<![CDATA[Valleywag: New York Times]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/valleywag.com.png <![CDATA[Valleywag: New York Times]]> http://valleywag.com/tag/new york times http://valleywag.com/tag/new york times <![CDATA[ The New York Times helps Google and "Family Guy" creator reannounce year-old deal ]]> Google will partner with "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane to create a new Google-distributed Web video series, the New York Times reports today. The Times story, already on the top of Techmeme, hails the deal as "innovative" and "a bold step into the distribution business," which is true — or at least was, when Valleywag and the rest of the Google-watching press reported the same news on August 17, 2007.

Almost a year later, the MacFarlane-Google deal — if it actually happens this time — is more an explanation as to why so many bright entrepreneurs are fleeing the company. At today's supersized, ultracorporate Google, good ideas can take so long to see the light of day, sometimes they need to be announced twice.

]]> Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:20:00 PDT Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5020722&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ No priority shipping for escorts, not yet, anyway ]]> Happy Hooker, look inside!If TheEroticReview.com is "Amazon.com for prostitutes" (as dubbed by Matt Richtel in the New York Times), do customers get "free delivery for orders over $100", asks Salon.com's Broadsheet. We agree with Salon's assessment — TER is really more like Yelp — unless there's some exciting new feature to Amazon Prime that the Times was briefed on under embargo.

]]> Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:00:00 PDT Melissa Gira Grant http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5018008&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times embraces latest tech fad long after the hype has peaked ]]> With Firefox browser plugin TimesPeople, the venerable gray lady will now allow registered users to connect, adding "friends" and recommending articles to each other. You can follow recommendations through a drop-down menu that presents a feed of recommended articles from other users, or subscribe via RSS. It's not a social network, strictly, but a social layer. And while I poke fun at the times in the headline, there's certainly one way this could be used to drive revenue — by targetting ads based on a reader, and a reader's contacts, interests as determined both by the user's demographic information from their registration and the topics they browse. And unlike Facebook, advertisers don't have to worry about advertising against content they might deem unacceptable. Unless the Times starts doing photo essays of keg stands and college-age women experimenting with homosexuality.

]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:20:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5017695&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Fake Jerry Yang responds to the New York Times -- the 20-word version ]]> With Fake Steve Jobs on sabbatical, Fake Jerry Yang has picked up the slack to chime in on Joe Nocera's scathing open letter in the New York Times. Shortly before the vulgarities is this little gem, which says more about the New York media landscape than it does about the Microsoft-Yahoo-Google three-way:

[W]e're all surprised to see you carrying Carl Icahn's water on this one instead of someone at the Journal.

One of Rupert Murdoch's plans for the Wall Street Journal after acquiring parent company Dow Jones from the Bancroft family was to turn it into a broader-interest daily with a rightward tilt — an ideological counter to the Times in the way that Murdoch's New York Post and the New York Daily News divide the tabloid market. The Times has responded by taking more of an interest in Wall Street. Nocera, for his part, specifically calls out the Bancroft family for handling the News Corp. bid as poorly as Yang handled Microsoft's offer. Kudos to Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Jerry Yang, for noting that while ostensibly Nocera's rant is about the Valley, there's more than a little Times versus Journal backbiting going on as well, and we can expect to see more of it.

]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:40:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5016849&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ "Oh Jerry, It’s No Longer Your Baby" -- the 100-word version ]]> New York Times columnist Joe Nocera's open letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang over the weekend nicely captured Yahoo shareholders' rage over the whole Microsoft mess. But will they stop fuming long enough to read all 1,500 words? A version they'll be able to finish before their lawyers get done filing the next shareholder lawsuit, and Yang will be able to finish before the next top executive's resignation letter hits his inbox, below.

Dear Jerry, Congratulations. You got Microsoft to walk. You’re thrilled. Shareholders aren’t. You’ve become a pawn of the dominant company on the Internet. You think of Yahoo as your baby. It’s not your baby. Not since Yahoo went public. I can hear you protesting that Microsoft walked, not you. But how many times did Microsoft come knocking. Forced to negotiate, you rarely brought any of your investment bankers. You brought Filo. By May, Ballmer raised his offer. You claimed to be holding out for more, asking the only person interested in buying your company to bid against himself. You were creating incentives for a employee walkout after a change of control. Where does this leave you? Your days as Yahoo’s CEO are numbered.

