Paul Boutin's Posts

Valleywag editor spins firing as great leap forward

Sweater-bear editor Owen Thomas just sent the following email to staff here. It's so obviously designed to be leaked that my only reaction is: Owen, can you please not use the little asterisks for bullet points? Movable Type screws up the formatting when you blockquote them. MORE MORE »

30 comments

too insidery

TechCrunch editor flubs story but "can't go back on it now"

I'm on IM with Jordan Golson, and he's on the phone with TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington. You see, Valleywag sort of, um, fired Jordan this morning, and Mike got a bogus version of the story claiming it was all because of one post Jordan did criticizing his management. Jordan wants Mike to correct the article, saying that's not what happened at all — he was dismissed over much bigger issues. To my profound disappointment, Arrington just replied to him, "I can't go back on it now that I've written it." Sure enough, Arrington's updates to the post claim Jordan's explanations are "confusing" and full of "contradictions," rather than just admitting TechCrunch got told the story wrong, which seems easier. Now you know why Mike always insists that you not call him a journalist.

12:40 PM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Paul Boutin
2,529 views, 19 comments

Latest by Arnaud H: The post was updated and now reads: "possibly based on a single critical post about his employer." Now what we VWag readers want to know is why Jordan got fired. You can't honestly roll out all that drama and not give more »

Uncov editor switches to photo art

Terrible Ted's Photoshop remix of an Owen-and-Julia party shot is so good I had to pull it up out of the comments. MORE »

13 comments

great moments in journalism

Citizen journalism fails Al Gore

Climate change superstar Al Gore banned the press from his appearance Friday at the tail end of the RSA Conference on information security in San Francisco. The move seemed like a joke: Surely, Valleywag's editors reasoned, the roomful of high-IQ IT professionals carrying wireless communications devices into Gore's presentation would blog, tweet and shoot the whole thing. Gore would be streamed live to Qik via multiple videophones. No need for a pro journalist to sneak into Gore's talk and liveblog it, as I used to do with Steve Jobs keynotes. Web 2.0 had it covered. So what really happened? The only on-time account of the event came from CNET reporter Robert Vamosi, who used his conference speaker badge to get past security. Vamosi posted a thorough report less than an hour after Gore began. Hey Robert, didn't you get the memo? You're supposed to be out of work by now.

8:20 AM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Paul Boutin
347 views, 3 comments

Latest by harrington: What was there to report? Gore talked about boring threats to our land, seas, and air. Had he talked about Twitter or Sarah Lacy's book, that would have been different. more »

Splunk

Children's book explains surly IT people

Well, no it doesn't. But Otis and Rae and the Grumbling Splunk, available Saturday from Amazon, is a must for the black-clad Unix bigots who keep things running at your office. (Stupid ethics-in-journalism disclosure: My wife works at Splunk. Complaints to port 514.)

9:31 PM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Paul Boutin
913 views, 7 comments

Comments

Commenter of the week: Rachel Marsden

"Could someone please go up and punch Al [Gore] in the face? Then, when he calls the cops, ask him why he didn't try the UN first." — TV pundit Rachel Marsden, Valleywag's newest bestest friend fatale, splashes cold, conservative Canadian water in the faces of our NPR-numbed Bay Area readership [Valleywag Comments]

4:20 PM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,548 views, 25 comments

Heather Armstrong

Angry mom-blogger runs over haters

Lots of businesses get hate mail, but few owners react the way Dooce's Heather Armstrong does. She prints out nasty emails, puts them in her driveway and drives over them with her car. "That's the attitude I have," she says, "and it's made my life a thousand percent better."

I stopped reading at "a thousand percent." (Photo by Heather B. Armstrong)

1:40 PM on Thu Apr 10 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,969 views, 21 comments

i hate it here

Olympic torch gets obligatory rickrolling

San Francisco city officials, hoping to avoid the hippies, began today's torch run up the Embarcadero in front of the Splunk office and its large scale sound system.

4:23 PM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,191 views, 4 comments

great moments in journalism

Owen Thomas ruins Julia Allison for the rest of us

"At first, she wore a va-va-va-voom dress. I told her she'd catch pneumonia. Now she wears a sweater and jeans. I'm very proud of that." — Valleywag editor and sweater bear Owen Thomas, bragging — bragging! — about his campaign to stamp out the last remnants of glam in Silicon Valley. Thanks for nothing, bosstard.

3:20 PM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Paul Boutin
2,928 views, 20 comments

Google cracks down on pesky humans

"We're sorry," says the error page from Google, "but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application." All I did was type my own name into the search box on Firefox. Lots of people are getting this message right now, for queries ranging from "USA Gymnastics" to "whiskey and hookers." I've been trained not to bother emailing Google's PR hotline unless I want to be told that the real story is green blogging and would I consider an article on that, so yo Googlers: Please explain in the comments how we stop this crazy thing.

