trio we three, when I say: Leave Sarah Lacy alone.

OK, the interview she did with Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW on Sunday was a little silly at times and she probably annoyed people [...]

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Monday, March 10, 2008

The Dirty Job of Digging for Accurate Information

“Completely inaccurate” does not even begin to get to the heart of the problem, but we’ll get to that later.

First, let’s see if we can sort this latest rumor about the acquisition fever wafting around the popular Digg news site, published by TechCrunch last week.
Its take: That Digg has been pitching itself for sale using [...]

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

From the Department of Correcting “Crazy Google/Yahoo Rumors”

To: Rumormongers
From: BoomTown
Re: Wacky–even by Google standards–stock market schemes
Google (GOOG) –let me get this straight–is apparently considering buying just under 20% of Yahoo (YHOO) shares at some elevated price, according to a post on TechCrunch yesterday, “although the goal isn’t so much to close the deal, which would almost certainly be opposed by U.S. regulatory [...]

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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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