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Land Shark, Two Wild and Crazy Guys and Schweddy … Yahoo Adds 38-Year SNL Archive to Site

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:07:50 +0000

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a blog post that the Silicon Valley Internet giant had reached a one-year agreement with Broadway Video to “feature Saturday Night Live content exclusively on Yahoo! The partnership gives Yahoo! users exclusive access to the entire 38-year archive of SNL content as well as clips from the current season.” While a lot of the content has long been widely available across the Web (on Hulu and NBC.com, for example) — thus, kind of stretching the idea of “exclusive” a bit — having it all in one place online, as the Church Lady says: “Isn’t that special?”

Ready for His Close-Up: Ross Levinsohn to Join Zefr Board

Kara Swisher — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:00:51 +0000

Former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn, who has laid pretty low since he left there earlier this year, will be joining the board of the Venice, Calif.-based video start-up, Zefr.

“Ross is a perfect intersection of everything we are in media and technology,” said Zefr co-founder Zach James. “He understands both sides natively, and we need that kind of expertise.”

Indeed — the company raised $18.5 million in additional funding this summer to turbocharge its offerings.

At the time, Zefr changed its name from Movieclips, and added sports, television and music videos to its film efforts. Zefr launched in 2009 as a niche video catalog site, focusing on helping movie studios collect and monetize fan and professional postings on YouTube, and offering advertisers a large network of premium movie clips.

The company said then that it had 600 million monthly views, 25,000 movie clips, and three billion total lifetime views on YouTube. It is about to celebrate one billion monthly views.

“Zefr has all the ingredients for success — dynamic, inspiring management, the ability to marry technology and content, and a business model that can scale,” said Levinsohn. “I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”

Ben Huh Talks About the Other New Reality Show, "LOLwork" (Video)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 20:24:11 +0000

Tonight, the controversial “Start-Ups: Silicon Valley” airs on the Bravo cable television channel.

But, on Wednesday, a less splashy — and perhaps more amusing — tech-oriented program is also making its debut on Bravo: “LOLwork.”

Yes, it’s about the wacky start-up with those grammatically incorrect online cats that I so love.

“LOLwork” takes the viewer inside the Seattle-based humor company, focusing a lot on its CEO Ben Huh, as well as his Cheezburger team.

Here is a video interview I did with Huh last week at the AllThingsD.com global HQ about the show, as well as a Bravo clip of it:

[ See post to watch video ]

First-Episode Clips From "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" -- Dave McClure Is "Disrespectful" (For Doing His Job)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:45:54 +0000

Here are two clips from the first episode that Bravo has put up about its new and controversial-before-it’s-aired reality television show, “Start-Ups: Silicon Valley.”

The cable program chronicles the ups and downs of a group of young entrepreneurs in tech, and some have decried it from simply seeing the promo sizzle reel that featured lots of partying and pool-hanging.

No frolicking here in a short clip, as super angel investor Dave McClure looks over a pitch deck of brother-and-sister team Ben and Hermione Way for their health-and-lifestyle start-up, apparently called Ignite.

With that reality show rut-roh music playing in the background, Ben inexplicably says he thinks McClure was “slightly disrespectful, him going through the whole thing and making his own judgments.”

Which is, of course, an investor’s job, going all Judge Judy on entrepreneurs. And, in my experience, McClure was awfully polite about grabbing the deck.

And alls I can say is that Ben is very lucky he managed to avoid bringing his pitch deck near me.

There’s also one that seems a lot more reality-show, with Hermione arguing over a botched event with another person on the show, Sarah Austin. There is mention of “making out” with Ben and SXSW.

In any case, the show looks interesting enough to take a gander when it airs on Monday, November 5 at 10 pm.

Here are the video clips:

Horse Flash: Apple's Steve Jobs on Adobe Vendetta in 2010 at D8 (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:30:29 +0000

At a 2010 onstage interview with Walt Mossberg and me at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent a lot of time — and with considerable passion — talking about his company’s decision to dump Adobe’s popular Flash technology in its iPhone and iPad devices.

