What took so long?

Actually, it did not take any time at all for someone to start legal proceedings against the current effort by Yahoo to sell itself.

In this case, no surprise, it is aimed directly at the how of doing it.

In an unusual injunction request, M&C Partners is seeking to enjoin the Silicon Valley Internet giant from using its stringent “no cross talk” rule for its potential buyers to limit possible bidding syndicates.

“The No Cross Talk Provision constitutes an unreasonable anti-takeover device, designed to entrench and favor [Yahoo co-founder, director and major shareholder Jerry] Yang and the current Board,” reads the legal filing, in part.

In addition, M&C does not like what it calls a “Minority Stake Promise,” which it alleges Yahoo is “requiring those who sign the Confidentiality Agreement to use any information they receive to confine themselves to a bid for only a minority stake.”

That refers to the fantastically named PIPE deals — or Private Investment in Public Equity — that PE firms like Silver Lake and TPG Capital have just offered. These are bids to buy 19.9 percent of Yahoo, which will essentially give them a lot of power.

Both allegations are, well, exactly what Yahoo is doing, even if it’s not for the filing’s stated nefarious reason. Thus, M&C doesn’t think that’s okay, presumably because it wants investors to be able to make a deal without Yahoo’s bossy rules.

To be clear, Yahoo is named in lawsuits all the time for a wide variety of things, such as a case in which one group is alleging it botched a deal with the Alibaba Group over its Alipay controversy to another alleging the price it paid for in its recent $270 million acquisition of Interclick was too low.

And so it is here, one of many to come, I suspect. In this one, there’s also a class-action request and various and sundry bashing of Yang, which you can read below:

yhoo

In a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its upcoming IPO, Zynga is expected to unveil two key management and board changes at the online gaming phenom:

Chief Business Officer Owen Van Natta — who came to the San Francisco-based start-up several years ago to help CEO Mark Pincus grow it and develop it — will step down from his job and become a strategic adviser focusing on major partnerships. He’ll still remain board member at Zynga, but will give up millions of pre-IPO shares by moving out of his operational role.

And director and venture investor Brad Feld will leave the the board, which VCs sometime do as companies move to a public offering and add members with more specific business experience.

In his place, longtime entrepreneur and investor Sunil Paul, who founded a company called FreeLoader with Pincus many moons ago, will join the board.

Zynga confirmed the changes to me in a statement by Pincus:

“Owen is a valuable business partner. He’s made great contributions to Zynga and continues to be an important part of our team.”

Sources said the changes related to Van Natta around are not part of a recent controversy around a Wall Street Journal story about clawing back of some share options grants of early Zynga employees who had become less involved in the company. While the company cannot actually take back already vested shares owned by those staffers, the article has put a lot of scrutiny on Zynga and raised questions about how to cope with the kind of hyper-growth some Internet firms experience.

That’s certainly been the kind of rocket ride Zynga has been on, as it has grown from a small social gaming company on Facebook to a high-profile public company.

Zynga is in the final stages of its IPO process, answering questions from the SEC that are typical. If all goes well, Zynga execs are expected to go on a road show after the Thanksgiving and go public by the end of the year at a market valuation of close to $20 billion.

That was different from when Van Natta officially got to Zynga in the spring of last year — after a rocky experience running the doomed Myspace. At the time, he told me at the time that planned to be focused on scaling the business and did not consider himself a long-term operating executive.

Since then, he has helped Pincus hire a series of experienced gaming execs, including a chief operating officer, a chief marketing officer and others.

Zynga was Van Natta’s third high-profile Web company in recent years. He was a top early exec for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook until early 2008, and in 2009 he took over News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, a job that lasted less than a year.

Early in his career, Van Natta was also was a top strategy, marketing and deal exec for Amazon, which bought an early social networking start-up called PlanetAll that he worked at.

It will now be interesting to see what Van Natta does next, but it is unlikely he will take a permanent position. He is a longtime angel investor in Silicon Valley, including in hot start-ups such as Asana and still holds a significant stake in Facebook.

But, in moving out of his job at Zynga, he will be giving up many millions of shares of a rich trove he was given when he arrived at the company. That said, Van Natta already owns millions of accelerated vested shares and will get another large grant as a board member.

Translation: Don’t cry for Mr. Van Natta, Silicon Valley — he made $42 million last year from Zynga shares alone.

AOL and TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington have officially parted ways, almost exactly one year from the New York Internet portal’s acquisition of the popular tech news site.

He was replaced by longtime TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld.

The company’s statement said that the high-profile blogger had “decided” to move on, which was a decided understatement, given that the negotiations between the pair sometimes approximated a cage match.

The noisy media fight centered on a new $20 million venture fund that Arrington is now running, called CrunchFund, and his editorial status at TechCrunch with the new role.

Many, including myself, had raised questions about the conflicts of interest inherent in the situation, if Arrington had remained influential at TechCrunch. Arrington had argued that transparency took care of that.

The name of the fund, which is close to the name of TechCrunch, will remain, said Arrington onstage this morning at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.

“This is my baby and I built this,” he said, in an understated appearance. “So, it’s a sad day.”

Before beginning an opening interview with well-known Silicon Valley investor and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman at the conference, Arrington got off a good joke — one of many to come, apparently (uh-oh!) — by wearing a t-shirt with the label: Unpaid Blogger.

It was a humorous poke at AOL content czar and former Arrington boss, Arianna Huffington, who had called him that in one of the many rounds of fighting of late.

It was all in good fun, finally, after not so much fun.

Along with a media firestorm, the fracas included Arrington posting an angry blog on TechCrunch itself demanding that AOL give him editorial independence or sell him back TechCrunch.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Huffington were inclined to do neither and, thus, Arrington had to go.

Here’s a statement that was just put out by AOL:

“The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund. Michael is a world-class entrepreneur and we look forward to supporting his new endeavor through our investment in his venture fund. Erick Schonfeld has been named the editor of TechCrunch. TechCrunch will be expanding its editorial leadership in the coming months.”

Oddly, Armstrong put the news of the change at the end of his weekly internal memo to staff, in which he noted that the company would continue as an investor in Arrington’s CrunchFund — a $10 million investment — which had started this whole controversy.

Tim, in old-timey journalism that’s called burying the lede, but here it is:

AOLers –

We’re right in the middle of the most important season of our year and we have some critical work to get done. I wanted to share the highlights of what we are expecting to have happen in the next 12 weeks. As I mentioned last week, we have prioritized our focus areas in a concise document.

The main items are below and there will be a steady set of reviews against these and related items at the weekly product reviews and monthly business reviews:

1. Traffic Growth: Full execution of the Bridge and Tunnel Project

2. Display Ads Growth: Premium formats and video growth/improvement in the quote to collect process for customers and sales

3. Video Platform: Launch of new video platform

4. Patch Monetization: Sales allocations/partnerships

5. Expansion of Content Verticals/Platform: Genre verticals in HuffPost/video expansion

6. Mobile: Content & ads priority match/move mobile engineering up the brand food chain

7. Expansion of Devil Network: Increase partners and scale production

8. Paid Services: Increase commerce partnerships

As we have discussed, the fall of ’11 will be about driving organic product improvement and reducing our focus to the high leverage opportunities. Every new opportunity at the company will be compared to our succinct plan. If we are going to add a new idea, an existing idea needs to be removed. There is room for execution and for improvement — everything else needs to be put on the back burner.

