Valleywag
Child Porn
Child Porn
- Tech's top 10 workspaces (3,845 views, 17 comments)
- The 10 worst workspaces in tech (3,755 views, 12 comments)
- Why Google's drowning in talent (797 views, 1 comments)
San Francisco famous is not New York famous
Vanity Fair PR reps hassled Billy Getty, the oil heir, and wife Vanessa, for tickets at the premiere of Gonzo, even though the two were on the publicity email. Billy is the partner of San Francisco god-mayor Gavin Newsom in the PlumpJack restaurant empire, and Vanessa Getty is "our Victoria Beckham," according to SFLuxe, but the well-connected pair went completely unrecognized. (Photo by Drew Altizer via 7x7)
nerdspotting
Old media figure Graydon Carter spotted at San Francisco premiere of old media
Vanity Fair, which is a New York-based operation distributing expert-written content on biodegradable media — a "magazine" — via premium subscriptions and bricks-and-mortar partners known as "newsstands," is sponsoring the West Coast premiere of Gonzo: The Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo is being displayed on a screen considerably larger than any made by Samsung or Panasonic — using a technology which does not require any LCDs. Our spies snapped a photo of Vanity Fair's chief content officer, Graydon Carter, entering the specially designed facility. Much like Apple does with iPods and Macs, Vanity Fair is expecting a "halo effect" from its sponsorship of this screening to boost sales of its "magazines." (Photo by jacksonwest)
cubicle culture
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
The 10 worst workspaces in tech
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
toogle many googlers
Why Google's drowning in talent
Looking at the departure of top Google flack Elliot Schrage for Facebook and concluding that the search engine is suffering a "brain drain" is the laziest journalism on the subject I could imagine. The BBC's take on the subject is predictable, citing the same names — Ben Ling, Ethan Beard, even chef Josef Desimone — everyone else does. The most telling thing is actually a Google spokesbot's programmed response: "We have a deep management pool at Google." The problem at Google is not that its brains are going out the drain. It's that the drain is plugged up, and not nearly enough are leaving. More »
5:00 PM on Thu May 8 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,810 views,
1 comment
Latest by ThatKid: All that water imagery has me feeling seasick. more »
Most Popular Stories
- Wikipedia's porn-loving No. 2 and his abiding concern for the children (4,544 views, 16 comments)
- Yahoo's $1 billion Google search dreams dissolve (1,168 views, 2 comments)
- Microsoft officially hiring "Google killers" (909 views, 3 comments)
- B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big (8 comments, 225 views)
Chadrick Baker
Chadrick Baker, Valleywag's mascot, has been suspiciously silent lately. I'd just started to worry that he'd disappeared into a virtual world once and for all when he popped up to let me know he and Ask.com's Diana Furka had posted a new video on Oddistry.com. Thank goodness! Learn about the compubeaver and the emerging popularity of "steampunk" in this episode. Check out the end, where Furka touts her employer's search engine. As a marketing strategy, it makes slightly more sense than trying to find Jesus.
Valleywag mascot touts computerized beaver at Maker Faire
Chadrick Baker, Valleywag's mascot, has been suspiciously silent lately. I'd just started to worry that he'd disappeared into a virtual world once and for all when he popped up to let me know he and Ask.com's Diana Furka had posted a new video on Oddistry.com. Thank goodness! Learn about the compubeaver and the emerging popularity of "steampunk" in this episode. Check out the end, where Furka touts her employer's search engine. As a marketing strategy, it makes slightly more sense than trying to find Jesus.
Caption Contest
An impromptu "Tweetup" at Medjool from the online shoe salesfolk at Zappos lured reporter Sarah Lacy out to Medjool. The promise: free booze if you promoted the website with a backhanded mention. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments. Yesterday's winner: "This picture brought to you by Seagate" by Duncan. (Photo by Scott Beale)
Now that the book is done, time for some booze
An impromptu "Tweetup" at Medjool from the online shoe salesfolk at Zappos lured reporter Sarah Lacy out to Medjool. The promise: free booze if you promoted the website with a backhanded mention. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments. Yesterday's winner: "This picture brought to you by Seagate" by Duncan. (Photo by Scott Beale)
Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good
B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big
Few people outside Silicon Valley have heard of Roelof Botha. But the former CFO of PayPal is famous here. His two claims to fame: negotiating that company's $1.5 billion sale to eBay, and later, as a partner at Sequoia Capital, investing in YouTube and quickly flipping the startup to Google for $1.65 billion. Is it a coincidence that that figure is 10 percent higher than his PayPal score? Few insiders think so. Botha gets four pages in Sarah Lacy's Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good — more than Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Other figures who appear on the second page of her ">Web 2.0 book's index: John Battelle, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, Facebook board member Jim Breyer, blog blowhard Jason Calacanis, and YouTube cofounder Steve Chen, whom Botha made quite wealthy. More »
hires
Threadless gets a new CEO, users react: "^5!"
