Valleywag
d6 live coverage
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d6 live coverage
d6 live coverage
Invading D6, the Wall Street Journal's posh pooh-bah conference
CARLSBAD, CA — D, the Wall Street Journal schmoozefest which opened today with a round of golf at the Four Seasons Aviara Resort, is not the conference for the rest of us. It attracts a host of tech and media CEOs who agree to be harangued onstage by Walt Mossberg, the sexagenarian of sexy gadgets, and Kara Swisher, the diminutive media commentaterrorist of AllThingsD.com. In exchange, they get to seem classy and witty, if only by comparison. It is the sort of elite event to which Valleywag is not invited. We showed up anyway. More »
RIM seeds new $150 million venture fund for BlackBerry software
Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced a new $150 million Blackberry Partners Fund which includes private Canadian investors, RBC and Thomson Reuters. The fund will focus on companies building technology that works with RIM's popular BlackBerry mobile devices. And it raises the question: Why isn't the large installed base of BlackBerry devices motivation enough for developers? [PEHub]
bubble 2.0
Are VCs fleeing the Web? Yes and no
Most venture capitalists are adept followers of the herd. As such, their investments are best seen as trailing indicators — the financial detritus of events past, rather than predictors of what to come. Is there a bubble in Web startups? The numbers themselves are as confused as investors. Dow Jones says the first quarter saw a record $1.58 billion in venture capital invested in Internet companies. Thomson Reuters says its figure of $1.3 billion was down 7 percent from the fourth quarter. Data about VC investments is hard to obtain, and the two categorize companies differently. Anecdotally, it's clear that smart VCs have stopped funding every new social-media website and online-ad network that cross their desks. But the Valley remains awash in dumb money that has yet to be called home. The popping of this bubble will take more than a quarter's time.
second life
Linden Lab CEO stepping down
Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale is stepping down as CEO. The Benchmark Capital-backed company is looking for a new chief with more operational and management experience. "This is my life's work. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm still full-time on this, probably for the rest of my life," says Rosedale, shown here as his Second Life alter ego. The story was broken by the Reuters Second Life news center within Second Life. This is likely the only news ever broken by the bureau that you'll care about.
envy
More social networks you're not good enough to join
You may have heard of ASmallWorld, the social network where, rumor has it, the super-rich plan their baby-eating, wife-swapping debauchery and hunts for endangered species. Or something like that. My coworker Megan McCarthy has an account, so it can't be all that exclusive. It turns out there are more social networks for the elites and for the second time in four months, BusinessWeek has profiled them. More »
Portfolio, a bit late, takes note of the great blog rollup, where the selling of blog advertising increasingly becomes the province of big media companies. But blogger Felix Salmon's ignorance of the online-advertising landscape shows. Reuters, far from being the pacesetter as Salmon suggests, is behind the competition. "But it's clear that sooner or later, Big Media's online salesforces are going to be selling ad inventory on third-party blogs," he writes. Really? You don't say?
media
Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo pride themselves on getting photos of new cell phones and MP3 players before anyone else — even the lightning-fast wire services. And to protect their scoops, they've taken to watermarking their photos. A wise practice. Reuters has apparently run, uncredited, a composite image, above, incorporating three watermarked photos from a post that ran last week on Engadget detailing Verizon Wireless's new holiday line. Product photos are generally seen as fair game by gadget bloggers, of course — but for Reuters to carry Engadget's watermark but not acknowledge the blog in any fashion seems not just ungracious but clueless. (Photos by Engadget, not Reuters)
Did Reuters steal an Engadget photo?
Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo pride themselves on getting photos of new cell phones and MP3 players before anyone else — even the lightning-fast wire services. And to protect their scoops, they've taken to watermarking their photos. A wise practice. Reuters has apparently run, uncredited, a composite image, above, incorporating three watermarked photos from a post that ran last week on Engadget detailing Verizon Wireless's new holiday line. Product photos are generally seen as fair game by gadget bloggers, of course — but for Reuters to carry Engadget's watermark but not acknowledge the blog in any fashion seems not just ungracious but clueless. (Photos by Engadget, not Reuters)
social media
Does everyone need a Myspace?
The Guardian reports that Reuters plans to launch a subscriber-only Myspace-like social media construct aimed at the financial industry. Perhaps I radically underestimate the desires of fund managers to add each other as friends and play obscure emo tracks on their homepage, but this seems like needlessly reinventing the wheel. If Reuters wanted to court financial folk, why not just brand and customize an existing social media space? A Reuters Financial Facebook, or something. The newscorp isn't giving out many details, so perhaps that's exactly what they're doing. One Myspace is enough (and more than enough) already.
second life
