Longtime digital exec Jeff Berman is joining Hollywood production company BermanBraun as its first president.

Berman — who is no relation to BermanBraun co-founder Gail Berman — comes to the firm from the National Football League where he has been in charge of its Web, mobile, social and non-console gaming efforts. While there, he worked on several new initiatives, such as its multi-party video chat for Fantasy Football.

Several years before that, he was a top exec at social networking site Myspace, finally ending up as president of sales and marketing, where he was in charge of branded advertising, sales operations, entertainment, content and marketing. Efforts there by Berman included the now defunct Web-only series “Quarterlife,” which also had a very short life on a major network.

The Yale Law School grad was also on the board of Buddy Media, which was sold to Salesforce.com last year.

He’s an interesting person, then, for BermanBraun, which focuses on content across multiple screens, including big branded Web sites such as Wonderwall for Microsoft’s MSN and also more traditional entertainment shows. Its juicy-looking television series “Deception,” for example, is set to appear on NBC this week. It now has about 130 employees, mostly working at its Santa Monica, Calif., HQ.

“We needed an exceptional leader to manage the company,” said BermanBraun co-founder Lloyd Braun, who was once a top media exec at Yahoo. “And Jeff is someone who has skillsets in a whole bunch of areas and an emotional intelligence that is as important to what we do.”

Braun said Berman would initially focus on his area of expertise — digital — but that he would become more involved in the television and movie arenas over time.

BermanBraun — which considered raising funding last year — is at an interesting juncture in its development, trying to form a new kind of independent Hollywood media company that straddles analog and digital.

Berman said he was attracted to the opportunity there.

“I had a great job, since there is nothing bigger than the NFL,” he said in an interview yesterday. “But Lloyd and Gail have an incredible vision across platforms for entertainment.”

He added that content was just at the beginning of development online, but was finally poised to explode with the popularity of tablets, smartphones, interactive TV and other such devices, as well as social and e-commerce tools.

“The mind reels, there is so much that has happened and can happen,” said Berman. “I don’t know if there is a better time to be at such a place to create these new franchises — [BermanBraun] is a laboratory, where stuff is actually working.”

The culture-celebrating hijinks continue at Yahoo, it seems.

After free food and smartphones and even dressing up as a Yahoo purple banger, CEO Marissa Mayer now has a high-ranking exec dancing for employee enjoyment.

As part of an effort to improve participation in the annual Yahoo Employee Satisfaction Survey (YESS), Mayer instituted a punishment for the lowest participation rate of any division on her executive staff.

The culprit turned out to be Jackie Reses, EVP of people and development for Yahoo, which includes the unlikely combo of human resources and business development.

Thus, Reses apparently had to dance to the hit K-pop song “Gangnam Style” with her staff at the weekly FYI employee meeting at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ on Friday.

Despite having a rep as an intense New Yorker, said one employee, Reses has some “decent moves.” Others agreed.

Also decent was one of the top results of YESS, which showed that employee belief in the future vision of the company was up 32 points year over year.

That’s not a big surprise, given the upward trajectory of Yahoo’s shares of late. But, more to the point, it has a weak comparable in last year’s survey, which painted a picture of a deeply demoralized workplace. That’s because the 2011 YESS questions went out to employees the week that the company fired CEO Carol Bartz, with most of the responses gathered in the ensuing weeks.

Despite the improvement, this year’s YESS also still showed a lot of worry about whether Yahoo leadership can execute, and whether the company can achieve strong results over the long term.

[UPDATE: One reader said the Yahoo survey is now called YEES, the Yahoo Employee Engagement Survey. I could not determine if that name change had been made.]

That’s the question that at least one Wall Street firm was asking, in a downgrade of Yahoo stock today. In dropping Yahoo’s rank to “market-perform,” Sanford C. Bernstein analysts noted worries about its turnaround efficacy, a possibly jarring reorg of its advertising unit, and also whether the future sale of its assets in China’s Alibaba Group can save the day again, as it did for last quarter’s results.

“We think there may be upside from an eventual Alibaba IPO at a valuation much higher than $50B or a Yahoo! core turn-around, but it is hard to have high conviction in either given the facts we currently have,” said the report, in part. “In addition, there is manageable but real downside risk: reorganization (e.g., of the sales force) could be negative for revenues, management could decide to invest in growth now and cut excess later, and MSFT RPS guarantee could expire without a renewal.”

Those are all good questions for investors to ask, of course, although more have been caught up in the hype/hope ahead of actual performance gains.

Still, it’s no sweat to get caught up in digital execs being made to trip the light fantastic for their weak results. So, since I was not there to enjoy Reses’ performance, click here for an also fun-tastic JibJab Gangnam video I made of her.

New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer descended on two of its New York offices today, declaring that she would summarily be granting free food to all there as she had recently done to much acclaim at its Silicon Valley HQ.

After firmly establishing herself as the munificent provider of free Odwalla juices for all, the former Google exec plunged into much more serious topics with the group of Manhattan-based employees. The New York staff is mostly focused on advertising — Yahoo’s most important business.