Finally, I’d like to announce that Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund. TechCrunch continues to be a part of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group. AOL will maintain its initial investment in Michael Arrington’s fund and AOL Ventures will oversee our investment in the fund.

Have a great week everyone — stay focused and keep up the strong momentum –TA

Indeed, now that the disruption is over, it is long past time to focus on the entrepreneurs and start-ups that TechCrunch is built on. Here is the link to watch the live stream of TechCrunch Disrupt.

UPDATE: It’s not over until it is over, apparently. In a blog post of her own, Huffington took aim at The Wall Street Journal over its coverage of the internal battle at AOL.

Calling out a Journal story from over this past weekend as “shoddy,” she took issue with its characterization of AOL as having a “culture of clashing fiefs and personalities,” with a focus on fighting between her and Arrington.

The issue at hand wasn’t about personalities. It was about principle; a very simple fundamental principle about conflicts of interest that every journalistic enterprise adheres to — including the Wall Street Journal, as its former publisher L. Gordon Crovitz points out today. But you wouldn’t know that from the breathless opening grafs of the exceptionally misinformed, substance-lite, and anonymous-quote-riddled piece.

Indeed, it takes a full eight paragraphs before the Journal’s reporters Jessica Vascellaro and Emily Steel move away from their gossip girl caricature “clash of personalities” narrative and get to — or at least near — the heart of the matter: Can someone running a venture fund edit a site covering the tech startup scene? This has nothing to do with personalities, either Mike Arrington’s or mine.

If only we could only find a way to also include the doofus-is-not-disparaging fired Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz, this giant rumble would certainly be complete.

SECOND UPDATE: But, wait, what tweet through yonder smartphone breaks?

It is the Arrington, now seemingly taking a shot at Huffington about their clash of personalities.

Wrote Arrington on Twitter just now: “ok @ariannahuff. Let’s go ahead and talk about how this really played out.”

Oh, let’s — although part of me (and I know this might seem ironic) wants to make it stop.

I cannot express my delight at finally getting to appear in a CGI news video by Next Media Animation, in a segment about the CrunchFund controversy.

In it, the New York Times’ David Carr and I attack TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington with paintball guns. He is wearing a green wizard outfit.

Later, a flaming Arianna Huffington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong make an appearance.

Yes, it is that kind of video.

Enjoy:

After our grand tour of Asia last week — with stops in Korea and Japan — it seems like a perfect time to update the speaker list for our upcoming AsiaD conference in Hong Kong in October.

As Walt Mossberg and I said, we are trying to mix both U.S.-based speakers with a pan-Asian selection of speakers from across the region, and the new additions are just that.

For the international confab — this one will be held Oct. 19-21 — we’ve already announced a great lineup, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; and Asus Chairman Jonny Shih.

Now, to add to that terrific lineup:

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. In that role, the dynamic exec is at the nexus of the Japanese company’s efforts around tablets, smartphones, gaming and more. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance over the arena, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use? It’s an important question and Horowitz’s job No. 1.

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia. With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android far in the lead, Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. The former top News Corp. exec is now a movie producer — his first effort, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a big hit. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. The former CTO of Nortel, he’s heading up global development of Huawei’s cloud services for both businesses and consumers. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there is no denying that it has been a golden time for Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including:

Brian Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site that recently got a huge dose of funding and an equally large amount of controversy. How Airbnb can take the company to the next level, including across the world, while dealing with the kinds of challenges the small management team has to face, will be an interesting topic for discussion.

After stints as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and co-founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is trying her hand at a small start-up again. She’ll talk about how the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online, plans to expand globally.

Finally, longtime tech exec David Goldberg is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company. With stints as founder of music site Launch Media, which was bought by Yahoo, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Benchmark Capital, he is the perfect person to explain what it’s like being an entrepreneur today in Silicon Valley.

We have even more speakers for AsiaD we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so get ready for what’s next.

According to numerous sources close to the situation and after regulatory pressure, Groupon will amend its S-1 public offering filing to remove references to an unusual accounting treatment that has attracted controversy.

Sources said the new filing by the social buying company, which is helmed by CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason (pictured above), will likely occur as early as Monday.

It can’t come a minute too soon regarding a metric called ACSOI, or adjusted consolidated segment operating income, which the Chicago-based Groupon used when it filed its S-1 documents in June.

As I wrote at the time about the odd use of ACSOI:

Let’s be clear, this is a number that does not include important costs, such as critical online marketing expenses to attract new customers to Groupon.

Such accounting is called non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles).

In 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, Groupon said its Adjusted CSOI was $60.6 million and $81.6 million, respectively.

On a GAAP basis, Groupon lost $413.4 million for 2010 and $113.9 million in the first three months of 2011.

And, indeed, questions from the media, investors and, most importantly, the Securities and Exchange Commission about how Groupon accounts for its revenue and profits using ACSOI were swift and decidedly negative.

Hence, a furious debate — along with much internal tension — within Groupon about what to do. At first, in another S-1 amendment, the company backed away from using ACSOI as a “valuation metric.”

But that was apparently not enough for the SEC or anyone else, so Groupon’s top managers finally thought it best to rid itself of the term entirely. That will happen next week, sources said.

And, in coming weeks, sources added, the company will be filing additional financial information about both its growth and costs, which will undoubtedly also be put under a microscope by the media, investors and regulators.

A Groupon spokesman declined to comment when asked about the removal of ACSOI from its public offering documents.

Step 1: Note the controversy du jour. Here we go again. Google+ is in the midst of another spat with a core of dedicated users.

Over the past week, the unhappy mutterings that initially greeted Google’s social network’s requirement that members use their real names escalated into a roar after the Google+ team removed a number of high profile members, such as William Shatner.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

This morning, News Corp. CEO and majordomo Rupert Murdoch, his son James (who is also a top company exec) — as well as former employee and full-time lightning rod Rebekah Brooks — march on down to the British Parliament to answer questions from a committee there about the ever-growing PhoneGate scandal.

For those living under a rock, News Corp. is embroiled in ever more serious controversy about who knew what and when (also where, why and how much) in the hacking of phones of a myriad of well-known people in the U.K. by its News of the World tabloid newspaper.

Besides celebrities and politicians, that has included the voicemails of a murdered girl, an appalling act that has galvanized public opinion and the weak spines of legislators into action in this inquiry.

It’s sordid, it’s ugly and it makes for what could be an explosive event, starring the man who brought you “Titanic,” Glenn Beck, “Glee” and, most recently, the sale of Myspace.

There’s no question, getting the 80-year-old Murdoch on the ropes will be the aim of the committee members holding the hearing, and how one of the world’s most famous and legendary media moguls performs — or does not — will be a big deal to both interested observers and News Corp. shareholders.

By way of full disclosure, that’s not me, but this site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. In other words, somewhere up the corporate food chain, Murdoch is my boss.

In any case, that has never stopped me or AllThingsD.com from telling it like it is, so here is the liveblog of what is sure to be a doozy of a media event:

6:36 am PT:: It all starts for the Murdochs, as soon as the former Scotland Yard head John Yates has completed questioning about the police’s obvious bungling of the various investigations over the years.

Rupert Murdoch and his son, James Murdoch, are on, looking grave and dressed in grey.

Sitting behind them are Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, and his top adviser at News Corp., Joel Klein, who is heading up the phone hacking scandal internally at the company.

