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In Brief
In Brief
In Brief
John Battelle's inflated numbers
Back during the last boom, boastful internet sites used to refer to the "hits" shown by their server logs, as if that was a measure of popularity. They glossed over the fact that every image on a page registered in the raw statistics, and so every single page viewed could easily add ten times as many hits. In 2006, there's a new fiction: that every feed downloaded, even if the content is never seen by a human being, counts as web traffic. And Federated Media, an ad network founded by one of the internet industry's most luminous luminaries and backed by the New York Times, among others, is guilty of it. For the proof: More »
In Brief
Test shows most VCs unsuited
Guy Kawasaki, the Mac evangelist turned investor, has assembled a fabulous online test for the greedy or idealistic graduates who gravitate to venture capital. Except, like driving tests, it should be applied also, on a regular basis, to those already with permits. Most of the weaker partners at venture capital firms would flunk. Then, again, so would the Valley's most successful single investor. Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, backer of both Yahoo and Google, was never a CEO (- 2 points), does have an MBA (-5 points), and a stint as a journalist is such a stain that it doesn't even bear asking about.
In Brief
Huffpo's surprising San Francisco hire
The Huffington Post says it is hiring experienced reporters, to produce more original stories, rather than rely on unpaid bloggers as much as it has. And so the political news and comment site, in its first Bay Area appointment, has turned to... More »
In Brief
Chris Anderson booted from cover of own magazine
Ouch. Chris Anderson says Wired magazine, having picked lonelygirl15 over Chad Hurley for its latest issue, makes its own editorial destiny, and doesn't allow babe-obsessed focus groups to dictate the cover photo of the futureporn glossy. But a correspondent notes that the Wired editor, erudite, earnest and male, had his own signature story, about the long tail and the new market for the obscure, voted off the cover by shallow test audiences. The story, after the jump: More »
In Brief
What should Google trim next?
After the mercy-killing of Google Answers, the expert advice marketplace that never matched Yahoo's equivalent, what should the search company close next? Even after Answers finally shuts, Google will still have 85 web apps and other products. Which doesn't really matter, because the sale of text ads against search results is such a goldmine that Google is easily forgiven its time-wasting hobbies. But, in the interest of neatness, if not financial survival, what should the search engine company trim next? More »
In Brief
Hacking Google's holiday gift
Those naughty Adsense affiliates. The search engine company sent a digital picture frame, and a holiday card, to high-earning sites, which carry Google text links in exchange for a cut of the advertising spend. Only to have them load up the gift with porno images. So, let's get the process straight: webmasters post up linkbait articles, like top tips for geek weight-loss, exploit advertisers who think they're promoting their wares next to relevant content, and then abuse Google's generosity.
In Brief
Internet advertising is 'insane'
In the television business, most advertising is traditionally sold a year ahead of time, by a time-honored mechanism known as the upfront market. Randy Falco, the email-hating TV executive recently tapped to revitalize Time Warner's AOL internet portal, was surprised that the internet ad business doesn't work the same way. A correspondent witnessed Falco's debut at AOL's Dulles HQ: He was only around for the one day, but still no email address. Apparently does not understand the advertising model here and doesn't understand what dynamic ad pricing is. His comment was that it sounded insane to have anyone but finance set the ad prices.
In Brief
A product nazi for Yahoo
So, to the speculation that Sue Decker, CFO of Yahoo, is being lined up to succeed Terry Semel as boss of the aimless internet giant: it's a pleasant daydream, for various reasons I'll go into, and a really misconceived idea. What Yahoo needs to do is to hire a product nazi. Valleywag's madcap idea, after the jump: More »
In Brief
Homebodies do it better
It is an unquestioned mantra of venture capital: fund no startup farther than a zipcode away. Or a 10-minute drive. (Unless you're Tim Draper of DFJ, courting jetlagged Russian entrepreneurs with anthems to capitalism.) And I thought this trope sprang from the lazy thinking, and lazy lifestyles, of most venture investors. But, turns out, there may be some measurable benefit from local investing. More »
In Brief
Get me out of this job!!!
