Kevin Rose

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 »

12:40 PM on Wed May 7 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,295 views, 16 comments

Latest by Motherfirefly: But I love Simon Frankson. more »

we read twitter so you don't have to

Kevin Rose in fender bender

Don't worry, everyone, Digg founder Kevin Rose will be just fine. Multiple tipsters sent messages to let us know that Rose ended up entangled in some unwanted Audi-on-Audi action. Ever the early adopter, Rose even uploaded video showing the damage to both vehicles. Smart move — now the owner of the other car can't get away with trying to convince Rose's insurer that the damage was anything more than a cosmetic scratch. Best excuse we've seen for having an account on mobile video publishing service Qik so far after the jump. More »

9:12 PM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By Jackson West
1,414 views, 17 comments

Latest by matto: Wittle boy needs to learn how to dwive. 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 »

12:40 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
5,499 views, 18 comments

Latest by smartastic: @vulturesquadron: good idea! while he's doing that, maybe he could get you a book on senses of humor! more »

clips

Yes, that's Jay Adelson rapping and Kevin Rose not dancing

IAC's Connected Ventures may have done it first, and AOLers in France may have done it better, but give Digg's companywide lip-synching video credit. Skip ahead to check out Jay Adelson at 2:02. Rewind from there to see ~~Kevin Rose~~ Digg underlings jumping up on a conference-room table. (Founder Kevin Rose doesn't actually appear until the very end, where he declares the group "crazy" and leaves. For his future dignity, a wise move. No one has, as yet, leaked footage of Barry Diller or Randy Falco wearing shades and rapping. Full clip is below: More »

3:40 PM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,847 views, 14 comments

Latest by Ken: i want to work there now =) just party and drink bear with geeks more »

ad:tech

Even Gary Vaynerchuk couldn't save Revision3's Web-video pitch

Revision3 videoblogger Martin Sargent began the closing keynote at Ad:tech — also a live taping of his talk show Internet Superstar — with a video tour through the conference floor. The best part was when Sargent walked over to a booth. "So you're Smiley Media?" he asked. "That's us." Sargent: "What the fuckk are you so happy about?" The Daily Show's Rob Corddry couldn't have done it better. It was a good moment for Web TV, made especially sweet by the fact that hundreds of ad buyers — Revision3's prospective clients, many of them — were looking on from the audience. Too bad that was the keynote's last watchable moment. More »

10:40 AM on Fri Apr 18 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,345 views, 2 comments

Latest by Arnaud H: @BigDaddyBear: GaryV is sticking to wine - that's what his video podcasts are about. Boring? I think not. And every public appearance he does ends up promoting wine in general and his business in particular - now that's branding. And more »

unconferences

TED's Chris Anderson invites Kevin Rose, assuring his conference's irrelevance

Has TED organizer Chris Anderson lost his senses? He has invited Digg founder Kevin Rose to TED 2009 — an honor Rose announced on Twitter in hackerspeak. (If you're a regular TED attendee, you may not know that "woot" is an exclamation of excitement; spelling it with numbers is supposed to make it more impressive.) With the arrival of Rose and teenage wantrepreneur Jessica Mah, more TED oldtimers are sure to flee the annual Valley-meets-Hollywood schmoozefest. More »

2:00 PM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Owen Thomas
825 views, 8 comments

quotable

"Kevin Rose has basically plowed through everybody"

We may have been thrown out of the TechCrunch party last night, but bulldog aficionado Jason Calacanis did our dirty work for us. Calacanis caught up with Kevin Rose's cohost on the Diggnation podcast, Alex Albrecht, and asked him about Kevin Rose's dating habits. It's not pretty.

3:00 PM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Jordan Golson
7,046 views, 6 comments

the 250

Revision3 beats Digg at dodgeball

In a best-of-nine match held on UCSF Mission Bay's campus, Revision3 beat Digg 5-4 to kick off San Francisco's dodgeball season. The online video network took home nerd bragging rights — and all-star free agent Kevin Rose, pictured here making a diving catch.

Revision3 Coach David Prager stated in a press conference after the game, "Digg came to play dirty, but little did they realize that we can play dirtier." In a post game interview, Digg's Kevin Rose said, "I founded both companies ... I'm going to join the Revision3 team now."

Revision3 will now have to face off against a number of unknowns in the six-team league, but coach Prager assured me that he's open to challenges from other local startups. Video of the dramatic final game after the jump. More »

1:20 PM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Jackson West
1,067 views, 6 comments

Latest by shamess: @categorically: It's clearly an employment motivation technique. If your company doesn't do something like that, then you're at a sucky company. more »

online video

Kevin Rose's ex-girlfriend Posh Suicide eyes Mahalo Daily gig

A tipster tells us we're off in picking iJustine as the new host for Jason Calacanis's little-watched Mahalo Daily videoblog, previously known solely for featuring former CNET personality Veronica Belmont. "iJustine for Mahalo Daily? Really?" he writes.

She totally blew the screen test for Big Brother today. She choked, and they had her re-shoot. She may still have a shot, since the casting guys were interested in her 10k followers. Seriously though, I think she's a lost cause for Mahalo Daily.