The hearing — in a room that looks like a high school debate could take place there — starts off politely enough.

But the first question is directed toward James Murdoch about his clearly incomplete investigation when phone hacking allegations were first made many years ago. He begins with an apology.

“These actions do not live up to the standards of News Corp.,” says the younger Murdoch.

He is interrupted by his father, Rupert Murdoch, who notes rather dramatically: “This is the most humble day of my life.”

The questioner quickly asks the obvious query, after James Murdoch claims News Corp. was not in full possession of the facts when execs had told a previous committee there was no reason to believe there was more widespread hacking.

Were News Corp. execs lying?

James Murdoch continues to insist that the bulk of evidence came out — “real evidence” — in later civil trials. And also, that News Corp. is now investigating the situation fully.

He throws around words like “proactive action” and “transparency,” which is probably cold comfort now to those hacked when things were less clear to News Corp.’s senior management.

Now up, Rupert Murdoch, who is asked quickly about statements he made about not tolerating wrongdoing and who had lied to him at News Corp. about the phone hacking.

Apparently, he “didn’t know” a lot about the hacking that took place, while also defending the non-hacking employees of his company.

But the questioner is still on him about exactly what he did know about the situation, which seems to be — at least according to his testimony — a lot of I-don’t-knows.

6:53 am: It continues about what Rupert Murdoch knew and when he knew it and what he did. Or not.

As Rupert Murdoch keeps up with this tone of not being clued in to what have turned out to be critical events, James Murdoch wants to keep jumping in with the details, which he is eager to impart.

“At what point did you find out criminality was endemic at News of the World?” asks the questioner.

Rupert Murdoch does not like the word endemic, but stresses that he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” by the case of the murdered girl, Milly Dowler.

The questioner seems frustrated by Rupert Murdoch’s answers, which are, for the typically razor-sharp media mogul, unusually slow.

Like a persistent terrier who wants to perform, James Murdoch is back again offering to serve up the deets.

7:04 am: Now, it is onto the closing down of News of the World: Was the tabloid shut down because of the criminality?

“We had broken our trust with our readers,” says Rupert Murdoch. “We felt ashamed for what had happened.”

A new questioner is on, with a bizarre query about why Rupert Murdoch came in the back door of the Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street on a recent visit there.

It’s a cloddish effort to show him as a powerful puppetmaster to pols, but only serves as a punch line.

Back on track, with questions about whether there was hacking in the U.S., which Rupert Murdoch said he could not believe had happened.

More questions about how badly the company acted, which came down to the questions about whether he was “ultimately” responsible for the hacking.

“Nope,” says Rupert Murdoch, who keeps insisting he relied on others, some of whom apparently “misled” him.

It’s an astonishing admission and, really, excuse, given he has been chairman, CEO and a very strong leader of News Corp. for more than a half-century.

7:16 am: A new questioner, who asks who decided to close down News of the World. It was Murdoch himself, his son and other execs.

Next up, why did News Corp. pay off a victim of hacking, which James Murdoch did without informing his father or the News Corp. board.

James Murdoch essentially points out that it is typical to do this in companies of the global scale of News Corp.

These are apparently very busy, busy, busy people, who do not seem to have time to notice how such juicy and best-selling scoops might have been magically produced by News of the World.

Onto ethical conduct guidelines, which News Corp. has in a pamphlet form, says James Murdoch, but pages which some at the company have obviously never cracked.

Rupert Murdoch is asked again about his culpability in the case, which he continues to maintain he does not shoulder the blame.

James Murdoch does note that the company “will think more forcefully … about our journalism and ethics.”

Given the situation, in which every day brings a new revelation of bad acts by News Corp. employees, this promise of better behavior seems to be a case of much too little and very, very late.

Rupert Murdoch still uses the opportunity to stress the need for a free press, despite its excesses.

7:31 am: More about the payments to settle with phone hacking victims and how soon the company realized the problems were more widespread.

James Murdoch talks about how he might have acted differently had he known more then as he does now.

“If we knew now what we knew then,” says James Murdoch, “we would have taken more action and moved more aggressively.”

But what else is he going to say? It’s a could-have, would-have, should-have line of questioning that is eliciting very little in the way of true information.

Finally, a good point about “willful blindness,” which is a term from the Enron scandal about avoiding knowing about problems you really should have known about.

“Is that a question?,” asks James Murdoch. It is a statement, actually, and a decent enough one.

“We didn’t do that,” says Rupert Murdoch firmly this time.

Still, soon enough, Rupert Murdoch is insisting he was not as involved as people have imagined him to be with the management of his newspapers.

A new questioner is pressing this important point, but Rupert Murdoch is not biting on a query about his legendarily hands-on managing style.

“I’d say, ‘What’s doing?’” he explains about his conversations with editors, but adding he might not have been told about payoffs to phone hacking victims.

The questions are in the deep weeds here, but it’s still interesting that Rupert Murdoch continues to maintain that his life was too busy to wallow in the details, however controversial and important those details might be.

7:55 am: More and more don’t-knows pile up and up in a giant mountain of acts perpetrated by someone somewhere, but not the Murdochs.

“I can tell you I was surprised as you were,” says James Murdoch about certain payments to various hackers and those who were hacked.

Was it Les Hinton, who then ran News International and later Dow Jones, from which he recently resigned?

Could be! Maybe! Mistake were made! Who knows!

Well, someone does!

It moves onto Brooks, the tarnished News International exec and editor whom Rupert Murdoch does note he still trusts. Finally, some certainty!

Brooks is definitely one of the more compelling characters in this drama, although the media focus on her striking red hair color seems odd and vaguely sexist, as if she is some flame-haired she-devil from media hell. She might certainly be guilty in this mess, but her fabulous hair has nothing to do with it.

(Rupert’s mane is grey, by the way, and James’ is brown, if you really need to know.)

Fascinatingly, Murdoch’s backing of Brooks has been strong and consistent, despite intense criticism of her by many in this scandal.

The payment of legal fees of perpetrators and payments to the victims in the hacking seems to obsess one questioner, who wants News Corp. to stop doing it.

Murdoch says he’d like to if contracts did not preclude that, which essentially means News Corp. will keep up forking over the legal fees and payments.

8:12 am: The attention turns to how James Murdoch found out about the various emails that showed there was more evidence of hacking than was first thought about and what he felt about it.

He says very little, noting that the matter is under police investigation. It’s not don’t-know now, but can’t-say.

The hearing is beginning to feel a little rope-a-dope, with the Murdochs apologizing and taking blows, saying very little — either claiming lack of knowledge or lack of ability to comment about the ongoing police inquiry — and tiring out the questioners.

It is a classic tactic of the boxing champion Muhammad Ali and it works in the ring.

Whether that will be the case with PhoneGate remains to be seen, but it certainly has made what could have been a more explosive hearing much less so.

Instead, it seems to have turned into a what didn’t the Murdochs know and when didn’t they know it hearing.

On questioner gets this irony. “That’s frankly unsatisfactory,” he says about the Murdochs continuing shock and surprise at the thorny situation they find themselves in.

Maybe it seems a little hard to believe, but the persistent story from James Murdoch is that they were told by their lawyers, the police and others that nothing was awry once the initial phone hacking investigation was complete and only found out about the larger problem in later civil lawsuits.

