• exits

    Is Yahoo done with search?

    Among the many windmills Jerry Yang tilted at in his brief career as Yahoo's CEO was his devotion to Web search. It veered on an obsession for him. It played into his decision to resist Microsoft's offers to shower him with cash, first for his whole company, then for just its search business. Is it a coincidence, then, that Yahoo's top search engineer has left a day after Yang stepped down? A tipster tells us Sean Suchter resigned yesterday, and speculates that he may be joining Microsoft. More »

    10:20 AM on Wed Nov 19 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    10,399 views, 14 comments

    Most discussed CurtisHippomedon: Am I to believe Yahoo doesn't have an iron clad NDA with its employees preventing them for working for the more »

  • deathwatch

    How bringing in the "grownups" killed Heavy.com

    The boom in online ad networks, those automated brokers of discount banners patronized by websites desperate for quick cash, is at long last turning to bust. And the shakeout couldn't have started with a more deserving company. Amid lawsuits and layoffs, Heavy.com has seen two-thirds of its once-15-strong salesforce leave, a source familiar with the company tells us. Meanwhile, the company is trying to sell its Heavy.com, a video destination targeted at young men, so far without success. The plan is to focus on its porn-friendly Husky ad network. Who's to blame? Recently hired "grownups," says our source. More »

    Feature

    7:00 AM on Fri Sep 12 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    6,573 views, 12 comments

    Latest by SeemaCoppard: thats what happens when sites only buy porn traffic and pretend its safe traffic....perhaps Break will be the next ones more »

  • exclusive

    MySQL founder quits Sun

    "Just heard that Monty gave his resignation to Sun today," a tipster we trust writes about Michael Widenius, the Finnish-born main author of open-source database software MySQL. Sun Microsystems had aqcuired Monty's company, also called MySQL, for a cool billion in January. So who's running the show now? Best guess is Brian Aker, another prominent MySQL developer. Aker released a lightweight, Web 2.0-oriented version of MySQL called Drizzle in late July, but he's still at Sun.

    6:10 PM on Thu Sep 4 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    16,560 views, 9 comments

    Most discussed Mouser_UK: a lightweight version of mysql which vital features of a relational database did they drop this time more »

  • exclusive

    Yahoo's New York star relocating to Sunnyvale

    Former Right Media CEO and current Yahoo SVP Mike Walrath is moving offices from New York to Sunnyvale in October. He told Valleywag it's "a quality of life decision." If the move means a big promotion — a tipster tells us that's the rumor around Yahoo's New York office — Walrath wouldn't say. He's already in charge of Yahoo's advertising marketplaces group, requiring plenty of facetime at headquarters. But we think a promotion is likely, and deserved. So does a fellow Yahoo executive who told us Walrath is a particular favorite of Yahoo president Sue Decker and her closest lieutenant, Hilary Schneider, to whom Walrath currently reports. More »

    7:00 AM on Mon Aug 11 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    2,456 views, 5 comments

    Latest by sggrf: must kill walrath, after what they accomplished, to report to hacks like Schneider and Decker. more »

  • venture capital

    What actually happened to Monitor110? Its VCs killed it

    Why did investor-news aggregator Monitor110 go under, taking $20 million in funding with it? Read early investor Roger Ehrenberg's surprisingly humble and informative blog post about the ordeal, titled "Monitor110: A Post Mortem," and it sounds like the startup fell prey to the usual pratfalls — too much PR, weak leadership, and a confused product vision. Probably all that's true. But what's also true, a source tells us, is that Monitor110's own investors, specifically Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which invested most of that $20 million, ensured Monitor110's failure during its final months. More »

    Feature

    1:00 PM on Thu Aug 7 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,652 views, 4 comments

    Latest by UrgentSpeed: It is always disappointing when shutting down a company, but to blame the investors is not appropriate. Although some "plot" more »