]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:20:00 PDT Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5016861&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ How the New York Times missed the latest escort scandal ]]> New York Times goes hunting for escorts againOn Monday night at the Webby Awards, New York Times staff accepted their prize with the words, "Eliot Spitzer we thank you." Covering hooker drama went well for the paper last March, and the obsession still moves them. For the last three weeks, the Times has been investigating the complaints of escorts, first reported on Valleywag: that Dave Elms, the now-jailed founder of TheEroticReview.com, extorted sex from them in exchange for reviews on his popular site. According to a series of leaked emails, the story is currently stalled, as reporter Matt Richtel and his stringers can't find women who will speak on the record about their dealings with Elms. We verified the San Francisco-based Timesman's interest from Internet-working escorts, who are reluctant to give the paper interviews that will only further expose their business to scrutiny for all the wrong reasons. They have, however, offered Valleywag their preemptive corrections. Here's the story they hope the Times won't write:

Yet another exposé of the "virtual red light district." The women who have been targeted by Elms are not "21st century streetwalkers", nor are they harbingers of "Whoring 2.0" — they are real women, with real careers, who have really been sexually harassed. The reason so few want to come forward, says activist and working girl Karly Kirschner, is that "these women have had a traumatic experience, probably are feeling used and manipulated and humiliated. They're in a state of shock like any other survivor of assault." Where some see a story about The Internet Gone Wild, escorts see business as usual in an industry where few take on-the-job harassment seriously.

Quotes from clients who talk as big a game to reporters as they do to escorts. The prospect of getting famous for sinking Dave Elms, a big figure in the sex-for-pay world, motivates obsessive clients like Dave in Phoenix, who has been complaining about Elms for years on a private email list meant for his favorite escorts only. But what do escorts have to gain from indulging a client's Nancy Drew fantasies of getting them to play girl detective? In a June 8 email leaked to Valleywag, Dave in Phoenix wrote:

We still need folks to talk to the reporter "on the record" the story is being delayed and reporter says will be bigger than we even know but he can't go into details. A major problem for the part of the story on extortion of gals to provide him sex or that being his demand is few credible companions are willing to come forward on the record even with names protected. He has many providers very scared of him, even in Phoenix. Reporter is getting impression that most companions are a bit "flaky" and doesn't know what to believe.

Flaky, or realistic? One escort explained that she wouldn't give an interview to the Times because "there would be no benefit for any provider to get involved. Dave Elms is in no way concerned with shame. He is married. He doesn't care what shame it brings to his family. He is only concerned with keeping his own ass out of prison." As Kirschner put it, "No court in the U.S. is going to hold Elms accountable for embezzling free sex from a bunch of criminal whores."

More avoidable outings by the Times. Kirschner raised concerns about the paper's ability to maintain confidentiality. At the peak of Spitzergate, the Times ran a story that contained enough identifying information on two of the sex workers interviewed that their family members and clients discovered them. Getting outed is the worst possible outcome of a Times story. The best is a crackdown on sites like TheEroticReview.com. Either way, the escorts risk losing their livelihood.

TheEroticReview.com changed the rules in the business of online escorting. It capitalized on the critical mass of prostitutes who, due to Web-based advertising, could go truly freelance and run their own business, without management. With TER, Elms has jockeyed to take the abusive middleman's place.

It's a difficult story, not nearly as sexy as Eliot Spitzer's high-class hotel hookups. Gold star to the Times for chasing it at all. Could the lack of a salacious hook be part of the problem? This may be a story best written by those no longer dazzled by the business, like the ladies in it — who are long used to dealing with guys who talk a good game but, in the end, just want a piece of them.

(Photo via NYT)

]]> Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:00:00 PDT Melissa Gira Grant http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5015276&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times's About.com lands new CEO ]]> After a long search, the New York Times Co.'s About.com has a new CEO, former Digitas exec Cella Irvine. We heard rumors the last one, Scott Meyer, was forced out in February; the management team, we were told, had threatened to quit if he wasn't. Commenters, including several claiming to be About.com employees, disputed the story. One, however, hinted at why Meyer really left:

I think the Times sees About as an ATM, and isn't willing to necessarily invest in securing talent.

Translation: The New York Times has no long-term vision for About.com, seeing it for what it is — professionally organized search-engine spam that'll make money no matter's who's "running" it.

]]> Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:00:00 PDT Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5015530&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld to unleash world's worst startup pitches on the rest of us ]]> When we worked together at Business 2.0, I always thought my then-colleague Erick Schonfeld was a bit of an evil genius. Now an editor at TechCrunch, Schonfeld hasn't proven me wrong. He's taking all of the boring startup spiels — "elevator pitches" — he gets from wantrepreneurs trooping through his office and turning them into content. All he has to do is sit back and hit "Record"; he doesn't actually have to do the critical thinking required to evaluate whether the ideas hold any promise, or even make sense. How boring is this idea? Look at David Carr from the New York Times, sitting two seats over from Schonfeld, who's fallen asleep just from listening to the idea. But I have no doubt this is the crowdsourced, video-enabled future of innovation journalism, folks.

