The New York Times posted a story this week playing up the fact that Microsoft will have new tablets to show at CES.

That’s true, but remember–the exact same thing could be said last year. In fact, it was. The New York Times did some similar hyping last year and I similarly warned folks not to get their hopes up.

As was the case last year, Microsoft will show some new tablets as part of Steve Ballmer’s annual overview of all the new hardware coming for PCs, according to sources familiar with Redmond’s plans. Acer, for example, plans to show off its Iconia dual-screen tablet as well as a Windows 7 slate.

Ballmer may even talk a bit about what is coming on the hardware and software fronts, but don’t expect too much, particularly on the Windows 8 front.

The real issue for Microsoft remains the fact that, while it has been talking about tablets for years, Windows-based tablets still don’t present a real challenge to the iPad. And that’s not likely to change after CES.

There has been additional speculation about whether Microsoft is doing work on a tablet based on Windows Phone software, but even if such a project exists, I’m hearing nothing is imminent on that front.

Instead, I expect Ballmer to spend most of his time talking about Microsoft’s areas of strength on the consumer side, particularly around Xbox and Kinect.

I suppose it is too juicy a gadget not to make fun of–or, say, completely destroy.

That would be Apple’s (AAPL) magical iPad, which has been riding a media-hype wave of huge proportions since its debut earlier this year.

Thus, it is time to do a little bashing.

In the case of a commercial for the new Newsday app for the tablet device, quite literally smashing one to pieces–although in a very affectionate manner.

But for Amazon (AMZN) in its advertisement, it is a more obvious slap–as in, the iPad, unlike the economical Kindle, is a vampire that cannot go out into the sun.

Enjoy:

After a very long and decidedly strange funding journey, Foursquare has finally officially landed a new round of $20 million in venture funding, with Silicon Valley’s Andreessen Horowitz leading the new investment.

BoomTown reported last week that the new deal, which puts Foursquare at $95 million pre-money valuation, was in the bag.

Interestingly, it is only the second round for the New York-based social location start-up and includes its current investors, Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Ironically, Andreessen Horowitz had walked away from earlier investment talks because of the excessive hype and indecision around the race to fund Foursquare.

But in an interview this afternoon with me, partner Ben Horowitz said that once Foursquare became firmer in its determination to build the company rather than selling it, his firm was all in.

“Basically, Foursquare made an important decision on the future of their company to build it into a really significant, independent business,” said Horowitz. “It’s a big step and we’re thrilled to back them in doing that.”

Indeed, the wrapping-up of what has been a very convoluted funding process comes after a series of missteps and switchbacks over what’s next for Foursquare, which allows users to “check in” from various places.

Among the twists: Serious but failed acquisition talks with both Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO), as well as a messy beauty pageant of other big VC firms, mostly in Silicon Valley, including Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and Institutional Venture Partners.

The overhyped interest is because Foursquare and many others like it have seen strong growth and much innovation, although it is not clear yet if that will translate into solid businesses.

Still, Foursquare hit one million users in April and is now approaching 1.8 million, adding about 15,000 users per day. It uses a variety of game techniques and other features, such as the awarding of digital badges, to hold user interest.

And though small, it is trying to work with major brands, most notably Starbucks (SBUX), on a variety of marketing deals.

That requires money, especially given increased competition as everyone girds to race ahead first.

Foursquare’s original $1.35 million funding was raised from Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, as well as some well-known angel investors, such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Kevin Rose of Digg and Ron Conway.

Foursquare’s current investors also recently gave it a bridge investment.

Thus, Foursquare needed bigger funding, a process that soon became unusually complicated, in part because of indecision by CEO Dennis Crowley and in part because of some very public deal-making.

In fact, that’s what initially scotched very advanced funding talks between Foursquare and Andreessen Horowitz. The high-profile Silicon Valley firm–helmed by Internet icon Marc Andreessen and his longtime business partner, Horowitz–smacked Foursquare hard after those discussions and talks with other firms were leaked to the media.

In an exclusive interview with me in April, Horowitz took the unusual step of talking publicly about VC frustrations that are typical in deals around hot companies.

At the time, Horowitz acted as if he were checking out of Foursquare.

“We withdrew our funding offer to Foursquare and we are out,” he said in an interview with BoomTown then. “This is playing out too much in public and clearly someone has an interesting agenda here, so this is not something we want to participate in.”