A number of Yahoo senior execs, as well as its several hundred others, were there to hear Mayer for the first time since she got the job about a month ago in a surprise and very high-profile hire, beating out media-focused candidate Ross Levinsohn.

In any case, Mayer seemed to be talking the language of the crowd, noting that Yahoo was an advertising company first and foremost.

A key area of focus is obviously display, she noted, as well as improving its ad network efforts. Mayer also told those gathered that the mobile strategy for Yahoo has moved around way too much, which is a nice way of saying there has been pretty much no direction under past CEOs.

Indeed, mobile efforts have been a longtime weakness of Yahoo.

Mostly, though, it was the same kind of things the energetic former Google exec has been saying to the Yahoos at its Sunnyvale HQ: Faster decisions, more accountability for top execs, hipper culture, all-hands meetings, question-rich involvement for employees.

In other words, in a performance coming soon to a Broadway theater: Google Clone — The Yahoo Edition.

One notable new aside Mayer made, several sources noted, was that she was not going to be answering the perennial query that has tripped up its leaders for years now: What is Yahoo?

She apparently does not like this line of inquiry one little bit and told the crowd it was not the right way to look at the long-troubled company or how to define it.

Now I am intrigued, since she is essentially correct in the concept that Yahoo is about what it does well more than anything else.

Not being able to execute has been a long-time issue for Yahoo, which has stumbled from one thing to the next in a much less disciplined manner than all of its competitors.

That said, every one of them still clearly communicates a basic core promise via strong execution, even as each has added on new businesses, for example:

Google = fab search, Amazon = top-notch retail, Apple = elegant devices, Microsoft = dominant Windows, Facebook = best social networking.

Yahoo — which ousted CEO Scott Thompson dubbed a technology-enabled media company (and he was right on that score) — has, of course, been about too many things, from a directory to an advertising service to a content provider and distributor.

Mucking up the works, though, have been a thousand other lesser efforts not done well and most of which have petered out.

In any case, the simple question of what Yahoo is has been banish’d for now, and Mayer will presumably not be answering that nettlesome query, even if it bubbles up on her nifty new interactive employee Q&A system.

But, if you really want to know, I can tell you exactly what it is at this moment in time and going forward: Yahoo is whatever Marissa Mayer says it will be.

More to come on exactly what that means.

Until then, here is my favorite quote from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” about being banish’d:

Hence-banished is banish’d from the world, And world’s exile is death: then banished, Is death mis-term’d: calling death banishment, Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe, And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

At today’s all-hands meeting for Yahoo employees — in the wake of the dramatic ouster of its former CEO Scott Thompson — what pop culture icon did new interim CEO Ross Levinson use to loosen up the crowd?

Why, a little Al Pacino from the movie classic “The Godfather,” of course — the go-to guy solution menu for all troubles in the world.

Comparing the battered Silicon Valley Internet giant to Don Corleone after a gun ambush, Levinsohn said to the crowd gathered at URL’s Cafe on the Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ campus: “This weekend was like that scene from ‘The Godfather’ — ‘They hit ’im with five shots, and he’s still alive!’”

And also, trying to make Yahoos feel as if there were forward momentum: “There are things being negotiated now that are gonna solve all your problems and answer all your questions.”

Well, let’s hope so, and that it does not end for Yahoo — and Levinsohn — like it did for Luca Brasi (who sleeps with the fishes, in case you didn’t know).

So far, in his first impress-the-employees outing, the reviews for Levinsohn were largely positive on its internal message boards and from numerous sources I talked to.

What they liked: Acknowledgement of the tough past week, but not dwelling on the past, either; a theme of revival and spirit; no PowerPoint slides; and zero direct mention of Thompson.

What they really liked: The whole pile of compliments that Levinsohn doled out to the troops.

No tough-love dude he — unlike Thompson and his predecessor Carol Bartz, who liked to verbally smack around the troops a little more in a mobster kind of way.

Instead, said one person in attendance, “he was appealing to Yahoo pride, which is pretty much in the doldrums.”

Still, one questioner worried about the future and whether the company was going to still be stuck in a leadership vacuum, especially since Levinsohn was not named as the permanent CEO.

Fred Amoroso — who was just named Yahoo’s new chairman and was the only person who appeared with Levinsohn on the stage — tried to assuage that concern by saying he wanted Levinsohn to eventually become the head of the family for good.

While there will likely be a search for other CEO candidates, it is as close to a ring-kiss as Levinsohn is going to get for now.

That is, unless he does not produce some quick results on a variety of Yahoo’s thorniest issues, such as an Asian asset sale and a settlement of the patent lawsuit fight with social networking giant Facebook.

But the over/under on him and Amoroso together was good.

One person said it was important when Amoroso talked about coding and technology and products, which is not advertising- and media-focused Levinsohn’s expertise.

“It was nice to see a board member who cared about products and innovation,” said one person. “Or at least said he did.”

We’ll see how this pair works out together, but always remember this, Yahoos:

Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in.