While he insisted that he wasn’t out to crush Adobe — instead using the metaphor of “choosing what horses to ride” — Jobs explained that the software technology was buggy, no longer useful, and, therefore, needed to be put out to pasture.

“We try to pick things that are in their springs … sometimes you just have to pick the things that are the right things going forward,” said Jobs plainly. “Flash looks like a technology that had its day and is waning.” According to Jobs, HTML5 was the new colt to back.

As to the implications on Apple’s mobile devices if consumers did not agree with his choice, he noted that “it all works itself out,” adding that a new iPad was then selling every three seconds.

“People seem to be liking iPads,” said Jobs with his patented grin.

It’s an interesting video to watch now — along with this one on Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the issue a year later at D9 — because of reports that first surfaced last night, 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.

Adobe confirmed the move this morning, noting it will focus its PC Web browser business and 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.”

Adobe now apparently agrees.

Here’s the video clip of Jobs talking trash about Flash:

[ See post to watch video ]

(And, here’s a video from a year later from D9 of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the same topic.)

Groupon Doesn't Care if You Got the Memo

Kara Swisher — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:30:25 +0000

To: Everyone

From: Groupon

Re: The Memo

There was a whole lot of hubbub last week about an internal email that Groupon’s CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason sent out to the employees of the Chicago-based social buying company, which AllThingsD got hold of and published.

A lot of the noise centered less around the content of the memo — which sought to answer back at Groupon’s growing chorus of ever-noisier critics, who have been relentlessly pillorying the company over a range of financial issues since it filed for an IPO in June — than on the hows and whys of its release.

And, of course, whether the email would get Groupon into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether Mason had touted the company in violation of regulatory disclosure rules.

News of that happening or not will come sooner than later, I suspect, but it is my impression that the very release of Mason’s defense of Groupon in a missive sent out to thousands of staffers — Hey, Henry, how is it that you didn’t get the memo? — says one clear thing about the sentiment of the company’s leadership.

And that is: They could not be more pleased at finally having their say and they couldn’t care less about anything other than being able to strike a blow against the withering attacks.

There are several reasons for this, according to many sources I spoke with this week about the fallout from the email, most of which center around the impact of the negative press on employee morale and the ability to attract new talent.

“It’s made it very difficult for those working at Groupon,” said one source. “But, worse, is how much our reputation is getting burned in the eyes of young engineers we need to recruit.”

What management at the company does not seem to be as worried about, said sources, is investor disinterest when it comes time to hawk and price the public offering.

While the general Wall Street turbulence might spell a lower valuation, sources said Groupon’s execs and board expect to be oversubscribed when it finally gets out on the market.

That’s why Mason — along with some detailed defenses of Groupon’s most controversial issues — tossed off gems like this one:

“For now we must patiently and silently endure a bit more public criticism as we prepare to birth this IPO baby — a breed for which there are no epidurals.”

Since I do happen to know about birthing babies (and Mason decidedly does not): Ouchie!

We’ll see soon enough exactly who will be feeling that pain.

Until then, here’s the classic didn’t-you-get-the-memo movie clip from the hilarious “Office Space”:

Did You Get the Memo?
Office Space
— MOVIECLIPS.com

Viral Video: Samuel L. Jackson Reads "Go the F**k to Sleep"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:58:49 +0000

What more is there to say, except this viral video of actor Samuel L. Jackson reading a viral “children’s” book is hysterical.

Written by Adam Mansbach, the book has developed a cult following. It’s more for parents than for their children, of course, in the style of “Everyone Poops.”

While some might be offended by it, I have definitely felt this way too many times over the years trying to put my kids to bed.

[UPDATE: Audible requested I remove the original video clip I had embedded here, as it violated its copyright. I did, of course, immediately and then replaced it with their own below. But fair warning: Audible's is shorter and 87 percent less funny.]

Ready for His Digital Close-Up: The NYT's Media Dude, David Carr, Talks About "Page One"

Kara Swisher — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 18:35:07 +0000

While I was in Los Angeles recently, I was invited to a private screening of a documentary about the New York Times called “Page One: Inside the New York Times.”