So if iJustine's out, who's in? More »

4:40 PM on Mon Apr 7 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,459 views, 15 comments

Latest by Scopitone: @mercury888: You're an ass more »

poll

Rerank the geeks on the 100 Unsexiest Men list

Yahoo's new site for women, Shine, began life with a link to The Phoenix's 100 Unsexiest Men of The Year. OK, fine, we clicked. But then we were astounded to find the list contained only 4 percent geek. Further, the unattractiveness of those who made the list, such Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, was, frankly, insultingly underrated. Also, the whole list was out of order. Below, a poll where you can help us rerank both the geeks already on the list, and those who should have made it. Rachel Marsden, your assistance in this matter would be appreciated. More »

12:40 PM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,522 views, 18 comments

Latest by michaellamb: ok ok matt can stay in the neutral zone, here is a list of plenty of others to choose from (but 1-9 stays) [ma.tt] more »

breakdowns

Digg: We'll be back shortly -- in the meantime, here's some porn

Digg went down this morning and, while repairs were under way, a placeholder for Digg.com redirected users to some of the staff's favorite sites. Mostly the boring usuals. Kevin Rose recommended "Purple & Brown." PaidContent and TechCrunch were on the list. But then, some guy named Micah recommended SuicideGirls, the "alternative" porn site which features girls with piercings, colored hair and tattoos. The link might upset the sensitive users who made nice guy Jay Adelson yank our Gene Simmons sex tape post from Digg. For us, SuicideGirls beats screen-cleaning puppies any day. Only thing. What will advertisers think? We heard Digg hates porn because it likes money. The screenshot of Digg's porn-loving placeholder is below. More »

1:20 PM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,059 views, 3 comments

Latest by Figaro: Micah is a woman's name... which makes it even more fun! more »

breakdowns

Digg goes down! EVERYBODY PANIC

I got the strangest feeling of deja vu this morning. When I clicked over to Digg to see if Kevin Rose had sold out yet, I was greeted by an "Out of Service" message — in the middle of the day. The site is back up, but it reminded me of a similar outage in January: Digg went offline in the middle of the day while "making some changes." During the last outage, we thought the site was unintentionally taken offline. Generally downtimes are scheduled for out of the way hours like 3 A.M. on a Sunday — not 9 A.M. in the middle of the week. After Digg came back online in January, there were significant changes made to the algorithm that decides which stories make it to the front page, angering a few of Digg's higher profile users. What's the deal this time? Our theories and a poll after the jump. More »

9:40 AM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Jordan Golson
1,357 views, 13 comments

Latest by Jordan Golson: @matto: Yeah, but I wouldn't notice those outages. You see, I actually visit Digg. more »

great moments in animal-human relations

Kevin Rose gets chased by a sheep -- film at 11

Wine Library TV host Gary Vaynerchuk took an even more select subset of The 250 up to De Loach Vineyards in Santa Rosa for a wine tasting. Among the guests were Laughing Squid's Scott Beale, egoblogger Robert Scoble, Facebook evangelist Dave Morin, 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss and Digg's Kevin Rose. One of the tastings took place on a farm. On this farm there were some sheep. One of these sheep didn't like Kevin Rose very much — and chased him up a hill. Robert Scoble took photos. Scoble showed those photos to MadPod's James Donnelly, who filmed them and put the result on the Internet. Much to Rose's dismay, we are sure, we present that video to you.

11:20 AM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Jordan Golson
1,366 views, 10 comments

Latest by Dweezil: @ThatKid: I don't see how he was ripped off if he was paid. The most amazing thing to me isn't really that the "creators" of most of these websites appear to have no technical skills, it's that they shared all more »

nerdspotting

Kevin Rose wants to be a millionaire

How did we miss this in December? Kevin Rose, the cofounder of Digg, served as the answer to a question on ABC's Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and the show in which his name appeared is rerunning now on KGO. Sarah Lacy, the BusinessWeek columnist whose upcoming book prominently features Rose, spotted the mention. If you didn't tune in, YouTube has a replay: More »

12:40 PM on Fri Mar 21 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,529 views, 3 comments

geek love

Crowdsourcing experiment seeks to dictate Leah Culver's love life

We asked which man most deserves Pownce founder Leah Culver's attentions: Googler Andy Smith or Flickr's Cal Henderson? In a late rally, Smith advocates won out. His 48.4 percent of the vote displaced the early leader, none-of-the-above option "cupcakes to face for both," at 43.5 percent. Now a pair of tipsters confirm Culver has, in fact, selected a new man. Has she heeded the wisdom of the crowd? More »

3:20 PM on Wed Mar 19 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,718 views, 23 comments

geek love

Is Kevin Rose still Julia Allison's "buttercup"?

Julia Allison sings us a love song from SXSW. Is this for former beau Kevin Rose, we wonder — or for the Internet at large? She's got a point: Why do we build her up, just to let her down? Why? More »

3:00 PM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Jordan Golson
5,227 views, 45 comments

Latest by DJCarbon43: @dosido: Naw man, she ain't no gold-digger. She's just a trick. Oldest-profession, and all that jazz. The difference? If she was a gold-digger, she'd've gotten one of these poor fools to put a ring on her finger, then left with half more »

the chart

Why Digg should have sold already

Last week, Digg CEO Jay Adelson wasted no time debunking rumors that Google, Microsoft and two media companies were bidding $200 million or more to buy the social news site. It's too bad, because last week would have been a good time for Adelson and Digg cofounder Kevin Rose to sell. According to metrics firm Hitwise, traffic Yahoo's Digg competitor, Buzz, sends to news and media sites nearly caught up with the traffic Digg sends in just one month.

9:12 AM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,323 views, 9 comments

Latest by FiveStarEggRoll: @Tator Tot: I think your tater is half-baked (i.e. I didn't understand the words coming out of your fingers). Are you dissing Buzz or Digg? I'd rather have the Yahoo "firehose" of non-techie users aimed at a buzz'd story than the more »

Valleywag

Facebook CTO leaves a company that's graduating from high school

Valleywag team

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