D.C.

Voices

Nation's Capital Bets Online Poker Is Lawful

Alexandra Berzon, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 8, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

Washington, D.C., is poised to become the first place in the U.S. to allow online poker, challenging the federal government’s effective ban on the practice in its own backyard. The city council approved a budget last year allowing the district’s lottery to operate a poker website accessible only inside district boundaries. City officials say the [...]

Will Secretary of State Clinton's "Internet Freedom Agenda" Finally Get Traction?

Kara Swisher in News on February 16, 2011 at 7:09 am PT

Yesterday, in a major policy speech in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jumped on the Internet bandwagon again, unveiling a $25 million government investment for entrepreneurs to allow dissidents to thwart “thugs, hackers and censors.” Since that’s about the amount a third-string social photo-sharing site gets while walking down University Avenue in Palo Alto, Calif., from venture capitalists with bags of money to spend, let me just say the money is, well, underwhelming. Clinton’s speech, thankfully, was much better.

Voices

Early Adopter: Pothole-Reporting App SeeClickFix Raises $1.5 Million to Help You Be a Squeakier Wheel

Drake Martinet, Associate Editor, All Things Digital in News on January 14, 2011 at 11:00 am PT

It’s a fine line between keeping your potholes filled and walls graffiti free and being a civic tattletale. Civic nuisance reporting app SeeClickFix lets you toe the line, and just got another $1.5 million from O’Reilly AlphaTech and Omidyar to help users keep at it.

Decoding Google's Net Neutrality Proposal Blog: The Pixie Dust-Free Edition!

Kara Swisher in News on August 13, 2010 at 5:51 am PT

The opening line of the classic J.M. Barrie book “Peter Pan” reads: “All children, except one, grow up.” Actually, that one too, and now the whole Internet is angry at Google and taking shots, because of its recent joint public policy proposal with Verizon over net neutrality. They are claiming the Silicon Valley search giant–in the most cynical of ways–sold out its long-standing commitment to the open Internet to make a corporately-favorable deal. Thus, Google took to the corporate blog yesterday to explain it all away in a post titled, “Facts About Our Network Neutrality Policy.” It practically begs for translation, so BoomTown shall not disappoint!

Viral Video: Quayle Hunting for Office

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

BoomTown loves political dynasties from any party with about as much enthusiasm as I have for tossing sheep on Facebook. Which is to say, none at all. Nonetheless, it was an odd blast from the past to see this offspring spring into the public eye–as in Ben Quayle, former VP Dan Quayle’s son, who is running for Congress in Arizona.

Liveblogging Google's Earnings Call: Où Est Eric?

Kara Swisher in News on April 15, 2010 at 1:41 pm PT

BoomTown liveblogged Google’s earnings call. CFO Patrick Pichette, whose delightful French accent livened up what was a newsless event, led the call. It turned out that the biggest news was changes in how Google will present its earnings calls going forward: No more CEO Eric Schmidt! But a parade of Google execs was there to replace Schmidt, all of whom said as little as he used to.

Exclusive: Facebook Poaches Yet Another Major Googler–This Time, Ad Exec David Fischer [UPDATED]

Kara Swisher in News on March 26, 2010 at 8:19 am PT

David Fischer–who was VP of Global Online Sales & Operations for Google and more recently was heading up its local efforts–is taking a job at Facebook as VP of Advertising and Global Operations, according to sources. The move by Fischer–which was also just announced internally at both Google and Facebook and has just been confirmed by Facebook–is yet another in a series of top execs at the search giant to defect to the fast-growing social networking site. And it will surely raise tensions between the companies, which are increasingly becoming rivals in several major Internet arenas and opposing poles of power in Silicon Valley.

Blue Mountain Arts' Polis of Web 1.0 and His First Year as a Congressman in Web 2.0

Kara Swisher in News on March 22, 2010 at 5:18 am PT

While in Washington, D.C., last week, one of BoomTown’s last stops was at the office of Colorado Democratic Congressman Jared Polis on Capitol Hill. Although I usually try to avoid politicians at all costs, it was terrific to check in with Polis, who was one of the more interesting players in the Web 1.0 scene. Here’s the video.

The FCC's National Broadband Paper Plan Gets a BoomTown Tour of the Nation's Capital!

Kara Swisher in News on March 20, 2010 at 12:19 am PT

When BoomTown went to Washington, D.C., last week to visit the Federal Communications Commission on the occasion of its release of the National Broadband Plan, I was actually given a paper version in a giant binder. Yes, at hundreds of pages, a dead-tree copy of a federal scheme to make the United States more digital! So, natch, I gave it a tour of the nation’s capital.

National Broadband Plan Guru Blair Levin Speaks! (Plus the Press Release and Exec Summary)

Kara Swisher in News on March 19, 2010 at 5:34 am PT

While trolling around Washington, D.C., this week, BoomTown dropped in on Blair Levin, the executive director of the National Broadband Plan, the opus just released by the Federal Communications Commission. Aimed primarily at boosting the proliferation of high-speed access across the United States, the plan has been shepherded by the telecommunications analyst and former FCC staffer.