The film, which debuted at the most recent Sundance Film Festival, opens Friday.

The documentary is by Andrew Rossi, who spent a year following reporters and editors at the famed newspaper, even as the media landscape shifted dramatically due to the impact of digital technologies.

Luckily for me, one of the movie’s principal characters — and I do mean character when it comes to him — is the Times’ quirky media columnist, David Carr.

I met Carr a dog’s age ago, when he ran “The City Paper” in Washington, D.C. He has only gotten more interesting over time, especially as the Web has transformed the news business.

Actually, wrecked the news business seems more the sensibility of “Page One” and also the audience at the screening, which largely bemoaned the troubles that quality papers have gotten themselves into in the age of the Internet.

Of course, the situation at the Times is a lot more complicated than that and there are some significant benefits to readers in the new paradigm, even if it did not help traditional media.

Carr winks and nods to both sides of the debate in the film — his attack on Web bad boy Michael Wolff over aggregation is priceless, even though he clearly loves the Internet’s thrilling possibilities, too.

As I have previously written, what is probably most interesting is that many of the stories covered by the Times in the film are about the technological forces that have put it and other traditional media organizations through the digital ringer in recent years.

Here’s the video of my interview with Carr — please, as I tried to, ignore his rant at the start about the Times’ failed talent raid on a defenseless little tech blog site! — as well as an exclusive clip and the trailer for the movie:

[ See post to watch video ]

Viral Video: "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop" (at SXSW)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:43:33 +0000

Conan O’Brien has been all over the South by Southwest festival this week, hawking a new documentary about his time wandering in the late-night talk television wilderness after he left “The Tonight Show” last year.

That included a lively live interview with Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on Saturday, as well as a series of appearances related to “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.”

His hysterical journey, of course, was deftly played out by O’Brien all over the Internet, which was definitely on “Team Coco.”

The documentary, which will be distributed in the U.S. in a multi-platform deal with AT&T, follows O’Brien on his “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour.

Here’s a clip from the film:

NBC: Here's Why We Fired the "Today Show" YouTube Leaker

Peter Kafka — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:03:30 +0000

Yup, NBC did indeed fire the guy who put that 1994 “Today Show” clip up on YouTube.

Here’s the company’s official statement: “The individual in question violated the company’s standards of conduct by repeatedly copying and distributing a variety of materials without permission.”

Not that it needs much unpacking, but just to be clear: NBC is saying, without actually saying so, that its position is that it canned the leaker for behavior beyond posting that single clip.

And not to be too square and get-off-my-lawn about it, but there are lots and lots of companies–including, for instance, Google, which owns YouTube–that fire people for distributing things on the Internet that aren’t supposed to be distributed on the Internet.

As PaidContent’s Andrew Wallenstein argues, the fact that the clip is funny and interesting and had already been on TV 17 years ago–and on NBC’s own Web site today–doesn’t mean the NBC guy had the go-ahead to do it. (It also points out the complexity that YouTube has in policing authorized and unauthorized clips, but that’s a different story.)

But, as noted: The clip is funny and interesting! And reminds us of what Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric used to look like. Let’s watch it again!

Seeing Triple Zuckerbergs (Including the Real One) on SNL

Liz Gannes — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 05:56:03 +0000

Good thing Mark Zuckerberg’s got that whole other career going, ’cause he can’t hold a straight face for a millisecond.

What he can successfully do is go on “Saturday Night Live” and be a good sport, appearing alongside two men who have played and parodied him: “The Social Network” actor Jesse Eisenberg and SNL’s Andy Samberg. Here’s the clip from tonight’s show:

Without Aaron Sorkin writing his dialogue, the real Zuckerberg is lacking in zingers. His review of “The Social Network”: “It was… interesting.”

“That guy’s like my evil twin and that’s just Andy Samberg,” Zuckerberg tells SNL creator Lorne Michaels while being mock-sequestered backstage. “Those guys are such nerds….C’mon, I invented poking.”