]]> Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:00:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5013205&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times spent $40 million for ability to link ]]> Last week, Publishing 2.0 noted that the New York Times was finally using hypertext links in articles in a meaningful way. Welcome to the 20th century, Grey Lady! The Times invested in WordPress, which is used for the site's blogs, but the rest of the product? That required an expensive upgrade to CCI NewsGate, which comes with a $40 million price tag and is "very time consuming to integrate, especially across multiple properties," according to an editor at another major market daily.

Previously, a Web producer had to intervene if you wanted to drop a link in your article.

It's how almost all newspapers are. They have publishing systems tied to the creation of the print product, with the web operations appended like some sort of added bedroom for the unexpected kid had late in life. Total Rube Goldberg stuff. A single publishing system that works for both platforms wasn't available until November of last year, and it's still pretty buggy (think first iPod) and around $40M.
A former Times insider says that the CCI upgrade was made not for links, though, but to enable later press deadlines. Whatever the reason for the software buy, the upgrade from the print-first culture inculcated by J-school professors and senior editors will likely take a lot longer to install.
]]> Thu, 29 May 2008 10:40:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=393981&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Times casts aspersions on Quincy Smith's fashion sense ]]> white_shoes.jpgThe New York Times has learned a hard lesson: Say what you like about CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith — just don't criticize his duds. The bastion of class consciousness falsely claimed that he was wearing white shoes before Memorial Day — a big no-no among the ruling elite, where white shoes, seersucker and summer dresses are officially verboten except between the holiday that marks the start of the summering season and Labor Day, which marks the end.
An article on Friday about CBS's $1.8 billion deal to buy CNET Networks misstated, in some copies, the color of the sneakers worn by Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, in an appearance last week at the network's upfront presentation for advertisers. As an accompanying picture showed, they were dark-colored — not his trademark white ones.
The Times regrets the error, natch.(Photo by Nick Richards)

]]> Fri, 23 May 2008 10:20:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=393019&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times lays off local tech reporter ]]> times_news_hour_katie_hafner.jpgWe won't have Katie Hafner (pictured here in a 2000 appearance on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer) to kick around anymore. Her former colleague Sharon Waxman, who left the paper in January, mentioned in an aside to an ode to fellow hacks hurt by the decline of the fishwrap business that Hafner had been laid off. If it were up to us, we'd have given "Blog 'Til They Drop" author Matt Richtel the pink slip. Just imagine: He might have to blog for a living, with all the perils implicit therein.

]]> Mon, 19 May 2008 11:40:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=391753&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times puts female geeks in the style ghetto ]]> women_inspecting_optical_circuit_in_cleanroom.jpgAn article about women in science and engineering from the New York Times, "Diversity Isn't Rocket Science, Is It?" seems like it ought to go in the news or business section. It ran in fashion and style instead. Why? Because white lab coats and Tyvek cleanroom jumpsuits are totes the hot look this summer! (Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

]]> Fri, 16 May 2008 10:40:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=391244&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Is Craig Newmark a Leninist, or just a lookalike? Don't ask a newspaper man ]]> separated_at_birth_craig_newmark_vladimir_lenin.jpgIn the wake of eBay's suit against Craiglist, we get a touch more fear and loathing from a newspaper about the online classifieds site and local bulletin board from the Times:
[Craigslist] is also a site that is deeply tied up with the fate of newspapers — indeed, many in the newspaper industry blame the site's founder, Craig Newmark, for the downturn in their classified-advertising business.
The Times pegs the company's revenue at $80 million to $100 million annually — a lowball estimate, from what we hear — and gets founder and chairman Newmark to admit he's never donated more than $20,000 to any particular cause. But it's the kicker that makes on wonder how enthusiastic a capitalist Newmark is. "We know these guys in Google and the eBay guys, and they are not any happier than anyone else," says Newmark. "A lot of money is a burden." $10 million, his estimated take from a deal with eBay to let them buy shares in Craigslist, must not be enough for Newmark to feel burdened. Give it away, Craig — you have nothing to lose but your chains! Not to mention the Times photo, in full below, which made me wonder whether Newmark and Lenin were separated at birth.

separated_at_birth_craig_newmark_vladimir_lenin_at_desks.jpg

]]> Mon, 12 May 2008 10:20:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=389573&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Who's going to TechTalk Menorca, the Balearic boondoggle? ]]> Martin Varsavsky, the founder of Wi-Fi startup Fon, has concocted another excuse for Web 2.0's jet set to rack up frequent-flier miles and buy carbon offsets: It's called Menorca TechTalk, held on Varsavsky's ranch on the Mediterranean island this weekend. The website is password-protected, but Valleywag got a list of who's going. It's a curious mix of professional conference attendees, like Rapleaf's Auren Hoffman, Loïc Le Meur of Seesmic, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, and David Sifry of Technorati, mixed in with a few people who have day jobs. There are even Googlers on the list — and when have you known those lot to leave the protective bubble of Mountain View? Oddly, Jimmy Wales did not seem to make the cut, though his New York patroness, Louise Blouin MacBain, is listed. In the comments, sort the TechTalkers into your preferred categories.

