Twitter co-founder Biz Stone took time off from his myriad of witty talk show appearances to slap around a just-published Fortune cover story that was titled–get it?–“Trouble@ Twitter.”

Wrote Stone, in part, on his personal blog in a post titled “The Trouble Bubble”:

We founded Twitter, Inc. in March of 2007 and while we have long said it’s about the users, not the service, we have nevertheless enjoyed favorable media coverage. What took so long for somebody to write the article that says we are falling apart? The normal press cycle is to put a company on a pedestal and then knock it down. It’s much more interesting that way. Twitter has had so many ups and downs you’d think we would have had more negative press. To me, it’s like watching the movie Rocky–he’s up, he’s down, he’s out, he wins!

He correctly points out Fortune’s reliable proclivity–see Google, Facebook–to write a wildly positive piece about the latest tech phenom, followed by a smackdown, followed by a they’re-back! tome.

Now, it is the San Francisco microblogging company’s turn.

(In Fortune’s defense, you try selling a magazine these days without a hookish cover line! Hence, the hit-you-over-the-head wounded bird motif here.)

But vegan-y, nice dude that he is, Stone ends on a positive note:

“For a long time, we refused to hire a communications group and now that we have one, I’m having fun teasing them about this Fortune article but the truth is, we’re long overdue to be knocked down by the press.”

While it must be pointed out that Rocky suffered from brain damage in the last installment of the famed movie franchise, BoomTown awards a Stone-cold win for Mr. Biz-boa!

Here’s the full post:

The Trouble Bubble

We founded Twitter, Inc. in March of 2007 and while we have long said it’s about the users, not the service, we have nevertheless enjoyed favorable media coverage. What took so long for somebody to write the article that says we are falling apart? The normal press cycle is to put a company on a pedestal and then knock it down. It’s much more interesting that way. Twitter has had so many ups and downs you’d think we would have had more negative press. To me, it’s like watching the movie Rocky–he’s up, he’s down, he’s out, he wins!

Fortune magazine finally stepped up to knock us down with a cover article, “Trouble@Twitter.” Here are some examples of how this works. After mostly positive coverage of Facebook, Fortune finally published an article in April of 2009 titled, “Is Facebook Losing Its Glow?” However, later that year they published, “What Backlash? Facebook Is Growing Like Mad.” Google received similar treatment. In July 2010 Fortune published, “Google, The Search Party Is Over.” Later that year, they published, “Google Continues To Gain Search Marketshare.”

We’ve had lots of positive press from Fortune in the past. In July of 2010 they published an article titled, “Twitter’s Business Model: A Visionary Experiment.” The article ended with, “Facebook might want to take notes.” It may seem odd, but from my perspective, this means we are being taken very seriously. Twitter is an important company and it’s under scrutiny from journalists–this is exactly how it’s supposed to work. Now it’s our job to prove the reporters wrong so they can write an article later about how we have made dramatic progress.

The Twitter team is an incredibly dedicated group of people who truly believe they are doing the most meaningful work of their lives. It’s also a very small group of people when compared to the other companies Fortune is investigating. We still have under 500 employees–many of them working weekends and nights to fulfill a potential that is palpable. For a long time, we refused to hire a communications group and now that we have one, I’m having fun teasing them about this Fortune article but the truth is, we’re long overdue to be knocked down by the press.

Twitter has not scheduled Chirp 2.0, said spokesman Sean Garrett, but it does hope to host such an event at some point. In the meantime, the company is planning smaller developer gatherings, he said, adding that Twitter is “going to do more low-key stuff before we go big again.”

Chirp 2010 was perhaps a premature commitment by Twitter to grow up and become a business, laying out various revenue models and developer road maps.

At the time, Twitter was on shaky footing with its developers, having announced in the days prior to the conference that it was buying Atebits, maker of Tweetie, the leading Twitter client for the iPhone.

Amidst claims of betrayal, Twitter tried to make the best of the situation by engaging with critics and welcoming developers under its wing. It was sometimes awkward, but not unsuccessful.

Things are much different a year later. Dick Costolo, who played a supporting role at the event by walking through the company’s “@anywhere” publisher tools, is now CEO. Jack Dorsey, who was then absent, is back at the company leading product.

Featured speakers Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, then CEO and head of product, are no longer working at the company on a day-to-day business.

The most consistent players in the line-up are Biz Stone and Ryan Sarver, who have maintained their roles as Chief Late-Night Talk Show Guest and Bearer of (Often Bad) News to Developers.

One thing that hasn’t happened in the last year is a big business being built from the ground up on Twitter’s platform, like Zynga on Facebook. The most successful outcome for a Twitter-related business to date was probably Salesforce.com’s $326 million purchase of social media monitoring company Radian6 in March.

Meanwhile, Facebook also has yet to announce a date for its developer conference, known as f8, which was held in April last year, too. That event has been mostly annual, but somewhat irregularly scheduled. A representative for the company said f8 2011 is definitely happening, but didn’t offer a date.

Consumer Web heavyweight Google is much more on the ball, and sold out registration to its May I/O conference months ago.

Photo of will.i.am at the Chirp party courtesy of Flickr user d.mosher.

But! Where there’s a will, there’s a way. At least, if you work for Twitter fan Howard Stern, who had Biz Stone on his show this morning.

Stern and his crew seem obsessed with verification, and at the end of a 45-minute interview, Stern convinced Stone to bless one of his pals, too.

Ronnie the Limo Driver will get his badge today, Stone said. As of 4:30 ET, that hasn’t happened, but then again the Twitter team has a lot on its plate right now.

If you do have the time to spare, by the way, the Stern interview is quite good: Stone goes over the basics of Twitter’s history, as well as delivering a good anecdote about not selling the company to Facebook.

But unlike the other press appearances Stone has made, this one goes away from the standard talking points, and Stern gets him to go into his personal history, too. It’s both gossipy and humanizing–the kind of stuff that people love to hear from famous people, but very seldom get.

Ah–here’s one of the places I heard about it: Conan O’Brien’s newish show, where co-founder Biz Stone popped in for a chat. (O’Brien, you may have heard, is really into Twitter these days.)

Stone, who is on TV a lot, is good at it, too.

Stone’s appearances are fun, but Twitter’s real embrace of TV is happening a little bit offstage, where the company is working hard to get itself integrated into TV shows.

It’s still unclear exactly what TV can really mean for Twitter, but the company is smart to try to get itself into the industry, whose $70 billion-plus in annual revenue still makes the Web ad business look puny.

