<![CDATA[Valleywag: MC Hammer]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/valleywag.com.png <![CDATA[Valleywag: MC Hammer]]> http://valleywag.com/tag/mc hammer http://valleywag.com/tag/mc hammer <![CDATA[ MySpace Music party a dud ]]> When the highlight of the evening is Twitter CEO Ev Williams meeting faded hip-hop star MC Hammer, you know the night was a waste. Indie-music consultant Corey Denis reports that the event "had ten actual music industry people there, tops." MySpace didn't have much to celebrate, either: It has yet to appoint a figurehead CEO to its MySpace Music faux joint venture. The only thing confirmed about Courtney Holt, the MTV executive widely rumored to be taking the job, is his gender. (Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

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Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:20:00 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5079717&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Facebooker Dave Morin turns 28, but fails to destroy Internet ]]> When I got an unauthorized invite, via a tipster, to Dave Morin's birthday party Tuesday night, I knew I had to crash — if only to find out what he and his friends were thinking. Morin, you see, is a Facebook employee and a prime instigator of Camp Cyprus, the gang of Internet instigators whose shockingly fun video scandalized a shaken Silicon Valley. What's with these Web kids? First they go to Cyprus and destroy the entire economy by filming themselves cavorting at a rich friend's dad's vacation house on the Mediterranean. The horror! But then, what's worse, they return to the United States, unashamed, and continue spending money and enjoying themselves! All this economic activity cannot end well!

Can you imagine, kids in their twenties having a good time? This must end! Didn't they get Sequoia's memo? Morin, Facebook's official speaker-to-geeks, turned 28 and rented a downtown art gallery Tuesday night to celebrate. After I tracked down Morin, I gave him a salami I'd picked up at VC firm Alsop Louie's party earlier that night. (It was a heartfelt regifting.) Besides Morin, I identified several other members of Camp Cyprus:

  • Brittany Bohnet, Morin's steady Googler girlfriend and the other half of the Internet's cutest couple
  • "Professor" Meagan Marks, known on Valleywag for her ancient-history stint as a recruiter (she's now working as a program manager)
  • Joe Green, famous for his Causes application, infamous for his squarecut swim trunks
  • Jessica Bigarel, a graphic designer at Apple
  • Scott Marlette, the coder behind Facebook Photos

With Morin, that's almost a third of Camp Cyprus. (Sadly, Wall Street Journal Jessica Vascellaro wasn't there.) You'd think they'd be enough to bring down the Internet, but no.

I caught a brief glimpse of soon-to-depart Facebook founder Dustin Moskovitz, but didn't get to say hello — he left early, which just confirms his reputation as being not much of a party animal.

Things got a tad more surreal when MC Hammer showed up. When I left the party, the former rap star was chatting up angel investor Ron Conway, who has, yes, invested in the Hammer's inevitable startup.

Digg's Matt Van Horn plots with Keith Rabois, Slide's evil-genius mastermind.

Ron Conway invests in a glass of wine.

Working for Comcast sounds pretty good to Plaxo's Joseph Smarr and John McCrea right now.

Really. MC Hammer was there. At Dave Morin's birthday party.

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Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:00:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5063550&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ MC Hammer proves he's the original fake-startup guy ]]> Rapper turned startup advisor MC Hammer recently swanned through the San Francisco offices of Imeem, praising the music startup for its "beautiful women." Why are startups so prone to opening their doors to the man formerly known as Stanley Kirk Burrell? Attention from a pop star, however marginal, however faded, provides the insecure geeks who run these companies with priceless external validation. Their work must be important — why MC Hammer came to our offices and ogled our female coworkers! The sad thing is that Burrell has been working the startup circuit since the last bubble.

I remember when he swanned into the offices of eCompany Now, a long-gone tech-business magazine I worked at, in 2000, camera crew in tow. They were working on a documentary about a "startup" that never materialized. There you go: Even that part of Julia Allison's business plan isn't original.

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Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:40:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5037051&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Entrepreneur launches startup ]]>
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stanley Kirk Burrell, who sometimes goes by another name and often wears very large pants, as the video above, has teamed with Flock founders Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young to launch DanceJam, a new online video site. Burrell is perhaps best known for pairing with videoblogger Justine Ezarik of iJustine to endorse Y Combinator's MySpace profile tool.

Burrell told the Financial Times he spoke with angel investor Ron Conway prior to teaming with Arone and Young on DanceJam. In an interesting side note, business partners might be surprised to learn that prior to his tech career, Burrell also dabbled in music. He's perhaps best know for his 2006 album titled Look Look Look. And here's a picture of Burrell with fellow entrepreneur Jay Adelson, the CEO of Digg.

