.jpg "Why Facebook borrowed $100 million for servers")
Valleywag
online advertising
Posts Tagged “
Gawker
”
online advertising
scoop
Scandal-ridden Brit Rachel Whetstone to run Google PR
We hear that Rachel Whetstone, Google's European communications director, will replace Elliot Schrage as the company's top flack after Schrage left for Facebook. Her background may make her a perfect fit, in more ways than Google would like you to know. Unlike Schrage, Whetstone has some experience with rough-and-tumble politics, having served as chief of staff to British Conservative party leader Michael Howard. She also may be better suited to dealing with CEO Eric Schmidt's periodic outings with mistresses: She herself had an affair with Viscount Astor, a top Tory official, which scuppered her political career and led to her joining Google.
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 Life and Work of Dr. 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)
erik moeller
Wikipedia's porn-loving No. 2 and his abiding concern for the children
A firestorm is now brewing over pornography on Wikipedia and its accessibility to children. The FBI is investigating the matter, right-wing news site WorldNetDaily reports. Jay Walsh, the spokesman for Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, has disclaimed all official responsibility for the contents of the world's greatest compendium of fictional balls. But who oversees the contents of Wikipedia for the foundation? Why, Erik Möller, its deputy director. And Möller is deeply, deeply concerned about the children. More »
9:20 AM on Thu May 8 2008
By Owen Thomas
9,464 views,
21 comments
Latest by WilliamMarkFelt: @XedMac [www.fbi.gov] I'm certain the FBI will be very interested in the long precedent of providing internet safe-haven to sexual deviants by Wales on Wikipedia, and Wikia too for that matter. more »
tumblr
Would you pay $999 for a customized Tumblr? Trustafarian bloggers will!
A couple weeks ago, when we showed you how to redesign your Tumblr for free, we mentioned that a company called Tumblize plan to charge $499 for the very same service. We were wrong. Andrew Wilkinson's Tumblize, launched today, will design you a customized Tumblr for "just $999." Startled by that kind of nonironic usage of the word just? Don't be. If Tumblr's blogging hordes have taught us anything, it's that earnest is the new ironic. Besides, Tumblize already has customers offering testimonials. Simon Frankson extols:Tumblize actualized my crazy vision in ways I didn't think the internet even allowed for. They're poet/designers making haiku websites out of dreams.Below, view a screenshot of Frankson's Tumblr and $3,996 more worth of goods. More »
jerry yang
Yahoo can find its way, but only if it stops searching
Jerry Yang's spin campaign about why the Microsoft bid fell through is transparent. He's not trying to cajole Steve Ballmer back to the negotiating table; he's trying to cover his rear and appease indignant shareholders. The only reason he's so open about accepting a new bid from Microsoft, I think, is that he's not expecting another one to come. Ballmer has more or less said he thinks that Yahoo is worth less and less every day; last Saturday, when Yang flew up with cofounder David Filo to meet with Ballmer one last time, was as close as the two will ever get to agreeing on Yahoo's worth. The thing is, unless Yang makes some dramatic shifts, Ballmer may well be right. More »
1:40 PM on Tue May 6 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,052 views,
7 comments
Latest by FungibleMind: @feeldumb "Google would have much more well targeted information from their search data than Yahoo! will ever have." Wrong. Yahoo! has as good or better data than Google in both depth (length of time) and breadth (services, media, platforms), more »
death of print
Forbes reporter leaves to join VC firm
In the newsrooms of Silicon Valley, they call it "going native." In New York, media is a semirespectable profession, and the skyscraper snobs of the world's leading infotainment conglomerates assume that those who drop out for lesser arts like PR just couldn't cut it. Not so here. Erika Brown, who covered venture capital for Forbes, is leaving the magazine to join Matrix Partners as the VC firm's director of marketing and business development. (Biz dev? I can't picture Brown, a snappy dresser, in blue shirts and pleated khakis.) Did Brown parlay her contacts from reporting into a new job? It's hard to imagine she didn't. And one can hardly blame her. The death of magazines may or may not be imminent. But serving time in a distant bureau of a magazine which is mostly diffident about the Valley is a career killer. Brown's note to friends: More »