Meanwhile, Eisenberg admits, for all the sticklers in the room (and one of them in particular), “I wasn’t really ‘doing’ Mark Zuckerberg; I was interpreting a fictional character in a movie script.”

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Viral Video: "Page One" at Sundance

Kara Swisher — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:39:59 +0000

One of the more interesting movies at the 11th Sundance Film Festival, which opens today in Park City, Utah, will be “Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times.”

Here’s the program description from Sundance:

With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, PAGE ONE chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.

The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism–including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching–is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths.

What is probably most interesting is that many of the stories covered by the Times in the film are about the technological forces that have put it and other traditional media organizations through the digital ringer in recent years.

And, as someone who made the move away from a big mainstream newspaper to an online-only publication, I experienced some significant déjà vu watching clips in this interview with Rossi below, especially of the editor-centric tone of the newsroom and the franticness of reporters to get a story on the front page.

Which these days feels like such an odd and ancient way to think of journalism and which I also don’t miss for a second. (By the way, you can do “rigorous” journalism online too and without all the endless meetings.)

Check out Rossi (and that’s the very funny NYT media columnist David Carr in the photo below):

Viral Video: CNBC's "The Facebook Obsession" Features More Mark Z (Plus BoomTown)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:05:58 +0000

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is certainly in the midst of a media bonanza.

Aside from all the heat over its recent investment whatever with Goldman Sachs, the young entrepreneur has been touted on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and been selected Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Oh, yes, and that movie–”The Social Network”–which you just know is going to win some Oscars on February 27.

Now CNBC has just aired a documentary on the huge social networking site, titled–appropriately–“The Facebook Obsession.”

There is no new interview with Zuckerberg, and it’s essentially the same story about the Silicon Valley wunderkind, told yet again. But all the old video clips and photos collected all together on another television show are nice.

Also, I always enjoy the Winklevii spouting off hambone arguments about why they are owed more than $65 million for Zuckerberg’s kneecapping of them back at Harvard University.

And, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-me appearance, I also make a showing, apparently as the grumpy one.

But I did not see it, as CNBC did not deign to post the entire report online, as “60 Minutes” so kindly did.

CNBC did do a preview and provide some clips, which are embedded below, as well the the much funnier Jon Stewart take on it all on “The Daily Show,” titled “The Anti-Social Network”:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

The Anti-Social Network

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

YouTube Hands Out $500,000 to Video Makers, Prepares to Spend a Whole Lot More on Next New Networks

Peter Kafka — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:38:25 +0000

Here’s a cutesy press stunt from YouTube: It is handing out $500,000 to some of its semi-pro video makers.

The money, doled out via 500 $1,000 credits to photography mecca B&H Photo, is meant to reward some of YouTube’s most popular content providers. And it’s supposed to remind people how fruitful it can be to provide YouTube with good content.

Google’s video site usually does that by other means. For instance, it is happy to point out that members of its “Partner” program can now make real money–in some cases, a full-time living or even more–by supplying YouTube with popular clips.

But YouTube’s most public embrace of its partners will happen if the video site ends up acquiring Next New Networks, a Web video producer/distributor dedicated to putting out low-cost, high-view videos, like the ones featuring Obama Girl or the Bed Intruder. That is, exactly the kind of videos that YouTube is rewarding with today’s handouts.

News of the sale talks were first reported in the New York Times last week. And at the time, I’d assumed that YouTube was going to be able to buy Next New at a bargain basement price, in large part because the start-up is on its third CEO in three years.

But people familiar with the company tell me that if it does sell to Google, investors who have put in $26 million will get at least a decent return on their investment. So we’re looking at something in the $50 million range at a minimum, perhaps much more.

YouTube is Next New Networks’ primary distribution partner, which makes the proposed deal a bit of a head-scratcher for some: Why pay for stuff you’re already getting?

But YouTube apparently thinks it is worth its while to lock in that content pipeline. And it’s willing to spend a whole lot more than $500,000 to get it done.