5:47 PM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,249 views, 15 comments

Latest by Paul Boutin: For future reference: It turns out someone on the same subnet as me runs a program that does a few Google pings to collect some random data. From the tiny size of his samples, it's more likely Google is more »

blogging for dollars

Calacanis explains how Denton rips off his writers with "best pay in the business"

The week's not complete until bulldog-cute Mahalo chief Jason Calacanis writes in. Today JC emailed twice to call out a gaping hole in the much-discussed New Dentonomics of our 2008 Valleywag pay scale. His numbers are out of date; our new pageview rate for the second quarter is in, and it's $6.50 per thousand pageviews. But Calacanis spotted a bigger slap to the face than the CPM, one so big that Portfolio blogger Felix Salmon will have to do a whole 'nother post now to say he knew it all along. Can you guess what it is?
More »

2:00 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Paul Boutin
2,898 views, 17 comments

Latest by fudouri: 7.50 is including a percentage of the home page sales. I bet average CPM for any particular post will be below the 7.50 mark. more »

Valleyspeak

Marketing vs. advertising vs. PR vs. branding explained

The original is ok, but this edit is the best.

The 250

Science proves it -- no one trusts bloggers

Steve Rubel, Edelman PR's Director of Insights, posts an insightful chart from an international survey (PDF) Edelman conducted. It shows that "opinion elites," defined as college-educated people in the top income quartile of their country who report a significant interest in and engagement with the media, business news, and policy affairs — that's you! — mostly trust people like themselves. Who's at the bottom of the trust-o-meter? Bloggers, who fell well behind company CEOs. Regular company employees are given much more credibility. This is why Google's PR people slap engineers' names on those blog posts the marcom specialists type up, and why Nick Denton announces changes at Gawker Media by letting me "leak" them. Trust me, I'm a blogger.

3:00 PM on Thu Apr 3 2008
By Paul Boutin
728 views, 4 comments

Latest by Wabewalker: What about CEOs that are bloggers? What does it all mean for Jonathan Schwartz? Will he take their advice and stop posting his insipid (and mostly ignored) blog? We can only hope... more »

Housekeeping

Where to find our stats

Valleywag publisher Nick Denton likes to boast that our traffic statistics are published for anyone to peruse. As a former user interface developer, I'm painfully aware that we've made it impossible to find them. Here are the hot links to two of our three separate site statistics feeds. Thank God the numbers don't add up, or I'd really doubt them. More »

7:00 AM on Thu Apr 3 2008
By Paul Boutin
927 views, 1 comment

Conferences

TechCrunch50 vs. Demo -- a fight guide

Conference gnomes will need to choose sides. Blog moguls Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington have teamed up to schedule their TechCrunch50 show in September in direct competition to Chris Shipley's Demofall event. I've prepared a cheat sheet to follow the action at a distance. More »

5:00 AM on Thu Apr 3 2008
By Paul Boutin
738 views, 4 comments

Great Moments In Pr

Press release like it's 1999

"The next big thing in consumer gadgets will be the 'Internet in your pocket,'" according to Intel's announcement reported in the New York Times today. Where did I read that line nine years ago? Oh, right.

7:00 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Paul Boutin
486 views, 6 comments

Nokia N810 seeks compatible network provider

Wireless

$5 billion WiMax network no-shows at CTIA

Gizmodo's gearheads got their grabby hands on hot new WiMax-ready gadgets at this week's supersized Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association trade convention in Vegas. WiMax is a sort of turbo Wi-Fi that promises cable modem speeds through thin air. But what will Nokia's N810 connect to? Washington Post financial reporter Yuki Noguchi observed a big black hole on the stage at which the WiMax Singularity had been expected to appear today. It was like Steve Jobs walking on stage at Macworld, reaching into his pocket, and not pulling out an iPhone. I've 100-worded her report. More »

4:40 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Paul Boutin
434 views, Comment

Comments

Commenter of the day: innonate

"You're a dick, Owen. And you run fake stories every day anyway." — Double-crossed April Fools entrepreneur Nate Westheimer demonstrates his Valley CEO potential. And let this be a reminder: People say Valleywag will stab you in the back. That's a lie. Valleywag will stab you in the face.

4:40 PM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By Paul Boutin
396 views, 6 comments

April Fools

Muppets soothe pain of lame April Fools' Day

Melissa Gira Grant sends me an IM: "Were you a Muppets fan? I can't believe how dirty this outtakes clip is." Carefully done and stupidly funny.