Twitter’s media blog, for instance, is touting Comedy Central’s use/promotion of the service during its kinda-unwatchable Donald Trump roast.

Comedy Central ran a Twitter hashtag on the bottom left corner for the duration of the show, prompting people to use it, which helped make the term appear on Twitter’s “trending” list, which presumably prompted more people to check out the show.

That’s a cool virtuous cycle, though I wonder if that’s a novelty that goes away. More important: Even if that strategy works long-term, how does Twitter turn Comedy Central’s use into revenue?

Still, if the Twitter team can convince the networks–and their advertisers–that Twitter helps bring more eyeballs to shows, and/or helps keep them there, then that’s going to be worth a lot, to someone. Twitter just has to figure out how to get a slice of that.

This week’s AOL news: All sorts of let’s-move-ahead-and-get-on-with-it pronouncements from CEO Tim Armstrong and content head Arianna Huffington.

For starters, I’m told, the company plans to announce a 30-day “giving back” campaign, where AOL employees will be encouraged to volunteer, and a series of articles in the Huffington Post will profile worthy charities and needy families.

Given that AOL just got rid of hundreds of people–and slashed the incomes of many other workers, by cutting off the freelance work it used to dole out–this one will prompt some eye-rolling.

But do remember that unlike many of the people who are writing about the AOL/Huffpo merger and layoffs, most of the company’s users/readers don’t have a personal stake in what’s going on there. And for them, a charity/volunteerism campaign may just sound like a charity/volunteerism campaign–a good thing.

That same audience may also be impressed that Huffington plans to announce she’s signed on Twitter co-founder Biz Stone as a “strategic advisor for social impact”.

What’s that mean? I’m not entirely sure, but apparently it will involve, among other things, Stone appearing in AOL-produced videos about philanthropy and good works–stuff he’s been interested in for some time. He’s not coming aboard for free, though–he’ll get some AOL equity as part of the deal. (I’m told this is a Huffington/Stone deal, not an AOL/Twitter tie-up.)

About the layoffs: They’re terrible for the people involved, some of whom I know. But they weren’t a surprise in any way. As soon as AOL announced its $315 million purchase of Huffington Post, it warned that it would spend $20 million on restructuring charges. That’s corporate shorthand for “money we’ll spend on severance and other layoff costs.”

It’s also not a surprise that Huffington is replacing a large swath of AOL’s editorial group with a smaller group of her own people. For one thing, that’s what happens in a regime change. For another, Huffington has recently handed out some expensive (for journalists) multi-year contracts to land editorial people from places like the New York Times. So no surprise that they’re staying.

Most important: Swapping out a big staff for a smaller staff is one of the big points behind the AOL-Huffpo deal in the first place.

Recall that the Huffpo people have proven to be very, very effecient at making a lot of Internet traffic from a small staff: Pre-merger, AOL was reaching about 112 million people in the U.S. every month with a staff of 5,000. Huffpo, with a staff of 200, was reaching 26 million.

Weirdly, the party line from AOL/Huffpo is that the company is not focused on cost-cutting, and that it’s going to replace most of the editorial people it just got rid of with new hires.

Given that Tim Armstrong’s team had previously told Wall Street it would be be able to wring $20 million in cost-savings out of the combined companies, something doesn’t add up here. But let’s see what Armstrong and Huffington have to say on Monday.

In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

The deal was signed late this afternoon, and the board of directors of each company and shareholders of the privately held Huffington Post have approved the transaction.

In an exclusive video interview BoomTown conducted earlier today in Dallas, just before Super Bowl XLV, both Armstrong and Huffington were jovial that the whirlwind deal, begun in November, actually worked out so quickly.

Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:

“One plus one equals 11.”

Get it? One and one next to each other is the number 11!

Let’s move on, shall we?

AOL said it is expected to close in the late-first or early-second quarter of 2011.

Once culminated, it will put Huffington in charge of all AOL content and other properties, including well-known names such as Engadget, Moviefone, MapQuest and TechCrunch.

She said she plans to move to New York from Los Angeles, although she will also maintain her longtime Brentwood home there.

And content for all these sites will be integrated deeply into the Huffington Post, giving it a huge new infusion of editorial material.

More to the point, the flashy acquisition–which essentially came together in less than two weeks in January–will become the linchpin of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s aggressive, if risky, strategy to focus the long-troubled company as a content and advertising powerhouse.

For AOL, the deal gives it a popular branded site that is very good at generating lots of page views and impressions very efficiently–which is the company’s whole thrust these days.

That means lots more ad inventory to sell and an injection of content talent, giving AOL the scale it desperately needs.

The move also obviously gives AOL a much-needed editorial identity and cohesion, which it doesn’t really have.

In fact, many think AOL needs a rallying point to bring clarity to its hodgepodge of recent acquisitions that all center on the notion that a strong company has yet to emerge in the premium content space.

Here is a mock-up of the front page of AOL tonight (click on it to make it larger):

While it all makes for a riveting narrative by the charming Armstrong, AOL still has not delivered the business turnaround promised after its spinoff from Time Warner in 2009.

Wall Street, which has given Armstrong a lot of rope, has become more impatient of late to see results–especially more robust increases in its display advertising business, as its access business dies off–after AOL spun off from Time Warner in 2009.

In its quarterly report last week, AOL reported earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $596 million.

But, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, although that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and eight percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

In any case, the move is a good one for the Huffington Post since it will vault it to the next level of growth.

Other companies, such as Yahoo and NBC Universal, had looked at the company as a purchase target, and many expected it to eventually sell out to a larger company.

Sources close to the Huffington Post said that that outcome seemed the most likely, and the recent expansion of the site and its audience made it a good time to do a deal now.

Talks with Yahoo last year went nowhere, sources said, but Armstrong was not as slow to act.

Indeed, the actual deal happened quickly, said Armstrong and Huffington in a video interview with BoomTown earlier today (which you can see here).

The pair started talking in early November of last year at the Quadrangle Conference in New York and continued their discussions through the holidays.

Armstrong made the official offer to Huffington by phone in January, while she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he was snowed in in New York.

Five time multiple to the Huffington Post’s upward of $60 million in expected revenue for the coming year, and nearly 10 times the $31 million for 2010, the offer was accepted quickly.

AOL used cash for $300 million of the purchase and $15 million in stock for the rest.

“The idea of turning a fire hose of traffic onto our content made enormous sense,” said one person close to the situation. “Everything is changing so fast, it seemed like the time was right.”

