D9 Conference | May 31-June 2, 2011 | Rancho Palos Verdes, California

When You Wish Upon Two (Web) Stars: CEO Bob Iger Talks About the Next Digital Direction for Disney

Kara Swisher in News on October 4, 2010 at 6:00 am PT

Yesterday, after Disney named two longtime Internet execs–Playdom’s John Pleasants and Jimmy Pitaro of Yahoo–as co-presidents of its Internet unit, BoomTown did a longer interview with CEO Robert Iger about the entertainment giant’s next Web moves to make it both relevant and profitable. Hope springs eternal. “I have tried to keep two obvious philosophies,” Iger told me. “First, that our current business not get in the way of adopting new technologies, and, second, that our business belongs on these new platforms.”

Viral Video: When Forests Attack–Al Gore Is Taping Toy Guns to Trees

Kara Swisher in News on November 23, 2009 at 7:00 am PT

Former VP and full-time envirogod Al Gore, who appeared at the fourth D: All Things Digital in May 2006, turned out to be a very funny guy onstage. And he’s funny on television too, as you can see from his appearance this past weekend on “Saturday Night Live.” In the bit, Gore talks about getting his crazy on to get folks to not forget about global warming.

Geek in Black: Barry Sonnenfeld Comes Out From Behind the Camera to…Vlog?

Kara Swisher in News on October 12, 2009 at 5:26 am PT

For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.” Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Disney CEO Bob Iger Has "One Hand in the Present and One Hand in the Future"

Kara Swisher in News on July 22, 2009 at 4:55 pm PT

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, is the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif. The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries. So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.” Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn. Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

Why Robert Scoble Is Wronger About "2010 Web": A BoomTown Translation!

Kara Swisher in News on June 2, 2009 at 12:37 pm PT

Oh, Scooby-Don’t… You could not be more wrong in your post last week–titled, “Why Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are wrong about naming Web 3.0 ‘Web 3.0′”–about Walt and I being wrong about naming Web 3.0 “Web 3.0″ in an essay we posted at the start of our D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week. I know writing “Kara Swisher,” “Walt Mossberg” and “Wrong” is well-nigh irresistible, but your solution of calling the digital era we are in the “2010 Web” is equally confusing and incorrect.

Ten-Gallon Congrats to Barry Sonnenfeld!

Kara Swisher in News on September 23, 2008 at 3:22 am PT

One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6). So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.