But, asks the questioner to Rupert Murdoch, should his editors and managers at News of the World have known about it?

Of course, they should have.

But, once again, the legendary media baron, who made his fortune and fame in disseminating news and information across the world in newspapers, on television, on satellite and on the Web — at least for now — can’t say.

So, was he “kept in the dark” about the situation? Rupert Murdoch acknowledges he might have asked more questions, although he noted his British newspapers were only a small part of his massive empire.

But, he adds, “Anything that is seen as a crisis comes to me.”

Well, not the phone hacking crisis, it seems.

But, they’re sorry. So sorry. And, of course, humbled.

8:54 am: Suddenly, there is a disturbance, in which someone seems to have possibly attempted to accost the Murdochs.

But it is not clear what has happened, as the hearings are suspended for 10 minutes.

James Murdoch leaps up quickly to protect his father, which he has been doing in this hearing verbally already, where the strategy seems to be to let him largely do all the talking.

Even faster on her feet and with arms raised toward a man in a plaid shirt and carrying a pie plate with shaving cream is Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi.

The man seems to have managed to get some of the foam on Rupert Murdoch, but Wendi Deng appears to have partially thwarted her husband from receiving a full pie in the face.

It’s the first striking visual of this hearing, protecting the patriarch and the king of the empire from harm, no matter what.

Here is a video of the incident:

According to Britain’s Channel 4: “As the man was being led away in handcuffs escorted by a single police officer, he refused to give his name, saying: ‘As Mr Murdoch himself said, I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation.’”

9:09 am: The room is cleared, so it is only the Murdoch crew behind James and Rupert Murdoch, and now the committee is even more solicitous.

Rupert Murdoch is without his jacket and his wife is being commended for her most excellent left hook.

Still, it’s back to business and the questioner does zero in on a major disconnect over how two media execs as famously aggressive and involved as the Murdochs were so passive in this hacking situation.

It “was a terrible shock,” says James Murdoch.

The same is said about what would be even more disturbing and recent allegations of the hacking of the victims of the 9/11 bombings.

Both father and son say there is no evidence of this so far, but they were surely looking into it.

While it certainly did not come through in what have largely been feckless questions from the committee, the final questioner does correctly ask the pair if they might want to pay more attention.

The last question is for Rupert Murdoch and finally gets to the real query everyone wants to ask.

Noting Murdoch is “captain of the ship,” she asks if he has considered resigning.

“No,” answers Murdoch firmly.

“Why not?” she presses.

“People let me down and it’s for them to pay,” says Rupert Murdoch. “But I think, frankly, I am the best person do clean this up.”

He finishes up with a statement about being sorry, how he was also betrayed and how phone hacking and bribery is wrong.

“Saying sorry is not enough, things must be put right,” he says.

Finally, something we do know.

For years now, it looked like the tousled adorkability and winsome charms of British movie star Hugh Grant were beginning to grow long in the tooth.

That is, until the phone-hacking scandal in Britain — with the News Corp.-owned tabloid News of the World’s editors, reporters and managers accused of serious misconduct — got really going in recent weeks.

The issue about the out-of-control press has put the well-spoken Grant, a victim of the hacking, at the center of the action and he’s doing a laudable job as both an indignant and also reasonable voice.

Here are three videos where you can see Grant talking about the controversy and also debating both the hackers and the pols who apparently protected them.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Yesterday, AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group got into hot water after the top editor at its Moviefone unit sent a memo to freelancers it was in the midst of firing, offering them an opportunity to “contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system.”

Today, that exec–Moviefone Editor-in-Chief Patricia Chui–was fired by the company, which is in the midst of drastically rejiggering its stable of writers.

Many of those were freelance bloggers under contract to AOL, who are now getting the boot in favor of reallocating staff back to largely paid journalists.

Thus came the controversial email from Chui, which read, in part:

“We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon-–this week, I believe–-many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you/d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.”

Oh dear. Really, oh dear, especially since the Huffington Post has had its own share of controversies over not paying some bloggers (although it never quite ever offered up a doozie that this letter was).

Sources said Chui was terminated by John Montorio, the HuffPo Media Group’s culture, entertainment and lifestyle editor. Arianna Huffiington is head of all content at AOL, which recently paid $315 million to buy the Huffington Post.

Since she took over, Huffington has tried to stress a return to journalism over more algorithmic content creation. The unloading of its freelance writers was part of that effort.

Thus, Chui’s missteps did not help matters.

But it was not the first time recently that she had made an ill-advised editorial judgment.

Sources said the firing is also due to an incident several weeks ago, in which Chui appeared to defend a marketing employee who sent an email to TechCrunch writer Alexia Tsotsis, asking her to soften a review of “Source Code” due to studio relationship considerations.

AOL bought TechCrunch, a well-known tech news site, last fall. At the time, its CEO Tim Armstrong promised editorial independence and no meddling over advertising concerns.

Instead of taking this minion to task, on Moviefone’s own blog Chui said, in part:

“The reality of our situation is that, as a movies site, we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them. Staying on good terms with studios means that we will relay information if asked. It does not mean that we would ever force a writer or an editor to edit their work for the sake of a studio–or anyone else.”

Even with the last line, it is not exactly a profile in courage, because it was clear violation of the traditional separation of church and state in force at most media organizations.

Typically, editors are supposed to come down on any such communication. That has certainly been my experience in journalism over the years at the Washington Post and Dow Jones–including during its News Corp. ownership. In fact, I have often been shielded from such requests to pass such complaints onto me and only found out much later of advertiser discomfort about my reporting.

At the time, TechCrunch quite clearly called for Chui’s firing and that happened today.

Here is Chui’s full memo to freelancers, as well as the one about TechCrunch, neither of which were apparently cleared with higher-ups:

From: Chui, Patricia
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 11:26 AM
To: MoviefoneWriters
Subject: Moviefone/Cinematical–Status of Writers

Dear Moviefone/Cinematical Writers,

I know there’s been a lot of uncertainty regarding the future of freelancers and your status as a writer for the site. I personally apologize for the lack of communication, but I’ll tell you what I can.

We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon–this week, I believe–many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you’d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.

Some of you have indicated interest in applying for full-time writer and editor positions, and the status of those positions are also part of discussions that are ongoing right now. I cannot at this point, however, tell you how many positions there are, or what the exact nature of those positions will be.

Despite the move toward a full-time staff vs. freelancer model, I’m told that there will be room for “exceptions”–for example, in the cases of writers who specialize in certain subjects. Again, what these exceptions are for Moviefone, and what the budget for them would be, is still being discussed.

As for Cinematical, the resignation of Erik Davis is certainly a loss. But I am continuing to have conversations with the editorial leadership here, and I am hopeful that we will still be able to maintain the Cinematical brand and voice going forward. Again, I will share with you any pertinent information as I have it.

In the meantime, those of you who already have assignments, please do continue to work on them unless you hear otherwise. If you’re uncertain of the status of your assignment, check with me. It may take me a while to get back to you, so please be patient–but I will respond.

I am sorry that I don’t have more specific details to give you, but I promise that I’ll keep you as well-informed as I possibly can. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns.

Best,

patricia

By now you may have read the recent post in TechCrunch regarding that site’s SXSW coverage of the film “Source Code.” A representative from Moviefone, who set up the interview with Summit Entertainment, received some feedback from the studio and passed it along to TechCrunch (our sister site here at AOL). That email has now caused something of a Internet kerfuffle.