An IPO was also considered for the Huffington Post, sources said. But since the site only recently moved into profitability–although barely–such an event would have been farther out.

That’s despite the fact that the Huffington Post has seen fast-growing traffic and influence, spurred in part by Huffington’s larger-than-life persona in both the mainstream media and blogosphere.

The wide-ranging site–which has added a number of content areas in recent years beyond its flagship political offering–currently has almost 26 million unique monthly visitors, according to recent stats, moving in close range to established news organizations such as the New York Times.

That kind of success seemed unlikely when the Huffington Post launched on May 9, 2005, positioning itself as as a liberal counterweight to the popular right-leaning Drudge Report.

But the Huffington Post’s heady mix of celebrity bloggers, personality and voice, as well as aggressive curation of links from other sites, quickly caught on.

To fund its efforts, the New York-based online media company has raised $37 million from angel investors such as Lerer–the largest individual shareholder, followed closely by Huffington–and venture firms such as Greycroft Partners, Softbank Capital and Oak Investment Partners.

The growth has not been without controversy around issues such as lack of payments to bloggers who contribute and accusations that the site uses too much content from other Web sources when linking.

And Huffington herself has also been a lightning rod, which has been both positive and negative for the site.

But, there is no question she is one of the Web’s most prominent players, along with writing books, appearing on television frequently and being a fixture at high-profile events in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

That includes a never-ending panoply of parties that feature a potent mix of movie stars, corporate poo-bahs, glad-handing politicians and lots of journalists from all over the media.

In fact, full disclosure, I was at one of those parties this past weekend for actor Colin Firth and others involved in the making of the Oscar-nominated film “The King’s Speech.” (Apropos of nothing, actor Helena Bonham Carter is as smart as you would expect, but much more delicate.)

As part of the AOL deal, CEO Eric Hippeau–who has been integral to professionalizing the business and will be joining Lerer Ventures–and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman will leave the Huffington Post.

Ironically, Coleman was replaced by Armstrong as head of ad sales at AOL after he took over as CEO. Coleman got a big payout and will now apparently get another.

But the rest of the 200 Huffington Post employees are moving over to AOL with Huffington, who Armstrong hopes will be the company’s ace in the content hole going forward.

There are likely to be changes to come too at AOL, within weeks, especially in its content-side management and site staffs.

AOL provided some quotes in support of the deal from prominent Internet figures who know Huffington well.

“Arianna is one of the preeminent authors and editors of our time, and Tim has a remarkable track record of business success,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “Bringing them together creates tremendous potential for AOL.”

And Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

“Editorial vision and leadership are essential in order to transmute our shared cacophony of voices into a valuable dialogue. Arianna’s expertise, empathy, and entrepreneurial enthusiasm forms a kind of alchemy turning mere words and phrases into powerful expressions of humanity.”

Inter-Internet harmony: How sweet!

Here is the official press release, with all the details, but there is also an 8 am ET AOL conference call tomorrow:

AOL AGREES TO ACQUIRE THE HUFFINGTON POST

Acquisition Will Solidify AOL’s Strategy of Creating a Premier Content Network With Local, National and International Reach

Arianna Huffington To Lead Newly Formed The Huffington Post Media Group Which Will Integrate All Huffington Post and AOL Content, Including News, Tech, Women, Local, Multicultural, Entertainment, Video, Community, and More

The New Combined Media Group Will Reach 117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally

Group Uniquely Positioned To Redefine the Future of Brand Advertising and Marketing For an Engaged and Influential Audience

New York, NY–February 7, 2011–AOL Inc. [NYSE:AOL] announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors*.

The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age–leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement.

The new group will have a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world**. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

“The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

Armstrong continued, “Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years–though now at light speed–by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more–more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Huffington continued, “By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better.”

Kenneth Lerer, The Huffington Post’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said, “The Huffington Post team has created a potent brand with the proven track record of knowing how to grow traffic, inform and entertain its readers and build a one-of-a-kind online community. Add that to the powerful scale and resources of AOL and you have the perfect combination for today and the future. Together these two companies will be a premier online content provider. From local citizen reporting through AOL’s Patch, to The Huffington Post’s national reporting on politics, business and culture, consumers will have access to everything they want whenever they want it.”

AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Harry Shearer, Senator John Kerry, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Lawrence Summers, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Craig Newmark, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Russell Simmons, Sean Penn, Bill Gates, Norman Lear, Charlie Rose, Elizabeth Warren, Tavis Smiley, Sheryl Sandberg, George Clooney, and former President Bill Clinton. And the audience speaks back, generating four million comments a month***.

The Huffington Post’s affluent, influential audience, that is growing at a rate of 22 percent (December 2009 vs. December 2010)****, when combined with AOL’s massive scale, video offerings and local expertise, will represent an incredibly desirable demographic for a broad range of advertising partners across the board.

And here is Armstrong’s internal memo to the AOL staff:

AOLers,

We are taking another major step in the comeback of AOL. Today we are announcing that we have agreed to acquire The Huffington Post, one of the most exciting, influential, and fastest growing properties on the Internet. We believe in brands, quality journalism, and the positive role of communities in the world–The Huffington Post shares our values and the combination of the two companies will create the premier global and local media company on the Internet.

Co-founded six years ago by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, The Huffington Post has grown to become an industry leader–one of the Web’s most popular and innovative sources of online news, commentary, and information. Arianna and team have created a brand and a destination that focuses on the consumer experience. By combining The Huffington Post with AOL’s network of sites, thriving video offerings, local expertise and enormous reach, we will create a company that is laser-focused on serving our audiences across every platform imaginable–social, local, video, mobile and tablet.

The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus–80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.

The Huffington Post is a strong influencer brand and it attracts a valuable audience, including a great focus on women’s content. In addition, Arianna Huffington is a world-renowned expert on women’s topics and issues, and has enabled The Huffington Post to grow rapidly by continually developing new audiences.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a scaled connection between global and local communities on one platform. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way.

The Huffington Post will join the family of AOL Brands that are destinations for an influencer audience, brands like TechCrunch, Engadget, AutoBlog, and Moviefone. Uniquely, The Huffington Post is the platform for influential people–the people that drive trends, commerce, politics, entertainment, news, and information. Adding this strategic platform to our already strong network of sites, including the AOL homepage, has the potential to make AOL the most influential company in the content space.

Arianna Huffington is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Internet space and someone that is even more successful in building communities and relationships in every corner of the globe. The Huffington Post and Arianna have created a company that has partnered with the most successful and well-known leaders in all aspects of society that touch important topics to give consumers direct access to the most influential decision makers and community leaders.

