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Hey, Yahoo: When You Act Like a Media Company, I Like You (I Really Like You)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:15:26 +0000

Last night, I did the unthinkable, and actually drove myself through rush hour traffic in Silicon Valley to go to an event in San Jose.

I did this for three good reasons.

First, it was to see Bill Maher’s “CrazyStupidPolitics: Live From Silicon Valley” show, which was being being broadcast live and exclusively on Yahoo Screen, the Internet giant’s video destination. The event launched the Yahoo Comedy Channel, which will offer premium original video from some top talent for free, underwritten by advertisers.

Second, Maher is really, really funny, and even better in stand-up than on his HBO cable show.

Third, some Yahoos always think I am too mean to the company and don’t focus on what it’s doing right.

To be fair, that’s because it has not been doing much right when it comes to stabilizing leadership, handling its longtime moribund board, and giving non-cat-wrangling direction to its talented pool of much-beleaguered employees.

Thus — with some sort of usually self-inflicted fire drill going on all the time — there is a lot for me to report on, from persistent attrition to declining metrics to the latest bickering with its Asian partners.

Which is why it was a pleasure to see the Maher event and then also watch it online, because it was done by Yahoo with the kind of beautiful ease that it used to roll out all the time from its media properties.

When I say pleasure, it is a major compliment, since making and presenting content on the Web has usually ended in pain. Google-owned YouTube, as successful as it is, still hurts my eyes when I watch it, and has not yet become the kind of environment that big brands would want to live in for a long time.

But, from its very first day, without a lot of fuss and noise, Yahoo has created and distributed some of the very best online content experiences from its undersung media units, whether it was Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Sports or Yahoo News.

While there were some notable misses — there was a strange original news show produced in Web 1.0 that was so bad it was good — Yahoo has always had a strong talent for media distribution, and has the huge audience to aim it at.

What has been a shame is the lessening focus the media side has gotten, despite its success over the many years, and even though many of its channels have long been No. 1 across the Web.

The often short shrift has been largely due to the faux struggle between whether Yahoo was a media company or a technology one. It has been an exhausting and toxic debate within Yahoo over the years, with no clear conclusion.

But here’s the truth: The Maher event showed that what Yahoo can do well is be a high-level, high-quality, highly selective distributor of media of all kinds to millions upon millions of users.

This has been and can still be — if properly organized, staffed and sold — a very good business for Yahoo, which has always treated it like some sideshow, rather than the main one.

I get that, of course — why be in a media business, when the pickings are so good in search, commerce, social … whatever?

Why? Well, because a terrific guide of all sorts of media experiences online is what Yahoo was from its very start, and what it has since tried not to be as definitively.

Having covered Yahoo from its very beginnings, it has been a lot like watching someone you think looks good in one outfit change into one ill-fitting and inappropriate get-up after the next in search of the right image.

But if the company only cared to take a look at how well and seemingly effortlessly it pulled off the Maher event, it would know immediately what it has always done well is what it should always be doing.

The Maher live offering was not fancy and it was not flashy and it did not have all kinds of the latest trends hanging all over it.

It was just good, well done and well worth a watch, whether in person or at home. And it was very, very funny.

It would be nice, then, if Yahoo learned to laugh like this much more often.

Here are some of the clips from Maher’s patter to enjoy:

How to Win at YouTube

Peter Kafka — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:57:52 +0000

YouTube is reaching out to Hollywood for help. But its “channel” strategy doesn’t mean it’s abandoning the amateurs and semi-pros who have been stocking the video site with clips for years.

And if you’re in the latter group, YouTube has something just for you: A “Playbook” that’s supposed to help you get your skateboarding dog seen by the widest possible audience. The site just put out a revised version, and even if you never plan on uploading a single video, it’s well worth skimming the 91 slides here.

When you do, you’ll get a sense of the increasing similarities between YouTube successes and the ones you see on TV and in theaters — note the emphasis, for instance, on “tentpole programming” and cross-promotions. And the importance the guide places on consistent scheduling and frequency.

And then there are some tips that are quite specific to YouTube, like the best way to use “annotations,” the interactive text video makers can layer onto their clips.

It’s also important to note that a lot of this stuff is applicable to anyone who creates anything, in any format, and wants to get it distributed on the Web.

There’s a basic primer on search engine optimization (crucial because YouTube is the world’s second-biggest search engine), for instance. And also a handy guide to understanding Google+ (and, in less detail, how to use Facebook and Twitter).

A Guide for PC Buyers Not Looking for a Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:02:27 +0000

If you’re shopping for a laptop this autumn, you’ll find most of the capabilities and prices in the sluggish market unchanged. You’ll still likely be considering whether it’s time to get a tablet instead of a new laptop.

[ See post to watch video ]

But if you’re focused on a Windows machine, and you look carefully, you’ll see that a new class of portable PC is beginning to appear. It’s called the “ultrabook,” and is essentially the Windows version of Apple’s popular, nearly four-year old MacBook Air—an ultraskinny, light, speedy, versatile laptop with long battery life.

The arrival of the ultrabook is a welcome development, not only because it spices up the market, but because I consider the MacBook Air the best all-around consumer laptop available, and anything that emulates it is a good idea, if done well.

There are only a few ultrabooks available this season and they aren’t for everybody. Most have limited storage and, like the MacBook Air, are priced near the $1,000 range—rich territory in a tight economy where Apple buyers seem comfortable, though not many others. Still, this new class of Windows laptop is the only fundamentally fresh choice in the laptop market.

If the price is too high, you should be able to get a capable major-brand laptop for between $500 and $800, with plenty of storage and memory.

My annual fall laptop buyers’ guide today offers tips for wading through the technobabble in computer ads, and in online and physical stores. As always, these tips are for average consumers doing common tasks, such as email, Web browsing, social networking, general office productivity, photos, music, videos and simple games. This guide isn’t meant for corporate buyers, or for hard-core gamers or serious media producers.

The recently unveiled Asus Zenbook

The tablet question: Tablets like Apple’s iPad 2 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 can perform many, though not all, of the functions of a laptop. Most tablet lovers find themselves reaching for their laptops less often to do things like email. If your budget is limited and you’re thinking of shelling out $500 for a full-size tablet, consider whether you can put off getting a new laptop this year instead of buying both.