Here is the email–reprinted in the post–that was sent to the TechCrunch writer.

Hey Alexia,

Hope you’re having a good time at SxSW and that it’s not been too crazy busy for you!

First wanted to thank you for covering Source Code/attending the party, etc. But also wanted to raise a concern that Summit had about the piece that ran. They felt it was a little snarky and wondered if any of the snark can be toned down? I wasn’t able to view the video interviews but I think their issue is just with some of the text. Let me know if you’re able to take another look at it and make any edits. I know of course that TechCrunch has its own voice and editorial standards, so if you have good reasons not to change anything that’s fine, I just need to get back to Summit with some sort of information. Let me know.

Thanks!

TechCrunch’s issue with Moviefone is that by sending this email, we, in their words, “asked us to change our post. It’s not just sad, it’s wrong.”

I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.

1) The person who wrote that email was not acting in an editorial capacity. That person’s job is to act as an intermediary between the studios and editorial–not to dictate content, nor to weigh in on the content of Moviefone or any other AOL site. In fact, the presence of a person with that role is just one means we have of ensuring editorial integrity on Moviefone.

2) This is important: We never told TechCrunch to change the post in any way. A publicist at Summit reached out asking if we could convey the studio’s feedback to TechCrunch. We did so. If the editors had responded that they declined to edit the post–which, naturally, is entirely their call–we simply would have conveyed that information back to Summit.

The reality of our situation is that, as a movies site, we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them. Staying on good terms with studios means that we will relay information if asked. It does not mean that we would ever force a writer or an editor to edit their work for the sake of a studio–or anyone else.

We take editorial integrity seriously at Moviefone, and it’s painful to be depicted as a pawn of the studios when that is emphatically not the case. You may think it unseemly for a studio to request changes in an article; that’s certainly your right. But the accusation of pandering on our part or crossing an editorial line is, to my mind, completely unfair, and I would hope that a reasonable reader would be able to recognize the situation for what it is–overblown and unwarranted.

Patricia Chui
Editor-in-Chief, Moviefone

Andreessen Horowitz has invested more than $80 million in Twitter via purchasing stock in private secondary markets.

When called about it by BoomTown, a spokeswoman at the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm confirmed the purchase.

To be clear, Twitter does not get this money–early investors and employees able to sell their privately held Twitter shares do.

Buying into the secondary markets–which have recently attracted some controversy and regulatory scruntiny–has become a common way for VCs to invest in a hot start-up without a complex and competitive funding bake-off.

The move is an interesting one, since Andreessen Horowitz was not part of the recent $200 million round of venture funding at the San Francisco microblogging company, led by Kleiner Perkins at a $3.75 billion valuation.

Sources said that the firm made the move because it is already deeply invested in other key companies in the social space, including gaming giant Zynga, location-focused Foursquare, local discounting phenom Groupon and general social networking behemoth Facebook.

Apparently, Twitter makes it a full basketball team.

The investment by the firm gives more perceptual boost to Twitter, which is still trying to create a lucrative business model for itself, focused on advertising.

It needs to, if it want to stay independent for the long haul.

While an IPO is a possibility, so is an acquisition. Several months ago, while it was doing its funding round, Twitter had incoming interest from Facebook, which lobbed in a $5 billion soft offer, as well from Google.

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

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

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

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

Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:

“One plus one equals 11.”

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

Let’s move on, shall we?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

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

Inter-Internet harmony: How sweet!

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

AOL AGREES TO ACQUIRE THE HUFFINGTON POST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AOLers,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–TA

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

As promised, All Things Digital will be publishing the full videos of the interviews we did two weeks ago at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco.

The first extension of the event, it produced some very newsy sessions. We’ll be posting them all.

Here’s Flipboard CEO and co-founder Mike McCue, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose latest Apple iPad app is giving publishers and readers a glimpse of what digital reading could be.

The effort is not without some controversy, as how content is being delivered on the new devices is an ongoing debate.

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.)

Here’s the video of the interview that the Mossberg Solution’s Katherine Boehret did with McCue:

Next up: Former Palm CEO and now Hewlett-Packard mobile kingpin Jon Rubinstein.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/flipboard-mike-mccue-dive-full-interview/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/cbs-60-minutes-revisits-mark-zuckerberg-and-boomtown-takes-back-toddler-ceo-title/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/cbs-60-minutes-revisits-mark-zuckerberg-and-boomtown-takes-back-toddler-ceo-title/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:49:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37916

This Sunday, the CBS television news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy.

Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. His “was-that-a-question?” response to an obvious question by Stahl was a near classic in geek communications.

Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules an incredibly powerful tech company worth gazillions more (good), has developed into a very polished leader (good) and even had a big Hollywood movie called “The Social Network” made about him (not so good).

Presumably, Stahl will cover all that in her new chat with him, which includes a visit to Facebook’s new Palo Alto, Calif. HQ.

Stahl also interviewed me again and pistol-whipped me–okay, she just asked–until I took back my snarkiest remark from the first one, in which I called Zuckerberg a “toddler CEO.”

My new take, now sporting smart-lady glasses and much grayer hair: The toddler has turned out to be a prodigy!

In other words, the worm has officially turned.

Stahl also wanted to know about the rivalry with Google, the fallout of the movie, my epic de-hoodie-ing of Zuckerberg at D8 conference and what-up with the Winklevii (whom, I believe, I called “hambones.”)

Here is a small taste of the new piece, which airs at 7 pm this Sunday, followed by the entire one from 2008 and the blog post I did about it:

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks-tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/cbs-60-minutes-revisits-mark-zuckerberg-and-boomtown-takes-back-toddler-ceo-title/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/ http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:44:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35998

BoomTown had to park a badillion miles away from Facebook’s suburban HQ in Palo Alto, Calif. and hoofed it there for a press event that unveiled the sFund.

What’s that? A $250 million fund for social start-ups.

10:40 am PT: The excitement was building–well, not really…well, not at all, in fact–at the Facebook cafeteria, as the Silicon Valley press got to see the name of the sFund on screens throughout the room.

Kleiner Perkins power VC John Doerr started off the proceedings with some microphone snafus, when he tried to get out from behind the podium.

“John, sometimes you have to stay in the box,” joked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who was sitting onstage in what appears to be an Internet Hall of Fame group.

The others would be Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Zynga CEO and Founder Mark Pincus, and giant-man-about-Web Bing Gordon.

Doerr talked on about the importance of social, related to the Internet.

Then, he introed Zuckerberg, hoodie-less, who agreed with him, talking about photos and how social made them hot on Facebook.

Apparently, everything is going social. Personally, I am now contemplating becoming a hermit.

Doerr went full Oprah on him, asking what would inspire him to innovate, if he were starting out today (and presumably there were no Winklevii around to “borrow” an idea from).

“If you take any passion and map it to an industry,” said Zuckerberg, it will result in disruption.

Then Doerr channeled Barbara Walters at Pincus, tossing him a softball query about the fabulousness of it all.

For example: “What’s inspired you to be a CEO at this amazing company?” (Note to Walt Mossberg: Let’s file that tough one away for D9!)

11:01 am:Thank goodness then for Bezos, who simply said he hoped these new companies will take some of that $250 million and use Amazon Web Services.

He talked about how these trends grow virally and “sometimes violently.”

Ouch!