Virgin Mobile and EMI veteran Tom Ryan, most recently kept on the entepreneurial dole by Bessemer Venture Partners, will join Chicago-based SkinnyCorp, the parent of online T-shirt company Threadless, as its CEO, founder Jake Nickell writes on the company blog. In response, users commented: "^5!" which, according to Google, means "high five!" in hipster. Silicon Alley Insider reports that Threadless earns annual revenues of $20 million off of just 20 employees. The site keeps costs so low by having the users design the products, typically fanciful T-shirts that look good when worn with Chuck Taylors and posted to Tumblr.
Labor
Janitors picket Cisco in hopes of raises and healthcare
SEIU Local 1877, which represents area janitors, was out in force at Cisco today. The union's contract expired at the end of April, and it looks like the threatened strike has materialized here, as well as in Los Angeles. While the perception is that even service employees can become millionaires in the Valley, that's only if you get equity and happen to work for a company that succeeds. The reality? More »
Ipo
RealNetworks to spin off its games business
RealNetworks' games business grew revenues 33 percent since the first quarter of 2007. CEO Rob Glaser thinks it could grow even faster on its own. RealNetworks announced today it plans to spin off the casual games business and "may precede the spin with an initial public offering and sale of up to 20 percent of the shares," according to a press release. RealNetworks will also buy back $50 million worth of stock.
Helio, Virgin Mobile in merger talks
SK Telecom, the backer of money-losing wireless startup Helio, could buy out Virgin Mobile USA and combine it with Helio. [MocoNews.net]
Antitrust
Microsoft officially hiring "Google killers"
After more than a decade of trans-Atlantic antitrust scrutiny, one would think Microsoft would be, oh, I don't know, subtle about its ambitions to destroy a competitor. Someone in Microsoft's European HR offices didn't get the message. A poster advertising jobs at Microsoft Europe lists, among other qualities it's looking for in candidates, the ability to be a "Google killer."
With Wi-Fi network, Cablevision aims for world domination of Long Island
Cablevision, the dominant cable provider on New York's Long Island, now wants to build a municipal Wi-Fi network for the area. Along with its bid for Newsday, the local newspaper, this completes its strategic plan to enter into as many outmoded businesses as possible. [WSJ]
data portability
MySpace to eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo: Thanks for the add!
Who are these people? That's the problem I've long had with sites like Twitter and eBay, which offer anonymous user names and little else to go by. And that's been the charm of Facebook, which aims to tie online identities with real ones by asking for work and school information, which is harder to fudge than a screen name. Had eBay and Twitter announce a partnership to share data with Facebook, I'd be impressed. Instead, they, as well as Yahoo, have partnered with MySpace instead to share profile data. Buffoonish technopundits are hailing this as an "advance in data portability." But what does it really mean? Now, in addition to a login like "awesomeguy1980," I'll get to see drunken party snapshots of someone before I reject their Twitter follower request.
Your Privacy Is An Illusion
Internet Archive refuses to secretly hand over user info to FBI
With the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle successfully challenged an FBI request to secretly hand over information about the site's users. The FBI had sent Kahle a "national security letter" which requested personal information about a particular user and put Kahle under a gag order. Approximately 200,000 of the secret requests, which need no judicial approval, were issued between 2003 and 2006 after the NSL program was expanded by the Patriot Act. Kahle's case is one of only three the ACLU is aware of where NSL requests were successfully overturned in court. (Photo by David Silver)
Bad iPod batteries could cost Apple $3.6 million loonies
Apple has settled a class-action suit in Canadian courts over first, second and third-generation iPod batteries that fell well short of claimed battery life. Up to 80,000 Canadians are eligible for CA$45 credits. I'd make a joke about worthless Canadian currency, except that it's now trading near parity with our own worthless currency. [Canada.com]
Online Video
Turner shuts down comedy site SuperDeluxe.com, and "no one could deny they were crying their asses off"
Turner will shutter comedy site SuperDeluxe.com and roll its content into AdultSwim.com, paidContent reports. In an internal memo, Turner Animation exec Paul Condolora writes that "in SuperDeluxe.com and AdultSwim.com, we have businesses whose potential for individual growth is limited by their increasingly complementary content." They say dying is easy and comedy is hard, but in this case we beg to differ. It all reminds us of the time — documented in an episode of SuperDeluxe's "Professor Brothers," below — that "a group of Marys went up to lay flowers and toys on Jesus's grave" and discovered "that there were doves, everywhere and they were crying their asses off." More »
Politics
To save "the children," Facebook tries press releases
At the direction of 49 state attorneys general, Facebook has adopted even more provisions to restrict interactions between adults and teenagers. Along the changes are automatic reviews of any age-changes made to underage user profiles, and the deletion of links to "pornographic materials." Even though most young people approached for sex by adults on social networks are already onto their date-of-birth deception, Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly's pledge to make Facebook safer for The Children makes for a good press op. Will the new rules make any difference, and how are they going to be implemented? We've asked Facebook how many engineers report to Kelly, but until they get back to us, it's safe to guess exactly none.