Future Windows: If you’re shopping for a Windows laptop, be aware that in 2012, Microsoft will offer a new version of Windows, called Windows 8, with a radical new multitouch interface that makes use of a touch screen. The software giant stresses that Windows 8 won’t require such a screen, and will still work with a mouse or touch pad. But unless you have a laptop with a multi-touch screen, you won’t be able to take advantage of the Windows 8 touch-screen features.

Ultrabooks: Four companies make this class of laptop: Acer, Lenovo, Asus and, shortly, Toshiba. These machines are under 0.8 inch thick, weigh less than three pounds, and generally claim long battery life and almost-instant startup times. All run Windows 7; none has a touch screen. Like the MacBook Air, they use solid-state drives (though some combine these with standard hard disks) and have screens of either 11 inches or 13 inches. Prices generally run from around $900 to $1,100.

Windows vs. Mac: Mac laptops cost more and offer less variety than Windows laptops. The least expensive Mac laptop is $999, while a few stripped-down Windows portables can be had for under $300. Well-equipped Windows laptops start at $500 to $600. But Apple laptops combine beauty, ruggedness and long battery life with good customer service. Macs also come with better built-in software, including the new Lion operating system, which includes some tablet-like features. And they can run Windows, at extra cost.

Finally, Mac users don’t fear viruses and other malicious software, because virtually none work on the Mac.

Memory: Get at least 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new Windows computer. On a Mac, most consumers can get away with 2 gigabytes.

Processors: Intel’s latest chips are the i3, i5, and i7 Core models. But a laptop with chips from rival AMD, or older Intel dual-core chips, also is OK.

Graphics: Usually less expensive machines have wimpier graphics hardware, and costlier ones have more powerful graphics. Better graphics can make your whole machine faster, because more and more software is designed to offload general processing tasks onto the graphics chips.

Hard disks: A 320-gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs. Solid-state disks, like those in the new ultrabooks or the MacBook Air, generally come in sizes of 128 GB or 256 GB. They omit moving parts and use flash memory to store your files, as on a smartphone or tablet. They are costlier, but faster, and use less power.

Ports: Many PCs now come with a port called HDMI, which makes linking to a high-definition TV easy. There is a new, much faster USB port, called USB 3.0, but few peripheral devices can use it. And Apple has introduced yet another high-speed connector that has little practical use so far, called Thunderbolt.

As always, be wary of sales pitches and don’t buy more laptop than you need.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

AOL's Stock Might Be Cold, but Its New Silicon Valley HQ Is Pretty Cool (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:08:22 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown took the All Things Digital minivan for a spin down to see the new Silicon Valley digs of AOL.

The Palo Alto, Calif., office is helmed by former Yahoo exec Brad “Peanut Butter Manifesto” Garlinghouse, who also turned out to be a very entertaining tour guide.

While there, I also interviewed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who was visiting from New York, about his dogged efforts to focus the long-struggling company on premium content and advertising. So far, Wall Street investors are not biting, knocking AOL stock down 29 percent year over year.

Still, AOL continues to plug away, and the cool HQ in tech’s heartland is one manifestation of that, so here’s the video tour:

[ See post to watch video ]

Exclusive: TMS Acquires Online Video Guide CastTV

Liz Gannes — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:37:02 +0000

Online video search start-up CastTV has been acquired by Tribune Media Services, the widely used entertainment guide metadata provider.

CastTV was founded in 2006 by a husband and wife team, and had raised $3.1 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen.

Though she wouldn’t comment on the terms of the deal, CastTV co-founder and President Alex Vikati said, “CastTV was profitable so we weren’t forced to make any decisions.” She, CastTV’s co-founder and CEO Edwin Ong, and their three employees will make up TMS’s Silicon Valley office, rather than moving to join TMS at its Chicago headquarters.

CastTV had stayed relatively under the radar compared to newcomers like Clicker.com, but it still has four million monthly uniques. Unlike Clicker, which has focused on curation and personalization, CastTV takes more of a pure search and aggregation approach. It historically did not exclude unauthorized content streams (though when I checked this morning, this no longer seemed to be the case). CastTV has also focused on detail-oriented features such as device awareness, so it will filter video results to only the formats playable on a certain device.

TMS will combine CastTV’s databases with its metadata service, and operate CastTV.com in conjunction with its own entertainment guide Zap2it.com, which has about double the audience.

TMS counts just about every content provider and guide service as a customer, including Microsoft, Google, TiVo, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, IMDb and the New York Times.

Putting Social to Work: Sustainable Seafood Mapping

Liz Gannes — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:00:52 +0000

For the last 10 years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has distributed wallet cards that give an at-a-glance guide to which types of seafood are sustainably fished and which are not because of overly depleted populations, destroyed habitats or some other reason.

Last year the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program launched an iPhone app that does the same thing on a searchable and localized scale.

And it’s been downloaded 325,000 times. So, this week, the Seafood Watch app got a social upgrade, which lets users contribute information about where they have actually found sustainable seafood for sale.

Like mobile social health applications such as RunKeeper, this is one of the more interesting interpretations of making a function social.

In the new Seafood Watch app, a feature called “Project FishMap” allows users to tag restaurants and markets across the United States to note what specific sustainable seafood is offered, and earn (of course!) virtual badges for their contributions. And users can also load up the app when deciding where to eat, so they can make their decision based on where sustainable seafood is available.

Eventually, perhaps, this user-generated seafood map could be made available for incorporation into other local apps like Yelp. But for now, the aquarium is just promising that an Android app will be released next year.

The idea behind the Seafood Watch project has been to enable consumers to show their preference by asking for sustainable options and voting for them with their wallets. But sometimes trying to make a better choice can get awfully confusing, when, for instance, the waiter at a restaurant has no idea where the cod came from (Atlantic wild-caught cod=”avoid”; Alaska longline cod=”best choice”).

However, the aquarium says the program has been effective in lobbying larger businesses–food service companies Compass Group and Aramark have committed to purchasing sustainable seafood, and Whole Foods Market has begun labeling its seafood with the project’s recommendations.