mine is bigger
Charles Simonyi policing Hudson river, close enough for girlfriend Martha Stewart to wave a handkerchief
The 233-foot yacht owned by Charles Simonyi, the Microsoft billionaire and Martha Stewart love-muffin, has been spotted in the Hudson River. For a sense of scale, the helicopter, painted to match, can be clearly seen perched on the helipad. (True story: the only time I've flown in a helicopter, Simonyi was the pilot). I'm sure that with Stewart's help, the whole thing is quite tastefully decorated — if only to remove the stank of the Danish girlfriend whose pet name for Simonyi was "skat." That's also the name of the yacht, according to Wikipedia. (Photo by Eric Etheridge)
geeks gone wild
Facebook NSFW! Julia Allison and other pics from Randi Zuckerberg's Vegas bachelorette
Can you imagine a photo op that Julia Allison wouldn't attend? What happens in Vegas goes instantly to Valleywag, Allison knows, and so she flew to Las Vegas to attend Randi Zuckerberg's bachelorette party. Zuckerberg, whose wig-and-sunglasses disguise did not deter the Web's paparazzi, is a budding Web video star, Facebook's marketing director, and, unlike younger brother Mark, an actual Harvard graduate. In what's surely a first, Allison, the tech-obsessed TV personality, managed not to hog the camera; she's in only one of the shots. Facebook's Meagan Marks also appears sporting what looks like a freshly acquired head wound. A slip and fall on the dance floor? Our informants are investigating. In the meantime, enjoy the evidence of Zuckerberg's bacchanal. A warning: If plastic sex toys offend your coworkers, one photo may be unsuitable for office computers. More »
comebacks
Razorfish founder Jeff Dachis returns, trading New York for Texas
New York entrepreneur Jeff Dachis has landed $50 million from Austin Ventures to fund a comeback — but not as a New York entrepreneur. He's trading a 212 office line for one in the 512, to launch a new company promising to bring the Web 2.0 revolution to businesses. Despite the change in venue, and the new version number, that sounds eerily like the premise of Razorfish a decade ago — the digital consultancy which Dachis launched, and whose value he watched plummet from $5.5 billion at the height of the 2000 bubble to $8.2 million in a 2002 fire sale. So what is Dachis's company, if not simply Razorfish 2.0? More »
silicon alley users guide
How to upgrade your Tumblr theme so people will think you're cool
David Karp's blogging platform Tumblr, popular with creative types and those who dress like them in Sanfrooklyn, allows its users to modify their themes. And, just like the kids on MySpace, the users show them off to each other. Custom Tumblr themes have real social currency. Much like collecting pogs in sixth grade. And, as with pogs, you can be the rich kid and just buy yourself social superiority — Digg founder Kevin Rose and Connected Ventures cofounder Ricky Van Veen bought themes from Tumblize.com for $499. But for those of you on a college student or barista budget, click through for our step-by-step guide on how upgrading your Tumblr theme with no CSS, HTML or any other nerdy acronyms required. More »
dustin moskovitz
Facebook frayed by founders' feud
Dustin Moskovitz, Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate, recently stopped speaking to him. This has made things awkward at Facebook's Palo Alto campus, as Moskovitz is the last reminder walking around that Zuckerberg was not Facebook's sole founder. The two have resumed talking, but Moskovitz, seeking to dissociate himself from his college chum's creation, had dropped the title of vice president and asked for his bio and photograph to be taken off the company's PR website. He's now taken the title of "technical lead," and is working behind the scenes on Facebook's infrastructure. (Moskovitz was not always so publicity-shy: He gladly spoke about Facebook's wireless initiatives at the CTIA conference last fall, and, in a comment left after this post was published, denies a rift and blames Valleywag for his lowered profile.) Why the reported split, after they've worked together so long? More »
freemium
How hipster trustafarians will pay Tumblr's bills