At the same time, Horowitz left the door open. “If the process was changed, we still like the company,” he said then. “But since it has been long and undefined, it is prone to manipulation.”

That sentiment obviously changed, said Horowitz.

“A lot of the problems we were worried about were the result of their ambivalence on what to do, and so we were almost a distraction until they could decide,” he said. “Since they got clarity, it has been a very efficient process.”

Horowitz will become a Foursquare board observer and what he characterizes as a “CEO coach” to Crowley.

But he stressed that so far, the leadership of Foursquare was doing very well.

“I think they are clearly best of breed and very far of ahead of everyone else in what is a very complex business to get right,” Horowitz said. “There are definitely competitors large and small, but this company has a lot of experience and data atop a big vision.”

We’ll see, of course! And as hard a time as I have given him, Crowley–who sold his last company, Dodgeball, to Google (GOOG), which ended not so well–is definitely on another roll.

Until then, here are the blog posts by Horowitz and Crowley on the deal:

Why Andreessen Horowitz Invested in Foursquare

They say he’s a grinder
fly ass rhyma’
With a CEO’s mind bra’
–Kinfolk Kia Shine

Today we are extremely excited to announce that we are investing in Foursquare, a service that mixes social, locative, and gaming elements to encourage people to explore cities in which they live.

Here are the three reasons we invested.

1. A great Founder/CEO: Dennis Crowley

We prefer founding CEOs. In particular, we think the keeper of the product vision should run the company whenever possible because the toughest and most important decisions in technology companies are always about product strategy.

The only thing better than the CEO being the keeper of the vision is the CEO being the creator of the vision. In Foursquare’s case, Dennis not only created the vision for the company, but for the entire product category. Beyond that, he is very clearly the thought leader in the market. This is not at all surprising as he has been working on the problem for a decade and has highly refined his thinking through that period.

As importantly, Dennis embodies the kind of leadership that I described in Notes on Leadership. He’s the kind of leader that great technical minds will be excited to follow: visionary, righteous, and competent. I am really excited to work with Dennis to help him on his path from being a great leader to a great Chief Executive of an incredibly important company.

2. A killer product

When you look at the numbers, you’ll see that Foursquare is growing faster than Twitter did at this stage. In particular, their growth has been explosive over the past few months–they just hit 1 million users in April and now they’re approaching 1.8 million, adding around 15,000 users per day. It’s easy to see that people absolutely love the product. Less obvious to the competitors and pundits are the reasons why people love the product so much. I often hear people attribute Foursquare’s success entirely to check-ins or other easy-to-understand product features. It reminds me of the early days of Zynga when people thought the secret sauce behind Mafia Wars and Farmville were that those games were web-based.

It turns out Zynga games are wildly successful because Zynga has mastered the art of connecting friends via games–and they work incredibly hard behind the scenes to deliver what at face value looks very easy. How many times have you heard someone say, “I could have built Farmville in a weekend”?

Foursquare is very similar in that a lot of hard work behind the scenes goes into delivering a product that users love. Dennis and team have identified over a dozen different dimensions of the Foursquare product that must interact with each other in precisely optimal ways to achieve user delight. Years and years of research and sweat equity went into cracking the code, and the results are magical.

3. A gigantic market

At a macro level, over 4.6B people have mobile phones and there are 1.7B people on the Internet. Already, over 200M people worldwide have smart phones and that number is headed north fast. Foursquare might not win the entire smart phone market (some people don’t even like to leave their house), but it will capture a huge portion of it because it’s incredibly fun and addicting.

As importantly, we are very excited about Foursquare’s ability to make money in a way where all parties win: users, merchants, venue owners, brand advertisers, and more. In fact, users have been so excited about the product that they’ve actually been signing up local businesses to run promotions for Foursquare’s mayors and active users. This natural enthusiasm is happening even before Foursquare has added specific product features to help businesses run campaigns. As a result, major brands such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Zagat, Bravo TV, Starbucks, C-SPAN, Marc Jacobs and over 10,000 businesses are currently working with Foursquare to build customer loyalty and drive traffic. Not many companies have their users turn into their sales force, and it’s definitely a good sign that this is happening around Foursquare.

We are excited to be on this journey with our good friends at Foursquare.