]]> Fri, 09 May 2008 15:20:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=389017&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Amanda Hesser uses a computer, therefore qualified to run Web startup ]]> amanda_hesser_segway.jpgFormer New York Times editor Amanda Hesser is starting a new company called Seawinkle, which may or may not be named after an obscure character from the My Little Pony universe. It will aggregate content you produce online into one happy page, she promised in a tetchy response to New York Magazine's insinuation that she was politely kicked out of the new Times building. Hesser also detailed her qualifications as a wantrepreneur:

This may come as a surprise to you but I studied economics and finance before I began my studies of cooking. That's the business part. I have written and edited four (the 3rd will be out this fall, the 4th is in process) books that, while focused on food, are also about history and memory. That's the life part. I, like you, use a computer every day. That's the digital part.
With that kind of firm grasp on technology — she's also pictured here riding a Segway in Paris — I'm sure this venture will be a fantastic success. ]]> Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:40:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=377374&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times finally discovers Ritual Roasters, long after San Franciscans have moved on ]]> Did you hear? Doing business in coffee shops is all the rage in San Francisco! Especially at this trendy little spot in the Mission you may not have heard of, Ritual Coffee Roasters. Seriously, if getting a table at Ritual wasn't hard enough already, you can thank the Times for making it that much harder — now every wannabe in khakis and a biz-dev-blue shirt will be jostling with the skinny greys set arriving on fixies for prime seating real estate. Since the Times seems to love reusing blog posts from 2006, I'll throw them a bone and present "The four cafes Times readers can be expected to ruin by 2009":

  • Sugarlump: At 24th and Bryant, it's not on the fancy side of Mission, but it's packed with thrifted mid-century design furniture and has lots of available seating and power outlets. Plus, the Taqueria San Francisco burritos are better than those at yuppified Papalote, and the Tortas Picayudos are to die for.
  • Caffe Roma: This North Beach locale is a haven for local politicos. Just this morning hunky god-mayor Gavin Newsom dropped by to put his hair on a morning segment with local gossip columnist Phil Matier. Couldn't care less about the likes of Newsom, former state assembly candidate Joe Alioto Veronese or supervisor Aaron Peskin? Then come hang out with Valleywag — we're regulars, too.
  • Blue Bottle Cafe: Located near SoMa and the Financial District, it's arguably the best coffee in The City. There's no free Wi-Fi inside, and the limited seating and noisy space aren't optimal for working. But there is Wi-Fi in Mint Plaza, along with plentiful outdoor seating for blogging al fresco. Though the Times Dining & Wine section may have ruined it already.
  • Piccino: This small corner cafe in the Dogpatch off Muni's T-Third Street line also serves Blue Bottle, and will also prepare it in individual drip portions. Plus they have good food and outdoor seating. A favorite amongst the vaguely employed contractors at the Hat Factory, another trend the Times is behind.

Have suggestions for the reporters at the Times technology section? Leave 'em in the comments. (Photo by Bill S)

]]> Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:00:00 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=376325&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times board member's claim to fame: e-commerce failure RedEnvelope ]]> pic_lrg_galloway_scott.jpgScott Galloway of Firebrand Partners scored a coup recently: The New York Times Co. agreed to nominate him and a fellow activist investor for a seat on its board. Did the Times do any due diligence on him? Galloway's chief accomplishment online is cofounding RedEnvelope, a San Francisco-based online retailer.

An online retailer whose CEO just quit. An online retailer whose credit line was just revoked by Wells Fargo. An online retailer whose stock fell more than 50 percent today, heading towards penny territory. Actually, Galloway seems uniquely well qualified to serve on the Times board.

]]> Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:40:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=374832&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ How to write for your company's blog ]]>

I recently reported on blogging secrets of the stars. But as a Valley worker, you may end up blogging on your company's site, not your own. Corporate blogging is very different from personal blogging, regardless of what The 250 will tell you for a small fee. So I created this stack of product-managerese slides on how to write a company blog worth reading.

]]> Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:20:18 PDT Paul Boutin http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=370014&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Mercury News editor leaves troubled newspaper for slightly less troubled one ]]> Vindu Goel, Mercury NewsSan Jose Mercury News business and technology reporter Vindu Goel is returning to the New York Times, where he once interned as a young cub reporter, to be the new deputy technology editor. The Michigan and Harvard alum likes fine wine and long walks in the woods. The Times is hoping to boost its technology coverage, while the Merc loses yet another veteran from a once-esteemed tech-reporting staff.