Here’s one of the YouTube partners getting $1,000 worth of new equipment: “MysteryGuitarMan,” in a clip he put out last month that has since garnered almost 1.5 million views.

"60 Minutes": Does Mark Zuckerberg Want to "Own" the Internet? (Plus New Profiles on Facebook!)

Kara Swisher — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 19:28:08 +0000

Here is a sneak peak at the “60 Minutes” piece that will air tonight at 7 pm PT on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In it, he shows off another redo of the profiles on the Silicon Valley social networking site, which puts photos front and center.

(Also, for those in the know, that’s outgoing PR poo-bah Brandee Barker rolling down the hall on the Ripstik.)

Veteran CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl asks Zuckerberg in the clip below of the interview if he wants to own the Internet–which, as usual, Zuckerberg does not exactly answer.

But Stahl–God bless her!–keeps at it!

BoomTown also makes an appearance on the television show, so let me know how you like my smart-lady glasses.

Enjoy the video:

Jon Stewart Explains WikiLeaks to the Rest of Us

Peter Kafka — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:47:27 +0000

What’s really in the most recent batch of WikiLeaks documents? And should we care? Jon Stewart explains, and then dissects the fascination that certain digerati (you know who you are) have with transparency.

Sorry, couldn’t shave down the eight-minute running time, but it’s worth it (boy do I miss the Hulu clip-editing feature). Also, this is NSFW if your workplace isn’t cool with the word “penis.”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

The Informant!

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

The Daily Show on Facebook

If you’re looking for a more sober take on WikiLeaks, check out Andy Greenberg’s excellent Forbes cover story and interview with Julian Assange.

Richard Branson's iPad App: $2.99, Instructions Included. You'll Need Them.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:29:26 +0000

Richard Branson will hold a press conference in New York this morning to show off “Project,” his new iPad magazine app. But since it’s already live in Apple’s iTunes store, there’s really no need to wait. Pay $3, and you can see for yourself.

Should you? Depends: If you’re into iPad magazine apps, you’ll want to, because it’s a pretty good iPad magazine app, with some interesting deployment of art, video and live Web links. On the other hand, it’s pretty similar to most of the other iPad magazine apps you’ve seen so far.

Except more confusing–the navigation on all of these things changes from app to app, but this one seems even more random. Hence this one-page instruction manual (note to the guy who was confused – yes, this is an actual screenshot):

That said, if you do monkey around with this thing, you’ll find some cool stuff. My favorite so far is an ohmygodlookitathat photo of some nutjob kayaking off a waterfall. This image:

Expands into this image:

And then a link gets you to this astonishing Vimeo clip:

tyler bradt world record–Palouse Fall, Washington State tyler bradt world record–Palouse Fall, Washington State from Vagueo on Vimeo.

With a Big Push From Apple, HTML5 Video Wins the Web (But Not Completely)

Peter Kafka — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:00:18 +0000

Remember the big Apple vs. everyone else video-format war from last spring? When Apple was pushing the HTML5 standard it wanted to use for video on the iPhone and iPad, instead of Adobe’s Flash?

No one seems to spend much time talking about it anymore. For good reason: In large part because Steve Jobs insisted on it, “online video” increasingly means “HTML5-compatible.” There’s not much to debate anymore.

Video search engine MeFeedia, for instance, says that 54 percent of Web video is now compatible with HTML5. That’s more than double the tally the company had back in May–less than six months ago. And because MeFeedia’s numbers include old archival stuff that most people don’t watch, as well as big troves of Chinese video you’re unlikely to see, the practical number for most Web surfers is much higher.

Then again, it isn’t hard to find Web video that isn’t compatible with your iPad or iPhone–or your Android handset from Google, either. And once you do, the fact that the clip is in the statistical minority won’t make you feel any better. Even some sites that Apple says are “iPad-ready,” like the New York Times, have plenty of video that won’t work on Apple’s device or any other HMTL5 player.