This acquisition will create a high-quality and diverse digital ecosystem encompassing local, national and international news, politics, entertainment, technology, fashion, sports, health, personal finance, green, lifestyle, the arts and more. This deal will combine the amazing talent at AOL with the innovative and talented staff of The Huffington Post. Here are just a few high-level points around what this deal brings to market:

* Together, AOL and The Huffington Post will have 117MM unduplicated domestic monthly UVs, and ~270MM monthly UVs worldwide (according to comScore Dec 2010).

* The Huffington Post is one of the fastest growing web properties on the Internet. It grew 22% last year–that’s faster than Twitter, which grew 18% – and 15x as quickly as the Internet grew last year (comScore Dec ’09-’10).

* Both AOL and The Huffington Post count powerful, affluent users among their top loyal visitors, significantly over-indexing in $100K+ income users.

* AOL passed Hulu in unique viewers on video in the fourth quarter of 2010; video views on AOL are up 400 percent year-over-year.

* Between AOL’s innovative Project Devil ad unit, engaging users for 27 seconds longer than traditional display ads, and The Huffington Post’s highly-vocal community, with 4MM+ comments per month, we will marry attention-grabbing content and brand experiences for both advertisers and consumers.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a premier global/local syndication network at scale. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely, informative and entertaining way.

To maximize the strategic advantage of this great deal, we will be creating a new group at AOL called The Huffington Post Media Group. Within this group will be AOL Media, AOL Local & Mapping, AOL Search and our new friends at The Huffington Post. We will continue operating the towns structure, AOL.com and HuffingtonPost.com.

I’m thrilled to announce that Arianna Huffington will join AOL’s executive team as President and Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group. We have asked Jon Brod to lead the overall operational integration on the AOL side of the combined entities. Jon will lead the local group integration and work closely with David Eun and the teams in AOL Media. We will work quickly with The Huffington Post to create a combined organizational design to coincide with the deal closing. While we wait for the required regulatory reviews to be completed and the transaction to close before implementing the design, we will move very quickly to plan the details of the integration of the two companies. To this end, we will announce the new organizational structure as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we will continue creating great content and products for our consumers within the town structure and stay laser-focused on the aggressive goals we have set for our winter luge. We are on the right track and will continue our weekly operating cadence and town structure to drive successful results against our company goals.

Here’s a special message for all of you we taped to welcome The Huffington Post and Arianna to our AOL Family:

http://today.office.aol.com/company-news/2011/02/aol-agrees-buy-huffington-post

And of course we wanted to welcome Arianna to our “You’ve Got” video of the day–check her out on AOL.com.

We will be holding a company all hands meeting to address your questions related to today’s exciting news. We will video conference from our New York office on the 6th Floor at 9:30 AM ET and will be joined by Arianna Huffington and key executives from her organization. We will also be holding a call for our west coast offices at 2:00 PM ET and for our Patch offices at 2:45 PM ET. See below for meeting info (conference rooms will be sent out shortly).

AOL is playing to win…and The Huffington Post and AOL will occupy a unique place in the future of the Internet. Let’s go get it done.

–TA

(More full disclosure: As has been previously reported by MediaMemo, All Things Digital had the briefest and most preliminary of discussions with Armstrong about moving to AOL last year, while exploring several other options. All’s well that ended well: We stayed at Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.)

However, added sources, Google is fighting hard to counter the Twitter offer, so Pichai could easily stay with his current employer. At Google, which he joined in April 2004, Pichai is a VP of Product Management.

If successful, the hiring of Pichai would be a major raid for Twitter, and mark its place next to Facebook as an up-and-comer in the race to entice away top Google executives.

More importantly, Twitter could use the product help.

The San Francisco microblogging company, which just raised a massive funding, has done relatively little product development recently, in large part because its focus has been absorbed by overwhelming growth and infrastructure problems.

Pichai certainly fits the bill as a head of product for Twitter, given his job at Google. The well-regarded tech exec heads the Silicon Valley search giant’s high-profile Chrome browser and Chrome OS efforts.

Pichai was front and center at an unveiling of Chrome OS plans in November, and touted the Chrome browser’s 40 million users only a year after its debut in 2009.

But not everyone is so sanguine. Paul Buchheit, founder of Gmail (and FriendFeed) predicted a very short life for Google’s still-in-beta Chrome OS, noting–on Twitter in December–that he thought the product would be axed or fused with Android in 2011.

As Mobilized’s Ina Fried wrote at the time:

Google originally hoped to have Chrome OS-based computers for sale this year, but has run into some delays. Last week, the company released a beta version of the software and distributed to testers an unbranded laptop running the operating system. However, it’s worth noting that in doing so, Google has hardly made the strongest hardware case for the operating system, using a relatively bulky netbook with a reliable, but hardly power-sipping Intel Atom processor.

The idea of merging the two operating systems has some merit. Doing so would pair a top-notch browser with an ecosystem that already has a lot of applications and developers.

For now, the operating systems are distinct, with Android running hundreds of thousands of applications and used largely on phones, along with a few tablets, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. However, Google VP Andy Rubin confirmed after his appearance at last week’s D: Dive Into Mobile that the company is working on a new version of Android, known as Honeycomb, that is geared exclusively to tablets. (The full video of Rubin’s onstage appearance was posted on our site earlier today.)

Acer and a couple of other hardware makers have said they plan to do Chrome OS netbooks next year once the software is ready.

If hired, Pichai would fill an open spot left by the departure of longtime Twitter VP of Product Jason Goldman, who stepped down at the beginning of December.

The attempt to bring on Pichai to lead product brings into question former CEO Evan Williams’s role at the company. When he stepped down as CEO, Williams said it was in order to focus on product strategy, and when Goldman gave up his position, many assumed Williams was the natural substitute.

While Pichai would be a strong choice for the job, he has not been an active user of the product.

Until recently, that is.

Pichai’s own Twitter account has a grand total of 118 tweets, with about a third of them posted in the last month.

Yesterday, in an interview with BoomTown’s Kara Swisher at D@CES, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said some product goals for Twitter included a better experience for passive users and a more “agnostic” experience across platforms.

Costolo also mentioned a new zero tolerance policy for infrastructure problems, and said that Twitter does not consider itself a “platform company,” but rather one that has APIs.

The Google-Twitter connection is strong, and not just on the we-want-to-buy-you front–Google has often cast its acquisitive eyes at Twitter and still does.

