Valleywag

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Jay Adelson

burn rate

Digg announces major increase in spending

Burn, baby, burn! That's the coded message in Digg CEO Jay Adelson's blog post about a "major expansion effort." The website, whose users rate and discuss news headlines, is hiring for 19 open positions, with more to come, as Digg expands internationally. Only at the end does Adelson mention how he's making this happen: $28.7 million in venture-capital financing. Coming after failed acquisition talks with Google, the financing round makes it clear that Digg is now planning to get bigger rather than sell out. It's a strange thing to celebrate. More »

5 rules for making a company video worth watching

Austin-based interactive ad agency Tocquigny embarrassed itself with a video meant to show prospective interns how fun it is to work at the company over the summer. Instead of showing how quirky and Internet-savvy Tocquigny was, it proved to be a turnoff — and a ripoff. Besides not copying someone else's work, what could Tocquigny have done differently? Using five examples the agency should have followed, we'll explain how to do a self-promotional corporate video right: More »

rumormonger

Google nixing Digg deal?

A tipster tells us Google has backed out of talks to buy Digg, the popular news-discussion site fronted by Kevin Rose, the Web-video personality and San Francisco Casanova. There have been hints all week that Google has been cooling on Digg. Marissa Mayer, Google's reigning princess of pageviews, had once fancied Digg as a means of improving Google News, one of her Web properties. Last month, at her behest, acquisition talks were getting serious. But then Mayer brashly (and perhaps foolishly) announced Wednesday that Google News generated $100 million a year in revenues for Google. Translation: Who needs Digg? More »

acquisitions

Digg founder Kevin Rose: "We're buying Google"

At a Chicago meetup yesterday, Digg CEO Jay Adelson would not comment on recent rumors that Google has renewed talks to buy the site. “There is no word,” Adelson said. “We commented on one of these rumors before and it got us in trouble. There is nothing to say.” Digg founder Kevin Rose wasn't so shy, joking with the audience: “We’re buying Google.” Adelson did, however, tell the audience that following smaller social-news rivals Reddit and Mixx, Digg will soon allow users to create their own sites using Digg's technology. Adelson said the new feature would be out in six months. The Windy Citizen reports:
Adelson said the move will open Digg up to new verticals and make it possible for stories that wouldn’t make the cut on the main Digg site to find an audience. Users will be able to control the threshold for submitted articles being promoted to the front page of these.
More »

acquisitions

Report: Google and Digg talks on again

Google cofounder Larry Page and Digg CEO Jay Adelson were all smiles at Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley retreat. Was it because they had just wrapped up a long-rumored deal for Google to buy Digg, with the price in the neighborhood of $200 million? TechCrunch says talks are on again. (Photo by Reuters)

photoshop

The sad thing is, we think Digg CEO Jay Adelson might actually think he's Tom Cruise

A recent photo of sunglass-sporting Digg CEO Jay Adelson with slightly more nerdy Google cofounder Larry Page sent reader theodp on an '80s nostalgia trip. (Photo by Reuters, photoillustration by theodp)

nerdspotting

Digg CEO and Google cofounder smiling so hard, it's like they just wrapped up a deal

This year's Sun Valley retreat, put on as usual by investment bank Allen & Co, will be Digg CEO Jay Adelson's second. But it marks Adelson's third or fourth trip around the block trying to sell Digg — with Allen & Co's help, naturally. Most of Digg's prior suitors — IAC, News Corp. and Al Gore's Current TV among them — are regulars at the Idaho resort. Glancing at Dealbook's photo of Adelson and Google cofounder Larry Page, we wonder: After months of lobbying from Google VP Marissa Mayer, has Google's top management finally decided to buy Digg and relieve the New York-based Adelson of his wearisome bicoastal commute? Adelson and Page's all-smiles body language in this photo strongly suggest it's so. (Photo by Reuters)

superficial

Digg CEO Jay Adelson a dead ringer for male model

News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy's informants could have sworn they saw Digg CEO Jay Adelson at a party for RealNetworks last night. But Adelson, pictured left, was in San Francisco. So who was it? One possibility: A model who appears in the Clarins Men advertising campaign, right. Jay Adelson, mistaken for a male model? The world is going mad.

Copyfight

Did the New York Times Joker-ize Digg CEO Jay Adelson?

Saul Hansell quoted Digg CEO Jay Adelson defending the Associated Press (of which Hansell's publication the Times is a member). TechCrunch's Michael Arrington freaked out, natch. Adelson then attempted to further explain his complicated position, trying to be diplomatic. Yawn. As we've said before, and will say again, exercise your fair use rights under the law and shut up, because giving the AP attention just feeds its argument and therefore reinforces its position. Moving on: More »

rumormonger

Is Google about to swallow up Digg?

Google's cupcake princess, Marissa Mayer, and Kevin Rose, the playboy of the Webhead world, would make an awfully cute couple. Not romantically — the two are dating other people at the moment. But we hear Mayer is pushing hard for an acquisition of Rose's Digg, for a price below $200 million. Kara Swisher hinted a few days ago that the social news site, on which users "digg" or "bury" their favorite news headlines, might be on Google's shopping list. Mayer's goal: to use what Digg has learned to fix Google News which, while popular, doesn't make Google any money. (Digg CEO Jay Adelson would not comment on the sale rumor, but did disclose that he was having a "delicious" In 'N' Out burger for lunch.) More »