David Letterman

A Modest Proposal: Please Leave the Lost iPhone Dude Alone

Kara Swisher in News on April 23, 2010 at 7:37 am PT

Last night, I tweeted: “Good god, pls stop egregiously using this poor lost iphone dude for cheap traffic…sadly, I have to link to explain: http://bit.ly/cK28zb.” The link led to yet another post on the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media, which bought a stolen prototype iPhone 4G from a still unnamed man who filched it after an Apple engineer left it in a Silicon Valley bar by accident. I’m not holding my breath for the Web site to do the right thing.

Voices

Tiger Woods Apology Boosts His Standing Online

Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 19, 2010 at 2:32 pm PT

Tiger Woods may have more atoning to do with Elin Nordegren, but a preliminary pulse-taking online suggests that at least some of his fans are coming around. The golf star apologized Friday for his infidelity and the ensuing sex scandal, and according to Zeta Interactive, a New York digital-marketing firm that measures online reputations, that helped boost his ratings.

Viral Video: The Conan Debacle's Final Score (Game Goes to Letterman!)

Kara Swisher in News on February 8, 2010 at 12:15 am PT

The snake finally ate its own tail in the long-running NBC debacle over its mishandling of the network’s late-night switcheroo, with a Super Bowl promotion for David Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS (CBS) last night. Starring Letterman, daytime talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and–big reveal–Jay Leno, it was a touchdown for Dave.

Conan Who? NBC Disappears “The Tonight Show” From the Web.

Peter Kafka in Media on February 6, 2010 at 10:01 am PT

Remember the whole Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno imbroglio from last month? Perhaps NBC wishes you didn’t. It has removed every episode of the show’s seven-month run from its NBC.com site, as well as Hulu. YouTube is pretty barren, too.

Viral Video: The Long NBC Late-Night Nightmare Continues! (Well, for NBC, Not for Us!)

Kara Swisher in News on January 15, 2010 at 1:22 am PT

Oh, it goes from bad to worse and to much, much funnier. Here are a few new online videos about NBC’s best drama in years: The wrestling over its late-night lineup. It looks like “The Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien will be gone soon, chin-checked out by Jay Leno, whose 10 pm show on the broadcast television network bit. But O’Brien is biting back harder.

Viral Video: Top 10 Reasons the NBC Late-Night Disaster Is Great for Letterman

Kara Swisher in News on January 13, 2010 at 12:02 am PT

The mess that NBC has created around its late-night talk shows continues to benefit comic online videos. While Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien have been using their fight for joke fodder over at NBC, I think the best stuff has been coming from David Letterman of “The Late Show.” Yay.

Voices

Tiger Woods's Online Rep Takes a Hit

Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on December 2, 2009 at 9:45 am PT

The ongoing coverage of Tiger Woods after his car accident last week has taken a toll on his online reputation, digital-marketing firm Zeta Interactive said. The New York agency monitors blogs, tweets and other online posts to gauge positive and negative “buzz” about celebrities, companies and other topics. Mr. Woods’s buzz rating was overwhelmingly (91 percent) positive prior to the accident but has since dipped to 74 percent positive, 26 percent negative.

YouTube Yawns at Letterman’s Extortion Story

Peter Kafka in Media on October 3, 2009 at 8:16 am PT

In certain circles, David Letterman’s extortion/adultery story is huge news. On YouTube? It’s overshadowed by an “Ultimate Fighter” match.

Now on YouTube: David Letterman’s Amazing Extortion Video

Peter Kafka in Media on October 2, 2009 at 3:38 am PT

This is the way the Internet is supposed to work: Something amazing happens on TV on Thursday night and everyone talks about it, and watches it, on the Web on Friday. Today’s example: David Letterman’s startling admission, broadcast on his CBS show last night, that a network employee had tried to extort him. That’s something you’re going to want to watch, right? And sure enough, the world’s largest video site obliges, even if it’s a little bit unwilling.

Unlike Oprah, Letterman Does Not Even Pretend to Like–Or Even Know–Twitter

Kara Swisher in News on July 22, 2009 at 1:22 am PT

Here’s a priceless video segment from David Letterman’s “Late Show” last night, as he is taught how to use Twitter by actor Kevin Spacey. After asking how much it costs and noting that he could get anyone on Manhattan’s 57th Street to say hello just as much as Spacey could get tweets from his 800,000 followers, Letterman officially declares Twitter a “waste of time.” Perhaps so, but it also makes for great talk-show schtick.