And many Twitter employees were formerly Googlers, although not all in the same era or area.

Costolo himself came to Twitter after being at Google, which had acquired his last start-up, FeedBurner.

Other former Googlers include many on Twitter’s product team, such as Othman Laraki and Elad Gil, who were product managers at Google Mobile Maps and Google Toolbar before joining Twitter through its acquisition of their geo start-up Mixer Labs.

In addition, last year, Twitter nabbed Google lawyer Alexander Macgillivray as its general counsel.

And, of course, Twitter co-founders Williams and Biz Stone had worked at Google after it bought Blogger. They created Twitter after they left the company.

It’s possible that Pichai leaving Google might have something to do with the company favoring the Android mobile operating system over Chrome OS, but seems more likely that the Twitter role would just be a compelling opportunity for him.

Twitter declined comment, and Google has not responded to an inquiry about Pichai.

Until this nail-biting talent raid has a resolution, here’s a video of Pichai talking at the Web 2.0 Summit in 2009:

He’ll talk to Kara Swisher about the company’s efforts to sell advertising on the service, and if we’re lucky, he’ll give us a glimpse of his improv comedy roots, too. Don’t be shy, Dick!

Dick starts off by insulting Kara’s vest. “Matador casual,” he calls it. Good one! Kara responds by asking him why he’s hanging out at CES.

The same reason everyone else is, Dick says: To talk to industry people. For example, he’d like to get device makers to preload some features like “Fast Follow.”

Kara wants to know if Dick would like a “Twitter button” installed on phones. No, says Dick. But he’d like Twitter to work the same way on different platforms.

So how do you make that happen?

Dick: We’re assigning a product team to make sure that this happens.

Kara: And you’re talking to TV people, too? What’s that about?

Dick: Yep. Because mainstream TV viewing, more and more, they have a device in their hand when they’re watching TV. Like on “Glee.” The characters tweet while the show is on. [This baffles Kara.] When “Glee” starts, tweets per second for “Glee” shoot up, and stay up 100 times that level until the show ends, and then they drop.

That has interesting implications. Like, it takes the DVR out of the mix, because you have to watch in real time to make it worthwhile.

But we don’t know if all of this means Twitter while you watch TV, or Twitter actually on your TV screen.

Kara: Is it important for you to be on the screen?

Dick: We’re already on the screen. But we don’t know if that will be the mainstream experience.

Kara: We had Steve Levitan from “Modern Family” talking about how the Web doesn’t help him, but that he and his team like Twitter.

Dick: Sure! “I was having a conversation with Conan O’Brien, as one does” and he was talking about the importance of Twitter to him, and how the 140 character limit is the right length for a joke. It’s definitely the case that network TV people like Twitter, because it gives them feedback, like they’re in the theater, watching how the shows play out.

Kara: Keep talking about celebrities! I love celebrities.

Dick: Sure! The folks that we’ve hired to work with talent and agencies, etc., we think of those people has high-value publishers. They have a huge following. A lot of people are on Twitter just to hear what those folks have to say.

The interesting thing about the top 200 to 300 tweeters–a lot of them are musicians, actors, etc. LeBron James, etc. I think Lady Gaga is number one. But! They’re not all celebrities. There’s CNN Breaking News. And the New York Times. And other brands like Gary Vaynerchuk, who aren’t really that known outside that world.

And Twitter is disaggregating some of those businesses. Like a third of all the players in the NFL playoffs are using Twitter actively. And many players have more followers than their teams. [Here Dick explains football to Kara.] That’s fascinating.

Kara: Let’s go back to phones. Whats the most important device? Tablet? PC? Phone?

Dick: Mobile is a more and more and more common use of Twitter–40 percent of all tweets created on mobile devices. That might seem low, but it was 25 percent a year ago. 50 percent of active users are also active on mobile.

But Twitter ought to work platform to platform. We want to be agnostic.

Kara: What about what’s coming out from Palm? Working with them?

Dick: Not yet.

Kara: What about games? Talking to those guys?

Dick: Yep. Like with Microsoft on their Xbox, you can see integrating tweets into people who have discussions on Xbox.

Dick: You lost interest in the answer to your question. [True!]

Kara: You’re so annoying.

[Some laughter. Not a lot, though!]

Dick: Anyway, the important thing for us is consistency across device to device to device.

Kara: Speaking of working consistently, how’s that going for Twitter?

Dick: Right. So, we raised a bunch of money. We’re hiring “tons of engineers and operations engineers” in the last year. We hired 100 people in Q4, out of about 350 total. And we’re working very hard on erasing our “technical debt.”

Kara: “That’s a great word for fuck-ups”

Dick: Anyway, we’ve got a guy assigned to this pretty much exclusively. And there used to be a tolerance for this, and now there isn’t. If someone fires a pistol next to your ear every hour, after a while you stop flinching when you hear it. It’s crucial that we do this, both for our users and our engineers, who shouldn’t have to get up at 3 am all the time.

Kara: Time for a vision question, which stumps Yahoo. What is Twitter? What is your vision?

Dick: “We want to instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most important to them.”

See, that’s a good statement. We’re not just a social network that’s connecting people. It’s connecting for a purpose.

So some people meet girlfriends on Twitter. And other people get tickets to shows they like on Twitter. Etc.

And you don’t have to tweet to get a lot of value out of it.

Kara: What’s the percentage of people who just read Twitter, and don’t tweet themselves?

Dick: Rising. And we have to make that easier to do. “We’re going to spend a lot of time making that consumption experience much better.”

Kara: What’s your business plan?

Dick: To continue to raise money!

[hohoho]

Dick: I’m going to steal Jeff Weiner’s line. We’re a technology company that’s in the media business. Our business model is an advertising model [cough, cough, that's familiar! You're welcome!] So we’re selling ads, and we’re letting people promote their accounts, etc. And we really don’t have to do anything else. Our engagement rates on these ads are ridiculously high. When we saw our stats this last spring when we launched, the numbers were so big we thought we were measuring it incorrectly.

Kara: Is that a big enough business to be a standalone company and/or IPO?

Dick: It’s enough to be a standalone company.

Kara: Sell or IPO?

Dick: We want to be a standalone company. It’s my sincere hope. We’ve accomplished 1 percent of what we want to do.

Kara: You like to sell companies, though.

Dick. Yes, I had two companies that I sold. But that doesn’t mean we’ll sell this one. I’ve had two kids too. But I shouldn’t get a reputation for having kids.

