decision

Exclusive: Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks About How He Made His Big OS Decision

Ina Fried in Mobile on February 10, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

In an interview, Nokia’s chief executive talks about the factors that went into choosing among three possibilities for its high-end smartphone business–sticking with plans to develop around MeeGo, shifting to Android or adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

Steve Jobs’s Absence Won’t Derail Apple, but His Presence Still Key Factor in the Company’s Success

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 17, 2011 at 10:21 am PT

With Steve Jobs taking another medical leave from Apple, expect all manner of predictions on what this means for the company’s products. While his leave is unlikely to derail the next iPad or iPhone, it’s a mistake to underestimate the role that Jobs plays at Apple.

Viacom Asks for a Do-Over on YouTube

Peter Kafka in Media on December 3, 2010 at 11:51 am PT

As promised, here’s Viacom’s appeal in the YouTube copyright case, where a federal court ruled overwhelmingly in Google’s favor earlier in the year.

Meet the Yahoo Board: Something Old, Something New–But Will They Do Something?

Kara Swisher in News on October 14, 2010 at 9:00 am PT

With all the noisy swirl around Yahoo of late–from its executive turmoil to its flat growth to its dashed partnerships in Asia to its brash CEO–its board has been unusually quiet of late. Comatose, some might say. But with private equity firms, media companies, Web rivals, big shareholders, Wall Street and others all machinating about trying to grab all or some of the Internet giant, it will be interesting to see if its directors will shake themselves out of their typical comfort zone of inactivity to actually do their job. Thus, time for their moment in the BoomTown spotlight!

Loco About Location? Or Just Plain Crazy?

Kara Swisher in News on July 1, 2010 at 9:14 am PT

After the much anticipated news yesterday that Foursquare would finally grab a big piece of change from the powerful Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz–$20 million simoleons, in fact–BoomTown was much entertained by two very different blog post that went up about the deal. Their conclusion: There isn’t one.

VirnetX Holding Soon to Be Holding $105.75 Million of Microsoft’s Money

John Paczkowski in News on March 17, 2010 at 4:17 am PT

VirnetX, a company Microsoft claims was established solely to sue it for millions, has succeeded in doing just that. A Texas court on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to pay $105.75 million to VirnetX for violating two patents related to secure virtual private network technology.

Hunch's Fake and Dixon Speak (And They've Got a Hunch, You Might Not Get Exactly What It Is Yet)

Kara Swisher in News on February 18, 2010 at 10:42 am PT

When Aardvark was sold to Google for $50 million last week, a lot of folks wondered about the fate of Hunch, another hot start-up in the space. Except, as correctly noted by two of its four co-founders, Caterina Fake and Chris Dixon, in a chat BoomTown had yesterday, Hunch is quite different–more of an algorithmically hopped up recommendation service that makes use of a mass of data from user-generated questions and answers than a simple social search service. Here’s an interview with Fake and Dixon on the progress made so far to figure out the fate of the year-old start-up.

Voices

Almost Famous: Leslie Fine of Crowdcast

Drake Martinet, Intern, All Things Digital in News on January 29, 2010 at 1:45 am PT

We Skyped with Leslie Fine, chief scientist at Crowdcast, an enterprise service that combines uber-geeky statistics and game theory from Caltech with games to help businesses predict their own future. We talked game theory, iPhone apps and her unfair advantage in the office pools.