Well, this is one way to leave a job, or one way to get a personal blog linked from Digg. User geekcapital, over at the geek tabloid news dump, has made an open web vow to quit, and tell the boss what he thinks of her — but only if his item gets enough votes to push it to the social news site's front page. An online vow, geek rage, a real-life version of The Office, a touch of misogyny: this has got all the ingredients of a Digg hit.
In Brief
The house that Youtube bought
The 10,500 square foot Tiburon house, owned by tennis star Andre Agassi, has been sold to one of the investors in Youtube. Stuart Peterson of Artis Capital Management, the new owner, is one of the hedge fund investors who've been elbowing their way more recently into early-stage venture deals. He came in alongside Sequoia Capital, discreetly, when the online video host raised $8m to meet its growing bandwidth costs. Within six months of that round, Youtube, riding on the popularity of unlicensed clips from the Daily Show and quirky home movies, sold to Google for $1.65bn. The house, which sits on a 3.5 acre estate, sold for more than any other property in the Bay Area this year, $20m.Details of the house, and more photos [VC Ratings]
In Brief
Add no nitrates
Google's nutritional standards are as fickle as the search company's acquisition strategy. First, they fatten up their engineers by making snack food and candy available, for free, on campus. And then there's this, the culinary team's mission statement — no nitrates, no antibiotics, no hormones — pictured after the jump: More »
In Brief
The marketers take over Second Life
When will marketers understand that it's not cool to open up a branch in the over-hyped Benchmark-backed virtual world, or invite pitches? Or, for that matter, create a fantasy holiday event, as media conglomerate NBC Universal is doing this evening. A frog band, swaying avatars, and, at 6pm Pacific — can you feel the excitement building? — the lighting of the trees around a skating rink much like that outside NBC's headquarters, at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Except much lamer, as Valleywag's Second Life correspondent reports, live. More »
In Brief
Wired: Chad Hurley considered but never 'tested' as cover star
Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine, writes to say that the YouTube founder was ruled out for the cover before the futurist lifestyle magazine ever ran it past test audiences: "This isn't a matter of he said/she said or speculation. It's simply a matter of fact. Several hundred people participated in the cover test, as always, and clearly your source was not one of them. We certainly considered a Chad Hurley cover in the planning of the issue and did shoot the photos with that option as a possibility. But when it came time to test, it was all LonelyGirl, based on our own judgement, not some panel's."
In Brief
The shrinking Merc
The San Jose Mercury News, the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a hometown paper, is gutting its editorial staff. Management's told the newspaper's union that as many as 69 journalist jobs will go. The cutbacks aren't unexpected. The Merc's been losing classified revenue to online competitors, primarily Craigslist. The newspaper's been through three owners in the last year, being passed from Knight-Ridder, to McClatchy, and then onto MediaNews, which owns the Oakland Tribune and other Bay Area newspapers. To think that, once upon a time, it seemed as though the Merc would translate its print monopoly in Silicon Valley into a power in online tech news coverage. This is how the dream ends. The announcement email, after the jump. More »
In Brief
The appeal of Tony Robbins
It's not immediately obvious that Silicon Valley — an island of science and reason in a country overrun by alien abductees, jabbering Pentecostals and creationists — would fall for Tony Robbins. But there are six reasons why the motivational speaker is attracting a following, including San Francisco's enduring attachment to new-age cults, and the geek's enduring adulation of the charismatic high-school jock. For the full list: More »
In Brief
Tony Robbins bewitches TED attendees
Fortunately, there's video of the motivational speaker's performance at TED. I admit that it looks rather more gripping than the usual panel of gray-faced executives huddled behind a panel. I particularly enjoyed Robbins' shameless pandering to the audience: I'm not here to motivate you, obviously, you don't need that. All of us here have great minds. The full clip, after the jump: More »
In Brief
Benioff's press junkets
