In its early days, the service didn’t have the “steep social network growth” you might expect, because it was about a core community of creators, Karp said. The company originally set out to build novel tools that offered an escape from the restrictive templates of Facebook and Twitter.

When the site really took off was when the curators — people who primarily respond to other Tumblr users’ content by “reblogging” it on their own pages — came on board.

Today, creators are probably 10 percent of Tumblr, and curators are 90 percent, Karp estimated.

And further, the average post on Tumblr is reblogged nine times, he said.

That can mean a single post gets the amplification of nine separate blogs, nine RSS feeds, nine blogs’ page views and followers, and nine bloggers’ syndication on Facebook and Twitter. “So your content has a huge footprint,” Karp said.

What’s next for Tumblr, which just raised a bunch of money and brought in some senior management? Well, monetization, for one thing. Karp said Tumblr is pursuing “novel approaches to revenue,” including selling blog themes.

At 15 billion page views per month across more than 41 million blogs, “with that many page views we could throw AdSense up there tomorrow and be profitable,” Karp said. But that’s not what he wants to do.

Karp said Tumblr is also working to “try and filter our network in ways that are more appealing to a global market.”

He added that Tumblr takes pride in being a New York-based company, and in hiring people with experience building things on the Web, rather than degrees from schools like Stanford. Half of Tumblr’s recent hires have relocated to New York to work for the company, most of them from the West Coast, Karp said.

(Image courtesy of DLD)

Here’s the fifth in a series of videos blogs, or vlogs, being done by director Peter Jackson on his making of “The Hobbit” movie.

I really like how he’s doing this online, especially given the interest from the huge fan base for the fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, which Jackson also directed, “The Hobbit” is being filmed in New Zealand — standing in for Middle-earth — and will be released in two parts, in December 2012 and December 2013.

Enjoy:

I’ve seen two performances of The Lord of the Rings in Concert, which is great fun and has been at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in previous autumns. But not this year.

But next year — and the year after that — I can renew my Hobbit habit. Yesterday the trailer for the first of two films based on “The Hobbit” hit the Internet. This one will be called “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and will be in 3-D. It will cover roughly the first half of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel that predates the “Lord” trilogy, and includes the finding of the ring that’s central to the later story. Also there’s one surprise: The trailer sure makes it look like Gandalf and Galadriel are, or once were, an item. I sure don’t remember that from the books.

We here at AllThingsD have been paying close attention to the progress of these films, hanging on every video-blog posting by famed director Peter Jackson. (And if you haven’t seen them, they’re very fun to watch: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.) I don’t think I’m the only member of the team that has a Hobbit habit. But I’m probably the only one who will admit it.

Anyhow, here’s the trailer. Enjoy:

As I reported this morning it was close to launching, Google has debuted its news reader product, which is called Google Currents. In a blog post, the search giant said that the new product, which will compete with many others, including as Flipboard, Yahoo’s Livestand and AOL’s Editions, will be available on Google’s own Android mobile operating system devices, as well as Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Google Currents will debut with 150 partners — including AllThingsD.com (my developers can sure keep a secret).

Here’s the blog post with all the deets:

Google Currents is hot off the press

Thursday, December 8, 2011 | 11:42 AM

We strive to give you beautiful and simple ways to experience all the content the web has to offer, such as sharing photos on Google+, watching YouTube videos and discovering books, movies and music from Android Market. Today we’re expanding our content offering with the introduction of Google Currents, a new application for Android devices, iPads and iPhones that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger.

Ready for consumers

We’ve worked with more than 150 publishing partners to offer full-length articles from more than 180 editions including CNET, AllThingsD, Forbes, Saveur, PBS, Huffington Post, Fast Company and more. Content is optimized for smartphones and tablets, allowing you to intuitively navigate between words, pictures and video on large and small screens alike, even if you’re offline.

To get started, simply download the app and choose the publications you want to subscribe to for free. You can also add RSS, video and photo feeds, public Google+ streams and Google Reader subscriptions you’re already following. In addition to consuming your favorite media, you can also use the trending tab to discover related content that matches your tastes.

Ready for publishers

Alongside Google Currents, we’re also launching a self-service platform that gives publishers the flexibility to design, brand and customize their web content. For example, if you’re a small regional news outlet, a non-profit organization without access to a mobile development team, or a national TV network with web content, you can effortlessly create hands-on digital publications for Google Currents.

Great content needs a great audience, which is why Google Currents is integrated with Google+ so users can share articles or videos they’ve enjoyed with their circles. Publishers can also associate their account with Google Analytics in order to increase their awareness of consumers’ content preferences, device use and geographic distribution.