Clicker Links Up Facebook for Video Recommendations

Liz Gannes — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:18:10 +0000

The online television guide Clicker today launched its own social recommendation system called Clicker Predict, which utilizes “more than 50 explicit and implicit behaviors of individuals, their friends, and even kindred spirits in determining what someone will like to watch.”

With the launch of Clicker Predict, Clicker became the latest site to join Facebook’s Instant Personalization program, which customizes an outside site based on information a user and the users’ Facebook friends have submitted to Facebook or the site itself. This can happen the very first time a user visits a site–so if you’re new to Clicker, but are currently logged in through your browser to Facebook, Clicker can instantly make recommendations about what you should watch.

The experience of visiting a new site that already knows who you are can be a bit unnerving, which is why Facebook is rolling out Instant Personalization slowly and carefully. It’s one of the company’s more aggressive products on the privacy front. Other partners include Rotten Tomatoes, Yelp and Pandora.

San Francisco-based Clicker indexes more than one million shows and movies available on the Web.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Xbox Kinect: Just How Controlling Can a Body Be?

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:26:29 +0000

This holiday season, the war against couch potatoes wages on with Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect, the latest in motion-sensing video-game consoles. While the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation Move encourage people to stand and play games using familiar gestures and simple controllers, Kinect encourages people to motion their way through games and screens using their bodies as controllers.

[ See post to watch video ]

Kinect (xbox.com/kinect), a rectangular strip of four microphones, a 3-D sensor and a video camera, is $150 for those who own the Xbox 360. It’s sold in a $300 bundle with the 4-gigabyte Xbox 360 console; $400 with a 250-gigabyte console. (Sony’s PlayStation Move is $100 without the console and $400 when bundled with the 320-gigabyte PS3; Nintendo’s Wii costs $200.)All packages include the Kinect Adventures videogame. There are currently 17 games that work with Kinect, and each costs $50, $10 less than a standard Xbox game.

Kinect can sit on top of, below or beside the TV, plugging into a wall power outlet and the Xbox via a USB cord.The concept used by Kinect has potential far beyond games and might even become a new way of controlling computers of all kinds.

Thirteen of the 17 available Kinect games are rated E for Everyone, and the remaining four are rated T for Teens—a sign that Microsoft is going after a different crowd with Kinect than with its regular Xbox games, which offer a wide range of ratings, including violent games.

It automatically identifies who you are and pauses when you leave its vicinity, so it isn’t hard to imagine this ingenuity controlling all kinds of devices, like a PC, smartphone or tablet.

Over the past few weeks, I played a variety of Kinect games with three other people in the room, one other person in the room and completely by myself. I tried it with a 46-inch, 1080p LCD TV as well as using an old standard-definition TV.

My experiences were mixed. Kinect works beautifully for activities that involve only your body, like exercise classes, running, jumping hurdles, yoga and dancing, with the moves feeling natural and fun. The motion sensor detects even slight movements to reflect what you’re doing on the TV screen. I battled my boyfriend in Dance Central while busting out dance moves called Double Dig ‘Ems and Headwrushes. I sprinted down a virtual track, running in place fast enough to earn a game world record. And I toned my arms and abdominals while punching floating boxes in the Your Shape’s kickboxing class.

But when it came to sports that involved holding or throwing objects like bowling, volleyball or discus, Kinect started to feel a little inauthentic, like I didn’t really have control over the object. When I threw a discus far enough in Kinect Sports to prompt the game’s commentator to shout, “Is that discus a part of the space program?” I didn’t know what I did to get that result.

The same was true for driving a car in Kinect’s Joy Ride game: Players are instructed to hold their hands like they would if they were gripping a steering wheel, turning left or right by moving hands accordingly and leaning back and quickly forward to get a burst of speed. But it’s hard to mimic a motion to accelerate, and I found myself jerking my body all around to get results. My arms also got tired after holding them up for awhile.

Other games, like Kinectimals and Kinect Adventures, play to the Kinect’s strengths by using broader gestures and fewer accuracy-focused tasks. With Kinectimals, I moved my hands to virtually scratch a Bengal tiger cub; the cub even became more familiar with me the more it listened to my voice. I rode a raft in Kinect Adventures by leaning left or right to steer through rapids, jumping up to grab on-screen coins for points and ducking to avoid getting clocked in the head with objects.

Dance Central

In certain games, two people can play simultaneously standing in front of Kinect. The system can identify and sign in up to eight people as they step in and out of play. It recognizes those who are signed into Xbox and playing, so only their gestures maintain control of navigation. Its sensor will identify and log you in a few seconds after you step in front of it. If you walk away in the middle of a game, Kinect will sense that you aren’t there and will pause the game.

Kinect isn’t yet fully integrated into the entire Xbox navigation system. Some tasks still require the old Xbox controller, like opening the Xbox Guide, a quick way of launching anything in the system. Xbox’s Dashboard, which is the first menu you see when you turn on the system, also requires the controller. The Dashboard is separate from Kinect Hub, which lets you use your voice and gestures to do things like opening the system’s disc tray, selecting menus or even pausing a movie—just by saying, “Xbox, pause.” A spokesman said Microsoft plans to integrate these commands throughout the Dashboard. For now, it’s tempting—but futile—to want to use voice and gesture on every screen.

Many Kinect games capture videos of you as you play games and then play them back for you at the end. The results are hilarious. Kinect Adventures gives you a heads-up so you can make an extra silly pose at the right moment. Kinect Sports compiles a highlight reel as you go, playing this video back at the end of your athletic events, goofy sport gestures and all. And Dance Central announces a freestyle dance for all players at the end of each round, capturing video snippets of these moves. Users who are signed into Xbox Live can share these videos with others.

Kinect Adventures

Kinect can also be used to video chat with anyone who’s using Windows Live Messenger and a webcam.

I really enjoyed Dance Central—and not just because I won most of my dance battles (the one who gets the most moves correct wins). This game offered a large variety of songs ranging from old-school rap to Lady Gaga. Each dance was taught in a different virtual venue by an instructor who shouted words of encouragement or instruction, and cheers from the crowd spurred me on.

