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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Viral Video: Teen Girl Alert! “Twilight: New Moon” Trailer Loose in the Internet Wild.

newmoon

Since it was tacked onto the slasher movie, “Sorority Row,” which opened this weekend, many have been posting the brand new trailer for “New Moon.”

The second installment of the “Twilight” vampire series debuts Nov. 20, natch!

But for those who cannot wait, here’s the new trailer, as well as the two older ones.

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Monday, August 10, 2009

Take That, Twitter! Facebook’s Cox and FriendFeed’s Taylor Talk About the Deal (But Not BoomTown’s $50 Million Guess on the Price)

lmad

After Facebook announced today that it had acquired online content-sharing site FriendFeed, BoomTown had a chit-chat with Facebook’s Director of Product, Chris Cox, and FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor.

Although neither budged on telling me the purchase price, which various Silicon Valley venture capitalists I spoke to estimated to be about $50 million in cash and stock, the pair came together after several months of casual conversation, probably sometime after Twitter spurned Facebook’s $500 million offer last year.

But, as in failed love affairs, moving on is the next best thing to do!

No word on who got to break the news to No. 1 FriendFeed Fanboy Robert Scoble.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ning Raises $15 Million More at a–Yes, Really–$750 Million Valuation

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In a quiet fund-raising effort, Ning has raised $15 million more, a round that is valuing the social networking start-up at an eye-popping $750 million.

The money for this fifth Series E round comes from Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ning, founded by well-known entrepreneur and Ning Chairman Marc Andreessen and CEO Gina Bianchini, confirmed the funding when contacted by BoomTown. It was not actively searching for funding.

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Digital Signpost Up Ahead? You Are Now Entering the “Twilight” Zone of Inevitable Online Video Spoofs

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.

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

BoomTown Pick for Microsoft Digital Head: Qi Lu (Yes, the Former Yahoo Search Guru)

Yesterday, BoomTown opined that Microsoft was nearing a decision on who would become the head of its digital efforts.

And, according to several sources and some puzzling by me–if the deal can be sealed–I think that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu.

If Ballmer manages to pull off the hire of Lu–on the heels of already grabbing another top Yahoo search exec, Sean Suchter, which I posted on yesterday–the aggressive exec could almost be bypassing a Yahoo search partnership he has long sought by sucking the talent right out of the place instead.

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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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