Goel's Facebook buddy and comrade on the tech desk Dean Takahashi signed with VentureBeat just last month. VentureBeat is run by, you guessed it, another former Merc techie, Matt Marshall. Goel should be happy he's getting out while the getting is good: MediaNews Group, the Denver newspaper group which bought the Merc last year, is dumping editorial staff at all its papers through layoffs and buyouts.

]]> Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:40:53 PDT Jackson West http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=369876&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Spitzer apologizes, kills NYTimes.com ]]> Here's New York Governor Eliot Spitzer apologizing for, well, no doubt you've heard. The scandal hasn't yet brought down Spitzer, but it did lay NYTimes.com low for a while.

]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:28:51 PDT Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=366054&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Scott Meyer ousted in About.com staff revolt ]]> Scott MeyerAbout.com's Scott Meyer was forced out as CEO of the New York Times-owned website after his senior staff threatened to quit unless he left, a tipster tells us. NYT CEO Janet Robinson had wanted to keep Meyer on, even though his reports ridiculed him as a biz-dev type who was clueless about the Web. That he left without a replacement indicates how deep the revolt went. For NYT Digital chief Martin Nisenholtz, who's running About.com for the time being, the gig is temporary, and involuntary. "Martin definitely doesn't want to run About," says our source — though he also pressed Robinson to do something about Meyer. As for replacements? Ron McCoy, the company's chief digital architect, and an early pioneer of search-engine optimization, is the heavy lifter at About.com, but he's not a candidate for the CEO spot: He flies in from Atlanta, and is said to be uninterested in management.

]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:23:31 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=361616&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ David Pogue blacklists Google, sings uplifting show tune ]]> 06_pogue_lgl.jpgI tried to send an email to New York Times columnist David Pogue, but I failed. It appears that Google's Gmail has been blacklisted by the Sorbs spam-blocking system. At the moment, Sorbs claims to be in a "maintenance period." Pogue's email provider could be blocking all mail because it can't reach Sorbs — but why would it be down for maintenance in the middle of the day? See the full error message after the jump and tell me if you can figure it out. In the meantime, David, call me? Everybody sing! Let the sound of your voice turn winter to spring.

Delivered-To: jlgolson@valleywag.com Received: by 10.78.198.2 with SMTP id v2cs346280huf; Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:22 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.142.88.20 with SMTP id l20mr5814001wfb.72.1204147941025; Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:21 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <> Received: by 10.142.88.20 with SMTP id l20mr9735271wfb.72; Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:21 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <00504502c79604472a8a48285026d3b@googlemail.com> From: Mail Delivery Subsystem To: jlgolson@valleywag.com Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:21 -0800 (PST)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

xxxx@xxxx.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 550 5.7.1 Your server (209.85.200.175 [wf-out-1314.google.com]) is in the dnsbl.sorbs.net block list. See http://www.dnsbl.us.sorbs.net/cgi-bin/db?IP=209.85.200.175 for more details.

—-— Original message —-—

Received: by 10.142.88.20 with SMTP id l20mr5813971wfb.72.1204147939537;
Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:19 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path:
Received: from ?192.168.1.41? ( [141.157.168.194])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 24sm13001017wrl.35.2008.02.27.13.32.16
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:32:17 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id:
From: Jordan Golson
To: David Pogue
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2)
Subject: nyc meetup?
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:32:15 -0500
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2)

David, thinking of coming down to New York next week. Meet for a cup =20
of coffee?

—

Jordan Golson
Valleywag — Gawker Media
jlgolson@valleywag.com

—-— End of message —-—

]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:20:03 PST Jordan Golson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=361569&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Why is Martin Nisenholtz running About.com? ]]> About.com bosses, past and presentAbout.com, the '90s-vintage mess of protoblogs the New York Times Co. paid $410 million for three years ago, has lost its CEO, Scott Meyer, left. The departure is characterized as "amicable"; the circumstances, curious. The Times has been rumored to be shopping About.com, though the company denies it. Regardless, Meyer is not being replaced. Instead, Martin Nisenholtz, the digital chief at the Times, right, will run it directly. There are two interpretations here.

First, that the Times is having trouble recruiting a short-timer replacement to run the site until a sale. Second, that buyers for the site are scarce, and the Times realizes it. Nisenholtz's job responsibilities were greatly reduced when the Times merged its print and online newsrooms three years ago. Running About.com, especially if the company plans to keep it, would give him something to do besides speak at conferences.

