8 posts and columns on Brainstorm: Tech

Palm Analysts, Best Buy Suffering From Pre-Mature Elaboration

in News on July 27, 2009 at 11:19 am PT

Add another voice to the chorus of analysts claiming that sales of the Palm Pre have been on the decline these past few weeks. In a research note published this morning, CL King analyst Lawrence Harris, speaking to the controversy over sell-though numbers for the Pre, cast his lot with those who feel sales are slowing.
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Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Twitter Co-Founder "Yes-There-Is-A" Biz Stone

in News on July 23, 2009 at 6:45 pm PT

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone took the stage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference late this afternoon and was greeted by that old chestnut: When is Twitter going to make some simoleons? Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky posted a poll about that and a few other topics, and then asked a question he said was on the minds of many in Silicon Valley: “Why the hell aren’t you guys making money?” Here’s what Stone had to say.
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Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: AOL CEO and Chairman Tim "The Plumber" Armstrong

in News on July 23, 2009 at 12:09 pm PT

It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant. Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.” In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.
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Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Disney CEO Bob Iger Has "One Hand in the Present and One Hand in the Future"

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

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, is the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif. The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries. So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.” Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn. Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.
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Yahoo to Acquire Xoopit for About $20 Million

in News on July 21, 2009 at 9:00 pm PT

Yahoo plans on announcing Thursday that it has bought Xoopit for a price in the $20 million range, according to several sources, one of its first acquisitions in a long while. Reached late this afternoon by BoomTown, a Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment about the purchase. Xoopit did not respond to emails earlier today. But sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, videos, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them. Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.
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Kara Visits Fortune's Brainstorm: TECH

in News on July 22, 2008 at 3:09 pm PT

In BoomTown’s ongoing quest to overdose on tech conferences, I traveled south of San Francisco last night for Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm: TECH conference. Run by David Kirkpatrick, it’s well done and a great place to run into a range of techies from Silicon Valley, as well as talk to more creative thinkers on where tech is going.