Until we know how the movie ends, here is a scary video of me talking about the last week’s events at Yahoo on a local ABC television news station — I look a fright since I’m so tired from covering it all:

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Here are two videos from an appearance I made on WSJ.com’s Digits show yesterday, talking about the situation at Yahoo and at Groupon.

And, by “situation,” I mean big, honking controversy.

In Yahoo’s case, it is the ouster of CEO Carol Bartz this week from the Silicon Valley Internet giant; with Groupon, it is the delay of the IPO of the social buying service and other related issues.

Here’s the video, which I did with my Ray-Bans in my bedroom at home. (Yes, in pajamas, as any good blogger would.)

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:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110427/video-aols-stock-might-be-cold-but-its-new-silicon-valley-hq-is-pretty-cool/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101124/viral-video-when-yelp-came-knocking-at-my-door/ http://allthingsd.com/20101124/viral-video-when-yelp-came-knocking-at-my-door/#comments Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:19:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37628

Here is a cute music video that Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman pointed me to, which is a result of its most recent hackathon.

Set all around San Francisco and also Yelp’s HQ downtown, it’s not its official theme song for the online reviews site. But it should be, as it has a nice indie feel, kind of a geek version of the Moldy Peaches.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101124/viral-video-when-yelp-came-knocking-at-my-door/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101014/microsoft-bings-yusuf-mehdi-talks-about-facebook-search-lovefest/ http://allthingsd.com/20101014/microsoft-bings-yusuf-mehdi-talks-about-facebook-search-lovefest/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:15:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35558

After yesterday’s press event at which Facebook and Microsoft declared their never-ending love for each other via a search integration into the Bing service of a lot of data from the powerful social networking behemoth, I sat down to talk about it with Yusuf Mehdi, a longtime exec at the software giant.

It is the first sign of a major deployment of a deal announced last year between Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook.

The theme, according to Mehdi, who demoed the new social features and quoted the Beatles, was search with “a little help from your friends.”

After execs from both companies spent a lot of time air-kissing each other over the whole thing and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg happily threw some raspberries at search giant Google (GOOG), BoomTown sat down with Mehdi for an interview.

Here’s the video of that, done in an odd fake living room–no idea on the many old radios–at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley HQ:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101014/microsoft-bings-yusuf-mehdi-talks-about-facebook-search-lovefest/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/ http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:42:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33974

It’s been a dog’s age since BoomTown revisited Sugar Inc., the scrappy women-focused content start-up run by Brian and Lisa Sugar.

I first paid a visit to the San Francisco headquarters of Sugar three years ago to check out the flagship PopSugar (celebs), GeekSugar (tech), CasaSugar (home) and YumSugar (food) sites.

Since then, it has moved into a range of other arenas, via acquisition, such as:

ShopStyle.com for Web commerce; FreshGuide, which makes women-aimed city guides that show off daily offers in a wide rage of arenas, such as beauty, health and fitness; and video shopping start-up Shopflick, which is now a Los Angeles-based branded entertainment unit called Sugar Digital Entertainment.

And, most recently, in mid-July, it launched a fashion game on Facebook called Retail Therapy. where you run your own fashion boutique.

While mine would be all jeans, T-shirts and Puma Mostros, it is an interesting idea from a content company, injecting into the content model doses of virality, commerce and user passion.

And, of course, Sugar has launched the requisite Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPad apps.

Last summer, Sugar also cut its ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capital.

Sequoia has been an existing venture investor, having put $5 million into Sugar in late 2006. NBC invested $10 million in 2007.

And while Sugar has had serious acquisition flirtations with Yahoo (YHOO), it currently remains on the road to building a new media content company of the future from scratch.

Here’s a talk I had with Brian Sugar last week about that and more, as well as a tour of Sugar’s office.

Also below, a very funny video called “The Zoeinator,” which Sugar did for Rachel Zoe’s Zoe Report, as an example of its branded content efforts:

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100826/tonight-the-lights-go-down-on-netscapes-silicon-valley-hq/ http://allthingsd.com/20100826/tonight-the-lights-go-down-on-netscapes-silicon-valley-hq/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:04:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32944

With a flick of the switch today at 5 pm PT, a critical chapter in Silicon Valley will finally go dark.

That’s when AOL (AOL) officially moves out of the legendary HQ buildings of Netscape Communications in Mountain View, Calif.–along Ellis Street and East Middlefield Road–to new, snappier digs it is subleasing from Google (GOOG) in Palo Alto on Page Mill Road.

AOL will occupy one floor in the new space, while the first floor will be dedicated to start-ups and entrepreneurs.

AOL bought Netscape in late 1998 for $4.2 billion and located its office where the iconic but doomed browser company had made Internet history.

It was the spectacular August 9, 1995, IPO of Netscape that heralded in the dot-com boom for the Web, showering down wealth and fame on its employees, such as co-founder Marc Andreessen.

BoomTown came out to visit Netscape then, right in the middle of those glory days, and I will always recall its vibrant campus as a hubbub of activity and games that were the template for all other digital companies to follow.

