Berkeley

Chegg's Dan Rosensweig Talks About the Next Wave of Online Textbook Rentals and More!

Kara Swisher in News on August 19, 2010 at 12:58 pm PT

Earlier this week, BoomTown went down to Santa Clara, Calif. to the offices of Chegg, the online textbook rental leader, to pay a visit on longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig. Today, in a bid to expand its offerings beyond books, Chegg said it had acquired Courserank, a Mountain View, Calif. start-up that helps students “share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.” Here’s the video.

Yahoo Adds New Privacy Tool for Users Today, Just as FTC Privacy Hearings Start (and Microhoo Regulatory Approval Is Pending)

Kara Swisher in News on December 7, 2009 at 4:03 am PT

Yahoo announced a new consumer tool this morning, called “Ad Interest Manager,” that gives users a “central place where Yahoo! visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity….” What fortuitous timing, since the first of three of the Federal Trade Commission’s “Exploring Privacy: A Roundtable Series” begins this morning in Washington, D.C. And, of course, the bigger backdrop is the pending regulatory approval of the massive search and advertising partnership with Microsoft.

Almost Famous: Brizzly's Chris Wetherell

Voices, Intern, All Things Digital in News on November 6, 2009 at 12:05 am PT

This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader.

Arianna Talks About New CEO, New Local Sites and Paying for Content

Kara Swisher in News on June 22, 2009 at 3:34 am PT

Huffington Post co-founder and blogging diva Arianna Huffington was in Berkeley this past weekend keynoting at the Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp 2009. So, BoomTown took the opportunity to motor over the Bay Bridge to catch Huffington on video between sessions about all the big changes at the news Web site of late, including a new CEO and local New York site.

Who Shot Valleywag? Gossip Bloggers Thomas (Outgoing) and Tate (Incoming) Speak!

Kara Swisher in News on May 1, 2009 at 9:20 pm PT

Was it Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in Fraiche Yogurt with a Macbook Air? Or Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the streets of San Francisco with a Model S? Or, most likely of all, Marissa Mayer of Google in the penthouse with a Manolo Blahnik spiked heel? For all the invective this trio has taken from him, all would certainly be prime suspects if some nefarious fate befell Valleywag’s always controversial gossip blogger, Owen Thomas. Actually, the truth is a little more mundane: The self-described “scourge of [Silicon] Valley” is moving onto another digital job as head of NBC Universal’s new Bay Area Web site, whose motto is “Locals Only.” Deceptively fresh-faced Ryan Tate is his replacement. Here are Thomas’s last words on the controversial gossip site.