We’re just getting started…

Hey all–

It’s been quite the year for foursquare. Last year at this time, Naveen and I–tired of working around my kitchen table–borrowed a desk from our friends at Curbed.com and Hard Candy Shell. Two months later we brought on our first hire (Harry!) and a few weeks after closed on our first round of financing: $1.35m from Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and a handful of angels. Back then, our office looked like this.

Fast forward a year: We’re now 27 people strong. We can’t fit any more desks or chairs in our office so we’re borrowing cubes from our neighbors downstairs. We’re about to hit 1.8 million users and we’re seeing Super Swarms happen all over the world (Indonesia, you crazy!). In short, it’s been an amazing year for foursquare. A huge thank you to anyone that’s ever unlocked a Newbie badge!

And with that, we’re excited to announce that we’ve raised another round of capital. Today we closed on a $20m Series B round with Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and our newest partner, Andreessen Horowitz. We’re thrilled to have the continued support of our original investors and additional support and expertise from the team at Andreessen Horowitz.

The two big names behind Andreessen Horowitz–Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz–are each legends in Silicon Valley. They know better than anyone how to transform startups into successful organizations. As we continue to rapidly expand to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us, Ben and Marc’s expertise in growing companies will be invaluable.

With this new round of financing, our main priority will be to expand our organization to supplement the amazing core team we’ve assembled already (know any great engineers? send them our way!). We’re hoping to build a world-class engineering organization, based primarily in our headquarters in the New York City to help us develop the next generation of mobile + social + local products that will excite our users and provide unique value for local merchants. The new investment capital will also help fund the infrastructure needed to house our team (we’re finally getting a new office!) and support our growing audience of nearly 2m users.

It’s been a crazy year for us and we’re expecting the next 12 months to be even more of an adventure. Look forward to more great product from us soon…we’re really just getting started.

–@dens and the rest of team foursquare

While a lot of the hype around the upcoming Apple iPad has thankfully died down, reaching its crescendo at the unveiling of the tablet device last month, the buzz of two kinds building now is perhaps worse.

The first meme has to do with a notion that the iPad is dead on arrival for a wide variety of reasons. No support for Flash video technology. No USB ports. An eye-tiring screen. Too pricey. Too much like a giant iPhone without the phone. No camera.

You get the idea.

What’s most interesting to me is that some people I talk to say the Apple (AAPL) device is just terrible to use, despite the fact that they have never even touched one.

When I note that I have, indeed, taken it for a very short spin and liked what I saw quickly, they always then ask me all about it as if I held the wisdom of the ages.

My stock answer: “Since you are not buying one, I will spare you the pain.”

While that’s annoying enough, perhaps worse are the ongoing paeans that the iPad will somehow be the savior of traditional publishers of all kinds, providing–finally!–the just-right medium to make their various and sundry media relevant in the digital age.

But, like Goldilocks, that’s just a fairy tale until the iPad is actually out in the wild and subject to consumer use when it begins to be rolled out in late March.

Because even if the iPad proves to be as good at displaying magazine and rich advertising as seems possible (see the pretty video of Wired magazine on the iPad above), it’s not going to be clear whether it’s a success until regular people are using it on the same scale as its sister devices, the iPod and the iPhone.

In addition, it seems as if media companies–in their quest to somehow escape the powerful clutches of search giant Google (GOOG) or Kindle-bearing Amazon (AMZN)–are rushing into Apple’s arms without making the obvious connection more strongly.

Which is to keep remembering that Apple and the music industry have fought viciously over pricing and control ever since the iPod and its progeny took over the market for all nonpirated sales of music.

With their hands on none of the key technology and innovation levers online–not devices, not search, not social networking or e-commerce relationships–media giants continue to be without even a pair sticks to rub together to make digital fire.

They tout their premium content, of course, as being critical to the Apple iPad’s success, but it’s not at all clear it will turn out that way.

That’s why I cringed when I read the last lines from a piece by media writer David Carr of the New York Times, even before the iPad launch, titled, “A Savior in the Form of a Tablet”:

“I haven’t been this excited about buying something since I was 8 years old and sent away for the tiny seahorses I saw advertised in the back of a comic book. Come to think of it, the purchase didn’t really meet my expectations, but with the whole new year thing, a boy can dream, right?”

I suppose he can, but digital dreams–like those seahorses–can sure die fast.