No longer–AOL’s new location, said the company’s man-in-Silicon-Valley Brad Garlinghouse, is better for the future as it seeks to reinvent itself.

Netscape, as most know, is no longer used by AOL as a brand or supported technology.

“Fundamental to change at AOL is a cultural change,” Garlinghouse said in an interview yesterday. “For good or bad, those buildings are full of ghosts and we need a new space to start a new chapter.”

Plus the new space is closer to the train and a lively street life (you can see a rendering here).

“AOL is trying to reestablish its tech presence as we grow,” said Garlinghouse of the more than 200 employees in the area. “This is part of that.”

AOL’s new HQ is the former headquarters of Agilent Technologies (A), and Garlinghouse said Symantec (SYMC) will take over the old Netscape space.

The beat, as they say, goes on.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100826/tonight-the-lights-go-down-on-netscapes-silicon-valley-hq/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20100723/yelps-stoppelman-talks-about-geo-location-international-expansion-and-not-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20100723/yelps-stoppelman-talks-about-geo-location-international-expansion-and-not-google/#comments Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:35:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=31143

Earlier this week, BoomTown headed to downtown San Francisco to the hip HQ of Yelp to talk to its CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, about a range of issues related to the local business review site.

That included his thoughts about the explosion of social location services such as Foursquare, Yelp’s burgeoning mobile efforts, controversial lawsuits alleging questionable advertising sales practices, future features to come and more.

What he declined to discuss in detail was what happened with failed acquisition talks with Google (GOOG) late last year.

Stoppelman also opined on Yelp’s international expansion efforts, including its entry into Germany, a service announced earlier this week.

Here’s the video of the interview, which includes a quick tour of Yelp’s offices:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100723/yelps-stoppelman-talks-about-geo-location-international-expansion-and-not-google/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/ http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 12:15:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28843

Earlier this week, BoomTown motored on down to the HQ of Booyah in downtown Palo Alto, Calif., for a chat with its CEO and co-founder, Keith Lee.

Also there: Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners moneybags who recently joined the board of the mobile social gaming start-up, forking over $20 million in new funding for the privilege.

Best known for its MyTown iPhone app, now with upward of two million users, Booyah is made up of a team of gaming industry veterans, especially from Blizzard Entertainment, which is now part of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Started in 2008, the company had previously raised $9 million in venture funding, mostly from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers $100 million iFund, as well as from DAG Ventures.

MyTown, which is about to come out with a new version, is one of the most popular and innovative location-based social games on Apple (AAPL) mobile devices.

That compares with other social check-in services, such as Foursquare (just over one million users) and Gowalla (250,000).

MyTown is slightly different from these services, though, focusing on gaming in its check-ins and virtual goods versus emphasis on a discovery element.

Lee and Breyer talk about all this and more in the video of my interview, which includes a short tour of Booyah’s Silicon Valley HQ (it is soon moving to San Francisco):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100419/zappos-tony-hsieh-talks-about-his-new-book-delivering-happiness-get-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20100419/zappos-tony-hsieh-talks-about-his-new-book-delivering-happiness-get-it/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:34:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26974

Tony Hsieh is unusually quiet in person, especially for someone whose innovative company is well known for its incredibly friendly customer service.

He has a new book, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose,” which comes out in June, so I chatted with him outside the Zappos HQ in Henderson, Nev., about this and more.

Zappos was bought by Amazon (AMZN) last year, but Hsieh still runs it pretty independently of the mother ship, employing a set of “core values.”

Here’s the video interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100419/zappos-tony-hsieh-talks-about-his-new-book-delivering-happiness-get-it/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20091222/twitters-biz-stone-looks-back-at-2009-and-forward-to-2010-were-now-an-information-network-people/ http://allthingsd.com/20091222/twitters-biz-stone-looks-back-at-2009-and-forward-to-2010-were-now-an-information-network-people/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:25:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22239 While conducting a video tour of Twitter’s hip new HQ in San Francisco, BoomTown sat down to do a video interview with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

I did a similar interview with Stone, as well as CEO Evan Williams, in the spring, which now seems like a bajillion years ago.

In the video below, Stone–who has been traveling the globe of late, taking the Twitter message hither and yon–talked about where the much hyped start-up has been and where it is going.

He called the current period “the end of the beginning” and noted that 2010 will be all about “building a business.”

You think? In the past, I have dubbed him: No-Biz-Like-No-Biz-Plan Stone. But in 2010, I might have to change that to Down-to-Biz Nose-to-the-Grind-Stone.

Stone also said that he wants everyone to start calling Twitter–which has close to 60 million unique monthly visitors globally–an “information network” and not a microblogging service.

You got that one, folks! Information network! Nix on the microblogging, which does sound kind of puny.

It’s probably a good idea, given the social networking comparison to Facebook is growing much faster than Twitter.

In addition, Stone discussed the appointment of COO Dick Costolo, the DNS attack last week, the possibility of flattening traffic and the recent data deals with Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG).