Google Currents is now available for download in Android Market and the Apple App Store for US users. Whether you’re a reader or a publisher, we hope that Google Currents helps you easily experience the best content on the web. Try it here now and stay tuned for more to come.

Posted by Mussie Shore, Product Manager, and Sami Shalabi, Technical Lead

Two of the more interesting online media properties are apparently joining up for a year-end online idea festival.

The AOL-owned Huffington Post, and TED, the massive conference organization and online site dedicated to its offerings, will jointly feature 18 of the best onstage speeches from TED’s excellent year-round global events.

The idea-thon will be called “Best of TED 2011: A Countdown of 18 Groundbreaking Ideas to Reshape the World in 2012.” A post on the Huffington Post site noted that it will feature the popular TEDTalks and combine them with “new blog posts written by the people who delivered them, examining how their ideas were impacted by being shared with a global audience.”

Out of a total of 300 possible choices, the number of speeches has been narrowed down to 18, because TEDTalks are limited to no more than 18 minutes. The talks range over a wide array of topic areas, including science, art, music, tech and more.

In an interview today, HuffPost majordomo Arianna Huffington said that the aim was to spur thinking around big problems the world faces.

“We are trying to be people to rethink everything in a super engaging way,” she said. “That is what TED is famous for and we wanted to shed a lot of light on it.”

Here’s today’s, with game developer Kevin Slavin on “How Algorithms Shape Our World”:

We are thrilled to welcome another strong reporter to the AllThingsD team: Lauren Goode, who will cover consumer tech products and issues. She’ll be based in New York.

Lauren comes to us from the digital arm of our sister news organization, The Wall Street Journal, where she was a video producer and reporter, from 2008 to 2011. She helped launch the Journal’s live-streaming video programming and produced and co-hosted the daily “Digits” technology show, which regularly features our ATD staff along with Journal reporters and editors. (We hope to see her there from time to time as a guest herself now.) She was also a contributing writer to the Digits blog on WSJ.com, and wrote posts on consumer technology products.

Prior to joining the Journal, Lauren worked in cable television from 2003 to 2008, producing and writing shows for A&E Television Networks’ award-winning “Biography” series, after having started her career as a production assistant at ESPN in New York.

The addition of Lauren to AllThingsD is just the latest move in an expansion that has seen our staff more than double in the past year, including adding new reporters, editors and developers. This has allowed us to broaden and deepen our coverage, to break more news and also to begin doing different types of stories than many other blogs offer, such as our recent series on Facebook’s smartphone effort.

We have more new coverage and staff expansions planned, so stay tuned. And, as always, thanks for your readership, which has been increasing strongly quarter after quarter. We aim to keep earning your loyalty and trust.

Going forward, Lauren can be reached at lauren@allthingsd.com, and you can read more about her bio and ethics statement here.

– Walt & Kara

Disney, which has been busy reorganizing its interactive group, is buying Babble Media, a New York-based parenting platform that features several hundred mom bloggers.

The entertainment giant declined to provide the purchase price for the New York-based start-up, which was founded by aiming at urban hipster parents and has garnered more than $6 million in funding since it was spun off from Nerve Media several years ago.

Babble’s venture investors include Greycroft Partners, Village Ventures and iNovia Capital.

Co-founders Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman and the rest of the 40-person Babble staff will join the Disney Interactive Media Group unit as part of its Moms and Family portfolio, Disney said in its official press release (see below).

Disney described Babble as the “premier blogging platform for a new generation of connected parents.” To me, that roughly translates into Brooklyn-living, Bugaboo-pushing, organic arugula-eating, yoga-calm moms and sensitive New Age dads.

But don’t take my word for it — today’s front page features on Babble include “15 Vegan Recipes for Thanksgiving” and “Is It Selfish to Have One Child?” (Yum and kinda!)

The next obvious stop for its audience, after the kids get a little bigger: Gwyneth Paltrow’s fabulously twee and irksomely addictive GOOP.

But Brooke Chaffin, who is SVP of Moms and Family in the Disney Interactive Media Group, said in an interview that the highly interactive content site with a definite “sophisticated” editorial voice has become mainstream, and is actually where the whole category is going.

“Babble is sharing the experience and stories on a daily basis through the parents lens,” she said. “And it brings in a blog network that is so important to this audience, because it’s by, for and about parents, and that’s far more important for them than experts.”

There will be that, too, said Chaffin, who noted the site has grown 100 percent year over year. It is now up to four million unique monthly visitors.