Navigating the menus in Kinect games is usually more enjoyable with gestures, though it takes a little longer than if you were pressing a controller button to skip ahead. In the Your Shape game, I selected from Personal Training, Fitness Classes and Gym Games using my arm to touch my selection and another red icon below that to confirm it. When I started this game, the sensor scanned my body to measure my height, arm length, leg length and shoulder span, thus customizing games just for me.

In the future, Kinect could use be used to recognize communities like a group of fans all wearing the same team colors while watching a game, in which case the system might display extra on-screen data for that supported team. Another example could include playing along with game shows from home, like reality TV for the masses.For now, Xbox Kinect does well with many games that mimic real-life gestures and motions. Games with specific actions using objects, like rolling a bowling ball, need work to feel more authentic.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Digital Cameras Improve Zooms, HD Function

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:26:27 +0000

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, so, too, comes the start of the holiday shopping mayhem. Once again, digital cameras are rocketing to the top of wish lists, and once again, shoppers are tentatively entering electronics stores with bewildered looks on their faces.

[ See post to watch video ]

To alleviate some of that shopping stress, I’ve compiled a buyer’s guide for different camera categories with prices and pointers to innovation. This year, manufacturers have improved photo-location tagging and are offering artistic photo alteration and clever ways to label images for future sharing on social networks.

Let’s Get Physical

Consumers are starting to understand that better sensors make it possible to do things like taking photos in low light, which can really make a difference in photo quality. Some high-quality sensors are making their way into affordable models, like the CMOS sensor in Nikon’s $300 Coolpix S8100. High megapixel counts aren’t overly important, though more megapixels per photo still make it easier to zoom in while editing and give higher resolution in a larger photo or poster. A 14-megapixel camera like the Olympus FE-47 costs just $100, but a recent Consumer Reports review gave it low marks in handling shake and liquid-crystal-display screen quality. Optical zoom, or the physically manipulated distance between the camera and a subject, is still more important than digital zoom, and it’s easy to find many models with 7x optical zoom or better. LCD screens on digicams are so large that they leave little room for optical viewfinders, thus making built-in image stabilization all the more important. Image stabilization comes on nearly all new cameras. And more digicams than ever are capable of recording high-definition videos.

Breaking It Down

Digital cameras can be divided into four broad categories: pocket-size, point-and-shoot, super- or mega-zooms and digital single-lens reflexes (D-SLRs). I’ll leave SLRs out of the discussion, since they’re still primarily aimed at hobbyists who don’t mind the cost and effort of buying additional lenses, filters, flashes and other accessories.

Most pocket-size digital cameras cost between $100 and $300, weigh no more than seven ounces and lack optical viewfinders, forcing users to look at LCD screens to compose pictures. Most of these LCD viewing screens measure between 2.6 inches and 3.5 inches diagonally. Samsung, however, has an even bigger touch-screen LCD, at 3.7 inches, on its CL80 camera priced at $350.

These small but powerful machines capture images with 10, 12 or 14 megapixels and their optical zoom lenses usually range from 3x to 7x, though a handful of manufacturers are boosting their cameras’ optical zooms. The $170 Casio Exilim EX-H5, for example, is equipped with a 10x optical zoom lens.

Today’s point-and-shoot digital cameras are sleeker and more stylish than they used to be, though they remain somewhat bulkier than their pocket-size relatives. The point-and-shoot size can allow for better optical zoom lenses, and these models sometimes cost less than the pocket sizes. The $300 Canon PowerShot SX210 IS and $280 Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 are equipped with 14x and 12x optical zoom lenses, respectively.

Super-zoom or mega-zoom digital cameras satisfy people who want the power of a great zoom and optional manual settings without the hassle and expense of an SLR. At a glance, you might mistake these models for SLRs due to their bulkier bodies, and, in some cases, detachable (or hot-shoe) flashes. Nikon’s $400 Coolpix P100 offers a 26x wide-angle optical zoom, and Olympus’s $350 SP-800UZ is the smallest camera with a 30x wide-angle optical zoom. Both cameras have built-in flashes, but the Nikon includes an optical viewfinder while the Olympus offers only an LCD screen for viewing and capturing photos.

Shaking It Up

Camera manufacturers are adding creative new features to these devices. Starting the week of Thanksgiving, Casio will provide Hybrid GPS on its $350 EX-H20G, which geotags (adds digital location information to) images indoors where GPS satellite signals can’t reach. This works using a combined GPS radio and motion sensor to measure the direction in which the camera has moved, and how fast. When you’re back in satellite range, the camera corrects the geotag by cross-referencing its own estimates with satellite-provided latitude and longitude.

Olympus now has art filters, which let you view your subject with special effects before capturing the photo. Some filters supply gentle sepia, soft focus or grainy film. There is also a drawing filter, which makes a subject instantly appear as a sketch.

Samsung’s $150 PL90 model has a pop-out USB arm that reminds me a lot of the pop-out USB connector on Cisco’s popular Flip camcorders. Samsung’s USB arm eliminates the need for messy wires, or the removal of a memory card to transfer photos from a digicam to a PC.

Many cameras have and continue to supply guides that appear on screen as a photo is being captured. Sony’s NEX-5 offers this, and the Olympus Live Guide let you preview photo adjustments—like brightness or color saturation—on the screen as you make them. Nikon’s Scene Auto Selector, found in the Coolpix P7000, Coolpix S8100 and Coolpix S80, will automatically adjust the camera’s settings so users can stop worrying about scrolling through menus to select the right scene from a list.

Fujifilm offers the only true (not simulated) three-dimensional digital camera in its $500 FinePix REAL 3D W3, which I reviewed in August. These 3D images can be seen through the camera’s LCD viewing screen but not on laptops or television sets unless they’re 3D-capable and you’re wearing 3D glasses.

Kodak is trying to encourage sharing with its cameras by including a Share button that, when pressed, digitally tags images and videos with labels for Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Kodak Gallery or email, then automatically sends the photos to those places when you next plug the camera into a PC.