While in Los Angeles for a brief second on Friday, BoomTown motored over to the Brentwood home of puckish entrepreneur Jason Calacanis to talk to him about his prank tweets the night before the introduction of the iPad last week.

On Tuesday night before the much hyped launch of the newest device from Apple (AAPL), Calacanis let loose with a series of over-the-top posts to Twitter, claiming he had been a beta tester for the iPad tablet computer for 10 days.

Unfortunately, these were assertions that some in the mostly mainstream media took too seriously.

So was it a jump-the-shark moment for journalism?

It was certainly sloppy, given that Calacanis is well known for slapping Apple around and that the secretive computer giant does not even give its own employees access to new products.

All this might have sent off alarm bells.

But he followed up with a series of tweets on a myriad of features of the new iPad–one nuttier, pricier and heavier than the next, such as a built-in HDTV tuner, a solar recharging pad and more.

For example: “Yes, there are 2cameras: one in front and one in back (or it may be one with some double lens) so you record yourself and in front of u.”

The problem was that a few big media outfits, including CNNMoney.com and WSJ.com, posted reports on the tweets without much of a raised eyebrow or first checking on their veracity with Apple or with Calacanis.

While anyone can get caught in a prank–and this was a pretty elaborate one pulled by Calacanis, who claims he was just trying to point out how ridiculous Apple hype had become–it’s still an instructive moment for journalism.

Here’s my interview with Calacanis, explaining it all (with a little shot of his new baby girl at the end), as well as images of his faux iPad tweets below:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100201/prankster-jason-calacanis-talks-about-his-apple-ipad-hoax-warning-cute-baby-alert/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100127/chartastic-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-yahoos-earnings-deck/ http://allthingsd.com/20100127/chartastic-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-yahoos-earnings-deck/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:00:05 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23641

Move on! No iPad to unveil yet!

But here is yet another bit of distraction for those not interested in the Apple (AAPL) invasion of all things tech media later today, as well as for those who can’t get enough data and pretty charts about Yahoo (YHOO) and its fourth-quarter earnings.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant reported decent results yesterday–by which BoomTown means they were less bad than in previous quarters.

(You can also read my liveblogging of the earnings call here, as well as a story on some news that came out of it.)

Until the big reveal of the tablet by Steve Jobs, here’s Yahoo’s official deck to peruse:

YHOO_Q409EarningsPresentation_Final –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100127/chartastic-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-yahoos-earnings-deck/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100127/viral-video-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-lost-parody/ http://allthingsd.com/20100127/viral-video-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-lost-parody/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:09:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23632

For those who don’t care one bit about the rollout of the Apple (AAPL) tablet later this morning by CEO and ringmaster Steve Jobs, here is an incredibly funny song spoof poking fun at the mysterious ABC television hit, “Lost.”

The show is premiering the first episode of its final season next week, and the Fine Brothers want some answers about the convoluted plot of the often vexing program.

Using “Downtown” as its tune, the spoof is long, but spot-on–the part about Jin is especially hysterical. And that’s coming from someone who gave up on “Lost” after the weird second season.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100127/viral-video-counter-programming-apple-hype-with-lost-parody/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100125/invasion-of-the-ipad-snatchers-boomtown-to-attend-first-jobs-keynote-ever/ http://allthingsd.com/20100125/invasion-of-the-ipad-snatchers-boomtown-to-attend-first-jobs-keynote-ever/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:06:51 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23428

After all these years of covering tech, after too many words on Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs, after even interviewing the tech icon several times onstage at various D: All Things Digital conferences over the years, BoomTown is a little embarrassed to admit that I have never attended in person one of the legendary keynote speeches delivered by him.

What ho? Never seen the man–who is known for blowing the doors off any room he headlines–work his apparent magic on the enthralled crowd? Never seen him handle that presentation clicker like Mozart conducting one his operas? Never heard him utter the immortal phrase, “one more thing,” to be immediately followed by much audience oohing and ahhing?

No. I have not. And, as much as I like to ooh and ahh, nope!

We always send a crack team from All Things Digital to these various Apple (AAPL) events, but I have not been part of that thus far, opting to watch the proceedings online at ATD HQ.

But this year I finally said yes to an invite and will apparently get to see Jobs unveil one of the more anticipated and potentially innovative new devices from the Silicon Valley computer icon. It will most certainly be the long-expected tablet that I predicted will be called the iPad.