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Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:32:11 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=325438&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Founders Club, MC Hammer take over SNL studios ]]> Digital media types here in New York are always looking for a reason to celebrate their own achievements. A couple of months ago, a few of them began calling themselves the Founders Club and decided to start holding mixers around town. Last night, NBC hosted the latest in the series on the set of Saturday Night Live. Who showed? Mostly wantrepreneurs looking for a VC teat to suckle, of course. But I also ran into Digg CEO Jay Adelson, pictured above; a definitely not-pictured angel Ron Conway, who dodged my camera; a Facebook "founder"; and MC Hammer.

Probably the biggest surprise last night was that despite Facebook's busy day announcing new features to allow users to spam each other, one of the company's Harvard connections still showed at last night's Founders Club party here in New York. Which one? ConnectU founder and litigious claimant to the Facebook throne, Divya Narendra, of course.

What, you were expecting Adidas? I asked Narendra what he really thinks of Zuckerberg, but he wouldn't. Didn't want to piss off his lawyers. Narendra was happy to dish on fellow wannabe Facebook founder Aaron Greenspan, however.

"I have no idea how he got that New York Times article," Narendra told me. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

Bitches just jealous.

New York angel investor Ron Conway also turned up last night. I'd have snapped a photo of him, but for a big fella, the man pulls a mean pirouette at the sight of a camera. And did you really want to see a photo of his backside? Silicon Alley wantrepreneurs are not allowed to answer that.

One thing I didn't know about Adelson: Apparently he lives in Dutchess County, north of New York, and commutes to San Francisco to run Digg. Does this mean we can claim him for Silicon Alley? (Ed.'s note: No.)

CollegeHumor's Zach Klein and Ricky Van Veen also showed, dragging down the whole affair with their ironic style and funny-looking glasses. They only cost $7 dollars on eBay. Father figures Josh Mohrer of BustedTees and Vimeo's Jonathan Marcus mostly managed to keep the boys in line, though dress code violations (sneakers) barred the entire crew from the Rainbow Room afterparty. Nobody said beauty was easy, fellas.

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Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:00:18 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=319838&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Y Combinator's webcam can't touch MC Hammer ]]>





MC Hammer's rap career may have been over more than a decade ago, but to the startup kids at Y Combinator, he'll always be a superstar. First, he awkwardly pitched Weebly's MySpace profile editor SnapLayout to lifecaster Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine of Justin.tv. Now, Hammer has made an iminlikewithyou profile. The washed-out rapper hopes to extend his attempts to revive his career beyond being a hanger-on of startups by fighting Vanilla Ice. Only problem — he needs someone with a videocamera, and he's trolling the iminlikewithyou community for volunteers. So what does that tell us about the state of Hammer's career?

The Y Combinator guys may be acting starstruck, but maybe its MC Hammer who's playing the fanboy here. Y Combinator's coterie of entrpreneurs could easily return the favor by providing the rapper with real video services. Everyone, including MC Hammer, knows they can. Why would the startuppers reduce the Hammer to begging for volunteers — if not to subtly put him in his place?

(SnapLayout Demo Video by Dan Veltri)

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Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:32:18 PDT Tim Faulkner http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=310237&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Letting loose at TechCrunch40 ]]> Microsoft executive Don Dodge captures a moment from the TechCrunch40 conference. Or, more specifically, after the conference, in the limo ferrying VIPs from the TechCrunch40 VIP dinner to the after party at Fluid. Pictured, from left, Mayfield Fund VC Raj Kapoor on the floor of the limo; Allen Morgan, also from Mayfield, throwing gang signs; DanceJam cofounder MC Hammer; and angel investor Ron Conway, looking bewildered.

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Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:16:57 PDT Megan McCarthy http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=301151&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ M.C. Hammer Has A Posse ]]> CONFONZ — Would you believe that M.C. Hammer is still alive? When not dancing his heart out at his Oakland church, Hammer spends his days using a Mac and jumping out of airplanes with nothing but his famous pants to save him. Further more, the man now has a startup. It's called DanceJam, and you're not cool enough to see it yet. Rumors on the IntarWeb state that the site will be a YouTube clone focused on videos of people dancing. But wait! There's a value add! If you upload your dance video, Hammer will watch it and rate your moves. Look for this site to be a goldmine for embarrassing blackmail footage when it launches later this year. ]]> Thu, 03 May 2007 13:34:12 PDT confonz http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=257563&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Why it's cooler to work at Yahoo than Google ]]> Tom Cruise arm-wrestles Terry Semel - ValleywagBlah blah, massage therapist, blah blah, mango lassi machine. Yeah, yeah, Google's not really more fun to work at than Yahoo. Yahoo's way cooler:

  • All the millionaires are long gone. Or at least they've been promoted enough that you don't have them blasting their audiophile make-you-weep $3000 speakers from the next cubicle.
  • It's Hollywood, babe. When's the last time Tom Cruise visited Google and arm-wrestled the CEO?
  • No, at Google, you have to say hi to MC Hammer — "No, it's cool, Hammer, you're still popular. What was the line...can't...can't hit this? Touch this? Good line."
  • Googlers are so damn uppity. Oh, they act all laid back, but then you're chatting around the cafeteria and you name-drop, like, Arrested Development, and they're all "Oh I don't have a TV." Or if they do, the Tivo's stuck on "Battlestar Galactica."
  • You're gonna get fat at Google. There. I said it. You can't control yourself, so the free food will kill you.
  • Oh shut up, you would not use the exercycle and the swimming pool. You'd just roll the M&M's cart over to your desk and gorge.
  • At Google, you've gotta pretend to like Sergey's t-shirt. Which would be okay if he wasn't always asking, "Does this make me look fat?"