Disney plans to add its more evergreen family-focused content to Babble, to give it more heft to compete with other similar parenting sites, such as Johnson & Johnson-owned BabyCenter, NBC’s iVillage, Parents.com and CafeMom.

Interestingly, Disney had taken a gander at buying CafeMom a while back.

Chaffin, who came to Disney earlier this year after a stint at Auditude and a long time at Yahoo, said Babble has carved out a unique niche in combining content with social — the current gold ring for a lot of publishers.

“What Babble is doing is best of breed … it is just a different approach to blogging,” she said. “It felt like we at Disney are about storytelling and Babble does an amazing job doing just that.”

Added Jimmy Pitaro, co-President of Disney Interactive Media Group: “Disney has a long legacy of storytelling, and no mom-blog platform empowers storytelling better or more powerfully than Babble. Babble is a strategic complement to our Moms and Family portfolio of sites, which together make up a business that is critical to Disney Interactive’s mission of delivering world-class products and content and growing engagement among our guests.”

In other words: Mainstream and hipster!

Here’s the Disney official press release:

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY ACQUIRES LEADING ONLINE PARENTING PLATFORM BABBLE MEDIA, INC.

Burbank, California — November 14, 2011 — The Walt Disney Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Disney Online, has acquired Babble Media, Inc., a leading online parenting platform featuring more than 200 influential mom bloggers. The acquisition of Babble further strengthens the position of Disney Interactive Media Group’s Moms and Family portfolio as a leading online resource for moms and families.

Disney Interactive’s Moms and Family portfolio is a trusted resource for parents today, giving them the online tools and information they need and the ability to share their experiences. Through the acquisition of Babble, Disney Interactive’s Moms and Family business gains a blogging platform that elevates the first-person stories of parenthood.

Since its inception in 2006, Babble has become one of the most celebrated parenting sites on the web, named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2010 and by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Websites for Women. Its stable of bloggers contribute daily to parenting topics including pregnancy, child care, health, food, family activities as well as lifestyle topics such as home, fashion and family products. As the premier blogging platform for a new generation of connected parents, Babble has created a vibrant community of parents who support, encourage and celebrate the highs and lows of raising children.

Babble attracts a broad and engaged audience with its nearly constant stream of posts, written for and by moms. Disney Interactive will infuse its Moms and Family evergreen content into Babble, thereby enriching the Babble user experience and extending the best of what Disney has to offer to today’s parents.

“Parents’ relationships with Disney are founded in stories, and Disney’s best stories are about families. We believe that Babble and Disney can harness the power of storytelling to inform, entertain and empower parents everywhere,” said Brooke Chaffin, SVP of Moms and Family, Disney Interactive Media Group. “With more than 3.9 million mom blogs in the US alone, Disney Interactive recognizes and values the important and powerful role moms have taken on in new media.”

“We can’t imagine a better next step than joining the world’s leading media company for families, The Walt Disney Company, and look forward to bringing together Babble’s resonant voice and community with Disney’s expansive family audience, wide range of content and multi-media platform,” said Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, Co-Founders of Babble.

Babble will remain headquartered in New York. Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman will join the Disney Interactive Media Group.

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

Famed director Peter Jackson, who helmed the “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy, has promised to continue his production video blog from the movie set of “The Hobbit,” which is filming in New Zealand.

The man keeps his promise with a new installment that has lots more action.

I read the classic book when I was but a wee lass, so I will be very interested to see how it comes to life.

Here’s the latest vlog:

Saul Hansell, the prominent former New York Times tech reporter who went to AOL several years ago to head one of its content efforts called Seed, will leave the company to become an entrepreneur in residence at Betaworks.

The move to the New York venture firm is the right one now, said Hansell in an interview today.

“I have been watching people go starts thing for a long time and now I want to go start things,” he said. “I’ve got some ideas around news that I want to explore.”

Hansell, in a blog post, did try to not paint the move as as anti-AOL one:

“I know my friends in the technology press well enough to suspect some of them will see my move as part of a broader trend at AOL. I’m not sure the easy take is the right one. Based on my experience, I am more bullish on [AOL CEO] Tim Armstrong’s clear vision of a company built from the ground up for online journalism and the potential of AOL’s assets to achieve that vision.”

Hansell joined AOL the day after it split from Time Warner to run what he jokingly calls the “free-range, organic content farm” of Seed and has remained through its many iterations, including the purchase of the Huffington Post.

He is currently the “Big News” editor in that unit, which centers around topics.

Here’s Hansell’s blog post on the move:

Heading into the workshop.

Two years ago, when I explained to my children why I left the New York Times, one of the greatest spots ever to be a reporter and writer, I told them that I wanted to be an inventor. Since then, I’ve had the thrilling experience of being part of AOL, which is doing more than nearly anyone else to rethink the way that news is gathered, presented and paid for.