]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:00:39 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=361527&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Gannett, Hearst, the New York Times Co. and ... ]]> Gannett, Hearst, the New York Times Co. and Tribune, in the grand tradition of doomed online-newspaper joint ventures, is creating an ad network, QuadrantOne. The new partners said QuardrantOne will reach more than 50 million monthly visitors through more than 120 papers. But not the New York Times or USA Today, which already have national sales operations. Yahoo launched a similar newspaper consortium last year, to no visible effect. [WSJ]


]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:05:35 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=356984&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York reporters scooped on YouTube by blabbing blogger ]]> MadisonAvenue.jpgGoogle hosted an event in Manhattan yesterday to pitch advertisers on YouTube. Silicon Alley Insider's Michael Learmonth tried to crash and got booted. The New York Times's Louise Story played nice and apparently got to stay, but later told readers the "bulk of the event" was "off the record." Apparently, neither tried Google search. Attendee Ian Schafer, CEO of a digital marketing agency, was happy to blog everything.

On his blog he reports that "the real news was YouTube's announcement of an impending launch of advanced analytics tools."

You'll be able to see where video views are coming from (geographically and site-wise), as well as many other data points. This will be a huge help to advertisers trying to extract more success metrics and data from their YouTube efforts.
Other highlights, according to Schaffer:
    For Content Partners/Creators
  • Get ready for active sharing.
  • Get ready for upgraded video editing tools.
  • YouTube will be launching video recommendations based upon your viewing preferences (like Amazon Recommendations).
  • Content will be distributed on multiple platforms, from mobile to TV (Steve Chen is excited about content on really, really big TVs).

    Tent pole Content Initiatives
  • The YouTube Games — some kind of takeoff on the Olympics. Looks to be a kind of wacky wide world of weird sports.
  • Living Legends — content featuring, well, living legends. The first legends featured will be The Rolling Stones. This looks pretty great.
  • The YouTube Global Gathering — simultaneous events worldwide, broadcast on YouTube.
Real secret stuff. We'd chide Learmonth and Story for not working harder to get the scoop, but now that Schafer has shared YouTube's secrets, it hardly seems worth it. ]]> Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:00:03 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=356718&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times deigns to note Mark Zuckerberg's turn on TMZ ]]> "TMZ seemed to be straining to find material" when it posted video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week, the New York Times reports today. A week later. Then reporter Maria Aspan cites a Valleywag commenter at the end of the article. Clearly, we're witnessing the decline the of an old media dino — Wait. The New York Times quoted a Valleywag commenter? OMFG! JediTilo, you got quoted in the freaking New York Times. Count me impressed. Me and your mom.

]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:40:02 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=354967&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Marc Andreessen savages the New York Times ... ]]> Marc Andreessen savages the New York Times Co.'s board for their lack of Internet experience: "So, if you want to issue bonds to pay for FCC-approved snack cake manufacturing in a submarine on display at a national park by a sundress-wearing cigarette-puffing Levitra-popping Judy Miller, you're pretty much set. Go team!" [blog.pmarca.com]

]]> Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:33:04 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=352939&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Blogs beat New York Times 4-1 in five-year contest ]]> Five years ago, daddy-blogger Dave Winer bet NYT president Martin Nisenholtz that by 2007, blogs would be more relevant sources than the Times in Google search results for the year's top news stories. (Obligatory brag: The bet was my idea.) The Long Now Foundation has handed down its final decision on the bet. The Times came out ahead on the mortgage crisis. Blogs won on the other four topics — the Iraq war, Virgina Tech's shootings, oil prices, and Chinese exports. But you need to know that the Long Now panel blamed the bet's terms for its lopsided outcome:

Had the bet been structured around commercial vs. noncommercial content, and they had chosen an average ranking system (which actually seems to answer the question being asked more clearly), commercial content would have won by a factor of more than four.
I'm pretty sure that when Winer envisioned a future media landscape dominated by blogs, he wasn't thinking TMZ. ]]> Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:00:56 PST Paul Boutin http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=352308&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ New York Times trying to offload About.com ]]> AboutLogo.jpgThe New York Times has hired a bank in order to sell About.com, Silicon Alley Insider reports. The Times bought the site — a collection of bloggers posting Google- friendly content — back in 2005 for $410 million. SAI's Peter Kafka figures the Times will ask for around $450 million. And will be happy to get it. Makes sense. How much can a company full of permalancers paid by the pageview be worth, anyway?

]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:40:16 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=350283&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ NYT takeover -- the 100-word version ]]> I've excerpted the relevant parts of Harbinger Capital Partners' letter to New York Times management proposing four new directors and a more aggressive online strategy.

Firebrand/Harbinger is a company formed by Firebrand Partners and Harbinger Capital Partners, who together own approximately 4.9% of [the New York Times.] We are not pursuing a change in the dual class shareholder structure. The New York Times is controlled by the Sulzberger family and we have no desire to change that. We believe the redeployment of capital to expedite the acquisition of digital assets affords the greatest shareholder appreciation and creates the appropriate platform to compete in today's media landscape.