Kara: What’s up with people buying and selling secondary shares of Twitter. It’s an issue for Facebook. What about you?

Dick: We keep an eye on it, and talk to employees about it. But I just think that there are other people that are focusing on it and paying attention, and I’ll let them talk about it. But I just don’t think about that stuff on a day-to-day basis.

Questions and Answers

Q: [sorry missed it].

But answer seems to be about whether Twitter is a platform company or not. Dick quotes Ev Williams by saying they’re not a platform company–they’ve had an API. They want people to be able build off Twitter and build into Twitter. Which requires a more robust API.

Kara has more questions. How do you look at yourself as a leader?

Dick: As a very bald leader.

Kara: But you’re very different than Evan.

Dick: Right. Two components. Three founders at company: Ev, Jack, Biz. They all come at it from a different angle. Jack thinks about simplicity and elegance and the mobile experience. Ev thinks about the user. Biz is “the protector of the brand and the guardian of the culture.”

Kara: He’e the guy who goes on Colbert.

Dick: And he’s great at it. Anyway, those guys are great. My focus is on operational greatness. I try to emulate operators like Ben Horowitz (Opsware) and Susan Wojcicki (Google).

Q: What’s up with that internal page rank for each user? asks Ben Parr from Mashable.

Dick: Your’re not exactly right. We play around with stuff like that. But there’s nothing robust that we would think of productizing anytime soon, and we don’t use it for things like resonance, which we use in ads.

Q: [Sorry, couldnt quite understand.]

Dick is talking about WikiLeaks in general, says there was something specific about WikiLeaks today that he can’t talk about. In general, he hates government mandates to keep things quiet. And he hates that a woman in China was punished for retweeting something. He reiterates Twitter’s desire to connect people with useful information. “We’re going to lash out at things that prevent us from doing that, as aggressively as we can.” The proof is that we’re banned in China. “We’re not going to sacrifice what we’re trying to do to, you know, get into this country over here.”

Q: How will you work with brands in the future, vs. advertising?

Dick: Our promoted suite of stuff doesn’t simply let advertisers use a giant bullhorn. This stuff has to be organic. “It almost is like a quality-assurance program.”

[Some context for what Dick wouldn't talk about: Feds Subpoena Twitter Seeking Information on Ex-WikiLeaks Volunteer].

Dick is now talking about Twitter and international growth and language. Twitter is growing fast in the U.K. but not in Germany. Why is that? Because German has really, really long words. “There’s a bunch of stuff we want to do, and have to do” just to make things usable in those languages.

Last question, from Kara: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen at CES?

Dick won’t give a one-word answer. CES is a “quantum conference.” Some years are transformational, some are incremental. “This seems like it was an incremental year.”

And we’re done! Thanks all for your patience. We’ll have video up over the next few days, which should help fill in the gaps left by my lousy note-taking.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-twitter-ceo-dick-costolo-at-dces/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/twitter-triples-team-in-one-year-buys-qa-startup/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/twitter-triples-team-in-one-year-buys-qa-startup/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:01:02 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1506 Twitter announced today it has acquired the talent behind Fluther, a Web Q&A product, in order to beef up its efforts to help users discover content. Twitter specifically said this is a talent acquisition of four engineers and one designer, and that the Fluther product will remain independent, though mostly unmaintained.

Twitter execs have often expressed a desire to improve their relevancy and discovery efforts so that the service’s constant stream of updates does not overwhelm users. Now, long after stating the priority, they’ve hired a team to make that happen.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone had served as an adviser to Fluther, which had been backed with $600,000 in funding from angel investors including Ron Conway, Naval Ravikant, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and FF Angel. Three-year-old Fluther had launched its own site, which focused on matching people with questions to experts with answers, as well as on a white-label tool for others to offer Q&A.

Along with announcing the acquisition, Twitter made the stunning disclosure that it now has three times as many employees as it had last year. The company said more than half its team is dedicated to engineering and operations.

Twitter has for most of its existence had plenty of funding, but it started staffing up seriously only in the past year or so, despite recurring problems with uptime. The company just raised $200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation in a round led by Kleiner Perkins.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/twitter-triples-team-in-one-year-buys-qa-startup/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/stephen-colbert-wins-twitter/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/stephen-colbert-wins-twitter/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:20:47 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27085 Stephen Colbert wins Twitter’s “most retweeted in 2010″ award for this one, from June (remember BPGlobalPR?):

It’d be cool if Twitter told us how many times that one actually was retweeted. For those of us who like numbers and stuff.

But whatever. Here’s Colbert’s victory celebration, from last night’s show. Biz Stone dropped by to do the honors.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Wins Twitter – Biz Stone
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

Oh. Also! Want to buy an ad on Twitter? They’ve got a Web site for you.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/stephen-colbert-wins-twitter/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101118/the-fail-owl-bear-and-the-down-clown-twitters-ev-williams-and-biz-stone-answer-some-of-your-questions/ http://allthingsd.com/20101118/the-fail-owl-bear-and-the-down-clown-twitters-ev-williams-and-biz-stone-answer-some-of-your-questions/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:15:51 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26041 A nice Thursday afternoon treat from the folks at Jimmy Fallon: Backstage footage of the Twitter dudes responding to viewer questions after their appearance on the NBC show last week.

It’s short, and it’s good stuff. Ev Williams and Biz Stone come off as funny, likable and confident. Like the kind of guys that could run a cool company or something.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101118/the-fail-owl-bear-and-the-down-clown-twitters-ev-williams-and-biz-stone-answer-some-of-your-questions/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101111/jimmy-fallon-ev-williams-biz-stone-and-twitter-history-101/ http://allthingsd.com/20101111/jimmy-fallon-ev-williams-biz-stone-and-twitter-history-101/#comments Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:57:13 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=25747 Jimmy Fallon has embraced technology in general, and Twitter specifically, since his late-night show launched last year. So it’s about time he had the Twitter dudes on to chat. Here’s his chat with Ev Williams and Biz Stone, which aired late last night:

And here’s a good example of Fallon’s use of Twitter, from the same show:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101111/jimmy-fallon-ev-williams-biz-stone-and-twitter-history-101/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100914/in-its-fifteenth-year-webby-awards-go-mobile/ http://allthingsd.com/20100914/in-its-fifteenth-year-webby-awards-go-mobile/#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:19:19 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=29627 As a reflection of the change brought to the digital world by the mobile Web and all that it encompasses, the folks behind the Webby Awards announced today that they are expanding the award categories to include apps for handheld and tablet devices. The new awards will be judged by mobile veterans including Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley. No word yet on whether the customary limit on acceptance speeches will be changed from five words to 140 characters.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100914/in-its-fifteenth-year-webby-awards-go-mobile/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100421/viral-video-biz-stone-gets-couric-ed/ http://allthingsd.com/20100421/viral-video-biz-stone-gets-couric-ed/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:21:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=27360

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone appeared yesterday on CBS (CBS) anchor Katie Couric’s weekly online “webshow” on CBSNews.com, which was streamed live.