10:40 AM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By Paul Boutin
4,025 views, 7 comments

April Fools

YouTube kills rickrolling once and for all

April 1, 2008: The day a meme died. Go to YouTube. Click on any of the Featured Videos entries. Every one of them redirects to the same Rick Astley clip. The gag is called "rickrolling," a variant of duckrolling. I'm sure a thousand April Foolsters planned to rickroll you today. But thanks to YouTube, we can all move on.

10:08 PM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Paul Boutin
7,213 views, 9 comments

silicon valley users guide

Your April Fools prank sucks

Back in the '80s when Sun Microsystems was a hot, hip Valley leader, the company's engineers staged a series of April Fools' Day stunts that involved non-destructive hardware mods to the workplace. The most famous was in 1986. Overachieving 30-year-old manager Eric Schmidt arrived at work to find a VW Beetle, its engine running, had somehow been made to fit through the door of his office, like a ship in a bottle. More »

5:00 PM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Paul Boutin
4,415 views, 15 comments

Hooker Drama

New York media writing "Melissa Gira Grant" over and over in its notebook

Yet another Manhattan paper, the alt.weekly The Village Voice, leans heavily on our own sex trade reporter to examine Eliot Spitzer. Voice writer Tristan Taormino argues that by hiring out instead of getting a real mistress, Spitzer was minimizing the impact on his marriage. Part of what you're paying for in a hired girlfriend experience: She won't get drunk and call your wife. Plus, Melissa adds, she won't let you get too crazy over her: "Sex with clients is very different from sex with people I am in a relationship with. I had to cut loose a client who was becoming too close and relying too much on me." Yeah, I had a Web contractor like that once.

7:59 PM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Paul Boutin
795 views, 9 comments

Latest by Blackjack: @random_play: Most people dot the i's with dollar signs. more »

blogging for dollars

And now, how not to blog on the job

Cisco intellectual property lawyer Rick Frenkel is a case study in how not to mix your personal blog with your day job. Frenkel wrote the anonymous Patent Troll Tracker blog about "those thought to opportunistically act against alleged patent infringements," reports Forbes. Eventually, Frenkel blogged about a case in which Cisco was the defendant. Guess what happened? More »

3:40 PM on Thu Mar 20 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,239 views, 2 comments

silicon valley users guide

How to write for your company's blog

I recently reported on blogging secrets of the stars. But as a Valley worker, you may end up blogging on your company's site, not your own. Corporate blogging is very different from personal blogging, regardless of what The 250 will tell you for a small fee. So I created this stack of product-managerese slides on how to write a company blog worth reading.

1:20 PM on Thu Mar 20 2008
By Paul Boutin
3,397 views, 15 comments

blogging for dollars

Big-brain conference seeks blogger

PopTech, the only tech conference whose door I deign to darken, is looking for a part-time blogger to do about 15 hours a week of paid work for this year's event. Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe and former Pepsi/Apple chief John Sculley created the annual gathering, timed to October's peak autumn leaf season in Maine. It's like TED without the over-the-top zillionaire celebritard factor. It's not like SXSW at all. It'll make your mind hurt — in that good way.

6:00 AM on Wed Mar 19 2008
By Paul Boutin
355 views, 1 comment

Latest by matto: Sweet, a chance to ask Sculley how hard it was to nearly ruin Apple. Sounds exciting! Make sure to get a pull-quote from Metcalfe on how the internet will collapse next year, for sure this time! Bonus points if you can more »

developers, developers, developers

Internet Explorer 8 will drive you nuts -- the 25-word version

"You're pretending that there's one standard, but since nobody has a way to test against the standard, it's not a real standard." — Software pundit Joel Spolsky on the impossibility of conforming to Web standards. If you're a Web developer, Spolsky's 4,738-word treatise, with illustrations, is worth reading on your employer's time.

1:40 PM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,349 views, 9 comments

Wouldn't a true direct action take place at the White House?

I love it here

Downtown SF parties against the war Wednesday

The fun starts at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. A brass band, bicycle activists, pirate radio DJs, snake marchers, guerrilla street theater, the inevitable giant puppets plus a few straggling poets from City Lights will conduct what they call a "direct action" to end the war in Iraq. They've helpfully provided instructions and a map of which downtown offices are "targeted" for sit-ins and handcuff-ins. The list skips over token local Republicans and focuses on power Dems Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein, who'll hopefully explain how Karl Rove's Jedi mind tricks compelled them to support the war in Congress before they found a way to block the thought-control rays from Diebold's voting machines. Me, I'm just happy that activists have dropped their inane "M19" date format for events. We won't see confused stoners wandering Justin Herman Plaza on May 19.

11:20 AM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Paul Boutin
388 views, 10 comments

Latest by matto: @Paul Boutin: You did tag with "love" instead of "hate" this time. more »