8 posts and columns on Hamlet

As Yahoo Ponders Its Fate Endlessly — Selling Off Yahoo Japan Stake Is Suddenly Its Easiest Option

in Media on November 3, 2011 at 12:49 pm PT

Would the sale of its Japanese asset give the Silicon Valley Internet giant at least one silver lining amidst the many dark clouds?
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Dennis Crowley on the Difference Detween Dodgeball and Foursquare (Video)

in News on December 7, 2010 at 2:01 pm PT

If Dodgeball was, as founder Dennis Crowley claims, the perfect storm of bad timing, then his latest venture, Foursquare, is a sunny day. In the video after the jump, Crowley talks about the mechanics of merchant relationships, valuations and frothiness, and the difference between Dodgeball and Foursquare.

Dennis Crowley Live at Dive Into Mobile

in Social on December 7, 2010 at 9:14 am PT

With only nine Foursquare members currently checked in to our D:Dive Into Mobile conference, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley may be a little out of his usual element of adoring fans. But fresh from modeling Gap’s new chunky cardigan in bus stop ads, Crowley is here to answer tough questions from All Things Digital chief Kara Swisher. Crowley’s Foursquare now has 4.5 million users, a whopping 35 employees and $20 million in funding, and it recently opened a San Francisco office.

Welcome to the Hotel California: Here's What's Really Happening in the Foursquare Pig Pile

in News on April 23, 2010 at 1:37 am PT

No, Facebook is not in serious talks to buy Foursquare. No, Microsoft is not poised to snap up the social location start-up, beyond a cursory should-we-look query to itself. No, there is no longer a crazy bidding war going on among major players in Silicon Valley, all waiting with bated breath for Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley to make a decision about which of them he will deign to take a big pile of money from. Here’s what’s true: You can check in any time you like with Foursquare to do a deal, but you can never leave.

BoomTown Reimagines "Hamlet" Soliloquy for Foursquare's Crowley

in News on April 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm PT

Much to the chagrin of valuation-hyping Silicon Valley VCs, Yahoo has still stayed in the running to acquire Foursquare, the hot social geolocation start-up, much longer than expected. So far, it’s been turned down flat, but turnabout could be fair play. It is apparently all in the hands of New York Web hipster and Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley now, whom one player said was doing “a very deft Hamlet act.” Could BoomTown resist a rewrite of Shakespeare? I could not!

Online Survey: The New BlackBerry Tour Is a Hit With the Matlock Set

in Media on August 11, 2009 at 1:30 pm PT

BlackBerry’s new Tour has garnered fairly positive reviews from the geek press. But you know who really loves it? Oldsters in the 35-49 age bracket. Or at least that’s what a new online brand survey says.
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To Sell or Not to Sell–That Was the Question for Twitter (But Was Its Answer Right?)

in News on November 25, 2008 at 3:51 am PT

There are two schools of thought about Twitter’s decision not to sell itself to Facebook, as it did not in the fail-whale of a deal that BoomTown reported on yesterday. Here’s my favorite quote from an Internet exec who thought the microblogging service’s decision to turn down $500 million in stock (and some cash) in the hot social-networking site was–how can I put this delicately?–stupid: “If Twitter turned down 500m in stock, they should go see a shrink.” But, others disagreed, with another big Web player noting: “Why should Twitter hitch itself to Facebook’s horse, when they don’t have too?”

Why the Yahoogle Deal Will Likely Launch–And Be Coming to an Internet Near You on October 9

in News on September 19, 2008 at 3:08 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown took a rather strong stand against Google and its recent aggressive efforts to defend its outsourcing deal to sell some of Yahoo’s search ads. Given that the pair have a more than 80 percent combined market share in the search business, I and many others–advertisers, publishers and state and federal regulators–are a bit nervous about further concentration of market power in one set of hands, even if they are such Googley hands. But in the interest of fairness and because I like to argue with myself, here is a counterpoint with three key reasons why Google and Yahoo might hold firm in launching the partnership, which sources said is likely to start on Oct. 9.