Viewers could submit questions via, of course, Twitter @katiecouric.

On the show, Stone answered questions about a wide range of topics, including the microblogging service’s tipping point (a bar swarm at SXSW), understanding promoted tweets (don’t try), whether it is correct to say “twittered” or “tweeted” (or, as much funnier TV anchor Jon Stewart puts it, “twatted”), using Twitter effectively (apparently, Couric employs a Twitter temper), and why Twitter turned down the $500 million acquisition offer from social networking giant Facebook (we’re a real live company!).

I am not sure what was up with Couric’s smart-teacher glasses and the whole interviewing-remotely-via-a-television thing, but Stone did well.

Here’s the video of the full show, at close to 40 minutes, which is well worth the time:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100421/viral-video-biz-stone-gets-couric-ed/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100415/some-twits-chirp-from-twitter-conference-ev-biz-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20100415/some-twits-chirp-from-twitter-conference-ev-biz-and-more/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:13:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26740

Here’s a video BoomTown did yesterday at the Twitter Chirp conference, where a lot of noise was made about a lot of things.

Like: Twitter has a Google (GOOG) Android app; Twitter has a link shortener; Twitter does more searches than you think; Twitter has 105.8 million registered users and is adding 300,000 a day; Twitter users write 55 million posts a day; Twitter is being archived at the Library of Congress.

Also more blah-blah-blah on geolocation, metadata called Annotations and, of course, @anywhere, which is essentially Facebook Connect for Twitter.

And–oh, yes–making money. That.

Apparently, according to the execs in attendance, I will have to stop making fun of Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s name, calling him things like: No-Biz-Here Stone, Ain’t-Nobody’s-Biz-Ness-If-We-Don’t-Have-a-Business-Plan Stone and Biz Stone-Cold-Profits.

Now, given that the San Francisco microblogging service is introducing a number of advertising-related efforts in a quest to make some bank, I will have to change the name to Hey-Zuckerberg-We-Have-a-Biz-Too Stone.

Or, given some of the tensions with third-party developers over Twitter moving into their space in core development areas: Pardon-Us-While-We-Stomp-on-Your-Biz Stone.

In fact, that issue was the main focus of a panel I moderated yesterday afternoon at Twitter’s Chirp, titled “Investing in the Ecosystem.”

My dudes-only panelists included Polaris Ventures’ Mike Hirshland, Venrock’s David Pakman, Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, and Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton.

Mostly, they took my guff about the state of the Twitterverse, in what turned out to be a lively discussion.

While yesterday was all talk, from COO Dick Costolo (who mistakenly thinks he is as funny as I am), Twitter CEO and co-founder Evan Williams, Stone and others, Chirp today is 24-hour hackathon.

Here’s a video I did of interviews with a wide range of Twitter staff, investors and advisers–and blogger Robert Scoble, of course, who is as inevitable at an event like this as air:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100415/some-twits-chirp-from-twitter-conference-ev-biz-and-more/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100414/what-shall-boomtown-ask-the-twits-oops-i-mean-twitter-loving-vcs-at-chirp-today/ http://allthingsd.com/20100414/what-shall-boomtown-ask-the-twits-oops-i-mean-twitter-loving-vcs-at-chirp-today/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:21:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26701

Later today at Twitter’s Chirp conference in San Francisco, BoomTown is moderating a panel titled “Investing in the Ecosystem.”

Or as I like to call it, “How Do You VCs Come Up With Those Crazy Valuations: Magic 8 Ball? Ouiji Board? Darts?”

I have a choice group of dudes–of course, they are all dudes–for the panel, all of whom have invested in a range of start-ups, including Twitter.

They include: Polaris Ventures’ Mike Hirshland, Venrock’s David Pakman, Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, and Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton.

Presumably, the group of venture capitalists will give the audience the 411 on what goes into finding, feeding and nurturing the many innovative start-ups that populate the Twitterverse.

That is, until you actually try to compete with Twitter or make some dough without its sanction, wherein all the nice Whos-down-in-Whoville sweetness of the folks who run Twitter turns into the backroom at the Bada Bing with Tony Soprano and the boys.

(You can see Twitter COO Dick Costolo here, in fact, giving us his best Don Corleone in this video interview with MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka.)

The tensions of late between Twitter and the many third-party developers circling it are perhaps going to add some frisson to the two-day event at the Palace of Fine Arts, which costs $469 to attend. Twitter also just announced its advertising platform plan.

The first day is all talk, from Costolo, Twitter CEO and co-founder Evan Williams, co-founder Biz Stone and others. The second day is 24-hour hackathon.

For those not there, Twitter will be streaming the event live with the help of Justin.tv.

And, of course, there will be tweets–lots and lots of tweets.

[Sticker image courtesy of Zazzle.com]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100414/what-shall-boomtown-ask-the-twits-oops-i-mean-twitter-loving-vcs-at-chirp-today/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100223/yahoo-expands-twitter-relationship-in-next-stage-of-project-rushmore-complete-with-cutesey-bird-puns/ http://allthingsd.com/20100223/yahoo-expands-twitter-relationship-in-next-stage-of-project-rushmore-complete-with-cutesey-bird-puns/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:42:50 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24760

Yahoo announced tonight that it is dramatically expanding its relationship with Twitter, integrating it broadly through its Web site, much in the same way it did recently with Facebook.

In December, Yahoo (YHOO) announced that it would integrate Facebook Connect with its many properties–from its powerful media sites to its Flickr photo service to its email.

While the Internet giant once had grand plans to socialize itself, it seems that task is being outsourced to more successful and innovative companies in the social networking space, part of a massive integration of them across the giant Internet portal, in an effort dubbed internally as “Project Rushmore.”

So, as it previously indicated, Yahoo is now moving beyond Facebook, weaving Twitter’s real-time feed throughout the service in a variety of ways.

Under terms of the deal, users can access the microblogging service’s data stream while on Yahoo, make status updates and share Yahoo content.

