Of course, if you’re going to see one teen cult-movie classic, you’re obviously going to be forced to see another one — or at least the trailer for it.

Hence, what could go better with the kids-fight-to-the-death match of “The Hunger Games” than a spanking-new vampire — Bella finally is one, in the second part of “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” — who hunts deer for their blood in a very lovely blue frock?

News flash: Bella and Edward are now the same temperature!

Enjoy:

We Twihards saw it coming at the end of the last installment of the “Twilight” movie franchise, as the main character, Bella, finally got to be a sparkly vampire.

Actually, she seems to have become a rather pasty white one, with blood-red lipstick — which is also the look being sported by her long-tortured paramour, Edward, in this new clip from the second “Breaking Dawn” film.

The video ran in an exclusive deal with Target in its retail stores, connected to the DVD release for the first part of the movie. Guess what? Someone had a smartphone and caught the whole thing.

Kids today! Enjoy:

Earlier this week, I posted a teaser clip for “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1,” and now the entire movie trailer has been released.

It’s pretty much werewolves and vampire pregnancy and, well, the one where Bella and Edward finally …

Enjoy:

Guess what? Bella and Edward are still not together!

In any case, the buff werewolf is still around, so enjoy:

The rabid fans of the sparkly-vampire-in-love story have more to chew on with the latest trailer for the newest in the movie series, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”

It’s going to be a long summer.

The third installment, due on June 30, seems to be about a big war between vampires and other vampires, with some werewolves tossed in. Also a lot of longing stares between Bella and Edward.

Essentially, the same old same old vampires.

Enjoy the video of the trailer, as well as the first trailer out in March:

The “Twilight” saga, which seems to have just ended with the release of the second film in the series, “New Moon,” in November, is baaaaack.

And, of course, the Internet is huffing and puffing over this one, “Eclipse,” set for June, since its trailer just came out.

In the clip, it looks like Bella and Edward are still not together (as in not doing it). Good Lord, wasn’t that the plot of the last movie and the one before that? Plus, the Wolfman Kid is back, as part of the freaky love triangle.

Then again, to be fair, Harry Potter is still battling Voldemort. The next movie in that series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the first of a two-parter, comes out in mid-November.

Here’s the video of the new “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” trailer, as well as a teaser trailer the next “Harry Potter” film:

Who: Ethan Bloch

What: CEO, Flowtown

Why: Flowtown’s platform uses APIs and partnerships to deliver meaningful customer data to businesses with lists of email leads.

Where: ethanbloch.com (personal website); San Francisco (analog); @ebloch (Twitter)

Who else: Infusionsoft.com

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I drove a truck delivering industrial rags to Jiffy Lubes; that was probably the worst. I did work at Best Buy (BBY), but I actually liked that. I was “the closer.” I could get people who came in to get a laptop to leave with that, the service plans and the gold USB cables.

Has a Geek Crush on: Warren Buffett. I have a finance background and I just like his philosophy on life.

Gadget he wants for Christmas: A Kindle. I’m an Amazon (AMZN) fanboy.

Wishes There Was an App For: One that tells you about how much a taxi ride should cost between any two places in a major city. I always feel like I’m getting ripped off.

Freely Admits: He owns an AK-47 (a legal one).

Bio in 140 Characters

Ethan recently moved to SF, after finishing a finance degree at University of Florida. Flowtown is his first Silicon Valley venture.

The Five Questions

What problem are you solving?

Essentially, we are a platform to help businesses connect with their customers everywhere in the social Web. Starting with an email address, we can tell you who a person is [including] name, age, gender, occupation, location, and what social networks they are on. Then, we give [businesses] tools to go and interact with that person.

The problem that we are solving is that for a decade, businesses have been collecting email addresses but don’t know how to leverage them in the social Web. We help create those connections and let businesses have personal conversations with their customers.

How does a business have 10,000 personal conversations?

That’s the big problem we are going after. Right now, [the answer] is turning an email address into a social connection. Then you can start a conversation. The bigger issue is how you stay relevant to 10,000 people; whether you are a personal brand or Procter & Gamble (PG).

This sounds a little creepy. What does Flowtown know about me?

[Ethan enters three of my email addresses into the interface.]

Well, It looks like your given name is Edward, you are male, and live in San Diego, although that may be a little out of date. I’ve got a short resume here courtesy of LinkedIn that puts you currently in a Masters program at Stanford [University] and as an Intern at AllThingsD. It looks like you’ve got a couple Flickr accounts, a LinkedIn profile, Facebook; your Twitter handle is @withdrake, you subscribe to several newspapers online, have WordPress and Pandora accounts and are a member of Match.com [busted!].