Earlier: Yahoo intern shows why Google is more fun than Yahoo [Valleywag]
Photo: Cruise and Semel arm wrestle [maidelba at Flickr]

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Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:48:07 PDT Nick Douglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=184009&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Who's Hammer's DJ? ]]> MC HammerHammer has a blog, remember? And sure, Hammer writes his own posts on Look Look Look, but the Valley-hopping hip-hopper doesn't have time to fiddle with his links and embedded files.

No big deal, usually. But Hammer doesn't have his own assistant handling this. No, Hammer has a helpful friend at Google, makers of Blogger. Between engineering projects, this web developer fiddles with Hammer's code. Now that's service.

I won't name the Hamblogger helper, but a little Flickr detective work will turn him up for you.

Look Look Look [MC Hammer blog]
Earlier: Stop. Hammer blog. [Valleywag]

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Thu, 06 Apr 2006 10:17:37 PDT ndouglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=165593&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Remainders: Oh hell, she can probably recite poetry in German ]]>  - Valleywag¬ Having blogged that Facebook should take the $750 mil and run, dot-com expert John Battelle backtracks when the Harvard Crimson calls. The key to looking prescient: always have two contradictory opinions to point back to. [Harvard Crimson]
¬ Marissa Mayer gets interviewed — in German (or translated, at least). Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped translates the highlights. Says Google's VP of search: "Nobody ever writes about how we constantly improve our ranking system!" Because it'd be such a riveting story! [Google Blogoscoped]
¬ Kansas City is the new Silicon Valley. [MSNBC]
¬ Wait, Bangalore is the new Silicon Valley. [DNA India]
¬ New York Times Valley correspondent John Markoff (pictured somewhere up there) reads Valleywag. I hope he's commenting as "openwag". [POP! PR Jots]
¬ Things MC Hammer says in his guest post the Google Video Blog: "He [his character in a music video] is willing to do 'all tricks' if she 'speaks it from her lips.' This willingness is possible only if he gets to know her. He seeks commitment, romance and sensitivity." Things Hammer says in the video: "Girl, I need to know your name." Now that is commitment. [Google Video Blog]

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Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:38:18 PDT ndouglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=164884&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Hammer's got a startup ]]> hammer-self.jpgLiquid Generation's James Kleckner has a scoop on MC Hammer's dot-com — a bigger deal than his blog. The humor site founder says that Hammer's insisting on using his old slogans on all the branding and ads — which, if he's fine with being Mr. Ironicpants, would kick ass.

Regular readers know that Hammer hung out at YouTube recently to rap (metaphorically, thank God) with the video sharing site's team. But will Hammer's name actually draw users to his video- and radio-streaming service, and will it actually have a negative launch-to-flip time? Oh, and is Liquid Generation wrong again?

Word on the street is that MC Hammer has been working on a top secret web start up for the better part of the last 6 months, while some are even speculating that the company might be bought up by Yahoo or Google before the product even hits public beta. Peep this.

MC Hammer's super secret web start up [Suck My Blog]
Photo: On the move: Hammertime [MC Hammer Blog]

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Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:04:44 PST ndouglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=160292&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Stop. Hammer blog. ]]> hammer-blog.jpgMC Hammer has a blog.

In case no one pointed it out yet, the Bay-Area tech-friendly hip-hop star (the one who hung out at YouTube and Google, the one who digs the automated-DJ site Pandora) has been blogging since Thursday.

He "will bridge the gaps through music, video, blogs, melody and dance." He will explain hip-hop slang thusly: "One 'goes dumb' because he can escape the reality of feeling abandoned and left out from a society that isn't addressing his pain and frustration."

He will talk to his commenters. He will link to his own Wikipedia page. He will post camphone pics of the Braves cheerleaders.

Wait for his next album, "Please, Hammer, don't blog 'em!"

MC Hammer Blog [Blogspot]

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Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:27:27 PST ndouglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=157247&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Hammer Time at YouTube ]]> Why did M.C. Hammer personally visit YouTube to talk about his music video? Because he's that awesome.

Stop. Hammer time.

Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em!

The rapper's all over Silicon Valley these days. He's hung out at Google before. And apparently he's on the board a friend of the custom-playlist site Pandora. The superdope boy from the Oaktown is making 'em sweat.

Hammer Time [YouTube blog]
MC Hammer at Google [Flickr]

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Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:17:12 PST ndouglas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=154988&view=rss&microfeed=true