Marc Benioff's still schmoozing reporters. When the publicity-mad web billionaire is not having them detained, of course. Wall Street Journal reporters say that, having accused one of the newspaper's meekest reporters of being a stalker, he's now trying to make up with golfing invitations to Paul Steiger, the Journal's managing editor. Last week, in New York, a dinner discussion on venture philanthropy, a suitably profligate freebie for the journalists invited, to which he'd invited Matthew Bishop, from The Economist, Blaise Zerega, managing editor of Portfolio, Conde Nast's forthcoming business magazine, and others. And, if you're in San Francisco on December 12th, don't miss this lunch, email invitation below, at the fancy Clift Hotel: More »
In Brief
Cultists 'swarmed' at publicist's party
FROM VALLEYWAG'S UNDERGROUND PARTY CORRESPONDENT: My buddy X. was swarmed by Tony Robbins acolytes eager to convert her at Renee Blodgett's birthday party last night. He suspects the Valley is riddled with them and that they are all undercover until they get together, at which point they start looking and sounding a little bit too "Up With People". She fled the party. More »
In Brief
Tony Robbins' Valley following
Silicon Valley, built on the obsessions of autistic geeks, couldn't possibly fall for a new-age huckster, could it? Oh yes it could. Welcome to the cult of Tony Robbins. The motivational speaker Valley fans include Marc Benioff, the publicity-mad web billionaire and Valleywag obsession; Renee Blodgett, the ubiquitous tech publicist; and Sandy Montenegro, a former Siebel sales exec who possesses an ego-wall even more extraordinary than Auren Hoffman's. And there are more, many more. A Valleywag correspondent — and, please, do write in with your own experiences — recently had to escape a group hug of Robbins cultists. Will post that note in a minute.
In Brief
Women missed Sergey's potential
An obsessive Valleywag archivist found cute baby pics of the Google co-founder, in an old 2001 feature. But we didn't notice that Sergey Brin was actually pipped for first place in the Women.com poll. Women.com member jj101 chose Brin: "Sergey is a cutie tootie." But the search engine entrepreneur was beaten out by Philip Kaplan, then of Fucked Company. Kaplan is now founder of AdBrite, a small ad network. Sergey Brin's net worth is $15bn. Oh, but it's not about the money.
In Brief
Abandon a Google baby
Since Google is so slow to euthanize its weaker offspring, how about some prodding? Even after the closure of Google Answers, the search company still has 85 search projects, web apps and other products, and the engineers are no doubt working on more wacky pet schemes in their 20 per cent time. They can't all be worth keeping. Your suggestions for the next cull, in comments, please, or to tips@gawker.com. Froogle? Send to Phone? Sketch Up? Joga Bonito? If you need to jog your memory, there's a full list of candidates, here, on the Wikipedia list of Google products.
In Brief
Marc Andreessen has Kvamme's back
After Mark Kvamme was born into one venture capital family, and married into another, and before he joined the family business, he was an entrepreneur. Sequoia Capital, the top-tier firm which took Kvamme in, touts his involvement in MarchFirst, a web development conglomerate that one of Valleywag's cynical commenters calls a poster child of the dotcom bust. In an email to Valleywag, Marc Andreessen, the Netscape founder and a poster child of something, himself, takes Kvamme's defense: More »
In Brief
Mark Kvamme's losses
Well, your guesses on the Sequoia Capital partner's losses were all over the place. Except for T., who guessed $100m. That's pretty close, I hear. And, yes, the calculation is a little unfair. Kvamme, whose father, and wife's father, are venture capital legends, joined Sequoia in 1999 — too late to capitalize fully on the last bubble. In business social network LinkedIn and ad broker AdBrite, he has two decent portfolio companies: neither will sell for a billion any time soon, but they're probably worth more, in the current market, than the value on the books.
In Brief
Answers deleted
What a relief. Google is finally trimming its product line, closing down Google Answers. This is, as far as I can tell, the first time the search company has ever shuttered a service, if one doesn't count Google X, a Google search page redesigned in the style of the Macintosh operating system, which popped up as a Google Labs experiment, and then disappeared a day later. Google has renamed or merged several other products. So, what's the measure of the new, lean Google look like? 85 identifiable specialized search engines, web apps and other products; and fewer than five of them provide any meaningful revenue. For three implications, and the announcement notice: More »
In Brief