If scenesters from Brooklyn to San Francisco's Mission District want to have Tumblr cool-kid bragging rights, they'll have to pay, founder David Karp has decided. Why has Karp finally set his unflinching blue eyes on Tumblr's bottom line? His hosting bills must be starting to pinch. He'll begin peddling paid Tumblr Pro accounts later this year. Flickr, which just added video for its pro members only, charges $25 a year for extra storage, but Karp tell us he hasn't figure out how much to charge his users just yet. What will Tumblr "Pros" get for their money? Karp says he's got "more than 10 features in the queue" including a tool that allows readers to submit content, more customizable themes and special page layouts. Check out screenshots of the new features below, and then wonder with us: Are they enough for ego-tumbling millennials to agree to pay Karp's fee? More »
lawsuits
eBay sues Craig Newmark as Craigslist tries to squeeze it out
Expect a rash of headlines accusing auction giant eBay of bullying saintly Craig Newmark. eBay has sued Newmark, his business partner Jim Buckmaster, and Craigslist. The charge? Craigslist has allegedly diluted eBay's 28.4 percent stake in the company, which the auction giant acquired from a former Craigslist employee. The part of the story Newmark and Buckmaster don't want anyone to hear: The pair made about $16 million in the process of letting eBay buy the stake in their company. The deal included a shareholder-rights agreement which ought to prevent Craigslist from diluting eBay's stake in the company, people familiar with the deal have told Valleywag. By squeezing out eBay, Newmark and Buckmaster appear to be having their cake and eating it too. Relations between the companies had already deteriorated: eBay had a seat on the Craigslist board, at one point occupied by founder Pierre Omidyar, until last year. More »
online advertising
MySpace savior still hasn't produced miracle ad cure
Rupert Murdoch's new handpicked president of FIM Audience Network, Adam Bain, has the requisite big idea to save MySpace: an ad network which lets his salespeople sell ads all over the Web, not just on MySpace and other News Corp. sites.The idea is to take what MySpace has learned about its own users and share it with publishers and advertisers, to better target ads. What behavioral insights Bain expects to garner from "thanks for the add" isn't clear. But at this point the Fox Interactive Media Audience Network remains little more than a thought bubble — and Bain left it to MySpace's top US sales exec, Bryce Emo (pictured), to deliver the news. More »
online video
Hollywood talent leery of stock-option deals, but agencies enthusiastic
Cash money, not equity, is what powers the entertainment industry. Especially when it comes to talent. In a possibly apocryphal but illustrative anecdote, legendary bluesman Albert King reportedly refused to leave the stage until he had cash in hand from the concert promoter, presumably because he'd been cheated out of so many deals in the past. Studio accounting has an only slightly better reputation than that of the music industry when it comes to being, ahem, creative. Hence it's no surprise that when negotiating venture funding for Funny Or Die, Will Ferrell reportedly wanted to know what his upfront payout would be, according to Sequoia Capital's Mark Kvamme in comments to the New York Times. Which is one reason why private equity efforts to fund traditional film and television production have yet to pan out. Better to get your money upfront and walk away in case the project is a disaster. So how is Valley money changing Hollywood business models? More »
5:00 PM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Jackson West
1,914 views,
9 comments
Latest by FiveStarEggRoll: @bbucy: A la Ben Stiller? Well, I guess he still directs (a lot of crap)...Sandler too. Seeing a big SNL trend here. Is Chase directing these days? Harry "wonders what Ackroyd is up to" Wang more »
exits
Ex-Business 2.0 editor leaves Fortune for Time
Josh Quittner, former editor of the defunct Business 2.0, has extricated himself from his unhappy stay at Fortune by returning to Time, where he previously worked. Tellingly, Time editor Rick Stengel refers to him as a "writer" for Fortune, though he had the ostensible title of executive editor. Stengel's memo is included below. Quittner's new gig is his old gig, covering consumer technology, which takes him back roughly 13 years in the progress of his career. Funny, because we'd heard that Quittner had held serious talks with Michael Arrington about joining TechCrunch, around the same time he wrote a laudatory column about the tech blogger. All that puffery, and no job in exchange? A shame. More »
lazy valleywag
