Chris Anderson

Voices

Music Video For Database Start-Up? That's How CouchOne Rolls

Deborah Gage, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 15, 2010 at 12:08 am PT

How does a small Bay Area start-up whose business revolves around arcane coding compete for developers with the likes of Facebook and Google? By making a rap video, of course.

Wired’s iPad App Boasts a New Feature: A Price Cut

Peter Kafka in Media on June 29, 2010 at 10:50 pm PT

Condé Nast sold some 95,000 digital copies of Wired’s June issue at $4.99, the same price the ink-and-paper edition commands. So why sell the July issue at $3.99?

Voices

Almost Famous: David Maher Roberts of The Filter

Drake Martinet, Intern, All Things Digital in News on April 16, 2010 at 8:56 pm PT

This week we caught up with the globe-trotting David Maher Roberts, CEO of The Filter, a media recommendation engine founded by music legend Peter Gabriel. David commutes between the United Kingdom where he lives and the United States, where he works. We found him during a stop in Texas, appropriately via Skype.

Wired Comes to the iPad, Version 2.0

Peter Kafka in Media on February 16, 2010 at 10:36 am PT

We’ve seen the iPad. And we’ve seen what some magazine people think their stuff might look like once it gets to the wonderdevice. But what will it really look like? Here’s a more informed guess, via Condé Nast’s Wired magazine, which has been working on an iPad-compatible version of the title for many months.

Google's Brin Says He Is "Always Optimistic" About China Solution

Kara Swisher in News on February 12, 2010 at 11:47 am PT

Google’s Sergey Brin took the stage at the TED conference this morning for a brief discussion about the search giant’s recent declaration that it will pull out of the country if it has to continue to censor results. “We want to find a way to work within the Chinese system,” said Brin, but without having to censor political search terms. “A lot of people might think I am naive and that might be true.”

BoomTown Heads to TED (And Promises No Pretentious Tweets!)

Kara Swisher in News on February 10, 2010 at 12:09 am PT

What is it about TED, the iconic conference founded an astonishing 25 years ago, that gets so many people who don’t go in a lather? Nonetheless, the gathering still represents one of the best venues for deep and varied thinking on a wide range of important issues, even if there are moments that might seem twee and elitist to some. TED2010 officially opens tomorrow morning in Long Beach, Calif., although events at the conference actually began last night. Speakers run the gamut and will talk on a wide range of topics, from poverty to clean tech to global warming to ukulele playing.

Kara Visits TED (The Belated Video)

Kara Swisher in News on February 11, 2009 at 8:30 am PT

Last week, BoomTown traveled to Long Beach, Calif., to attend the TED conference, a longtime gathering of digerati and others who have come to love its eclectic and outward-looking program. The four-day TED2009, titled “The Great Unveiling,” included Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates unleashing a small swarm of mosquitoes in the hall, a long list of varied speakers and a whole lot of schmoozing. Here is my belated video of the event, including my kids trying to steal a futuristic car.

A New Location for an Iconic Conference–and Here Come the TED Fellows

Kara Swisher in News on February 2, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

The well-known Technology, Entertainment, Design conference–better known to its techie fans as TED–will make its move from Monterey to Long Beach starting tomorrow night and will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. TED2009 is called “The Great Unveiling,” with its eclectic speaker roster including: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, neurological anthropologist Oliver Sacks, writer Elizabeth Gilbert, tree researcher Nalani Nadkarni and Web political phenom Nate Silver. But I am perhaps even more intrigued by the introduction this year of the TED Fellows program, whose participants have been picked because of the “world-changing potential of their work.”

Another Critic Tries Stomping on the Long Tail

Peter Kafka in Media on December 22, 2008 at 6:09 am PT

Chris Anderson’s influential Web theorem says that endless choice equals unlimited demand. But a new study argues that most people want the same stuff–and no one wants that unpopular stuff, period.

An American (Well, Lots of Them) in Paris for Le Web

Kara Swisher in News on December 8, 2008 at 10:00 am PT

BoomTown just got to Paris, as in France, to attend and moderate sessions for the third annual Le Web conference. Le Web is organized by Loïc and Geraldine Le Meur, with 1,500 people signed up to hear a range of Internet players, many of whom are from the U.S., tomorrow and Wednesday. Silicon Valley speakers include Marissa Mayer of Google, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Dan’l Lewin of Microsoft. And some interesting European execs include France Telecom Orange Chairman and CEO Didier Lombard and Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO and co-founder of a very interesting fashion sale site, Vente-Privee.com.