Speaking of pinchy, Bezos moved on to some chemical explosion metaphor, and I am now certain I want to be a hermit crab.

Then, after a question about what he would do now, he veered to bioengineering! Doerr wanted a social answer, but Bezos was talking test tubes and “engineered and synthetic life.”

But Gordon behaved for John “Diane Sawyer” Doerr and talked about how social is the only place to be for the cool kids.

He reeled off the other partners, including Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Co.

One more question from Doerr: Five years from now, what is going to make you “delighted” about and for the customers you service.

Gordon: He could see the family.

Pincus: He has 12-week twins, not the Winklevii, who are still too young to use Facebook. He was excited it is all getting wired.

“When everyone is always connected to one another, rather than connected to the Web,” he said, that’s the bomb.

He called the big social companies “dial tones,” as in Zynga was the gaming dial tone, Amazon was the shopping dial tone and Facebook was the dial tone.

Zuckerberg: I was not sure he was actually answering the question. But I believed his wish was about these social networks getting to scale.

He went on though, talking about how some companies were building a “light” social layer versus companies where social was “built fundamentally into the product.”

These, of course, have an advantage, according to the gospel of Zuckerberg.

Bezos: He talked about Amazon’s Web services some more–this dude is a retailer, so he was sure good at selling.

Gordon, who is apparently like Ed McMahon to Doerr’s Johnny Carson, rounded up the feel-good session.

11:17 am: Q&A.

Go Miguel Helft, from the New York Times, who asked a good question, about what took so long for Doerr to do this fund, since social–i.e., Facebook–has been around for seven years or more.

Doerr joked, “Next question.” Ha.

But really. Doerr did not answer except to say that Zynga only exploded a year ago, so back off, Miguel.

There were two other dullish questions, about new partners.

“It’s a quarter-billion-dollar party,” said Gordon, which I was not quite wanting to attend. Which made me a social party pooper.

Larry Magid from CBS asked about social responsibility around privacy, especially after the recent controversy around the leaking of Facebook user info to advertisers, via third-party apps companies such as Zynga.

Then, there ws a question about whether this is not simply the “fbFund,” as in Facebook, since the social networking site was going to benefit the most from all this.

No, it was not, declares Doerr.

More questions–about monetization, advertising, free versus paid and an off-topic one about rumors of Amazon launching an app store (of course it is!).

Zuckerberg took the monetization one. All of the above, it’s great, money for all.

The event finished with a very odd poem by Gordon, which ended with a decent joke about the possibility that entrepreneurs, if they are lucky, get a movie “made about you.”

He was referring to “The Social Network,” which trashed Zuckerberg.

In any case, quarter-billion-dollar party on, Mark.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101012/medal-of-honor-not-a-big-winner/ http://allthingsd.com/20101012/medal-of-honor-not-a-big-winner/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:38:46 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=30971 “Medal of Honor,” the flagship first-person shooter from Electronic Arts, seems to be suffering more from disappointing reviews on its launch day than it did from the prelaunch controversy surrounding the game’s option to play as a Taliban fighter. EA dodged that bullet by changing the name of the enemy from Taliban to “OpFor,” but there’s no escaping the critics. Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz says that “mixed reviews could impact the title’s legs as it will likely be competitively disadvantaged once Activision releases Call of Duty: Black Ops.” EA’s stock is down 5.3 percent.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101012/medal-of-honor-not-a-big-winner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100902/facebook-blocked-api-access-to-ping-after-failure-to-strike-agreement-so-apple-removed-feature-after-launch/ http://allthingsd.com/20100902/facebook-blocked-api-access-to-ping-after-failure-to-strike-agreement-so-apple-removed-feature-after-launch/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:17:34 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33354

It’s not as mysterious as it seems, this mini-controversy about finding friends on Facebook for Apple’s new social music network.

According to sources familiar with Facebook’s platform, the social networking giant essentially denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping.

Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission.

That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot. In that case, Facebook claims it requires an agreement for reasons primarily centered on protection of Facebook user data and, of course, infrastructure impact.

With 160 million iTunes users, say sources with knowledge of the Facebook platform, that could potentially mean a lot of impact.

Others disagree, noting the load would be insignificant and it is just used by Facebook to gain leverage from those wanting to access its powerful platform.

That was one of the bones of contention in the talks that sources said Apple (AAPL) and Facebook conducted. The negotiations about an agreement went awry and the pair could not come to terms.

In fact, at the launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs complained to me about what he called “onerous terms” that Facebook had demanded for the friends connection and suggested using search or email to add friends to Ping.

But, at the same event another exec, Worldwide Product Marketing SVP Phil Schiller, said to me in a video interview that one could use Facebook to find friends on Ping.

In fact, Apple still included the ability to find Facebook friends in its demo onstage and also after it made iTunes 10 available for download.

It also currently claims this on its Ping page: “Find even more music fans with a quick search, by sending email invites, or by connecting to your Facebook account.”

But you can’t actually do that on Ping right now.

Sources said Apple went ahead with a plan to access the Facebook APIs freely, but Facebook blocked it since it violated its terms of service.

When that happened, it seems Apple pulled the plug on the connection with Facebook friends.

But maybe not for long. Sources also said the companies were still in discussions about putting the more robust Facebook Connect feature in Ping.

Because, in the end, it is all about connection.

BoomTown has requests into both Facebook and Apple for a comment.

Earlier today, Facebook said:

“Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we’ve partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision. Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100902/facebook-blocked-api-access-to-ping-after-failure-to-strike-agreement-so-apple-removed-feature-after-launch/feed/ 36 http://allthingsd.com/20100712/viral-video-john-mayer-channels-lebron-james/ http://allthingsd.com/20100712/viral-video-john-mayer-channels-lebron-james/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:15:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30410

Oh, that scamp John Mayer is such a jokester.

Here’s a spoof video the singer did in the wake of all the controversy around the basketball star choosing Miami to play for and leaving behind a dejected and angry Cleveland.

Big surprise, given his promiscuous reputation: Mayer will play his music for everyone.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100712/viral-video-john-mayer-channels-lebron-james/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100628/viral-video-conflict-free-technology-vs-blood-phones/ http://allthingsd.com/20100628/viral-video-conflict-free-technology-vs-blood-phones/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:31:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29920

The controversy around minerals from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo that are used in a variety of popular consumer tech devices seems to be getting another round of much needed attention.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for example, penned a piece titled “Death by Gadget” this past weekend, with the opening line: “‘Blood diamonds’ have faded away, but we may now be carrying ‘blood phones.’”

The article was prompted by new grass-roots efforts by activists to revive the issue, including the new video below, titled: “I’m a Mac…and I’ve Got a Dirty Little Secret.”

The goal: To get big tech companies–such as Apple (AAPL) and Intel (INTC)–to promise to monitor the sourcing of the minerals they use in their devices, such as smartphones.

The spot is worth a look, but you might also want to watch this full video of a gripping interview I did in 2009 at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference on this very topic with activist Eve Ensler, who has been tireless in her efforts to shed light on the madness in the troubled African nation and link the carnage there to consumer behavior here.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100628/viral-video-conflict-free-technology-vs-blood-phones/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100611/online-privacy-follies-hit-home-boomtown-was-one-of-those-exposed-in-the-att-ipad-snafu/ http://allthingsd.com/20100611/online-privacy-follies-hit-home-boomtown-was-one-of-those-exposed-in-the-att-ipad-snafu/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:15:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29352 Yesterday, it was revealed that AT&T–which usually and deservedly catches flak for its appalling dropping of voice calls–got caught up in a thorny security debacle related to the Apple iPad.

