• blogging for dollars

    Guy Kawasaki writes his own blog -- well, except that one really popular post

    This is why people love Apple executive turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, whether or not he knows what he's talking about. At a Commonwealth Club event, Kawasaki was asked about his insanely popular "Ten Ways to use LinkedIn." Watch him squirm for a minute before 'fessing up: LinkedIn flack Kay Luo provided Guy with his talking points for the post. "I really needed a post — it was four days!" Guy, next time feel free to raid our inbox. We get more helpfully-already-written posts than we'd ever imagined possible.

    2:40 PM on Fri Nov 21 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    1,222 views, 1 comment

    Latest by shiwsup: A simple "Thanks to Kay Luo at LinkedIn for her assistance with this post" would have covered it. more »

  • nerdfight

    Facebook goes head to head with Google PR -- and blinks

    Mark Zuckerberg's social network has lost much of its swagger over the past year. He once thought nothing of poaching Google's best and brightest; then Google started poaching back. After Facebook's flacks learned that Google had scheduled its holiday press party on December 8, the same day as Facebook's planned media fest, they rescheduled for December 10, rather than fight for reporters' affections. Embarrassing — especially considering that Facebook's top PR guy, Elliot Schrage, came from Google himself.

    3:20 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,228 views, Comment

  • crash this bash

    Disinvite your favorite reporter from the Google holiday party

    It's becoming a holiday tradition: Google announces a holiday party for Silicon Valley reporters at its Mountain View headquarters, and Valleywag's invite gets mysteriously lost in Gmail's ever-canny spam filters. The invitation for the December 8 event, held again at the Googleplex's Cafe Slice, is nontransferable, so we can't accept any pass-along invites, alas. More »

    2:40 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,363 views, 3 comments

    Latest by IngaAsclepius: 2008 is a leap year, moron! more »

  • layoffs

    Firing fad spreads outside the Valley

    Hatteras Networks, as the name suggests, is in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company bragged to the Wall Street Journal that they've laid off 20 of 80 employees, weeks after Denton and Calacanis beat them to it. Tough times, totally awesome decisions! I only hope you recognize this one-company trend story for what it really is: An ad. The message is at the end: "Revenue has grown more than 100% every year for the last three years." Now they're sure to get a decent acquisition offer. All they had to do was fire the 20 most problematic employees.

    10:20 AM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    384 views, 1 comment

    Latest by macbeach: Theory has it that most of this country uses an "at-will" employment regime, meaning that companies can terminate people for more »

  • great moments in pr

    Hulu wants me to tell you they're catching up with YouTube

    You've never heard of media analyst company Screen Digest. Keep that in mind when you stumble upon a few dozen news reports today that claim "Hulu ... a smaller upstart backed by News Corporation and NBC Universal ... is forecast to draw level with Google’s YouTube in US advertising revenues next year." Any reporter who reads that sentence in the Financial Times instantly wonders, "forecast by who?" By the Financial Times? By Hulu executives? No, by Screen Digest. Take that as you will.

    9:20 AM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    707 views, 4 comments

    Latest by IsadoraBear: Paul, you're welcome to call me anytime and I'll show you our credentials, our client lists, and explain our methodology. more »

  • great moments in pr

    LinkedIn chairman avoids layoff talk in BusinessWeek

    Reid Hoffman's heft regularly makes reporters turn to their thesauri for polite terms for "fat." BusinessWeek, to keep the tone of a new profile appropriately flattering, writes of his "expansive body." But the article is anything but expansive in its probing of LinkedIn's business. It focuses instead on how Hoffman is trying to figure out survival strategies for his portfolio of startups. Nowhere are LinkedIn's own layoffs mentioned. Instead, Hoffman implies that the employees he put out on the street should use the site to seek new careers: "Every individual is a small business." Not an expansive one.

    3:40 PM on Thu Nov 6 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,199 views, 4 comments

    Latest by jeffthechimp: Sausage Linked-In. more »

  • great moments in pr

    Three's a Trendrr

    Dear Trendrr publicist who sent us a data dump on the presidential candidates' social-networking prowess a day after the election: Here's your "hit" on a hot "influencer" site that thinks you're "dumb." Hands up, everyone who still cares how many MySpace friends John McCain has this afternoon. Thought so.

    3:00 PM on Wed Nov 5 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    398 views, Comment

  • hires

    Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett really joining Yahoo after all

    Mountaineer, philanthropist, and longtime Microsoftie Jeff Dossett has a new claim to fame: He's brave enough to join Yahoo — but it took a while to convince him. Two months ago, Dossett, who joined Microsoft in 1991, went through a curious back-and-forth: BoomTown's Kara Swisher reported he was leaving Microsoft to join Yahoo. A Microsoft rep promptly denied the report, claiming Dossett was leaving a job at the software giant's MSN Web business, but looking at other opportunities within Microsoft. We could speculate about how Microsoft and Yahoo were bidding for Dossett's services, but the real lesson here is: Never, ever believe a Microsoft flack. Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who's leaving Yahoo as reported.

    1:20 PM on Mon Nov 3 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    921 views, Comment

  • great moments in pr

    Kevin Rose runs from the crowd

    Why is Kevin Rose on a publicity binge? In the past two months, the founder of headline-voting site Digg has garnered two magazine covers. There he is, with a smoldering leer on local San Francisco magazine 7x7. The look reminds everyone why Diggnation cohost Alex Albrecht once said that Rose, a prolific dater, has "plowed through everyone in town." For Inc., Rose participated in a wacky crowd shoot which echoed the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." It's obvious why Rose is a hot commodity: Write about him, and traffic to your magazine's website will soar. (Will he sell print copies? I doubt Digg users visit newsstands.) More »

    2:00 PM on Wed Oct 29 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    2,420 views, 8 comments

    Latest by D IS FOR DENTATA: Owen, I love how you parse this one back down to earth. :-) more »

  • great moments in pr

    At Time Warner, synergy still a sin

    I used to work at an arm of Time Warner, the media conglomerate. What employees there learn: Synergy is a joke, and the company's many divisions hate working with each other so much they'd sooner partner with outsiders than give someone in-house a deal. The most famous, if apocryphal, anecdote: When Time Warner Cable asked to license the Road Runner character from Warner Bros., the studio initially wanted to charge $1 billion for the use. Putting AOL in the mix only made things worse. I'd hoped things might have gotten better in recent years — through my retirement plan, I'm still a shareholder. A recent press release made me despair. The headline: "Warner Bros. Digital Distribution Partners with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment." Only inside Time Warner would a collaboration like this be considered newsworthy.

    11:20 AM on Mon Oct 27 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    618 views, 3 comments

    Latest by CareyCading: They are all fighting for the same discretionary money and time: when someone is reading Time, they aren't watching a more »