MeFeedia highlights these HTML5 holdouts:

Full episodes from the major TV Networks (including Hulu)
Most cable network content, particularly long-form video
Metacafe, MySpace Video, 5min
Live video sites such as Ustream and Justin.tv
International sites such as Tu.tv, Youku, and Sevenload

But as the Hulu example shows us quite clearly, the HTML5 gaps that exist today are usually there because of business reasons, not technical ones: Hulu is quite happy to provide you with HTML5 video on your iPad–if you’re willing to pay (something) for a Hulu Plus subscription.

So, sorry iPad users (and yes, international visitors on good old-fashioned PCs)–you won’t be able to see this clip:

The Meanest Thing You'll Hear About AOL and Yahoo Today

Peter Kafka — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:24:17 +0000

It’s from last night’s “Saturday Night Live,” and it involves the words “nursing” and “home.”

You don’t need to watch the whole clip to see it–the joke is over by the 40-second mark. You will have to sit through a pre-roll, though. And, as always, you can’t see it outside the U.S.:

Conan O'Brien Keeps Courting the Internet. Next Up: 24 Hours of Live "Coco Cam."

Peter Kafka — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:07:57 +0000

Conan O’Brien didn’t really embrace the Web until he was just about out of his last job at NBC. But now he’s in a well-documented digital bear hug: O’Brien and his team use Twitter, Tumblr and viral videos to promote the man and his new show on Time Warner’s TBS.

The newest venture–a 24-hour live “behind the scenes” Webcast, produced in conjunction with Google’s YouTube (another recent Conan ally).

It kicks off at 1 pm ET today on O’Brien’s YouTube channel, and it’s pretty self-explanatory. But if you want to read about it, you can check out this YouTube blog post, or just watch this clip.

Nick Denton's New Yorker Profile–The Video Version (Bonus! One Paragraph Version, Too)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:30:39 +0000

The New Yorker‘s new profile of Nick Denton isn’t behind the magazine’s pay wall. So when you have time, you should read the whole thing. It’s good!

If you’re in a hurry, though, you can get a good sense of Denton, at least in present tense, via this clip. It’s an abridged version of my onstage chat with the Gawker Media founder at an Interactive Advertising Bureau event last month, and the editors have done a nice job of distilling it down to seven minutes. Bonus for you guys: This thing is so well-edited that I don’t appear in a single frame.

And if you’re in a real hurry, here’s the money quote, which I extracted from Denton by asking him if he thinks what Gawker does is “journalism”:

In the U.S., traditional media has killed itself. And it’s provided a great opportunity for organizations like us, because they have cared too much about the journalism, about the Pulitzers, about the respect of their peers–and too little about the entertainment of their readers.”

If you’re looking for more detail from our talk, which included Denton lavishing praise on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs but refusing to shed any light on the Gizmodo/iPhone 4 case, check out David Kaplan’s summary at PaidContent.

Viral Video: Howard Dean Scream, in GOP Redux

Kara Swisher — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:36:38 +0000

Here’s one very kooky political performance, by a Republican nominee for Stark County, Ohio, treasurer named Phil Davison.

Davison did not win, but he does manage to finally top former Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the intensely crazy and deeply awkward speech department.

Enjoy, with the infamous Dean clip below it for comparison:

Steve Levitan Gets His Wish: "Modern Family" Leaves Hulu (Briefly)

Peter Kafka — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:39:15 +0000

“Modern Family” creator Steve Levitan says he loves the Internet, but says he wants his show off the Web. Because the eyeballs it attracts don’t do him any good.

Wish granted! Temporarily.

Turns out, Levitan’s show has been off the free Web–Hulu, ABC.com and ABC’s free iPad app–for the past month or so. Hulu, which is co-owned by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC, and GE’s (GE) NBC, explains that its streaming rights for the show expired on July 27. And that the show will be back this fall.

That seems a little weird, because you can still watch online episodes of most other big network shows that aired last year. But I’m told that while some ABC executives were actually in favor of taking Levitan at his word, “Modern’s Family”‘s temporary absence isn’t a punishment, but has to do with the release of the show’s first DVD set, due out later this month.