According to a report initially posted on Gawker Media’s Valleywag site, the telecom giant had a flaw that allowed a group of computer experts to expose the email addresses and identity numbers of 114,000 owners of the popular tablet device.

Including mine.

That would be my personal one from Comcast (CMCSA), which you can see here in an obscured list of others–including some prominent officials in government.

AT&T (T) had my email because it was used to sign up for mobile service for the Apple (AAPL) iPad’s 3G version, automatically appearing during registration.

Now the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the AT&T breach, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, in what seems to be an early probe.

Oooh, the Feds are involved now.

I wish I could say it will make a difference. Because it won’t.

In fact, coming on the heels of privacy controversies at Facebook and Google (GOOG), it’s just another log on the digital fire that has been burning up privacy for a very long time now.

And now more than ever, it is part of a massive confluence of trends, including:

Consumers more interested than ever in sharing information about themselves in order to make ever better social networking connections online; a plethora of innovative devices–mostly mobile–and Internet tools available to seamlessly and easily allow those consumers to do so; and, perhaps most of all, Internet companies intent on hoovering up as much information as possible, in order to garner more consumers and sell it to advertisers.

In large part, this is all well and good, creating a range of valuable and entertaining services at little or no cost and making the computing experience more personal and relevant.

Because of that, I have to admit I was less tweaked than I thought I would be, although I wish I were not.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose email was also compromised, expressed the feeling best.

“It shouldn’t be pretty hard to figure out my email address,” he was quoted saying in the Journal article. “To me, it wasn’t that big a deal.”

That’s because all of us are thinking less that such information is private or will remain that way for long.

See this handy illustration, below, from the Journal, about how the iPads were hacked so easily and you get the picture quickly.

And, indeed, I am one of those who puts a great deal of information about myself out there for many to see, from my email on Facebook to my locations on Foursquare to my thoughts on Twitter to photos and videos everywhere.

That said, like others, I have also begun to rethink some of this, recently removing my phone number and other personal information from Facebook and other places where I had stashed them in plain sight, making them harder to find.

Of course, I also know that retrieving much of my personal information is now a lost cause, like trying to unmix cream poured into coffee.

Still, companies, especially those entrusted with this information, should not be quite so sanguine as consumers have become.

I still haven’t heard from AT&T, for example, which is somewhat irksome since the company has known about the issue for days now.

And as each of these incidents occurs, you get the feeling of execs either too obtuse or thoughtless or, yes, cynical to make this a priority.

They should, since the avalanche of information being made available will only increase, with possibly dire circumstances if not handled well.

Hollywood actress Joan Crawford had it right in a famous quote: “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”

Substitute “Digital living” for love and it’s the very same message.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100611/online-privacy-follies-hit-home-boomtown-was-one-of-those-exposed-in-the-att-ipad-snafu/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100608/meet-the-two-grad-students-who-freaked-out-the-nyt-the-pulse-ipad-app-creators-speak/ http://allthingsd.com/20100608/meet-the-two-grad-students-who-freaked-out-the-nyt-the-pulse-ipad-app-creators-speak/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:17:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29246

The first thing to strike you about the pair of Stanford University graduate students (pictured here) who made the banned and then unbanned news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, is how they look like an advertisement for all that is good about entrepreneurship.

Sweet-natured, slightly naive, energetic and very product focused, they are the last techies you’d choose to be the ones who got the New York Times (NYT) in enough of a tizzy to force Apple to pull the aggregator from its App Store.

BoomTown met Akshay Kothari, 23, and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta this afternoon at a hotel near the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Pulse was called out yesterday by name by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs for excellence only hours before the company had to stop offering it to users.

At first, the shy pair said they did not want to call attention to themselves or rail on Apple or the Times. After much convincing by me, they agreed to talk about their unusual situation in the video below, focusing on the product and its origins.

It started out simple enough, creating Pulse for the Launch Pad class at Stanford, which requires students to develop and put out a product. Both students are at Stanford’s Institute of Design and created a company called Alphonso Labs when Pulse was done.

It took them only four weeks to develop and, within weeks after it was approved for sale in the App Store, Pulse became a red-hot paid seller for the fast-growing tablet device–putting Pulse at No. 1 at times on the list of paid apps on iTunes.

In fact, the app was so well regarded that the Times wrote a rave about it last week.

The high culminated for Kothari and Gupta when Jobs named Pulse first in a list of the most-promising apps for the iPad in his keynote speech at the WWDC yesterday.

Unfortunately, that was the last hurrah for them, since the business side of the New York Times–after seeing the article about Pulse in the Times–had already fired off a letter to Apple demanding that the app be taken down.

“The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use,” wrote Times lawyer Richard Samson to Apple on June 3. “Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.”

Sources at the Times said that while there are many other similar readers for online news that do exactly the same thing, Pulse’s combined framing and use of the paper’s RSS feed for commercial gain–as well as, let’s be frank, its popularity–caused execs to make what looks like a pretty boneheaded move.

(Could they have called the pair first? Of course they could have, but they did not.)

So, after the Times lawyer wrote Apple, Apple wrote Kothari and Gupta, telling them of the removal of Pulse from the App Store: “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”

Today, though, the app was suddenly back up with no comment from Apple.

A Times spokesperson said this might be a mistake and that the media giant did not know what had happened.

Neither did Gupta and Kothari, who said the app on sale now is the same as the old one, although they had submitted a new version without the Times as a default earlier today.

“It’s a mystery,” said Gupta. “Although it is sad that we were off the App Store right when people might have heard about us.”

The next step? Who knows?

UPDATE: Sources close to the situation said that the Pulse iPad app was reposted because the new version submitted earlier today does not automatically include the Times properties and that older versions sold will soon be updated.

Other sources also noted that the Times has had issues with many other third-party news readers in the past, though not one as visible as Pulse.

And it remains to be seen if Pulse’s creators face other irked content owners or not.

In any case, one thing is still certain: Like its creators, the innovative Pulse is sweet, and it is on sale for $3.99 at iTunes.

For now, that is.

Until the next twisty development, here’s the video interview of Kothari and Gupta:

[Photo by All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet--taken before the recent controversy.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100608/meet-the-two-grad-students-who-freaked-out-the-nyt-the-pulse-ipad-app-creators-speak/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090619/jobss-transplant-highlights-differing-wait-times/ http://allthingsd.com/20090619/jobss-transplant-highlights-differing-wait-times/#comments Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:01:04 +0000 Laura Meckler http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=12834 Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs’s decision to travel to Tennessee for a liver highlights the significant disparities in transplant waiting times across the country–the source of a longstanding controversy over the fairest way to distribute scarce organs.

For liver transplants, the wait is particularly agonizing. Kidney replacements can often be put off for years through dialysis, where a machine does the work of the kidneys. But there is no such treatment for liver disease.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090619/jobss-transplant-highlights-differing-wait-times/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090302/mark-zuckerberg-talks-about-facebook-terms-of-service-snafu/ http://allthingsd.com/20090302/mark-zuckerberg-talks-about-facebook-terms-of-service-snafu/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:05:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=10453

Last week, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was all about regret when talking about the umpteenth stubbed toe that he got when the social-networking site changed its Terms of Service and accidentally laid claim to every piece of intellectual property in the world.