While he did not really give up much information about the finances of those partnerships–and I did not really press, since I was apparently in an unusual holiday mood–Stone said they are the kind of “framework that makes sense” for Twitter’s future revenue.

Check it out for yourself:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091222/twitters-biz-stone-looks-back-at-2009-and-forward-to-2010-were-now-an-information-network-people/feed/ 10 http://allthingsd.com/20091222/the-boomtown-movin-on-up-tour-of-twitters-new-san-francisco-hq/ http://allthingsd.com/20091222/the-boomtown-movin-on-up-tour-of-twitters-new-san-francisco-hq/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:54:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22200

Why Twitter invited BoomTown back for another visit to its latest HQ after my last one, I will never know.

But the masters of microblogging did and here is my video of the lovely new digs in San Francisco.

Designed by CEO Evan Williams’s wife, Sara, it is an understated, classy and very hip–but definitely luxe–affair, with cream, celadon, lemongrass and azure, among the soothing colors.

It also broadcasts green living, as long as there is also a pricey espresso machine present and accounted for.

Well, Twitter has raised $155 million in funding, so it is probably good for it.

A little over 100 employees toil–although it’s pretty pleasant toiling, with room for about 200 more–in offices most recently occupied by the now-banished Bebo social networking site, owned by AOL (AOL).

Well, the karma of that Web 2.0 stumble seems to have been feng-shuied out completely, as you will see below.

In fact, Twitter seems to be giving Google (GOOG) a run for its money in workplaces that treat their workforces well, which include Facebook, whose new HQ I toured this summer.

Some Twitter highlights include the same freaky pair of green deer from the company’s smaller previous HQ nearby, a Twitter employee I dubbed “Snuggie Boy,” a tricked-out DJ booth, too many giant “war rooms” to count, more bird images than that, a spate of comfy couches and a very odd but compelling stool made of wood dowels.

And, of course, a free and tasty organic lunch, which is de rigeur for Internet companies.

Oh, before I forget, also Twitter employees.

The person who drew the short straw to be my tour guide was Jenna Sampson, Twitter PR–oops, communications–staffer.

She used to work for Flickr at Yahoo (YHOO), by the way, so Sampson is definitely moving on up to a deluxe HQ in the sky.

Here is a link to video interview I did with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone too.

And here’s the office tour video:

Finally, here is my favorite version of the classic television theme song, “Movin’ on Up,” from “The Jeffersons,” appropriately done by Rhett and Link with an Apple (AAPL) iPhone Leaf Trombone app:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091222/the-boomtown-movin-on-up-tour-of-twitters-new-san-francisco-hq/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091221/questions-please-boomtown-revisiting-twitters-hq-the-new-swanky-one-later-today/ http://allthingsd.com/20091221/questions-please-boomtown-revisiting-twitters-hq-the-new-swanky-one-later-today/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:04:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22158

BoomTown is ankling over to Twitter’s new HQ today at lunch to check out its new digs in San Francisco and meet with whichever execs don’t run away from me screaming (I’m talking to you, COO Dick Costolo!).

Please send questions you would like me to ask the Twitter execs about Twitter to me via Twitter–@karaswisher.

No query is too silly or prying!

Here are some to get you started about the microblogging phenom:

If you had to marry one, would you pick Google (GOOG) or Microsoft (MSFT) or Facebook (oops, we know the answer to that one already!)?

Which is prettier? Smarter? A better conversationalist?

Could you show me the giant pile of funding you have (and can I jump in it)?

And, not to be all skunk-at-a-garden-party, but how’s the moneymaking coming along? (Dick Costolo, I am still talking to you!)

Until I post the inevitable new video, here are two from my last visit to Twitter in April–which seems like an eon ago–as well as the interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Stone and Williams at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in May.

Here’s my tour of the former HQ, to which I brought the gift of pie:

And here’s my last video interview with co-founders Biz Stone (yes, that is a bird sitting on his head) and Evan Williams, who is also Twitter’s CEO:

Finally, here’s the D7 interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091221/questions-please-boomtown-revisiting-twitters-hq-the-new-swanky-one-later-today/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091209/boomtown-visits-aols-nyc-hq-on-eve-of-spin-off-ceo-armstrongs-fabulous-cheekbones-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20091209/boomtown-visits-aols-nyc-hq-on-eve-of-spin-off-ceo-armstrongs-fabulous-cheekbones-and-more/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:38:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21751

BoomTown is in Manhattan today and my No. 1 stop had to be the AOL HQ downtown.

The iconic Internet company–which has gone through more lives than a dozen cats–is poised tomorrow to officially spin off from Time Warner (TWX) in yet another episode of the longest running corporate soap opera on the Web.

Less than a decade ago, AOL was the most powerful Internet property in the world, its dominance culminating in a merger with the media giant that was touted as the next big thing.

Well, it was certainly a thing.

As everyone knows, the union did not turn out well, and now, after years of struggling within Time Warner, AOL is being let free to resume its journey alone.

It will start trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “AOL.”

I am about to head out to a party for AOL on Wall Street tonight and will also be there when AOL rings the opening bell in the morning, after which investors will cast their vote on its fate. (I’ll post on all that next.)

Until then, here is a video tour I did this afternoon at AOL HQ on Broadway, including an interview with CEO Tim Armstrong–whose Don Draper executive cheekbones are admired by partners and rivals alike–as the former Google (GOOG) exec heads into the big day:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091209/boomtown-visits-aols-nyc-hq-on-eve-of-spin-off-ceo-armstrongs-fabulous-cheekbones-and-more/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091207/liveblogging-the-google-search-event-twitter-myspace-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20091207/liveblogging-the-google-search-event-twitter-myspace-and-more/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:08:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21592

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Right now, BoomTown is sitting right behind the very affable Jason Hirschhorn, chief product officer of MySpace, who is here to make one of the many partner announcements with Google at its “search event” in Silicon Valley today.

I also ran right into Twitter’s Biz Stone at the coffee stand. He is also here to talk about the new features Google (GOOG) is adding to its search repertoire, although he is remaining mum until the program starts in five minutes.

It’s about real-time search, of course, given that the partners visiting today are all real-time search folks.

The confab–being held at the Computer History Museum near the Googleplex HQ–is essentially Google’s rejoinder to last week’s event by Microsoft (MSFT), which announced a bunch of new features for its Bing search service, including mapping updates.

Of course, because it is Google, the sound system rocks, the food is better and it is more overproduced than “Dancing With the Stars.”

10:13 am PT: The event is opened by Marissa Mayer, who runs search products and user experience for Google.

And it takes exactly 13 seconds for there to be a classic Silicon Valley buzzword. Modes! Translation: It is how we use the Web.

Mayer is outlining Google’s key components in the future of search. Along with modes, they are media, language and personalization.

“We are a company that likes to launch early and often,” she said, adding that Google has launched 33 search innovations in 67 days.

In other words, take that, Bing. Oh, dear, giant Google just boasted about its innovation cred and is apparently a little worried about weensie Bing.

10:18 am: Mayer welcomes Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering, who will talk about mobile search.

He begins by noting that no one knows where all the new innovations in computing will lead, much as no one got the Gutenberg press way back in the olden days.

Professor Gundotra then launches into a computing history lesson, with stops at Moore’s Law (better, faster, cheaper) and how one understood all the zillions of computing connections that would occur.

The “missing ingredient,” noted Gundotra, is the cloud.

Next, he moves to a demo to show where Google is headed. Gundotra nails a voice query on an Android phone about President Obama at the G8 Summit with the French president. Everyone cheers.

Gundotra now tries to top himself with a Mandarin query for McDonald’s in Beijing. He sticks it.

He then announces support for the voice search on mobile devices for Japan, bringing up a Japanese speaker.

One voice query is a very long one for a favorite restaurant in Tokyo near the Google office there. Does Google find it? Of course Google does.

“Our dreams at Google go way beyond what you just saw,” says Gundotra, who opines on a real-time interpreter on the phone. Of course, he demos the interpreter, which he said will show up sometime in 2010.

It works, again. Natch! These are big-brained dudes here at Google, so don’t mess with them.

10:30 am: Gundotra moves to locations, which he says will be a key element of future versions of Google search. You know, Red Sox comes up in Boston, data appear for nearby stores for digital cameras.

He shows off the “Near Me Now” feature, which is kind of like those many Apple (AAPL) iPhone apps, like Yelp. It explores stuff nearby. It will be available on Google mobile maps for Android right away.

Next, he announces a Google Labs project called Google Goggles, which takes pictures of something and then identifies it. I have seen this kind of thing in a lot of labs at various tech companies.

Gundotra, who is a slick dude at presentations, uses the example of being a wine expert without being one. He scans a wine bottle and then Google quickly shows info on it.

Oooooh, aaaaaah.

Gundotra uses the service to identify a Japanese landmark successfully.

Someday, he predicts, your phone will be a “mouse pointer” to the world.

10:42 am: Back to Mayer, who talks about media relevancy in search. Google Fellow Amit Singhal is the man on deck.

“What we’re going to announce today is one of the most exciting things in my career,” said Singhal, who first launches into a short history of information flow.

Campfires, more Gutenberg! Also some pictures of old Google servers. I feel so educated; plus, Singhal is pretty funny for a supergeek.

Now, he gets to the news: “We are here today to announce Google real-time search.”

The demo is launched and it shows news scrolling as it is produced. “This is the first time ever,” enthuses Singhal.

It looks cool, but reminds me a lot of old tickers that used to be in the newsroom at the Washington Post. You know, the kind of newspaper that Google is often accused of killing off.

Irony alert! I wonder if that will scroll up soon.

The scrolling also includes Twitter updates. One tweet by Googler Matt Cutts about the Google real-time search launch showed up immediately.

The latest results will be available on the search options and in preferences and will also be hyperlocal and mobile on the iPhone and Android.

“Real-time search becomes incredibly powerful, since it shows you exactly what you need in your geography,” said Singhal.