Wow, that was almost scary good. Where are you harvesting this?

This is all APIs, except in the case of Facebook and LinkedIn. We show up to five social networks, along with Amazon. We search Facebook, by way of a partner. We get more data than that [as seen in the search we just ran], but we are unsure how far down we want to go as far as the individual user. We don’t want to get too “stalkerish.” We could tell businesses who an individual is based on their occupation, age, location, etc. We do show that in the aggregate, but currently won’t display it at the individual level.

What was the drive to get into this business?

Well, for both Dan Martell [co-founder] and I, it’s really about serving small businesses. In the late ’90s, my dad owned a small business and wanted to use the Internet to generate more business. He got sold on this online marketing package, this video, and really got taken advantage of.

Ever since then I’ve really been passionate about building products that really ad value to businesses and that really let you see the results you are getting. That’s really my North Star.

The In Living Color Interview

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091213/almost-famous-flowtowns-ethan-bloch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081120/boomtown-pick-for-microsoft-digital-head-qi-lu-yes-the-former-yahoo-search-guru/ http://allthingsd.com/20081120/boomtown-pick-for-microsoft-digital-head-qi-lu-yes-the-former-yahoo-search-guru/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:01:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=6784

Yesterday, BoomTown opined that Microsoft was nearing a decision on who would become the head of its digital efforts.

And, according to several sources and some puzzling by me–if an agreement can be reached–I think that Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu.

While this is by no means a done deal, Lu is just the kind of top tech exec that Ballmer and Microsoft would warm to over a more media-centric choice like former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig or former AOL head Jon Miller.

Lu was EVP of engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo (YHOO), where he ran all development initiatives for its search and monetization platforms. He was at Yahoo for a decade.

If Ballmer manages to pull off the hire of Lu–on the heels of already grabbing another top Yahoo search exec, Sean Suchter, which I reported on yesterday–the aggressive exec could almost be bypassing a Yahoo search partnership he has long sought by sucking the talent right out of the place instead.

Ballmer is like Edward in “Twilight,” attracting top-notch search execs to Microsoft’s Redmond HQ, as if they were geek versions of Bella.

Lu would be a different choice for the post than many had expected, with a much more technical background than one in online media or advertising sales.

But since all of Microsoft’s future rests on winning in the search and search advertising space and trying to catch up with its archrival Google (GOOG) from way back in the race, Lu is also well suited for the position.

If Lu takes the job, he will be the boss of three strong digital execs at Microsoft: Satya Nadella, the SVP who heads engineering for Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group; Yusuf Mehdi, whose online services portfolio includes marketing, online audience business development and product management for MSN and the search properties; and Brian McAndrews, the SVP for the advertiser and publisher solutions group.

Lu is known as as solid manager, but he is also called a very nice man and unusually humble for a tech star by many, which could be a good influence on Microsoft.

Before Yahoo, Lu was on the staff of the IBM Almaden Research Center, and worked at both Carnegie Mellon University and Fudan University in China (he also got degrees from both places).

And, in the kind of cred Microsoft likes, Lu holds 20 U.S. patents.

He left Yahoo after becoming dissatisfied with all the turmoil there, quitting in June, without another job lined up.

Since he left Yahoo, there have been rumors that he might be headed to Microsoft, but not in such a prominent job.

There has also been speculation that Lu would take a position at Facebook or even return to China for a tech job.

The well-respected Lu certainly has a multitude of choices, but the chance to lead money-laden Microsoft’s digital efforts–as it suits up for battle with Google–is compelling.

BoomTown has been poking around to try to figure out who Ballmer would choose for the digital head, ever since the man who used to be in charge, Kevin Johnson, quit in July, after the software giant’s takeover bid to buy Yahoo failed.

Several people close to the situation say Microsoft’s Ballmer has been keeping the deliberations close to the vest–perhaps because so many of those he has targeted have declined to consider the job.

But this week, many sources both inside and outside the company have told me that Ballmer is close to announcing his choice.

Annoyingly, one source has decided to play a digital version of “The Da Vinci Code” with me, dribbling out clues–more technical than media, very well liked in Silicon Valley, humble–about the candidate, which he wanted me to solve as if I were Robert Langdon and on the hunt for the progeny of Jesus.

Well, my solution is in: Microsoft’s most promising digital Holy Grail is Lu.

On a related note, bizarrely, the day after this column broke the story about Lu’s leaving Yahoo, I caught him by accident in the background of a video I was doing at a Harvard Business School event honoring Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

You can see him at 4:14 minutes in the video, laughing at me, as I bother Greylock Partners VC David Sze and make a bad pun related to former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner’s departure from Yahoo.

Here’s that video:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

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