One last warning: Don’t be seduced by lower prices or better technology alone. Be sure you try a camera in the store before buying it. The way it feels or works for you is just as important as any technological specification.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

A Fall Guide: How to Pick Your Next Computer

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:05:08 +0000

If you’re shopping for a new computer this fall, you won’t find big surprises. But you’ll still have to juggle a lot of technobabble terminology and watch your budget. Perhaps the biggest question for some buyers will be whether to get a tablet or a laptop, now that Apple’s iPad is a proven hit and a flood of competitors is on the way.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, here is my annual fall computer buyers’ guide, a simplified road map to the key decisions shoppers must make. I’ve focused on laptops—the most common purchase—but much of this advice also applies to desktops. As always, these tips are for average users doing the most common tasks. This advice doesn’t apply to businesses, to hard-core gamers, or to serious media producers.

Tablets vs. Laptops: If you’re looking for a light-duty, highly portable computer, it’s worth considering the iPad, which starts at $499, instead of a small laptop. This is especially true if you’re in the market for a secondary computer, or one mainly for use on the go. Many owners of iPads, including me, are finding it handily replaces a laptop for numerous tasks, such as Web browsing, email, social-networking, photos, video and music. It has superior battery life, lighter weight, and it starts instantly. I don’t recommend it for people who are creating long documents, especially spreadsheets and presentations, even though it is capable of those tasks. And I don’t recommend it for users who require, or prefer, a physical keyboard.

If you don’t like the iPad, there will soon be alternatives. For instance, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which has a 7-inch screen versus the iPad’s 10-inch display, and runs Google’s Android operating system, will be available this month from major wireless carriers. Sprint, for example, will offer it at $400 with a two-year contract. But some tablet buyers may want to wait till the first half of next year, when many more models will be available, and Apple will likely roll out the second-generation iPad.

Netbooks: These low-cost, low-powered little Windows computers are losing popularity, but are still available, typically for about $350 to $500. They are being hurt by the rise of tablets and by light but larger laptops. Some buyers also find the screens and keyboards are too cramped. But these are evolving. Some now have bigger screens and roomier keyboards. And Dell will soon introduce a sort of hybrid netbook-tablet. Called the Inspiron Duo, this model, starting at $499, has both a regular keyboard and a touch screen that flips around when the lid is closed to act like a tablet.

Windows vs. Mac: Windows laptops can be much less costly—and come in many more styles and varieties—than Mac laptops. The Macs start at $999, versus as little as $500 for a decently equipped Windows portable. Windows laptops are still dominant. But Apple laptops are stylish and reliable, and usually boot much faster than Windows machines, in my tests. Also, Apple scores high on surveys of customer support. Its latest models, like the new, light MacBook Airs, have extraordinarily good battery life. Macs also aren’t affected by the vast majority of malicious software, have much better built-in multimedia software and, at extra cost, can run Windows programs in cases where Mac equivalents aren’t available.

The light but speedy 13-inch Toshiba R705 offers good battery life.

Cost: Most of the popular consumer Windows laptops cost $500 to $800. You can get full-size laptops for as little as $280, but their processors and graphics are weak and some lack webcams. If you can afford it, a light but speedy 13-inch machine like the Toshiba R705 offers very good battery life for just under $800. All-in-one desktops typically cost around $1,000 and some, like the HP TouchSmart, offer touch screens with special touch software. Apple’s popular all-in-one iMac starts at $1,199.

Processors: The most promoted chips are Intel’s i3, i5, and i7 Core models, the latter two of which can turn on and off some of their functions to boost power or save energy. But there is nothing wrong with buying a PC that uses chips from rival AMD, which usually cost less. For average users, Intel’s older Core 2 Duo still works just fine, even with the latest software. Intel’s weaker Atom processor line powers most netbooks.

Graphics: Integrated graphics, which share the computer’s main memory, are fine for most common tasks, but costlier discrete graphics, which have dedicated memory, can speed things up by taking some of the load off the main processor. They also are better for games. Some computers have both and can switch among them.

Wireless: More and more laptops are coming with optional cellular modem chips in addition to Wi-Fi. These can be handy while traveling, but be warned that they require a cellular data contract, which can be costly.

Connections: If you plan to connect your laptop to a TV, look for a connector called an HDMI port, which is used on most high-definition TVs. Some laptops also come with a feature called Wireless Display, or Wi-Di, which, with an extra-cost adapter, can beam your laptop screen to a TV without a cable. There is a new, much faster USB port, called USB 3.0, but, so far, it’s on very few machines.

Memory: Aim for 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new computer, and never settle for less than 2 gigabytes.

Hard disks: A 320 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, though 250 gigabytes is OK if price is key, or if it’s your secondary machine. Solid-state disks, which lack moving parts and use flash memory like smartphones do, are faster and use less battery power. They cost much more, but are coming down in price fast. However, they typically offer much less capacity.

64-bit: Many models now use a 64-bit architecture, which allows properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy 64-bit, which will become more and more important.

Touch: Some Windows 7 computers have touch capability built into the screen, though Windows wasn’t designed with touch as a core element and the combination isn’t ideal. Computer makers try to resolve this with special touch software, which you should try in a store. Apple laptops use huge touch pads as the multitouch surface, instead of the screen.

As always, don’t buy more machine than you need.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

News Corp. Vs. Cablevision = Another Installment of "How to Cut Your Cord"

Peter Kafka — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:35:31 +0000

Nothing new with the Cablevision-News Corp. face-off. We’ve seen the cable guys fight with the programming guys again and again and again. And we’re sure to see it again, too.

But! It does give us the opportunity to rerun the “how to cut your cable TV” video and guide that Time Warner Cable helpfully prepared last year.

And this time the instructions will be particularly helpful to Cablevision’s customers who live exclusively in the New York area.

They’ll still be able to watch their smug, overpaid Yankees take on the Texas Rangers on cable today, since those games are being carried on Time Warner’s TBS.

But if News Corp. and Cablevision don’t settle by early Saturday evening, Cablevision subs won’t get Fox’s Phillies-Giants game (Halladay! Lincecum!) via their cable box tonight.

Which means they’ll need to either break out the rabbit ears for an over-the-air signal or break out their credit card and pay MLB.com, which is offering live “companion coverage”: $9.95 gets you streams for the rest of the playoffs.