Which makes sense. Because even in 2010, Hollywood–in this case News Corp.’s Fox, which produces the show–still values analog dollars more than anything the Web can produce. So if the TV guys think there’s a chance that free Web shows cut into DVD sales….

And while these windows/channel conflicts aren’t going away anytime soon, they remain confusing.

For instance, you can still watch the last episode of “Lost” on Hulu, even though the DVDs of the last season went on sale a couple of weeks ago. But Hulu says the series finale will disappear from its site on September 20. And that it won’t be showing seasons 1 to 5 after the end of 2010. Go figure.

But! You can still watch “Modern Family” on the Web, without breaking the law. All you need to do is wrangle a Hulu Plus invite, and you can watch it on your Web browser, or on your Apple (APPL) iPad or iPhone, for that matter. Is that worth $10 a month to you?

In the meantime, cheapskates will have to get by on free Web clips like this one:

And here’s a clip of Levitan explaining his beef with Web video, at our D8 conference in June:

[ See post to watch video ]

Web Meme: BoomTown and the Internet Is on #TeamSlater and His Inflatable-Slide Rage

Kara Swisher — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:15:56 +0000

The story of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater–who, after being abused by a passenger, did a full “Norma Rae” and huffed off the airplane via an inflatable slide–spread like wildfire across the Internet yesterday, almost immediately after the incident occurred.

It’s too much to hope that someone on the JetBlue (JBLU) flight had a Flip camera and is uploading the incident on YouTube right now, but video is unnecessary after the tale of flight rage got out and details piled upon details.

This is just the kind of silly, but true-to-life, story that everyone loves to share, and share it they did, with #teamslater quickly gaining ground on Twitter, and online comments and news stories exploding.

And why not? Everyone has encountered the entitled jerk who gets up before the plane has stopped, grabs his bag from the overhead compartment and then shoves his way to the front. Slater was simply doing his job by asking this passenger to sit down, and then decided he had had it when the bag struck him and he was cursed at.

We’ve also had our share of surly service from airline personnel, but this incident shed light on exactly why they might be a little more tetchy than we expect at times.

Maybe the cursing back on the intercom system and the dramatic beer-drinking exit was a bit over the top, but so what?

Slater is now, for better or worse, a Web hero.

Just like Norma Rae, seen in the video clip from the movie’s big scene below:

(The image is from Slater’s MySpace page here.)

What eBay-Rich Meg Whitman Really Wants to Do Is Direct!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:53:27 +0000

It’s worth checking out an article in the New York Times today that points to a very questionable, but–as it turned out–politically savvy angel investment made by former eBay CEO and now Republican candidate for California governor Meg Whitman.

The piece, by Michael Luo, alleges that Whitman’s $1 million investment in late 2008 in a Hollywood entertainment company called Tools Down! Productions was made to ease a prominent Republican strategist away from working for her rival for the GOP nod.

That would be Steve Poizner, who lost to Whitman in the recent primary and who was close to working with Mike Murphy. Instead, with a little help from the piles of cash Whitman made from eBay (EBAY) stock, Murphy never took the job.

Well, not the Poizner job, at least. After telling people he was sick of politics and then getting the Whitman money days later for his still credit-free movie production company, Murphy became an adviser to Whitman a year later.

The bigger story the Times is touting, but does not quite deliver, is the advent of super-rich candidates in races this round, including another tech exec, former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina. She won the California GOP Senate primary.

This kind of thing has happened before, of course.

But what’s interesting is to see Silicon Valley’s digitally enabled moneybags step up to the very stained political table and jump right into the game.

What’s next? Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin buying everyone in San Francisco lattes for life to become mayor? Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for president of the United States, via the leveraging of embarrassing photos from the social networking site?

And thank goodness Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) never wanted to run for office.

The Whitman campaign told the Times that the investment was disclosed and justified in that she had ample entertainment interest from her days as a strategic planning exec at Disney (DIS) and also as a board member of DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA).

Which is exactly what they would say, of course.

Thus, perhaps it is time to take a moment with Jimmy Stewart in a video clip from the classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” of his most potent “Lost Causes” scene: