Valleywag
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acquisitions
PodTech sells for $500,000, which will hopefully cover its debts
PodTech, the online video startup left to reliving better days when charming shill Robert Scoble was a frontman for the company, has found a buyer, ViewPartner, and for the paltry sum of $500,000. Hopefully the company's creditors will be getting more than a few pennies back on their dollars — the company has been at the mercy of their bankers, and one commenter says that they were racking up tabs with vendors. VCs like US Ventures and Venrock probably won't be getting any of the more than $5.5 million invested in the company, however. Founder and chairman John Furrier must be relieved, as he was all smiles at recent reunion of DEMO conference attendees.(Photo by Brian Solis, bub.blicio.us) -
hires
Douglas Merrill leaves Google for EMI
Douglas Merrill, CIO at Google and recent Fast Company coverboy, is leaving Mountain View to become president of record label EMI. At first I thought former PodTech CEO John Furrier was pulling a fast one, but John Paczkowski confirmed via email that it's no hoax. Look for the official press tomorrow, Furrier added, before complaining that TechCrunch didn't cite him for the scoop. -
sam sethi
BlogNation leader blames TechCrunch for startup's fall
One would think the nasty three-way between BlogNation's Sam Sethi, his unpaid editors, and Michael Arrington, his former boss at TechCrunch, would be over. Sethi is stepping down and putting the Euro-focused startup blog up for auction. But, no, the saga continues. More » -
loser-generated content
Vloggies reborn from PodTech's ashes as "Winnies"
Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV has found a way to carry on her idea of celebrating the best in video podcasting. Under PodTech, where Slutsky brought the awards last year, the event was badly mismanaged. Slutsky left Podtech, but the "Vloggies" name remained with PodTech. Former CEO John Furrier "openly" trademarked "Vloggies" shortly after firing the event's organizer. At the Winnies, in a dig to PodTech, which failed to have a sufficient number of Vloggies awards made last year, attendees will bring their own, old trophies to swap "instead of wasting money on 'made in Hong Kong' trophies." Oh, and it gets better. More » -
web 2.0 summit
Scenes from a conference
At last, I understand the vision of synergy between News Corp. and Dow Jones. It's all about Kara Swisher, basically. The abrasive, pint-sized reporter-turned blogger spent dinner at Web 2.0 Summit locked in conversation with gregarious, pint-sized megamogul Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s CEO, and, come December, Swisher's boss. Swisher, of course, has been blogging hot and heavy on AllThingsD about Facebook, MySpace's chief rival. She's just the starting point. News Corp. is so vast that next year, it could easily assign an army of Wall Street Journal reporters just to cover itself. Check out the photos for Swisher's encounter with Murdoch, and more.
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1:27 PM on Thu Oct 18 2007
By Owen Thomas
792 views, 2 commentsLatest by Owen Thomas: @Nick Douglas: Are you getting your lines straight from Swisher now? more »
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john furrier
Former PodTech employee loses at Facebook poker
Now that PodTech founder John Furrier is without a day job, how will he fill his free time, now that he doesn't have to manage Robert Scoble? Probably with the same hobby he appears to have wiled away his time while still on duty at his online video network: hounding bloggers and Facebook members. In the waning days of his employment at his own company, Furrier treated Tree Shapiro, a near-septuagenarian ex-professional gambler from Boston, to the full treatment on Facebook. Shapiro is relatively new to "this internets kick" but, as he says, he knows his tells. Shapiro ably dispatched the startup entrepreneur and provided this observation:I love the way he tries to order me around like I work for him. His family must fucking hate him.
The complete Facebook exchange after the jump. More » -
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podtech
John Furrier looks forward to screwing up another startup
John Furrier, the recently deposed CEO of PodTech, is working the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco in a lime-green shirt. His outfit, like his equally glaring smile, suggests that he's unbothered by leaving the Internet video network he founded. No longer even an employee at the company, he's trying to spin his departure by trotting out all of the usual clichés. He writes in his blog: he's had "a blast," remains "passionate and motivated," and is "even more excited by the possibilities available for entrepreneurs" in the future. He even uses the excuse of family, recently mocked by Jack Shafer in Slate, by mentioning the tragic passing of his mother. For his next move, he plans to jump from one buzzword-ridden business opportunity, podcasting, to every conceivable new one: "collaboration, communications, social application development, new media, and emerging online advertising 2.0 solutions." Oh, and he's building a Facebook app. In other words, he has no clue what he's going to do next. More » -
party report
Yahoo and Facebook execs MIA at OutCast party
OutCast PR held an AfterHours party at Frisson, the restaurant co-owned by Facebook board member Peter Thiel. So cozy, since Facebook is OutCast's biggest new client! The place was overrun with hacks and flacks. No surprise, since OutCast wants to show off its chummy press relationships, and other flacks are drawn to journalists like moths to flames. And, of course, OutCast wanted to keep things well-staffed to watch over reporters chatting up executives from Facebook and Yahoo, another big OutCast client. No need, it turned out.
More »
4:07 PM on Fri Oct 12 2007
By Megan McCarthy
1,443 views, 2 commentsLatest by HipsterPit: That. . . and the fact they're all whip smart, connected, and crazy hard workers. Hot is just a bonus asset, more »
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john furrier
PodTech contemplates "best tech show" -- too late
PodTech founder John Furrier, now that he has dethroned himself as CEO of the troubled Web-show network, has time to finally review the online-video competition. Referring to John Dvorak's CrankyGeeks, Furrier says, "Is this considered the best tech show on the net??? Time to think about doing a new tech show." John, while CrankyGeeks may not be the "best tech show on the net", it is better than PodTech's lineup of more than twenty tech shows. The time to think of a new tech show was a year ago, before you started firing your best tech-show video producers. -
dossier
PodTech's future may lie in new CEO's past
PodTech may finally have rid itself of founder John Furrier's so-called leadership. But how will new CEO James McCormick fare? We've already pointed out that, despite 23 years of experience, he has never been the public face of a company. His past as an operations and finance executive is also littered with repeated failures: disgruntled employees, lawsuits, bad mergers, and other flameouts. McCormick may get by for a time simply by not being Furrier, but the failures linked to him through his resume do not bode well for the troubled videoblogging network. More »
John Furrier
San Francisco, 11:07 AM
Sun Nov 23
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