Either way, they’ll want to review the instructions below. (Disclosure–News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site):

TV_to_PC_TWC –

AOL Tries Its "Best" in 25 Cities

Voices — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:12:25 +0000

AOL today kicked off its own “get out the vote” drive, but it has nothing to do with the fall elections. As part of its heightened local focus, the company is bringing back its City’s Best sites, last seen in 2008, in 25 U.S. metropolitan areas. From now through Nov. 30, site visitors will be encouraged to vote for the best local businesses in a variety of categories (Best Burgers, Best Dive Bars, Best Places to Break Up, etc.), creating a grassroots city guide in the process.

Here Comes the Yahoo Spin Cycle–So Try BoomTown's Soap-Free Guide to What's Actually Happening

Kara Swisher — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:53:01 +0000

Here’s how Yahoo’s top brass and board–with the help of its newly re-engaged crisis-management PR firm, Abernathy MacGregor–are already trying to spin the latest executive turmoil to hit the company:

Trashing those on the way out, to take focus off those remaining who have been just as responsible for driving the Internet icon and claiming that this is all part of yet another well-planned reorganization at Yahoo (YHOO).

Don’t believe most of it for a second. Some of it is corporate politics as usual, some of it rejiggering of events, some just not true at all.

After BoomTown’s scoop earlier today that Yahoo’s U.S. head Hilary Schneider, as well as Audience head David Ko and VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro, would be departing the company–all of which Yahoo is still planning to announce after the markets close on Friday–here comes this gem in a follow-up story in The Wall Street Journal:

“[Yahoo CEO Carol] Bartz, who joined Yahoo in January 2009, is in the midst of a turnaround effort. People familiar with the matter said she is removing the company’s old guard to assemble a new team.”

Let’s parse this ridonkulous spin-addled blame game, shall we?

Bartz is, in fact, the very person who picked all those execs for prime responsibility in her last reorg.

If they were so incompetent, why not dump them much quicker? After all, it’s not like the problems have not been mounting for months and months, with more and more talent taking off.

In addition, the exec exodus at Yahoo over the last year has been unrelenting and broad, encompassing way too many employees for her to act as if it were all planned and okay.

As to the “midst of a turnaround effort” canard that Bartz keeps insisting on, even comparing herself to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Job’s epic journey to return that legendary company to health?

Um, we are deep in the second year of the Bartz regime, and there appears to be no iPod-like save in sight, and it’s a little long in the tooth to keep using the turnaround excuse for all that has not yet happened under her command.

Which is to say, stock with a pulse and real growth across all metrics, as Facebook and Google (GOOG), to name a few, are showing.

In addition, it was Bartz herself who handed over a lot of the responsibility for the revival of Yahoo to Schneider.

Which meant Schneider had to be thrown under the wheels of the bus in the Journal by dragging out a very old–and tangential to the much larger flat revenue crisis at Yahoo–newspaper deal as pretty wet cannon fodder:

“Ms. Schneider is leaving because officials haven’t been satisfied with her performance, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Schneider was responsible for a 2006 deal with industry group Newspaper Consortium, in which Yahoo sold ads for newspaper websites and print editions. The effort continues but has not met Yahoo’s expectations, according to a person close to the company.”

Memo to readers: “People familiar with the matter,” I am guessing, would be current Yahoo execs.

The fact of the matter is that there have been both critics and admirers of Schneider at Yahoo, which comes as no surprise for one of its top execs. Some consider her smart and canny, while others complain of indecisiveness and slowness to act.

And, she has definitely had some very big whiffs, including the newspaper consortium, but most especially not finding an ad sales chief to replace Joanne Bradford, who left in March, about which I gave her a hard time when a very squishy structure was announced.

And, right now, sources tell me, Yahoo’s upcoming quarterly report could be an even tougher one.

And that falls to Schneider, of course, who has been in charge of its many partnerships, as well as advertising sales across the key Americas region.

Perhaps good reason for an ouster, except I have been tracking Schneider’s status for many months now, since hearing from many sources–not her, ever, in case you wanted to know–that she had told Bartz she wanted out.

Maybe that is what began to sour the boss on Schneider. But to now suddenly call her performance poor seems unusual, especially when you can just as easily point to Yahoo’s disastrous and pricey marketing campaigns–it is definitely not You!–helmed by CMO Elisa Steele, which has failed to move the needle on key user metrics.

But she has a tight relationship with Bartz, so she’s all right, jack? I am dizzy from all the spinning.

In other words, execs make mistakes and there is a lot of blame to go around and–as the old saying goes–the buck really does stop with Bartz.

But, guess what? Perhaps it should be noted that Bartz has also misstepped badly of late by making a series of wild remarks that have seriously angered many partners and other companies in Silicon Valley.

And I have heard from countless and very significant investors, all of whom are deeply concerned about her tone and recent public comments.

Just ask Yahoo Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Or Alibaba’s Jack Ma in China. Or the fine folks over at Apple in Cupertino, Calif.

And, I can also report that several execs at Yahoo’s new search technology partner, Microsoft, are also increasingly alarmed. Said one to me yesterday: “It is becoming a little unsettling.”

I can say for certain that Ko, who will doubtlessly be the next to get dinged, left on his own motor, telling Bartz himself recently.

He was quickly followed by Pitaro, who, as I reported earlier this week, is headed to another big company. No matter what the spin, his departure is a big loss, as he is well-liked inside and outside the company.

Then Schneider rounded out the latest trio of execs to go.

Thus, sources said, Yahoo is about to go on the offense, which is the expected thing to do, ready to announce a plan to move most of the product organization under Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.

The former Microsoft (MSFT) online exec is as sharp as a tack, in my experience, and clearly an even sharper corporate player, recently bringing in a series of his old cohorts from the software giant to take over big jobs at Yahoo.

He’s obviously now won some version of a corporate power play, and is now in favor with Bartz. But that means he’s being handed the entire thing.

Apparently, Irving has told numerous people that he plans to “rip it all down” and streamline the whole organization.

More rearranging at the company that has moved around the corporate living room umpteenth times over the past several years? Except it is still essentially the same room and same house.

Okay, Irving should probably have his choice of where the sofa goes, but as one exec wisely told me tonight: “Yahoo needs to build great products, not have another reorg….It needs a win.”

Indeed, just as board member Eric Hippeau apparently said at a recent meeting to deal with the latest executive kerfuffle.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock–who has presided over so many stumbles over the years that I have lost count–said to the room: “We need crisis management.”

