• we read twitter so you don't have to

    Adobe-Yahoo rumor? Confab thrower's attention grab

    Professional linkbaiter Guy Kawasaki reports a "juicy tidbit" from the Gnomedex conference in Seattle: "Adobe is scratching their collective chins and in deep thought considering a Yahoo acquisition." We don't believe it. With a $23.61 billion market cap, Adobe isn't exactly in a position to spend $40 billion on Yahoo, even its stock price has finally sunk below where it was when Microsoft made its offer. So why the rumor? Look to its source: Chris Pirillo — the guy who puts on the Gnomedex conference, of which we admit to only a vague awareness before Pirillo sent a Twitter message about the rumor and got everyone talking about it. And him. And his conference.

    7:20 AM on Fri Aug 22 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    631 views, 1 comment

    Latest by Passerby: the day that happens is the day I uninstall all Adobe dev apps from my system. Seriously more »

  • your privacy is an illusion

    Chris Pirillo gets pwned on Pownce

    Chris Pirillo, the tech pundit and conference organizer, doesn't mind being exposed. But he does object to people stealing his identity, as some unknown user has done on Pownce, Kevin Rose's file-sharing service. Pirillo says he hasn't signed up on Pownce, and doesn't know who's using the username "chrispirillo" on the service. Among the people the faux Pirillo appears to have taken in, if you can trust any username on Pownce: Digg cofounder Jay Adelson, spokesblogger Robert Scoble, and Internet-TV personality Veronica Belmont. One thing Pirillo might want to look into: Someone has also signed up for Pownce with the login "lockergnome," the name of Pirillo's popular tech website.

    5:49 PM on Fri Jul 27 2007
    By Owen Thomas
    980 views, 5 comments

    Latest by Owen Thomas: @Atunu: By "gay," I hope you mean "extremely awesome." Sort of like Valleywag's editor. more »

  • scobleizer

    Bloggorrhea: Scoble's cancer

    • Bigtime blogging couple Robert and Maryam Scoble presented "10 Ways to a Killer Blog" this weekend. One rule Robert learned: If you call HP's chairwoman "a cancer," then find out she has cancer, it's wise to apologize. [Xark]
    • PR firm Edelman's chief apologizes too, for being less than honest about Wal-Mart paying two bloggers to act like unbiased fans of the company. (BusinessWeek explains here.) [Edelman's apology]
    • The Online Marketing Blog interviews Gnomedex conference organizer and tech pundit Chris Pirillo, ten-time winner of "weirdest dude on the Internet," last seen standing naked on a cruise ship. [Online Marketing Blog]

    5:50 PM on Mon Oct 16 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    163 views, 1 comment

    Latest by RayEverettChurch: Leslie Dach, who I believe ran Edelman's DC operations, recently left to work for Wal-Mart and according to Washingtonian Magazine more »

  • weird al

    Loose Wires: White and Nerdy

    • Mr. Cheney goes to Menlo Park: The big Dick is raising money for the Republican Party in a reception at Sequoia Capital, just to prove that a neocon can get something out of Northern California. [KCBS]
    • PC World lists the 25 hottest pieces of linkbait worst web sites, starting with weirdo tech pundit Chris Pirillo's RentMyChest.com and finishing with MySpace.com (motto: "The House that Fug Built"). [PC World]
    • "Body By Jake" sues AOL for fraud and forgery. Read the article to find out how often you can hear a writer refer to an entity as "Body by Jake" before you get creeped out and have to stop. [eWeek]
    • Why did Hewlett-Packard hire a Boston detective firm to hunt an internal press leaker? Maybe because the pretexting methods used in the investigation are explicitly illegal in California, according to the state's attorney general. [NY Times]
    • Eat your vegetables: Linux Journal lists the hacker/coder blogs worth reading. [Linux Journal]
    • One of those bloggers, Firefox cofounder Blake Ross, recalls working at Netscape during high school. "Netscape was one giant WTF, or as they called it back then, AOL. The company had grown so inept that 'WTF' became just another thing we said each day, like 'Hey' or 'What time is it?' or 'We just lost another 5%' or 'Marketing wants to replace the Back button with an ad for Bowflex'." [The Daily WTF]
    • How are tech conferences like political parties? No minorities, no women, and one token gay. [Factory Joe]
    • Speaking of which, listen to Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" (video premieres on AOL on Monday). Laughing at it doesn't make you nerdy. Counting the verses that apply to you (I edit Wikipedia! Stephen Hawking's in my library!) makes you nerdy. [Weird Al on Myspace]

    8:05 PM on Fri Sep 15 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    347 views, 2 comments

    Latest by ray johnson: When the person doing it has the money to hire lawyers to sue you for slander. more »

  • chris pirillo

    Geeks gone wild: Chris Pirillo is a naked wonder in Alaska

    Tech pundit and Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo just peaked his career as a notorious exhibitionist (just see his site, Rent My Chest) when he joined the Naked Wonders photo group today with this special shot from Alaska. More »

    2:01 PM on Mon Aug 28 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    6,954 views, 6 comments

  • chris pirillo

    Remainders: Get it off your chest

    • Barcampers spread the gospel of their unconference ("It's not religion, it's faith") in a slick mini-documentary. [Freevlog.org]
    • Gnomedex conference founder Chris Pirillo sells keywords on his chest. How long did it take him to airbrush that photo? [Rent My Chest]
    • More harrowing tales of inconvenience as California faces the result of its gluttony another blackout. [ZDNet]
    • Please, it's only news when a hacker conference finishes without the FBI dragging away one or two speakers. [Washington Post via Boing Boing]
    • The back-dated stock options scandal rocking the Valley may not be as fun as watching the Google boys fill their plane with hammocks, but it is important. So here's someone else to explain who's charging, who's charged, and whether it's more appropriate to call anarchocapitalist execs "criminals" or "dicks". [Spot-On]
    • Blogger Om Malik prints an excerpt from that hot new "Silicon-Valley-biotech-changes-the-world" book, which I really mean to read after one more episode of Battlestar Galactica. [GigaOM]

    9:17 PM on Mon Jul 24 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    69 views, 1 comment

    Latest by Chris: Yeah, you know you want "Web 2.0" on my chest - but Gawker has nicer chests on Fleshbot. ;) more »

  • marc canter

    Crazy uncle update: Sleepy, Grumpy, and Doc

    Here's a hit of news for all you crazy-uncle-watchers out there. More »
  • rocketboom

    UnBoomed unwound

    I am as tired of Rocketboom split-up news as you are. More »
  • gnomedex

    Geek out: Chris Pirillo pulls a Jackson at Gnomedex


    Okay, since everyone asked, here's your fanservice. Now geez, Robert Scoble, stop with the booty calls. More »

    3:51 PM on Mon Jul 3 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    1,481 views, 1 comment