Now it’s time to strike out on my own and seek my fortune as an inventor. I’ve left AOL, and Monday I started as an entrepreneur in residence at Betaworks. If you’re not familiar with it, Betaworks has started and invested in a number of companies that are on the vanguard of real-time social experiences — several of which relate to news and publishing — including Bit.ly, ChartBeat, TweetDeck, and News.Me. It’s run by John Bortwick, whom I first met in 1997 when he sold his startup, Total New York, to America Online. We’ve become friends, and I couldn’t think of a more fertile environment in which to germinate a new idea than the bustle of creativity bursting out of the Betaworks loft in the meat packing district.

I know my friends in the technology press well enough to suspect some of them will see my move as part of a broader trend at AOL. I’m not sure the easy take is the right one. Based on my experience, I am more bullish on Tim Armstrong’s clear vision of a company built from the ground up for online journalism and the potential of AOL’s assets to achieve that vision. At AOL, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the smartest and most dedicated journalists, engineers and product executives I’ve ever met. And the brilliant acquisition of the Huffington Post brought in many more people who have been outpacing the industry through journalistic innovation.

I will always be grateful to Tim for giving me the chance to prove that I had more to contribute to a journalistic organization than simply articles and to Arianna for inviting me to join the HuffPost team. And I’m in debt to so many who offered so much advice –some of which I ignored to my own detriment — on the nuances of technology, product design, PowerPoint, and the ways of big companies. Yet as AOL continues to refine its organization, it became clear that this was the time for me to try my hand at starting a company.

It’s too soon to say much about what I’m doing. But I think there is a lot left to invent around both how to present news to people that takes advantage of the technology available today.

I expect you’ll see a lot more soon.

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

It’s official: Seven billion people are alive in the world at this moment, a high population point of all time.

Births are obviously outstripping deaths by a little more than two to one.

Here is a really cool site called Worldometers that has the countdown and all kinds of other cool stats, accounting for our little and now more crowded world.

The section on society and media is particularly terrific, showing how many cellphones are being sold, emails sent, tweets posted and, of course, blogs created. Like this one, blink and you will definitely miss it.

And note how much slower new book titles published and televisions sold are in comparison to digital stats.

Facebook, by the way, is now closing on one billion users, sources said — although the official number for the huge social networking site here is 800 million.

Except not really.

Here’s a video featuring Gawker Media boss Nick Denton; Curbed’s Lockhart Steele, who helped Denton build his business; Rex Sorgatz, a “microcelebrity” once covered obsessively by Denton’s blogs; and Reuters columnist Felix Salmon, who writes about Denton a lot. Also featured: Samantha Ronson, who knows Lindsay Lohan.

If you don’t want to spend a couple minutes watching Salmon narrate the event (and you should, because Felix is an entertaining person even when he’s sober), Sorgatz has the concise version.

Brian John Hogan, 22 years old, and Sage Robert Wallower, 28, pleaded no contest on Tuesday to misdemeanor theft of lost property for selling an Apple Inc. iPhone prototype for $5,000 to a technology blog in 2010. The pair was sentenced to one year of probation and 40 hours of public service, according to San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe.

Messrs. Hogan and Wallower are also required to pay Apple a total of $250 in restitution. Mr. Wagstaffe said the pair are allowed to keep the $4,750 they made on the sale.

The sentencing brings to a conclusion a particularly weird episode — even by Silicon Valley’s skewed standards. At one point, a special police task force kicked in a reporter’s door in search of evidence.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.
The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.

Image courtesy of Obama Pacman

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The Huffington Post Media Group, which says it has topped one billion page views for the month of August, has bought an online grassroots platform called Localocracy.

The price for the site, whose key execs will join the AOL content unit, is under $1 million, said sources close to the situation.

The HuffPost also announced it was hiring Lisa Belkin from the New York Times to be a senior columnist covering parenting and family issues.

The latest hiring and purchase are part of a number of moves at the news and blog site, which has been frantically expanding its offerings since it was acquired by AOL.

That now includes four more sections launching this week — Huff/Post50; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School — bringing the grand total of new sites to 21 since the Huffington Post officially merged with AOL in March.

“We want to launch sections for every interest and passion our readers have.” said HuffPost head Arianna Huffington in an interview yesterday. “Whatever your interest, we want to provide the latest content and stories and most advanced tools for engagement.”

And, presumably, get the most traffic from it all. Along with the record one billion page views, the site also said it had 37 million unique visitors in August, the largest number it has posted yet, with 5.1 million comments.