  • exclusive

    BitTorrent Inc. laying off 12 of 55 employees

    BitTorrent Inc., the file-sharing startup whose underlying technology is responsible for much of the piracy that plagues Hollywood, is laying off its sales and marketing department. The immediate cause of the layoffs: A failure to sell the Torrent Entertainment Network, BitTorrent's attempt at an online media store, to Best Buy for a rumored $15 million. That deal fell apart, a BitTorrent insider believes, because of a recent FCC ruling on file sharing. CEO Doug Walker, who replaced troubled founder Bram Cohen last fall, had hinted at a rethink of the store in March. Walker's also said to be rethinking BitTorrent's "DNA" service, which sought to offer businesses a cut-rate online content-deliver service, using file-sharing technology to undercut Limelight and Akamai's prices. BitTorrent is now thinking about making the service free, which would certainly count as "cut-rate" — but also suggests that it hadn't had much success selling it.

    9:40 AM on Wed Aug 6 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    4,778 views, 6 comments

    Latest by fakemichaelarrington: @Passerby - W3rd. This is so damn obvious. Make a CDN and go sign up some cloud companies. more »

  • exclusive

    Alex Albrecht's top secret new project has a name: Project Lore

    Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht has been working on a new project behind the scenes for months now, and it could soon be coming to a browser near you — a tipster pointed us to projectlore.com, which is currently behind password protection, and an unused Twitter account by the same name. What could it be? Your guess is as good as mine. But it's my understanding that it's going to be a Hollywood-sized production.

    3:20 PM on Mon Jun 23 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,505 views, 2 comments

    Latest by Mr. E.: A glance at the whois info shows that the domain is owned by DECA (the people who produce Boing Boing more »

  • exclusive

    Photos from Randi Zuckerberg's wedding

    Darlings, everyone who's anyone is flying to a Caribbean island to get married. Larry Page and Lucy Southworth did the deed on some spit of sand called Necker Island. Randi Zuckerberg? The Facebooker took over something like the entire island of Jamaica to get hitched to venture-capital associate Brent Tworetzky. Or just Runaway Bay — our sources can't get that part entirely straight. But we did get a batch of photos from the wedding. A destination wedding in Jamaica? Expensive. Making your younger brother, who's ostensibly your boss and worth $4 billion on paper, dress in a turquoise vest and an ill-fitting tuxedo shirt? Priceless. The photos: More »

    2:00 PM on Wed Jun 4 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    11,093 views, 19 comments

    Latest by Fidel on the Roof: Now, how do you get these exclusive FadBook scoops and exclusive pix of Zux's sister? more »

  • your privacy is an illusion

    Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan private pics exposed by Yahoo hack

    Want to see Paris Hilton's MySpace profile? How about Lindsay Lohan's? Don't worry about those pesky privacy settings. Thanks to "data portability," a faddish technology movement that the Valley has been buzzing about for months, you can see any profile you want on MySpace. Byron Ng, a Canadian computer technician with a knack for finding Web security holes, has discovered that Yahoo's integration with MySpace makes it easy to view photos for any profile. These images, which Ng obtained from Hilton's and Lohan's profiles, speak to the danger Yahoo and MySpace's lax data-sharing habits pose: More »

    12:00 AM on Tue Jun 3 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    232,663 views, 20 comments

    Latest by raincoaster: 184,000. more »

  • exclusive

    YouTube star Jill Hanner on hawking Coors Light

    Everyone from the New York Times to Silicon Alley Insider, even our older sister Gawker, were in a tizzy last week over a series of ads for Coors Light produced for the world's best platform for delivering booze advertising to minors, YouTube. The publicity even managed to get one of the paid response videos pulled from YouTube by the sponsor. But the companies that commissioned and produced the spot, TubeMogul and For Your Imagination respectively, missed at least one big clue that Jill Hanner might not be on the Coors Light bandwagon. More »

    3:20 PM on Mon Jun 2 2008
    By Jackson West
    2,518 views, 4 comments

    Latest by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: @matto: Sorry, mate. I think you are too blasé for your own good. I don't hate anyone here. Care to more »