Valleywag: San Francisco magazine

"Googirl" article vanishes from Web

Owen Thomas — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:55:51 PST

115,000 copies of San Francisco magazine, on newsstands throughout the city, name Marissa Mayer as Google's "Googirl." But on the Web, the article has gone missing. Could the editors have belatedly Googled "googirl"? The 13-page profile has been reposted with the humdrum headline "The adventures of Marissa." Boring. They could at least have gone with "Marissa explains it all." Any other suggestions for a replacement headline?

Marissa Mayer not really that kinky

Melissa Gira Grant — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:20:53 PST

I tried not to go there, really I did: San Francisco magazine's profile of Google cupcake princess Marissa Mayer is titled "Googirl". I'm guessing they didn't actually Google "googirl" before publishing. But if Marissa really is Google's googirl? You go, girl.

Marissa Mayer gets the cupcake treatment

Owen Thomas — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:20:28 PST

The only shocker in Julian Guthrie's profile of Marissa Mayer for San Francisco magazine: That the "gorgeously geeky Googler" is well-respected within the Googleplex. Perhaps among the executives Google PR trotted out for the ritual encomiums, but not among the rank and file. One engineering group so loathed Mayer that they threw a party when they were assigned a new boss. A ray of hope for anyone still suffering under Mayer's lash: In this piece, she announces that she may leave the company in two years. If, on the other hand, you can't get enough of Mayer, here's some obsessive biographical detail exerpted from "Googirl," as well as the article's opening shot:

$5 million, 38th-floor penthouse at the Four Seasons
Mayer is infatuated with the color purple ... a formfitting deep-purple dress by C.D. Greene with small black mirrors ... the bedroom's violet walls — replicated from one of her favorite cashmere sweaters — ... announce her love of eye-poppingly bright colors and Marimekko-type patterns
A social climber who paid $60,000 to win lunch with Oscar de la Renta
Once dated Google cofounder Larry Page
Rumored to be worth several hundred million dollars
As vice president of search products and user experience, Mayer manages 150 product managers, who direct the efforts of nearly 2,000 software engineers
Her pet dog, an Aibo robot named Rover
She also has a Craftsman in Palo Alto
She'd recently bought an array of cookbooks to study the cupcake recipes in each, created a spreadsheet for the ingredients, and then tested the recipes before writing her own
She made another spreadsheet for frosting.
The ceiling installation she commissioned from the famous glass artist Dale Chihuly: 400 pieces of blown glass in the shapes of sea flora and fauna.
A wall-size light panel with 576 individually placed Ping-Pong balls, which Mayer made over eight weekends spent home alone, inspired by the light display she'd seen at a 2005 U2 concert.
Original works by Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, and Roy Lichtenstein.
Mayer had 12 job offers: Carnegie Mellon, McKinsey, Oracle.
For the first month at work, she was a closet InfoSeek user, turning her computer screen so no one would see.
Her high school debate team ... won the state championship her senior year.
Her all-time favorite foods include duck confit Sloppy Joes, sliders of Angus beef with brie, and macaroni and cheese with lobster.
dozens of Mayer's favorite Sprungli Luxemburgerli (bite-size macaroons), which she brought back from Zurich, where she was on business a few days earlier. She even sent invitees a Wikipedia link to information about the treat.
Mayer samples a piece of cake and says, "I'm a huge fan of frosting. Vanilla fudge is my favorite. It gives you brain euphoria."
Her favorite designers are de la Renta and Carolina Herrera.

FULL COVERAGE OF THE GOOGIRL SCANDAL

"San Francisco" trashes Yelp -- and its own ethics

Owen Thomas — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:43:03 PST

A recent piece on Yelp written for San Francisco magazine by one Karen Solomon roughs up the local-reviews website, but Solomon's critiques are mostly on target: The site's audience is insular and dominated by Bay Area residents; it has struggled to expand to other cities and define a business model. Just one small problem: San Francisco magazine reviews local businesses. In between throwing lavish parties, Yelp runs a website which lets its users do the same. So the two compete, at least in theory.

Solomon's claims would be more credible if they didn't appear in San Francisco, plainly a Yelp rival. Oh, and then there's Solomon herself: According to her resume, she makes a living writing reviews for other businesses that compete with the website — Zagat, CitySearch, AOL, SFStation, and so on. Neither conflict is disclosed anywhere in Solomon's piece. Not that a local city rag should be expected to uphold great standards of journalism. But such outlets are usually masters of stating the obvious.