Here’s the official press release for the whole kitchen-sink shebang:

The Huffington Post Media Group Makes Key Announcements:

Acquires Localocracy, Pioneering Online Grassroots Platform, and Hires its
Leadership Team: Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice

Launches Four Huffington Post Sections This Week: Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as Editor-at-Large; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School; Group is latest of 21 new sites since The Huffington Post Merged with AOL in March

Hires Lisa Belkin from The New York Times as Senior Columnist
Covering Parenting, Work/Life Balance, and Family

Announces Record Huffington Post Size and Engagement, with Largest Number of UVs and Comments Ever, and Site Topping 1 Billion Page Views for First Time

New York, NY — October 3, 2011 – The Huffington Post Media Group (“HPMG”), a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, today makes several key announcements: (1) HPMG is acquiring Localocracy, a groundbreaking online engagement platform enabling citizens to solve problems in their communities, and its founders, Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and technology lead, Jay Boice, are joining the Huffington Post Media Group to work on the intersection of editorial and technology, and deepen the sites’ engagement with users; (2) The Huffington Post (“HuffPost”) is launching four sites this week; today, Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as editor-at-large; HuffPost Gay Voices; and HuffPost Weddings; tomorrow, HuffPost High School. They are the latest of 21 new verticals since The Huffington Post merged with AOL in March; (4) Lisa Belkin is joining HPMG as Senior Columnist from The New York Times, where she wrote the “Motherlode” blog. She’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family; and (5) HuffPost has recently achieved record size and engagement, with its largest number of UVs ever, 37MM*, and greatest number of monthly comments, 5.1MM. In an important milestone, the site also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time.*

“I’m delighted to announce that Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice are joining our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “They’re pioneers in using the web to empower citizens to improve their towns, and their unique vision and talents will enable us to deepen our users’ engagement with our sites. We’re also excited to be launching HuffPost/50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School, the latest sections in our continued effort to provide content, community and a platform for expression for our readers’ every interest and passion. We’re also thrilled to welcome Lisa Belkin, who has built a large following with her writing on parenting and work/life balance issues, and who is a leader in online community building. She’ll be launching her ‘Parentlode’ blog on October 17th.”

Creating and Nurturing Online Communities to Make Lives Better

Localocracy was founded in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009 as an online forum encouraging citizens to engage in local issues, share concerns and opinions, and rank problem-solving ideas. Its goal was to surface problems and employ the power of persuasion to spotlight solutions to issues big and small. At HPMG, founders White-Sullivan and Soules will build on their innovative approach to enhancing local democracy while leveraging HPMG’s powerful online community platform to engage its large and networked audience. Also joining the Group from Localocracy is Jay Boice, who will be instrumental in building new technologies to support enhanced online community interaction.

Said Conor and Soules: “What we’ve learned with Localocracy is that by harnessing user-generated content, we’re able to unleash a lot of people power. Our methodology is simple: we believe that everyone is an expert about something, so we want to give voice to that expertise and allow an exchange of ideas for all to see and participate in. We’re excited to be teaming up with The Huffington Post Media Group, a leader in social news and user engagement, and look forward to pushing the boundaries of what can be done when combining journalism and technology for the common good.”

Four New Sites; Four New Communities

The Huffington Post Media Group announces today the launch of four destination sites: Huff/Post50 (www.huffingtonpost.com/50), HuffPost Gay Voices (www.huffingtonpost.com/gay-voices) and HuffPost Weddings (www.huffingtonpost/weddings). Each offers HuffPost’s unique combination of real-time news and opinion, and passionate communities powered by a leading social news platform.

HuffPost/50 — whose Editor-at-Large is actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson — covers the challenges, complexities and joys facing the boomer generation, now 77 million people strong. It spotlights boomers who fearlessly tackle new challenges in the spirit of reinventing themselves, regardless of age, and encourages boomers to question conventional wisdom about aging. Topics being covered include: longevity, relationships and sex, politics, the intense “sandwich” pressure of simultaneously taking care of aging parents and children, retirement, spirituality and religion, friendship, politics and dying.

The site is meant to be thought-provoking yet also humorous and life-affirming, and while encouraging boomers to seize the present, Huff/Post50 welcomes reflection and the sharing of hard-earned wisdom. The site is a rare platform for people 50 and older who want to share what’s on their minds. Bloggers on the section include: Bill Maher, ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour, and musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Said Rita Wilson: “The idea that we boomers are somehow supposed to wind things down as we get older completely escapes me. Exploring the minds and hearts of this group of people is exciting. It’s never too late to mix things up, change your life, to get to what you really should be doing — or want to be doing. As Mark Twain said, ‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.’”