Amd
AMD CEO Hector Ruiz promises profitability, but reveals no concrete plan
In today's scheduled conference with analysts in Austin, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz didn't make any rumored announcements about splitting the company into multiple divisions or contracting out the business of fabricating semiconductors. He did admit that 2007 was "a difficult year of transition," and that he was disappointed with the company's financial performance. Otherwise, he only promised that any plans regarding changes to AMD's fabrication division would come "in the very near future," and promised to cut any divisions that couldn't come up with plan to achieve profitability. Companywide, Ruiz promised only that he hoped to get the books back in black by the end of the year. The company's stock price was up briefly after the announcement on heavy trading after a drop, but is back to where it opened and treading water.
Jackpot
How Jeff Bezos makes ends meet on an $82,000 salary
Less than a week after Forbes sang the praises of his "modest $82,000 annual base salary," Jeff Bezos cashed in another 2.15 million shares of his Amazon.com stock, adding another $168 million to an earlier $135 million sale to boost his take for the last three months to a cool $300 million-plus. Not forgetting those less fortunate, Jeff also set aside 252 Amazon shares, or about .01 percent of last week's sales, for donation to a nonprofit.(Photo by Zhang Yong/ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)
valleywag calendar
Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.
Music, photos and Facebook apps, oh my
The JavaOne developers conference continues at the Moscone center, but if Neil Young is still in town he'd probably ditch shilling for Sun to drop by the SanFran MusicTech Summit, running until 5pm at the Kabuki Hotel. Tonight, the San Francisco Flickr meetup will get together at their usual haunt, the Crossroads Cafe in South Beach. And down 101, two Stanford professors will present the findings from their class on creating Facebook applications at the offices of Fenwick & West in Mountain View.Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.
The Sum of All Human Knowledge
Wikipedia's Erik Möller on the history of child sexual abuse: All Greek to him!
Pederasty in ancient Greece took on mystical significance, where semen from a noble man was believed to give arete to a young man through anal intercourse. This was part of a common practice in Greece where a noble man took on a young male as a student. This relationship was highly idealized in Greek culture and often involved sexual acts as mentioned. Since the practice was so widespread in ancient Greece, and there is no indication of any detractors at the time, many do not consider this an example of child sexual abuse (see moral relativism). Generally, people who hold this view believe that sexual acts can only be termed "abuse" if there is a victim who experiences negative effects as a result of the activities. Since there is no evidence of this occurring, many have concluded that this should not be considered abuse.— Erik Möller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, editing a Wikipedia article on child sexual [Wikipedia]
Feuds
AMD accuses Intel of microprocessor payola
Struggling chipmaker AMD has added a new allegation to the company's antitrust complaint against rival chipmaker Intel. In a 108-page document filed in federal court, plaintiff AMD accused defendant Intel of paying manufacturers like Dell not to use AMD processors, citing internal emails and other documents which were turned over through the discovery process in the case. AMD has been struggling, having laid off thousands in the last few months. CEO Hector Ruiz, pictured here, is expected to make a major announcement today in Austin, Texas, possibly splitting up the company into separate chip-design and chip-fabrication businesses.
copyfight
Microsoft says Zune won't filter your home videos, promise
After news that NBC had asked Microsoft to develop content filtering technology to keep infringing files off the Zune spread like wildfire, Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee working on the Zune, said there was no agreement between the television network and the technology company to implement any such plan.We think some folks in the industry were expressing hopes for how the entire industry, not just Microsoft, would come to look at content distribution, and some speculation has ensued.In other words, a bit of wishful thinking on NBC's part. More »
nerdspotting