Singhal is a font of news. He also announces that Google Trends is moving out of the labs and will also show real-time results.

He launches into the “how” of how Google did all this. Well, it was really, really hard, said Singhal, because there are a badillion real-time pieces of data out there to analyze and render.

And which company, with its massive computing power, can make this relevant and hand over the info quickly? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

Recap: Real-time search, latest search option, update option, mobile real-time search and Google Trends in the real-time world.

“At Google we will not be satisfied,” said Singhal, until Google can get you info at the speed of light.

11:07 am: Just to stick a true fork into anything Microsoft could come up with, Mayer comes back up and announces Google’s Facebook, MySpace and Twitter partnerships as part of the launch of real-time search.

Facebook will be sending in public feeds and MySpace is providing all of them, as is Twitter.

Google now has eyes and ears, says Mayer. When it gets a whole body, get ready to run for your life.

Q&A time!

The first question is about whether Goggles could have facial recognition. Gundotra says Google could do that, but will not until the privacy issues are worked out. Operative thought here: Google is capable of doing this. Eek!

The next question is about advertising opportunities in these new features. Singhal does not really answer, but says businesses will develop.

The next question is about how much content Google is crawling. Answer: About a billion pages a day.

Gundotra adds that the first launch is only available on English-speaking locales. But it will move into other languages next year.

What about spammers taking advantage of real-time search? Oh, says Singhal, they will get a beat-down from Matt Cutts, who is in charge of spam-killing at Google.

Wouldn’t that make a good reality show? “The Spam Hunters!”

About questions on real-time partnerships, Mayer said Google wanted to be comprehensive.

Mayer will not disclose the details of any financial payments for these real-time feeds. Of course, Google is paying up.

And now a question about whether Google will limit development on non-Android phones. “Absolutely not,” says Gundrotra.

At last, a zinger question: Do you feel that Google will be responsible for the death of journalism and doesn’t that make Google a scary black hole of, presumably, evil?

Awkward!

Singhal casts about for an answer, which is mostly about bringing info to users, which is not an answer.

“It’s really about user empowerment,” he says. Uh-oh, we’re doomed!

Mayer jumps in nervously to shoot this meme down and says Google is about facilitation and not decimation.

The PR dude onstage also throws in the boilerplate about Google sending gazillions of clicks all over.

But the point is made: Today Google–which owns universal search–just made its big move in real-time search.

The next question is about the difference between Google’s practice of wanting people off the page and onto the Web and Microsoft Bing’s focus on topic pages of rich information.

Mayer is sticking with quick on and off for Google.

And what about junk information on the silly side that comes with more real-time search, like dead celebs who are not dead, or really untrue information on important issues?

It’s a hard problem, says Singhal, who says Google is working on it.

What about disabling the real-time updates rather than just being able to turn them on and off. Nope, says Singhal. Mayer notes that this may change.

But the truth is: With the big search giant jumping in, real-time search is most definitely here to stay.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091207/liveblogging-the-google-search-event-twitter-myspace-and-more/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20090831/kara-visits-guitar-hero-hq-for-a-sneak-peek-of-gh5-band-hero-and-dj-hero/ http://allthingsd.com/20090831/kara-visits-guitar-hero-hq-for-a-sneak-peek-of-gh5-band-hero-and-dj-hero/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:01:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17904

Despite the challenges the music gaming industry has been facing of late–such as sales dropping, yipes, almost 50 percent in the U.S. this year–the top companies in the field are still churning out new products like it’s nobody’s business.

Well, actually, they are hoping it is going to be somebody’s business–namely, theirs–as they seek to reinvigorate the category, which has been one of the most innovative over the last several years.

Case in point is a spate of new products from the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), which is coming out this fall with three separate major launches.

The fifth version of Guitar Hero arrives tomorrow with 85 tracks, more famous player characters and new features; the family-aimed Band Hero comes out soon after that; and then–in what is probably the most important debut of the three–DJ Hero will be released on October 27.

In that game, a player can turn into some kind of club king, scratching along with unusual mashups that Guitar Hero provides with the new game, which are heavy on hip-hop (versus Guitar Hero’s more typical rock and roll vibe).

[In related news, one of the key player characters in DJ Hero--DJ AM, whose real name was Adam Goldstein--was found dead in his apartment in New York on Friday night.)

Nonetheless, the show will go on.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of DJ AM," said Tim Riley, Activision VP of music affairs, in a statement. "We hope that his work on the game will be a fitting tribute to his creative spirit and musical talent."]

Does this burst of energy coming from Guitar Hero, which has heretofore dominated the music game space, have to do with the Sept. 9 debut of a new Beatles title for Rock Band, the music game from Viacom (VIA)?

As the Fab Four might sing: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it also has to do with both music game rivals trying to keep consumers from getting weary of the entire genre.

In that vein, for example, the makers of Beatles: Rock Band are telling consumers to use Guitar Hero controllers to play.

In anticipation of these rollouts, BoomTown visited Guitar Hero’s HQ in Mountain View, Calif., to get a look-see at the new stuff (tomorrow, I will also post interviews I did with Guitar Hero division CEO Dan Rosensweig and its brother founders).