Our director nominees include:

  • Allen Morgan, Managing Director at venture capital firm Mayfield Fund, whose investing practice focuses on internet media
  • Gregory Shove, a former executive at AOL and advisor to Firebrand Partners
  • James Kohlberg, co-founder of private equity firm Kohlberg & Company
  • Scott Galloway, Founder and CIO, Firebrand Partners
Special bonus excerpt for reporters:
I can be reached at 646-262-9076 or sgalloway@firebrandpartners.com and look forward to hearing from you. Scott Galloway
]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:58:45 PST Paul Boutin http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=349958&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Silicon Valley launches a takeover of the New York Times ]]> NYT aflameThe digital barbarians are at the gate. Harbinger Capital Partners, a private-equity fund which owns 4.9 percent of the New York Times, has written a letter to the newspaper's management suggesting that it buy more "digital assets." Scott Galloway of Firebrand Partners, an affiliated investment firm, is proposing an alternate slate of directors for the next board election. The newcomers include Galloway himself, a founder of RedEnvelope and aprofessor at NYU who graduated with an MBA from UC-Berkeley; Gregory Shove, a former AOL executive; and Allen Morgan, a venture capitalist at the Mayfield Fund. Since the Sulzberger family controls the Times through a two-class stock structure, it's unlikely that Harbinger's efforts will succeed. But even the notion of the Times having its Internet strategy dictated to it by technocractic outsiders has to be galling.

]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:06:30 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=349934&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Bloggers hope Google will buy NY Times, hire them ]]> Blogger obsession No. 1 meets blogger obsession No. 2 in this 1,185 word daydream by relatively unknown blogger John Ellis that's climbed onto Techmeme. If the market cap of the New York Times Co. falls below $2 billion, he says, "The company that has the most to gain from buying the New York Times is Google." Ellis envisions "a fascinating and challenging project: the reinvention of a great newspaper across multiple platforms and within a variety of applications" that will "attract people of great talent." Gee, who would that be. Not that it's a bad idea — it's just that by wishing for the Gray Lady to be taken over by media-savvy, deep-pocketed management eager to try new ideas, Ellis makes a great case for Rupert Murdoch.

]]> Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:00:52 PST Paul Boutin http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=347697&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Slide's funding brings out reporters' knives ]]> Cutting remarksScoops are important to journalists. But do readers care? Some writers persist in thinking so. I can't remember ever seeing such backbiting over a humdrum funding announcement: Kara Swisher of AllThingsD scooped everyone last Friday with a rumor that Slide, Max Levchin's Web widget maker, was raising a big funding round. Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek had more details of the $50 million round in an already-written column published to the Web after Swisher's post. Brad Stone of the New York Times weighed in that afternoon. And that's when the knives came out.

Swisher, aggrieved at the lack of recognition for her scoop, accused BusinessWeek and the Times of running "hand-fed" stories, a charge Lacy and Stone's editor denied. (Lacy told me she'd known since the previous Sunday, but had held the information for her column; Stone's editor told Swisher his meeting with Slide that morning was previously scheduled.)

PaidContent.org clearly felt left out. After one of its writers filed a me-too post, editor Rafat Ali skewered Lacy in a followup post, calling her a "doting, in-awe poseur."

On Silicon Alley Insider, Henry Blodget, Lacy's cohost on Yahoo's soon-to-be-launched TechTicker finance show, came to her defense, dismissing PaidContent as an "aging, LA-based digital news blog."

Oh, and somewhere along the way, I managed to write a story on the subject without calling anyone names.

All of which shows how petty bloggers can be, and none of which answers the question of whether this matters to readers. My suspicion: Only to the extent that they may pass over a story they feel they've read elsewhere first. Google News actively punishes scoops, presenting news on a given subject by the most recent article written, a practice which encourages follow-on news articles and blog posts — and, for that matter, makes it hard to discover who actually broke a given story. Techmeme tends to favor the person who writes with most authority, drawing links from other blogs.

]]> Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:40:19 PST Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=347300&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ The Web's top 10 top 10 lists ]]> Why all the lists heading into 2008? Well, laziness. That, and the urge to reflect on the year gone by. No, mostly laziness. And in that spirit, we present you Valleywag's top 10 list of top 10 lists. Oh yeah — our lazy, it's meta.

  • The Web's top 10 top 10 lists
  • 10. Wired's "The 10 Best Gadget Ads of 2007" makes our list because it points out why everyone wants an iPhone. Apple's genius ads.

  • 9.The New York Times' "Buzzwords 2007" can has number 9. LolCatNYTIMES.jpg
  • 8. eMarketer's Predictions for 2008 makes our list because we're so handy with their charts. eMarketer.gif

  • 7. Tumblr founder David Karp's 2008 Tech Predictions.
    Google will launch the Web Service competitors GStorage, GCompute, and GAmazonFlexiblePaymentService.

