gossip

Liveblogging Yahoo's Q1 Earnings Call: Get Me to Funky Town

Kara Swisher in News on April 19, 2011 at 2:21 pm PT

MicroHoo is funky! At least according to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the Silicon Valley search giant’s first-quarter earnings conference call about its recent financial performance. Yahoo’s results showed a continued worrisome revenue growth stall, due in large part to a search advertising fall-off, and a still-turning turnaround.

Yahoo's Got a Digital Newsstand

John Paczkowski in News on February 10, 2011 at 9:23 am PT

Chief Product Officer Blake Irving defines Yahoo as “the premier digital media company in content and context.” That’s a far shorter answer to the “what is Yahoo” question than the one he provided last year. A bit more cogent too. And it sets the stage for the company’s latest push into mobile content, Livestand, which it announced moments ago.

Viral Video: Mel Gibson and a Beaver

Kara Swisher in News on December 8, 2010 at 5:06 am PT

Wacky actor Mel Gibson has been the gift that keeps on giving to online gossip sites, with a string of ever more controversial episodes in his personal life. Well, a new movie, “The Beaver,” about a man going crazy and the beaver puppet that returns him to mental health, is not going to help much to make anyone think Gibson is sane.

Viral Video: A Dilemma Solved (And Also for Perez Hilton?)

Kara Swisher in News on October 18, 2010 at 12:20 am PT

Here’s the new trailer for the upcoming movie “The Dilemma,” minus a joke that used the word “gay” in a negative manner. With the recent spate of bullyings of gay teens that have ended in tragedy, such a move is probably wise and not too surprising. More surprising was another, in which gossip blogger Perez Hilton vowed to stop being so mean on his popular (and very mean) Web site.

Winklevii Vs. Zuck: Who'd You Rather?

Kara Swisher in News on October 5, 2010 at 11:18 am PT

The Facebook movie might have performed slightly below box office expectations last weekend for Sony movie unit Columbia Pictures, but it certainly has invaded the mainstream zeitgeist. Still, BoomTown was quite surprised to see a mention of “The Social Network” on one of my favorite celebrity sites, TMZ.com.

EXCLUSIVE: On the Internet, No One Knows Your Story Is Make-Believe

Peter Kafka in Media on March 4, 2010 at 12:46 pm PT

Or more accurately, no one really cares if your story is make-believe. How Radar Online’s fable about the Supreme Court became “news.”

Keep a Civil Cybertongue

Jimmy Wales and Andrea Weckerle, Founder, Wikipedia and Founder and President of CiviliNation, respectively in News on December 29, 2009 at 11:47 am PT

In less than 20 years, the World Wide Web has irrevocably expanded the number of ways we connect and communicate with others. This radical transformation has been almost universally praised. What hasn’t kept pace with the technical innovation is the recognition that people need to engage in civil dialogue. What we see regularly on social networking sites, blogs and other online forums is behavior that ranges from the carelessly rude to the intentionally abusive.

TMZ Sports? Why Not?

Peter Kafka in Media on December 23, 2009 at 5:01 am PT

Is TMZ looking to branch into sports? It’s already there. But a spinoff makes plenty of sense.

A Bing Bug? If Not, How Did This Dude Beat Out Megan Fox and the Even Prettier Robert Pattinson for Most-Searched Celeb?

Kara Swisher in News on November 30, 2009 at 5:25 am PT

Since Bing only debuted at mid-year (and at the D: All Things Digital conference too), BoomTown is willing to cut it some slack. Until the Microsoft search service revealed on its blog last night that Perez Hilton–the irksome gossip blogger–beat out “Transformers” hottie Megan Fox and “Twilight” hottie-er Robert Pattinson for the top celebrity searched using Bing in 2009. Clearly, Bing’s algorithm needs some tweaking by real people.