For today, though, here’s the video of the tour, as well as the Playboy Playmates television advertisement for Guitar Hero 5 (I do believe they are aiming at a male demo, so don’t blame me–and it is kind of funny):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090831/kara-visits-guitar-hero-hq-for-a-sneak-peek-of-gh5-band-hero-and-dj-hero/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090831/boomtown-is-back-just-as-everyone-leaves-for-burning-man/ http://allthingsd.com/20090831/boomtown-is-back-just-as-everyone-leaves-for-burning-man/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:01:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17914

From vacation, that is–an activity that I highly recommend (and getting toasted at Burning Man this week does not count, although that is also apparently highly recommended in order to endure that digital dustfest).

In any case, we begin Yahoo memo-bombing in five minutes.

That is all.

Well, except for all that there is to check in on, such as the state of the regulatory approval process in the Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) deal, the upcoming Apple (AAPL) confab next week, figuring out if Twitter has either made some money or decided to sell out, ditto for Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL and, of course, discerning whatever evil plot Google (GOOG) and Facebook are cooking up .

Also this week: BoomTown visits Activision Blizzard (ATVI) Guitar Hero HQ and Adobe (ADBE), considers the online document space, chats with some VCs in Silicon Valley, checks out some new start-ups and more.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090831/boomtown-is-back-just-as-everyone-leaves-for-burning-man/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090622/jobs-back-on-the-job/ http://allthingsd.com/20090622/jobs-back-on-the-job/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:37:57 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=19997

“Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there’s nothing further to say.”

– Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton

A quote from Steve Jobs in an Apple press release this morning and a handful of media reports claiming he has been spotted at Apple HQ over the past few days are raising hopes that the CEO may have officially returned to work.

It’s not clear yet whether these sightings are freak occurrences or if Jobs has indeed come back to work full-time, but we are nearing the end of June, the date at which his medical leave from the company was to conclude. Certainly, it’s conceivable that he’s slowly ramping up for a formal return.

Apple (AAPL) has not yet returned a request for comment.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090622/jobs-back-on-the-job/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14531

Last week, in anticipation of Facebook’s Press Open House tonight for its spanking new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., BoomTown hightailed it down there for an early look-see at just what the social-networking site is doing with all that dough it collected from Microsoft (MSFT) and the Russians.

Moving into a new crib, for one thing!

Thus, I got a an extra-special tour of the 150,000-square-foot new building, which brings more than 900 employees together at last, by Facebook’s long-suffering–mostly due to my being annoying, I know!–PR honcho, Brandee Barker.

Previously, the fast-growing Facebook staff had been spread willy-nilly throughout the downtown of Palo Alto, where they irked pretty much everyone by stealing all the good parking.

So, much like the tour I did recently with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone of its San Francisco HQ, here is a video of Facebook’s new digs in the heart of Silicon Valley.

It includes the whole place, which used to be a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) facility, from the front door to the cafeteria to the evil lair of VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy, Elliot Schrage.

While he did not deign to be on camera (although he did shellac me in a quick game of ping-pong, in spite of my smack talk), I did get to chat with folks like marketing exec Randi Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Also, Barker tries mightily to show that she can ride a Rip Stick, which is apparently Facebook’s version of bikes at Google (GOOG).

At the very least, she gets an A for effort.

Here’s the video of my tour:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090505/kara-visits-hollywood-news-blog-thewrapcom-complete-with-cottage-hq-like-atd/ http://allthingsd.com/20090505/kara-visits-hollywood-news-blog-thewrapcom-complete-with-cottage-hq-like-atd/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 17:00:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=13113

While the current meme is that traditional journalism is getting the stuffing knocked out of it by the digital onslaught, it neglects to notice that a lot of really sharp news reporters are actually getting some real traction by finally starting to be serious about creating online sites designed to compete.

As case in point, BoomTown recently went to visit the offices of TheWrap.com, a Web blog aimed at dominating breaking news about the business of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Funded by Seattle-based venture firm Maveron, it was founded by former New York Times and Washington Post reporter Sharon Waxman.

With a small team of writers, editors and one single business person–and run out of a cottage in back of her house in Santa Monica, Calif.–Waxman is trying to combine the high standards and ethics of journalism, the news-breaking abilities of longtime pros and a low budget.

The business plan is, no surprise: Advertising.

(Hey, just like All Things Digital! Except Waxman is near a pretty beach and our San Francisco-based World HQ–also known as a cottage behind my house–is foggier.)

In any case, innovative efforts like Sharon Waxman’s might become the rule rather than the exception in the future of the news media.

So far, on her own since its launch in late January, TheWrap.com is garnering several hundred thousand daily visitors each month, moving close to the Web sites of trade publications that cover the industry.

Here’s my video interview with Waxman, in which she gives the who, what, where and why:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090505/kara-visits-hollywood-news-blog-thewrapcom-complete-with-cottage-hq-like-atd/feed/ 3