Countered Hippeau, a longtime Internet exec who is now CEO of the Huffington Post: “What we need is revenue.”

Indeed. And innovation. And a vision. And, most of all, spin-free leadership.

Sugar Inc. Goes Local With FreshGuide Acquisition

Kara Swisher — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:28:42 +0000

San Francisco-based women-focused online media site Sugar Inc. has made it first significant move into the local market, by announcing its purchase of FreshGuide.

The locally focused FreshGuide makes women-aimed city guides that show off daily offers in a wide range of arenas, such as beauty, health and fitness. Another FreshGuide offering, BookFresh, does online booking for spas and salons.

FreshGuide is in four markets now: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Seattle. It will continue to operate as separate brand from Sugar.

Terms of the deal were not released.

Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, is at an interesting juncture right now, in a space that is both competitive and fast-growing.

According to sources, in search of a cogent women’s strategy, Yahoo (YHOO) has given the start-up the once-over several times, including recently.

And a year ago, the company broke off ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capital.

Sequoia was an earlier venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006.

NBC invested $10 million in 2007. The media giant had been selling online advertising for the site, an arrangement that had previously ended.

Here’s the official press release from Sugar on the purchase:

Sugar Inc. Enters Local Editorial and Advertising Market With Acquisition of FreshGuide

Sugar Inc. Will Rapidly Accelerate FreshGuide’s Growth and Expansion with Its Large Passionate Audience of Women

San Francisco, CA (June 8, 2010)–In its first foray into providing local editorial and advertising, Sugar Inc. (SugarInc.com) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire FreshGuide Inc., which operates FreshGuide.com and BookFresh (BookFresh.com). FreshGuide.com is an online women-focused city guide that provides access to exclusive daily offers from a well-edited selection of local businesses in beauty, health and fitness, dining, travel getaways and other relevant categories. BookFresh provides an online booking service for local businesses, such as spas and salons.

Sugar Inc. is a leading diversified women’s media company that includes PopSugar Network and PopSugar TV, producing original content and social community for women, and ShopStyle, a social shopping service that brings together the most fashionable stores and the best brands. Sugar has had rapid organic audience growth since inception four years ago and today reaches over 16M monthly unique visitors globally.

“We are constantly striving to add innovative offerings that entertain and delight our audience,” said Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar Inc. “We felt there were tremendous synergies between Sugar and FreshGuide that could be achieved by combining our large audience with their local service. We are very excited to be able to bring to our readers exclusive daily offers at the best places to eat, exercise, shop and
relax in their local areas.”

FreshGuide was founded in 2008 by Ryan Donahue, a veteran of Pay Pal, and launched its first service, BookFresh, later that year. In January 2010, the company launched Freshguide.com to provide local offers by city. Currently, FreshGuide operates in four markets: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Seattle. FreshGuide will continue to operate under Sugar Inc. as a separate brand.

“FreshGuide is focused on providing exclusive, local offers for women. By integrating our service with the PopSugar Network’s addictive editorial content, we are creating a city-based editorial and offers of unmatched quality in the market,” said Donahue. “This acquisition will also allow us to dramatically expand our reach and accelerate our growth. We plan to launch FreshGuide in 30 additional cities over the next 18 months in the U.S. and internationally in the UK, France, Germany and Australia where Sugar Inc. has operations.”

Online local advertising is forecast to grow at a 19 percent annual rate over the next four years and is expected to be a $19 billion market in 2010, according to BIA Kelsey Group. Most of that growth is coming from the decline of the $120 billion traditional local advertising market.

“We believe the winning business model for next generation media companies must include diverse revenue streams. This conviction led to our acquisition of ShopStyle in 2007, which provided Sugar with a new marketing channel for retailers and brands to acquire visitors that met their ROI goals. The acquisition of ShopFlick, now PopSugar Studios, in 2009, enabled Sugar to launch PopSugar TV and provide advertisers a compelling video environment for branded entertainment. Similarly, we believe that FreshGuide will provide local advertisers the ability to advertise to Sugar;s large audience in a high-quality and cost-effective manner.

The FreshGuide service will also provide Sugar’s national advertisers and retailers with a new way to extend their brands into local markets as we develop our local city guides,” added Sugar.

Facebook's New(est) Approach to Privacy

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:47:07 +0000

As an apology for betraying the trust of Facebook’s 400 million members, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s equivocating editorial in the Washington Post Monday was as half-assed as it was late. Facebook may have moved “too fast” by revising its privacy policy and tools in a way that makes more of its members’ personal information public, he conceded. “We move quickly to serve [our] community with new ways to connect with the social Web and each other,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Sometimes we move too fast.”

Sometimes we move too fast.

That’s an apology of sorts, I suppose. But it’s not an apology for further loosening Facebook’s privacy safeguards or for the speed with which Facebook loosened them. In other words, it’s a comment on the execution of a policy, not on the policy itself.

By saying “we move too fast,” Zuckerberg isn’t admitting that Facebook was headed in the wrong direction with respect to user privacy; he’s saying Facebook was headed in right direction all along, just a bit too quickly–for those of us with reasonable expectations or privacy, anyway.

Which makes you wonder about Facebook’s claim that its changing privacy policy and tools reflect “shifting social norms around privacy.”

Do they really?

Or is Facebook itself attempting to shift those norms in its quest for revenue? After all, there’s great money to be made in the sort of behavioral advertising that Facebook’s user data makes possible–great money to be made in monetizing our privacy and reputations.

So the unveiling this morning of what Facebook claims are “enhanced, simpler” privacy controls is interesting, to say the least. How does a company so clearly prejudiced against privacy assuage concerns that it might violate privacy?

With a new set of “granular data permissions,” Zuckerberg said this morning (here’s Facebook’s guide explaining them).

“First, we’ve built one simple control to set who can see the content you post,” he explained in a blog post published to coincide with the announcement. “Second we’ve reduced the amount of basic information that must be visible to everyone and we are removing the connections privacy model….Third, we’ve made it simple to control whether applications and Web sites can access any of your information.” (Click image below to enlarge.)

Evidently, there will be a simple control that applies to all content retroactively and to new products going forward. If, for example, you set your preference to friends-of-friends, that will be your historic default as well as your default going forward.