HuffPost High School, launching tomorrow, is a place for teens to engage with one another about what’s really happening in their lives — socially, academically, and culturally. The site features some of the nation’s top high school journalists and is a dynamic platform for teen bloggers. It’s a go-to guide for everything teens care about, from college prep, the nuances of social networking, culture, and celebrity gossip to high school sports, comedy, politics, the prom and beyond.

HuffPost Gay Voices, also launching today, covers the complexities of the LGBT community, from family and faith to politics and sexuality. The section covers news, culture, and trends, and offers opinion that spotlights all matters of interest to the LGBT community. The site fearlessly looks at powerful yet silent influences on identity and relationships, such as class, race and religion. HuffPost Gay Voices features everything from travel, style and entertainment to politics, personalities and health. Launch week bloggers include Christine Quinn, Margaret Cho and Bruce Vilanch. The Human Rights Campaign is Gay Voices’ inaugural sponsor.

HuffPost Weddings, the third section launching today, has comprehensive coverage of weddings and marriage from all angles, from untraditional wedding cakes and exotic dream honeymoons, to the more practical, including tips on navigating the world of wedding planners, contemporary wedding etiquette, and more. The site will spark discussions about everything from managing the family politics of inter-faith ceremonies and the nuances of gay weddings to the latest proposal video gone viral. And while HuffPost Weddings is meant as a one-stop-shop of advice with a supportive community for those planning their weddings, it also appeals to a wider audience interested in the culture and mores of modern weddings planning, weddings, and marriage. Bloggers on the site include: Heidi Klum; Kelly Meyer; celebrity wedding planners Mindy Weiss, Sharon Sacks, Preston Bailey, and Colin Cowie; designers Nanette Lepore, Angel Sanchez, Reem Acra; and more.

Rapid HuffPost Expansion; Record Audience and Engagement

The Huffington Post’s rapid expansion has only intensified following its merger with AOL in March. The site recorded its largest number of unique visitors per month last month — 37 million* — and also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time. In addition, HuffPost’s engaged community continues to grow, posting a record 5.1 million comments in August.

With the four sites launching this week, HuffPost will have debuted 21 sections since the merger, all listed here:

• Huff/Post50
• HuffPost BlackVoices
• HuffPost Canada
• HuffPost Canada Living
• HuffPost Celebrity
• HuffPost Culture
• HuffPost Gay Voices
• HuffPost High School
• HuffPost LatinoVoices
• HuffPost Locals: San Francisco, D.C
• HuffPost Parents
• HuffPost San Francisco
• HuffPost Small Business
• HuffPost Travel
• HuffPost UK
• HuffPost UK Tech
• HuffPost UK Universities & Education
• HuffPost Women
• StyleList
• StyleList Home

(*comScore, Aug. 2011)

Think about the federal government’s blocking of the $39 billion AT&T and T-Mobile merger and you might want to reread Google’s blog today, penned in reaction to the news that the Justice Department is making a second request for information about its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

“This is pretty routine,” wrote Google’s Motorola integration exec Dennis Woodside. “We’ve gotten these kind of requests before.”

Maybe Google has (and it has with other purchases) — but in actuality, only four percent of transactions got such a follow-up request from regulators.

To be fair, it is much more common in high-profile, big-money deals like this one, but it means a longer closing period and more uncertainty around the Android mobile ecosystem until it’s done.

Still, Google has good reason to be patient. Despite tough criticism and brutal lobbying, it won approval from Justice for its $700 million deal to buy flight data service ITA Software in April, after nine months of scrutiny and a number of conditions imposed.

And the search giant waited out an intense six-month Federal Trade Commission approval process last year for its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising start-up AdMob. It had an even harder time with the FTC’s nod of its 2007 DoubleClick purchase for $3.1 billion.

One that it lost — an obvious bridge too far that I dubbed Yahoogle — was Google’s 2008 effort to meld a troubling partnership with Yahoo in search advertising.

So, we’ll see soon enough which way D.C. — which just had Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt up to the Senate for an antitrust hearing chit-chat — will go.

Until then, here’s Woodside’s whole blog:

An update on our Motorola acquisition

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM ET

Posted by Dennis Woodside, SVP Google

Since we announced our plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, we’ve been excited about the positive reaction to the proposed deal — particularly from our partners who have told us that they’re enthusiastic about our defense of the Android ecosystem.

And as David Drummond said when we announced our plans in August, we’re confident that this deal will be approved. We believe very strongly this is a pro-competitive transaction that is good for Motorola Mobility, good for consumers, and good for our partners.

