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Turnabout Is Fair Play: BoomTown Decodes Rupe's Journalism-Is-Not-a-Free-Cow Op-Ed!

Kara Swisher in News on December 14, 2009 at 9:05 am PT

Last week, BoomTown translated an opinion piece written by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published in The Wall Street Journal that focused on defending the search giant from criticism that it was, well, killing journalism. One of the louder critics, in fact, has been Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., who has leveled a series of high-profile verbal attacks on Google. Last week, Murdoch published his own piece in The Journal, in which Google was never mentioned by name. So in the interest of equal-opportunity balloon-pricking, I must also render Murdoch’s post through my decoding machine, because it’s only sporting!

Yahoo Earnings Call at 2 p.m. PDT, CEO Bartz's First Sassy Quip 2:01 p.m.: BoomTown Will Be Liveblogging!

Kara Swisher in News on April 21, 2009 at 12:16 pm PT

BoomTown is assembling all the popcorn and treats at All Things Digital HQ for Yahoo’s first-quarter earnings call later today, looking forward to hearing what CEO Carol Bartz will say about how she is turning around the Internet giant. It is actually the 99-day mark since Bartz took over in January, which means I might also invite the sacred cows of Yahoo over for festive cupcakes too. For the more serious-minded, there should be news about more cost-cutting, including the possibility of additional layoffs, as well as questions on Yahoo’s talks with Microsoft about a search and advertising partnership. The earnings press release drops at 1:20 p.m. PDT, the call is at 2 p.m.

"Optics" of Yahoo Layoffs Take Precedence Over All–Sacred Cows Finally Nervous?

Kara Swisher in News on October 20, 2008 at 8:20 am PT

As BoomTown and many others in the blogosphere have reported for weeks now (so glad old media outlets have finally discovered the Yahoo layoffs), Yahoo management is working on at least a 10 percent layoff of its almost 15,000 employees. But, because top execs have decided they need the cuts to have good “optics” for Wall Street, they have instructed managers over the weekend to make sure that all cuts include specific staff reductions, even though previous marching orders only had called for percentage cuts in costs. The sudden shift is irking many managers I spoke to at Yahoo, who now have long had a modicum of control over their own businesses and feel they are being dictated to by top management who got the company in trouble in the first place.

AllThingsD by Writer