For applications, access to member information has been “dramatically” limited. There will be a single check box to opt out of information-sharing with third-party sites. Said Zuckerberg: “The net effect of this is that all applications are going to have restricted access to your personal information.”

And for Facebook Platform, the company is adding an “easy” opt-out for instant personalization. Finally, Facebook is differentiating between “basic directory” information and the more personal information in its members’ profiles. Directory information must be public so friends can find one another, and “allowing people to find you on Facebook is a very different use case than sharing your information.”

As a privacy tool overhaul, this is fairly substantial. And it does seem to address many complaints about the previous system. But it doesn’t do one thing that many critics have called for: Make the highest privacy settings the default.

Why not? Said Zuckerberg: “We’re trying to make the system simple to use. Facebook has never worked in a way where you sign up and only your friends can see your personal information. The point of the site is to allow you to connect with new friends and friends of friends. And that’s always been a really important part of how Facebook has worked. It’s really important to help people share simply by default.”

With their friends, perhaps. But not with anonymous companies. In that case, you’d think most people would want to limit that “sharing” by default. But that would undermine Facebook’s business model, wouldn’t it?

Evidently, outrage over the company’s privacy missteps hasn’t been sufficient to effect that particular change. “We really think about the trust issues,” Zuckerberg explained. “A lot of people right now are upset with us about these changes, and I take that really seriously…and I don’t mean to diminish privacy concerns….but all these blogs are talking about Delete-Your-Facebook-Pages campaigns and we’ve seen no meaningful change to our usage stats.”

So how does Zuckerberg answer accusations that Facebook doesn’t care about privacy, that his company preys on people who have an expectation of privacy but don’t necessarily understand the implications of putting their personal information on Facebook?

“People perceive that we don’t care about privacy and that’s just not true,” he said. “People want to share information and there’s got to be a balance. They’ve got to have control over how they share their information and that’s where the world is going….We’ve learned time and time again that privacy is a sensitive thing. Now we feel like we have a privacy model that will scale as we add more users….And hopefully, we won’t be messing with it for a long time.”

Want to Watch TV on Your iPad? Pay Up.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:51:40 +0000

In the run-up to the iPad launch, I noted that the TV networks were pretty much sitting this one out: If you want to watch one of their shows for free, you’ll need to do it on something other than Apple’s new gadget.

But just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I asked the folks at Clicker, the online video guide, to tally up what kinds of video options the iPad offers for now. And I got the same answer: Plenty of full shows if you pay, very little if you don’t.

Paid:
Netflix app (requires subscription plan starting at $8.99 per month):
10,000 TV episodes
6,000 movies

iTunes (sold via individual downloads):
25,000 TV episodes
3,000 movies
3,000 music videos

Free:
ABC:
Approximately 200 full TV episodes via app. None via Safari browser.

CBS:
One full TV episode and clips

NBC:
No full TV episodes. Some broken up into low-quality clips on mobile site.

Fox:
No full TV episodes.

Cable networks (FX, AMC, USA, etc.):
No full TV episodes

Clicker would also like us to note to that it has access to another 175,000 clips that will work on the iPad, from sources ranging from ESPN to CNN to Next New Networks. Noted! But if you’re waiting to watch complete episodes of programs like “30 Rock” or “The Daily Show” for free on your iPad, you’re going to be disappointed for quite some time.

And to be clear: This is a business development issue for the networks, not a technical one. They certainly know how to convert their videos from Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash standard to the HTML5 standard Apple (AAPL) is championing–they’re just not sure they want to. We’ll get to the internal debates some of the networks are having on this topic down the line.

DailyCandy Gets a New Editor: New York Magazine's Janet Ozzard

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:49:53 +0000

DailyCandy, the original and most successful lifestyle newsletter business, has a new editor in chief: Janet Ozzard, the woman who runs New York Magazine’s influential Strategist shopping/fashion guide.

Eve Epstein, an eight-year veteran at the site who has run the edit side for the past three years, is moving from New York to Los Angeles. She’ll stay with DailyCandy, though, as creative director of Swirl, an online sample-sale site that wants to take on the likes of Gilt Groupe.

The move is one of several high-profile changes at DailyCandy within the last few years. The biggest, of course, was when Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group sold the company to Comcast (CMCSA) for $125 million in the summer of 2008.

CEO Pete Sheinbaum moved on last May, and his role was eventually filled by Hearst Digital’s Beth Ellard in August. In December, the company began paring back some of its local editions and laid off some staff in the process. And assuming the deal with GE (GE) and NBC Universal goes through, DailyCandy will end up as part of that combined company (unlike other Comcast digital assets, which will stay with the mother ship).

Here’s a release from DailyCandy that the company was kind enough to provide to me when I called up to confirm the hire. Take note, fellow publicists! This is excellent service!

DailyCandy, the free lifestyle daily e-mail newsletter and website, is hiring Janet Ozzard, editor of New York Magazine’s The Strategist, to be the company’s new Editor-in-Chief. Janet is replacing Eve Epstein, who left DailyCandy to become the Creative Director of Swirl.com, DailyCandy’s new sample sale site which launched in beta late last year.

“New York Magazine’s Strategist section is widely regarded as some of the best content in publishing today,” said Beth Ellard, GM for DailyCandy. “Janet brings significant editorial experience, strong leadership skills, and a fresh, innovative perspective to DailyCandy, and she will be fantastic in her new role as Editor-in-Chief.”

Janet will be starting with the company in early March.

Kara Visits Offbeat Guides!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:12:01 +0000

This week, I went on a trek to downtown San Francisco–from ATD HQ, located in the wilds of the Castro–to visit David Sifry, the jovial Web entrepreneur who recently launched Offbeat Guides.

The San Francisco-based start-up makes “personalized, up-to-date travel guides that cover over 30,000 travel destinations, using a combination of search technology and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts.”

In other words, on-demand travel books, with a touch of humanity–an obvious and even innovative trend as custom printing gets cheaper.

But Sifry is also putting the guides on digital devices, like the Kindle from Amazon (AMZN).

Sifry, who also founded the blog search engine Technorati, talked to BoomTown about the business and gave me a quick tour of its HQ near Union Square.

Here’s the video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]