Okay, maybe not all, but it was enough of a goof to cause him to have to address the issue and correct it quickly by introducing a complex new system of user-approval and notification.

The new standards have been dubbed by Facebook, obviously in a United Nations kind of mood: “The Facebook Principles, a set of values that will guide the development of the service, and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that governs Facebook’s operations. Users will have the opportunity to review, comment and vote on these documents over the coming weeks and, if they are approved, other future policy changes.”

Cue the soaring anthem! (In Facebook’s case, it would sound like Buckcherry’s “Sorry” video below.)

In any case, BoomTown talked to Zuckerberg right after his press conference last Thursday on the new set-up and got his main takeaway from the controversy: “Whenever users speak in a loud voice, it shows how much people care [about Facebook].”

Awwwww, that’s sweet. But, actually, whenever users speak in a loud voice, it is because they are pissed off at you.

But, water under the bridge!

And to get more of an idea of what’s coming, here are some various and sundry thoughts on the issue from the man whose minions have nicknamed the Wizard (all are direct quotes):

“I think it is important for all of us to understand the idea that this is a service that is really important to people…unlike a lot of services they’ve used in the past, it’s made up with their own information and a lot of it is very sensitive.

“That’s why we think it’s important to make Facebook’s world more open and transparent…it has been become more and more apparent that we have to set up a foundation of what we are doing and have a dialog with the community about how we do it.

“What’s important is the foundation and policy and that it should be subject to public discourse and feedback…Within that framework, Facebook is then free to build products quickly.

“Because Facebook has become an important daily part of people’s lives, it deserves good governance process…we need to explain the reasons why we do things in the same way governments should explain the reasons they do.

“There will be a lot a lot of changes people care about and some they do not and not all of them will rise to the level that the whole community needs to weigh in on.

“This has been a learning experience, and sometimes we don’t do as well we as could in communicating what we are doing. Obviously, we can always communicate better. But another interpretation you could have is that Facebook is way more important than anyone thought it was.

“Since we’re in new territory, we want to have a system to communicate with users, which makes it clear how we are going to communicate and clear what the policy is.

“So any amendments we make, for example, we will notify everyone and they are free to offer comments on any topic. There has to be a threshold of 7,000 people commenting…because we really want to reflect the will of the community and get a critical mass, instead of just hearing from a small vocal minority.

“I am excited and a lot of people have questions about what happened, and they should have them. We wanted to make sure that users understand that we want them to ask questions. I think that, [even with the controversy], we are building toward end goal that’s awesome.”

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090302/mark-zuckerberg-talks-about-facebook-terms-of-service-snafu/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090218/boomtown-decodes-the-zuckerberg-terms-of-service-my-bad-memo-now-with-10-percent-more-so-very-sorrys/ http://allthingsd.com/20090218/boomtown-decodes-the-zuckerberg-terms-of-service-my-bad-memo-now-with-10-percent-more-so-very-sorrys/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:21:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9939

Under cover of darkness last night, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on the social-networking site’s blog that it would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Oh, this is just too good to resist. Therefore, BoomTown shall not tarry in our ongoing job of busting the chops of the young Facebook leader, whose minions have actually–and I am not joking here–given him the nickname: The Wizard.

Well, the Wizard obviously had to pull back the curtain last night and show some serious mea culpa to the people, before they got out the pitchforks.

That’s due to the controversy Facebook has been embroiled in this week about changes it recently made to its Terms of Service that gave the company unusually sweeping rights over customers’ content and privacy.

While Zuckerberg had said in his first post about the issue that Facebook was not in the content-stealing business, the strong language in the ToS sent the usual suspects into a major meltdown over the possibility that the young geek had gone into full-scale evil mogul mode.

As if!

In fact, Zuckerberg has been ensconced in his Silicon Valley lair for years now, counting down until he knows precisely everything about everyone’s drunken college days!

Until D-Day then, here is my translation of his latest backtracking post:

What the Wizard wrote: Update on Terms

by Mark Zuckerberg

Today at 10:17 pm

Translation: OK, I have reached my limit of being yelled at by Sheryl and Elliot, have had my usual breakfast of Red Bull and Frosted Flakes–they’re grrreat!–and am ready to eat some major digital crow this morning.

I mean, night, which is my morning, because I actually slept through all this noise today about this whole Terms of Service “controversy.”

What the Wizard wrote: A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Translation: Did you know crow is delicious if you eat it with a little Bosco on top?

More to the point, I would just like to assure you that we have taken our lawyers–who idiotically rewrote our ToS to give us ownership rights to the Bible, “American Idol” and everything Bill O’Reilly utters–and sent them over to our friends at MySpace, because their owner, News Corp. (NWS), already owns two of those three [and also this site!].

What the Wizard wrote: Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Translation: As in: More yelling by Sheryl and Elliott and more Fedexing of lawyers to MySpace HQ in Beverly Hills.

But after we calmed down, we all decided the best course of action was to shoot ourselves in the right foot to stop the bleeding from when we shot our left foot before.

We are, of course, completely out of feet now, so if these hijinks continue, sooner or later, someone is going to lose an eye. By someone, I mean, um, me.

What the Wizard wrote: Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

Translation: Facebook, of course, never had any intention of stealing content and copyright! Perish the thought! After all, that’s the job of Google (GOOG)!

By contrast, ours is to collect incredibly embarrassing photos of everyone in the United States until one of them runs for president, and then our nefarious scheme to control the world begins.

We were planning on blackmailing the world for one billllliiiion dollars then, but Microsoft kind of forked over 15 times that without any pressure.

Still, we would like to own Palo Alto, Calif., and get free parking 24/7, so there will be demands!

Until then, enjoy the sheep-throwing. Mwaahahahahahahaha! (Quick visual: I am petting my white cat right now with Ernst Stavro Blofeld-like evil glee, and am, of course, cackling.)

What the Wizard wrote: More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Translation: Not to be completely and utterly arrogant or anything, but we just passed Pakistan, and those Brazilians better get ready to samba.

By the way, once we get to No. 1–look out, China!–we plan on decreeing that everyone in the world speak Pig Latin and that forthwith it will be flip-flop Fridays.

Also: Esyay, Iway amway anway alienway omfray anotherway anetplay.

What the Wizard wrote: Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

Translation: Ybay ethay ayway, “Otay Ervesay Anmay”? It’sway away ookbookcay.

In other words, I am sure you will make delicious contributions, after which Facebook will “invite” you to our world-wide HQ to share in a lovely meal.

Especially those Winklevii. I look forward to the twins coming by soon!

What the Wizard wrote: You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

Translation: To my credit, I did give in much quicker than with the Beacon ad snafu. And you thought I learned nothing during that debacle!

And, by outside experts, I mean Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, who yells much, much louder than Sheryl or Elliot combined.

What the Wizard wrote: If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created–Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.

Translation: Here’s my first pass, based on the U.S. Bill of Rights, Amendment I:

Facebook shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Faebook for a redress of grievances.*

*Exceptway, ithway ymay ompletecay iscretionday, enwhay Iway
ecideday otherwiseway.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090218/boomtown-decodes-the-zuckerberg-terms-of-service-my-bad-memo-now-with-10-percent-more-so-very-sorrys/feed/ 4