In addition, Yahoo said that search and media properties “like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates across a variety of topics.”

Yahoo once again declined to comment on whether and when the service would be striking similar deals with other social networking sites.

But sources told me that MySpace and LinkedIn are likely candidates for the next two spots on Yahoo’s social monument.

That would, of course, account for the four presidential stone faces on Mount Rushmore–George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

No money was exchanged in the five-year deal with Facebook; nor was there any other financial or advertising element. Yahoo declined to give such details about the Twitter deal, but some sort of payment seems likely.

Whatever the case, other big Internet companies are getting into the social act.

Separately, both software behemoth Microsoft (MSFT) and search giant Google (GOOG) recently struck a data-mining deal with Twitter, and Microsoft did so with Facebook.

Yahoo’s deals are broader, because such an overall move by the company is an important and necessary one.

It is also very late in coming, since Yahoo nearly completely missed the social networking train and needs to figure out how to be part of it in a way that is useful to users, as well as open.

Here is the full press release from Yahoo, with more bird puns than BoomTown can stand (Sheila, I give):

@yahoo + @twitter Sitting in a Tree…T.W.E.E.T.I.N.G.

Yahoo! gives ‘em something to tweet about, partnering with Twitter to integrate content and social experiences from across the Web

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 23, 2010–As part of its ongoing commitment to be the center of people’s online lives, Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced a global partnership with Twitter to integrate Twitter’s real-time social experiences with more than 600 million people in Yahoo!’s global network. The integration is part of Yahoo!’s commitment to provide personally relevant information to people, from sources across the Web.

A little bird told me: @yahoo is the place to tweet and be tweeted

This partnership includes three primary elements:

1) People will be able to access their personal Twitter feeds across Yahoo!’s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others, letting them check in more easily on what’s happening with the people and things they care about while on Yahoo!.

2) People will be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream, so they can easily share their Yahoo! experiences with their friends and followers on Twitter.

3) Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates across a variety of topics. Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results today; go to Yahoo! and try it out.

Tweet and shout: @yahoo pumps up the social volume

Today’s Twitter partnership, along with Yahoo!’s recently announced Facebook relationship, will transform Yahoo! into a highly customizable social experience that lets people bring together and unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web. Because of these connections, anyone with a Yahoo! ID can update multiple social networks simultaneously and stay in touch with the people and information that matter most at every moment of the day.

“Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We’re turning the key to the online social universe–you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo!,” said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, consumer products group, Yahoo!. “We’re also simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds–and the world–together for easy access.”

Add an exclamation point to your tweets

The Twitter integration also provides full access to the complete Twitter public data stream, which Yahoo! will use to improve the relevance and freshness of content across Yahoo! properties. This will drive deeper user engagement, and create new and compelling opportunities for developers, advertisers, and publishers.

“The information in one single tweet can travel light-years farther with this Yahoo! integration,” said Twitter cofounder Biz Stone. “Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most.”

The real-time Search integration is available immediately. Other parts of the integration are expected to launch later this year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100223/yahoo-expands-twitter-relationship-in-next-stage-of-project-rushmore-complete-with-cutesey-bird-puns/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20100202/lost-twitter-and-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-a-semi-modest-proposal/ http://allthingsd.com/20100202/lost-twitter-and-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-a-semi-modest-proposal/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:17:37 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=15789 Dear fellow “Lost” fans:

Hi there! Salivating for tonight’s show? Me too.

But I have a request. Please hear me out.

Like you, I’ve invested an embarrassingly substantial number of hours in this thing. And I can’t wait for one last season with Jack, Locke, et al. (Especially Locke. Can’t get enough Locke.)

But unlike some of you, I’m probably not going to be able to watch every show in real-time. Various life requirements are going to force me to watch at least some of these a day or two later on the DVR (or ABC.com or Hulu in a pinch).

Which would be fine, except that I’m also on Twitter a lot, and so are many of you. And many of you want to tweet about the show while it’s running and during its aftermath.

I don’t know why that is. I get the idea of Twittering along with live communal events like “American Idol” or pro football. But you guys realize that “Lost” episodes were taped months ago, right?

Anyway, I’m not here to judge! Just to ask for your help.

My ask: It’d be really great if you folks could lay off the “Lost” tweets until a few days after each show. Because otherwise, I–and, I suspect many other people, as well–will have to make an unpleasant choice: Stop using Twitter for several days a week or wade through lots and lots of spoilers. (This is apparently not a Hobbesian Choice but a Morton’s Fork. Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Yes, I think it’s theoretically possible for me to set up Twitter clients like Tweetdeck to strike some “Lost”-related tweets from my stream. But not all of them.

I also suppose we could also ask Biz Stone and crew to somehow filter out “Lost” tweets from the mainstream, but I think those guys have more important stuff to do. (One other alternative would be to ask all you Twittering real-time “Lost” watchers to head somewhere else for a bit, like Hot Potato, which is supposed to work for just this sort of thing. But I can understand if you’re not up for embracing yet another messaging service.)

So. What do you think ? I’m not asking for much, I think. Just a little near-term restraint. Let’s say two days, max.

That lets the rest of us catch up–remember, East Coasters, that the poor folks on the other side of the country are three hours behind to begin with. And then we can join the rest of you, and we can all discuss this awesome show in 140 or fewer characters.

Thanks in advance for your consideration,

Peter

P.S.: I bet the smoke monster is Jack’s dad. Or something.

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A new Silicon Valley business incubator called The Start Project has recruited a high-profile group of entrepreneurs as advisers, which it announced today on its Web site.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, former Google (GOOG) exec and angel investor Chris Sacca, as well as Whiskey Media’s Mike Tatum and Jeffries & Co. Managing Director David Liu, have all agreed to help the company’s start-ups before and during their creation.

The Start Project is the brainchild of serial entrepreneurs Narendra Rocherolle of 83 Degrees, who co-founded a range of companies, and Josh Felser of Spinner and Crackle.

Polaris Venture Partners is also involved, lending office space in San Francisco and possible investments in whatever innovative ideas bubble up, with a first-look option.

“We can do a lot of stuff, such as pairing a CEO with an adviser with an amazing track record,” said Rocherolle in an interview with BoomTown. “It’s kind of a Justice League for start-ups.”

The Start Project’s description of itself on its Web site reads:

“The start project is a collaborative effort to bring great ideas to market. While the founders have a history of successful exits (over half a billion dollars), they are now focused on the initial stages of business creation including: idea generation, software development, product vision, team building, and investment.”

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