  • 6.Your Best Shot 2007 Samplr, collected by Flickr, features the most interestingness of any list in our top ten. Flickr.jpg
  • 5.Silicon Alley VC blogger Fred Wilson sure can pick 'em. No, not startups. Rock bands. Like the ones in his Top Ten Records 2007.

  • 4.The second Wired entry — out of nearly a dozen folks, so there's real competition here! — to make our list has to be The Top 10 New Organisms of 2007 because it reviews how we did playing God last year.
    Cancer-fighting Clostridium bacteria Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment mean that a cancer diagnosis is no longer always a death sentence. But certain oxygen-starved parts of tumors are still difficult to reach with the old methods. Enter the Clostridium family of bacteria. Injected into the body, they grow and multiply only in the oxygen-poor parts of cancer tumors. In September, scientists in the Netherlands showed they could arm Clostridium bacteria with therapeutic protein genes, essentially creating search-and-destroy tumor missiles.

  • 3.We're not going to pretend we understand the Large Hadron Collider, which comes online in 2008, according to Ars Technica'spredictions for 2008. "The Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles, and dark matter candidates all beckon," Chris Lee writes. We'll just show you this neat video.



  • 2.Tech CEOs say the darndest things, don't they? Like remember when Zuck said media changes every 100 years? Wired's editors do, and they bring it all back in their 2007 Foot-in-Mouth Awards.
    There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get. — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the iPhone, which is outselling all Windows Mobile phones combined.



  • 1. How's this for meta? We're going to declare Valleywag's own "The Web's top 10 top 10 lists" the winner. Meta FTW!

(Photo by andrer69)

]]> Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:00:29 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=338127&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Timesmen learn us good on lazy blogging ]]> Bits.jpgNew York Times tech writers are confused, or at least a little bit lazy. Over Christmas Eve they posted to the Bits blog a post titled, "Questions We Thought, But Didn't Ask, in 2007." Then, "A Few More Questions" And then, "More Questions." Reading them, it's clear that coming up with questions required no reporting, little research and maybe five minutes. Why didn't we think of that? One very special correspondent could have actually seen his wife over Christmas. Here are their top three questions — and our helpfully provided answers.

If you know someone obsessively checks his email on his iPhone, should you be insulted when he fails to answer your email in a timely manner? — Brad Stone
For mere mortals, the answer would be "no," but Brad, you should take offense. After all, you're Brad "Brad to the Stone" Stone, the Timesman who outed frigging Fake Steve Jobs. Has your email correspondent heard of you?
Are we about to enter 2008: "The year of the in-flight fistfight caused when the person next to you spends four hours from San Francisco to New York talking loudly on the cell phone about his/her dating habits/pet's grooming needs/excitement over the availability of airplane Wi-Fi?" — Matt Richtel
Yes, Matt, we're about to enter 2008.
If the theoretical limit of a social network is about 150 people, does an online social network decline due to the sheer weight of its popularity. Or is decline still tied to too many grandpas signing on making a network un-cool? — Damon Darlin
Actually, Damon, it's when people prone to tossing the Dunbar Number into casual conversation start signing on that a social network becomes uncool. ]]> Wed, 26 Dec 2007 08:40:27 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=337563&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ Wikipedia wins, I lose big bet on the news ]]> 2002_05.jpgBlogger Rogers Cadenhead doesn't get to declare the official winner of the bet between the Dave Winer and the New York Times. Google — the company, not the search engine — will call a winner, and the Long Now Foundation, which holds the cash in the pot, will decide the issue. I know because I set this all up in 2001, by talking to Google PR chief David Krane before approaching Winer and the Times to arrange a wager on whether blogs or the paper of record would cover the big stories of this year better. The bet ran in Wired's Long Bets issue.

To be honest, I was sure the Times would win. But I'm enjoying Cadenhead's assessment that Wikipedia wins the bet — isn't that the sort of twist any Webhead would want? Cadenhead has exposed the flaw in my genius idea: I presumed there were only two sides. That's journalist math. Any real techie knows there are never only two values to anything in real life. Even the 1's and 0's inside your CPU depend on where you draw the line between a 0 and a 1. Part of what makes the Internet so fascinating is it constantly proves there are potentially infinite outcomes to any story.

]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:20:38 PST Paul Boutin http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=336848&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ NetSuite files corrections for the New York Times ]]> Zach Nelson - ValleywagThe SEC's website is the new location of the New York Times' corrections page. NetSuite stock is up 12 percent today after its $26-a-share IPO debut, a long-awaited victory for the Larry Ellison-backed software company, as the Times noted earlier this week. Bu