3 posts and columns on Holy Grail

Liveblogging the Facebook Mobile Event: Single Sign-On for Social

in News on November 3, 2010 at 10:55 am PT

BoomTown arrived late to the Facebook mobile event for the press due to traffic related to the parade for the San Francisco Giants’ World Series victory–and where I would much rather be right now. Go Giants! In any case, I am here in the cafeteria of Facebook again, where the company continues its attempts to take over the known digital universe before Google does. The latest parry: Single sign-on!

Crowdsourcing Your Candy This Halloween

in News on October 27, 2009 at 9:29 am PT

Geeks and ghouls rejoice: the Internet has come up with a way to boost your Halloween haul. The folks at Zillow.com have created their first Trick or Treat Housing Index, which draws on the site’s real estate data to determine the top-five neighborhoods in Seattle and Los Angeles to maximize candy intake this Saturday.

BoomTown Pick for Microsoft Digital Head: Qi Lu (Yes, the Former Yahoo Search Guru)

in News on November 20, 2008 at 1:01 am PT

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 the deal can be sealed–I think that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu. 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 posted 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.