That said, we know that close scrutiny is part of the process and we’ve been talking to the U.S. Department of Justice over the past few weeks. Today we received what is called a “second request,” which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. (This is pretty routine; we’ve gotten these kind of requests before.)

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. We’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.

In a blog it just posted, Groupon said its recently hired COO, Margo Georgiadis, “has decided to return to Google (her former employer) in a new role as President, Americas.”

She was only hired in April, just months before the company filed to go public. Georgiadis was previously VP of Global Sales at Google.

(Interesting way to get a better title at the search giant, Margo!)

Georgiadis was in charge of the company’s global sales, marketing and operations at the Chicago-based social buying service.

Sources said that the hiring did not gel on either side.

It might not be Georgiadis’ fault. She replaced Rob Solomon, who was in his job for one year.

And here’s another: PR hire Brad Williams, a longtime Silicon Valley communications exec, who was there and then gone in what felt like 23 minutes.

It seems Groupon does not like Silicon Valley types or, perhaps, vice versa.

Since its IPO filing, in fact, it feels as if it has been a non-stop circus disaster at Groupon.

That has included immense controversy about its sketchy accounting, huge slugs of venture funding going to its founders and a lot of worries about its growth.

Today, in a Friday late afternoon dumping of bad news in hopes that no one notices (I do), Groupon also amended its S-1 public offering filing once again to change revenue metrics and also add a controversial internal letter that CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason sent to employees to counter its many and growing critics.

There appear to be many more shoes dropping soon, said sources, so stay tuned.

Until then, here’s the whole and very terse — for Mason — post:

Update on the Groupon Team

As a fast-growing company, we’ve done a lot of hiring this year, including on our senior executive team. Since the beginning of this year, we’ve made a total of 8 additions — that’s 57% of the total executive team. It would have been great if I could say that we batted 1,000%, but that’s rarely the case; after five months at Groupon, Margo Georgiadis, our COO, has decided to return to Google (her former employer) in a new role as President, Americas.

We’ve built a fantastic team that has proven itself highly capable, so this change won’t have an impact on operations. In fact, we are using it as an opportunity to reorganize in a way that reflects our evolving strategic priorities. Sales, Channels, International, and Marketing will now report directly to me.

Here’s a note from Margo: “Groupon is a great company and I feel privileged to have worked there even for a short time. It was a hard decision to leave as the company is on a terrific path. I have complete confidence in the team’s ability to realize its mission.” We wish her well.

Silicon Valley’s Silver Lake and DST Global of Russia, as well as Chinese private equity firm Yunfeng Capital, are leading a $1.6 billion tender offer for privately held employee and shareholder stock of China’s Alibaba Group, according to sources close to the situation.

Yunfeng, by the way, was co-founded by Alibaba Chairman and CEO Jack Ma, as well as other prominent Chinese entrepreneurs.

Along with DST, Silver Lake and Yunfeng, Singapore-based investment firm Temasek is also participating in the tender offer as an investor, but in a smaller way.

The deal, which has been discussed for some time, was signed earlier today and will be presented to its employees in an internal company blog, which will be in Chinese.

To get around persistent foreign ownership issues in China, sources said, DST and Silver Lake are ceding voting control of their stakes to Alibaba management.

If the tender is fully subscribed, that would mean a stake of just under five percent for the group, sources said, and it gives Alibaba a $32 billion enterprise valuation.

The impetus for the tender offer, which begins today, appears to be trying to address a cash-out, paper-rich issue for Alibaba employees.

There are no active secondary private markets in China, as is the case for tech start-ups in the U.S., and there is also no IPO in the foreseeable future for Alibaba. Thus, management has been looking for a way to give its employees and also other shareholders some liquidity.

This tender offer is not a capital raise by Alibaba and is only aimed at eligible employees and shareholders. The purchase of the Alibaba shares is expected to close before the end of December.

It will be done via a special investment vehicle, specifically aimed at this purchase, that includes a spate of investors. Giant Interactive Group, a Chinese online game developer, for example, said it had committed $50 million to the fund.

It’s not clear what the implications are for Alibaba’s biggest shareholder, Yahoo, which sources said is not selling shares in the tender offer. Yahoo’s fully diluted Alibaba 39 percent stake is now worth $12.5 billion in the deal.

That’s discounted due to tax issues and also the inability of the Silicon Valley Internet giant to sell its Alibaba shares.

In other words, investors will likely welcome this higher valuation, but realize a public offering is farther away than ever.

But it is interesting in that it clearly shows a strong relationship between DST and Silver Lake, which have jointly been mulling a possible bid for Yahoo along with Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, as I previously reported.

Some will speculate that Silver Lake and DST now have an in with Alibaba, which is important, since a large slug of Yahoo’s market valuation is due to its Alibaba and also Yahoo Japan! assets.

If Yahoo is sold, of course, the disposition of the Alibaba asset is an important part of the deal.

More to come, including the implications for Ma, who has been under siege of late around his spinning out of Alibaba’s Alipay payments service and the noisy battle that later ensued with Yahoo. Yahoo and Alibaba, as well as its other large shareholder, Japan’s SoftBank, settled that dispute earlier this summer.

His involvement in Yunfeng, which is buying the company’s shares in a special fund that Ma is not in, will likely attract some scrutiny, anyway.

Sources said Ma is a minority investor in Yunfeng itself, has no control rights and is not a director. In addition, Yunfeng has no relationship with Alibaba.

In another interesting twist, Alibaba rival Tencent has close ties with DST’s Internet affiliate that used to share the same name, having invested $300 million last year in the affiliate that holds major Russian Internet properties.

The blogger, who is leaving AOL and TechCrunch over a fight over his new venture capital fund, said in an interview that he plans to start a personal blog in the coming days.

Arrington, whose last day at AOL is Thursday, said he’ll be writing about what interests him — start-ups and journalism — and that he won’t be hiring other staffers.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Is this really a fight over hyper-technicalities over particular language aspects of this private-party contractual documentation, or is this really a fight over whether the blogosphere should be able to take people’s creative works and reproduce it?

Righthaven CEO Steve Gibson, who says he remains optimistic about his company’s future despite its legal setbacks

Here’s another interesting wrinkle to the ongoing saga of AOL, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his nascent venture firm, CrunchFund.

Since the controversy erupted last week, Arrington has reached out to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, as well as others in Silicon Valley, about buying back his popular tech news site.

Sources said Arrington needs funding to do so — irony alert! — and told them over the weekend that he planned to use his blogging bully pulpit to force AOL into giving up the site it bought for more than $25 million almost exactly a year ago.

But sources said — at this point — AOL is not inclined to sell the site, which has prompted Arrington to pen a blog post on TechCrunch, not-meant-as-a-joke-titled “Editorial Independence,” suggesting they do so.

Quelle surprise!

We’ve proposed two options to Aol.

1. Reaffirmation of the editorial independence promised at the time of acquisition. Given the current circumstances, that means autonomy from Huffington Post, unfettered editorial independence and a blanket right to editorial self determination. To put it simply, TechCrunch would stay with Aol but would be independent of the Huffington Post.

or

2. Sell TechCrunch back to the original shareholders.

Arrington used an image of the Spartans from, I think, the movie “300,” on the post. Memo to Mike: All the Spartans died in the end, however valiant. It goes without saying — this situation is not valiant and you are definitely not King Leonidas.

“It is at a stalemate, so this is the result,” said one person with knowledge of the pugnacious effort by Arrington to take back his baby.

Which, of course, he sold in the first place.

AOL has stated it will not allow Arrington to remain its editor or have “influence on coverage” while also doing a venture fund.

Thus, some of Arrington’s staffers, such as M.G. Siegler, have already been plowing the ground ahead of Arrington’s post.

Siegler, for example, penned a weepy diatribe about how unfair it all is and how different the site operates from slow-footed meanies at big media organizations such as the New York Times. The Times strafed Arrington in a David Carr column yesterday.

Wrote Siegler, in what can only be described as soap-opera fantastic: “TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. No one knows.”

Tune in tomorrow to see if AOL’s content chief and Arrington boss Arianna Huffington will use that gun in her pocket. Or will she use the razor-chiseled cheekbones of Armstrong to slice her new nemesis?

(Alls I can say to add to what I have already said, at this point: Good lord. But, wait, isn’t there a TechCrunch Disrupt conference next week to hawk and make it all about Arrington and not the entrepreneurs? This explains everything!)

While Siegler is trying to make it all sound as if it is so very unfair, since the site is presumably so very special, AllThingsD operates in a similar quick-edit way to TechCrunch — where I will underscore there are some terrific journalists.

But — because it is simply flat-out wrong on every possible scale — neither Walt Mossberg nor I would ever consider being editors of the site while also running a venture fund.

(In fact, it is now a standing rule at ATD that, if we ever did such an unthinkable thing — which of course we never would — our writers tell us we stink rather than praise us.)

Meanwhile, we’ll be busy breaking some actual tech news on this site, like here and here and here, while TechCrunch presumably faux-burns and AOL fiddles.