“You are going to love it and want to come to all our events,” wrote one Apple exec to me about the Wednesday gathering in San Francisco, which immediately made me think of the iPods, oops, pods, in the sci-fi movie classic, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Note to self: Do not fall asleep.

All joking aside, I will be curious to be at this event, since the level of media hype–which is typical–seems to have reached even higher than I ever thought possible, including one report today about how people have “overheard” Jobs saying that the tablet is the most important thing he has ever done.

Ooh. Ahh. How about we all wait and see first?

Until then, send your advice as to the do’s and don’ts of attending the Jobs revival meeting, especially tips on whether I need to set my phaser on “stun” for disabling fervent Apple fanboys if they get too excited.

Also, what should I wear? A black mock turtleneck, jeans and sneakers too much?

Video to come, as usual, along with all of our terrific coverage from ATD.

And, finally, I really hope it is not as cheesy as this bizarre video about how to present like Steve Jobs. My two cents as an expert-to-be on how to do that: Be Steve Jobs.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100125/invasion-of-the-ipad-snatchers-boomtown-to-attend-first-jobs-keynote-ever/feed/ 12 http://allthingsd.com/20100122/tablet-bandwidth/ http://allthingsd.com/20100122/tablet-bandwidth/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:00:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=33153 If the bandwidth-guzzling iPhone is truly the “Hummer of cellphones,” as the New York Times dubbed it last year, you might figure that Apple’s coming tablet will swill data like an Airbus. And that could be true eventually. But at first, analysts say, the tablet is not likely to put much strain on the mobile broadband infrastructure of whatever carrier it ends up with, whether Verizon (VZ) or AT&T (T).

Why? Do they expect the tablet to be Wi-Fi-only like the iPod touch? That would certainly make things a lot easier for the carriers.

No. Most analysts I spoke to said the probability that Apple’s new offering will support mobile broadband is quite high. “I can’t imagine it not having it,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told me.

There are other good reasons not to fear the tablet as a bandwidth hog. First, the device will presumably rely heavily on Wi-Fi to off-load wireless traffic onto the wireline network, the assumption being that it will be used most often in locations with Wi-Fi access–homes, schools, libraries, cafes and whatnot. Moreover, a mobile broadband plan will likely be optional.

Second, despite all the hype and hoopla, initial unit sales of an Apple (AAPL) tablet are likely to be too low to have much of an impact.

As Munster told me: “…turn the clock back and look at the iPhone and the first year Apple sold 5.5 million units in the US and the ASP was $475. At that time there were no issues with AT&T’s network. The issues began occurring last year, right around the time we saw the hockey stick in iPhone adoption.”

Regarding the tablet, Munster says, “If this device is $800-$1000, I think adoption is going to be much lower than the hype would lead you to believe. So the bottom like is this: on a per-unit basis it might put a lot of stress on the network, but there will be too few of them on the street to collectively have a real negative impact.”

Presumably, that will give the carrier, whatever company that may be, time to build out in anticipation of increased adoption. A good thing, since a tablet may well pose unique network challenges, particularly if it is used as a streaming video viewer, says Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

“Streaming video is uniquely demanding traffic, as it is both bandwidth intensive AND latency sensitive,” Moffett explained. “That’s a recipe for disaster. For that reason, it’s unlikely that carriers would invite that type of usage. A large screen tablet would likely rely heavily on download-to-watch-later to sidestep the latency problem, and would almost certainly provide incentives to shift the most bandwidth-intensive applications to the wired network via Wi-Fi.”

But that’s a future scenario. “I don’t see this as a device that will in the next 12 months inspire people to save their money to buy it, the way they have with the iPhone,” says Munster, who sees Apple selling about 1.4 million tablets in calendar year 2010, assuming it ships in March.

“Certainly, it will take off in due time–this is the future of publishing,” Munster concludes, “but it takes 2-3 years for these things to really get going.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple Announces Jan. 27 Special Event: “Come See Our Latest Creation”
• Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27
• Apple Pitching Tablet to Publishing Industry; Spring Launch Expected
• Time (Finally) for the Tablet? Apple Developers Supersizing Their Apps for January Event.
• The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?
• $1.9 Billion in Capex? What’s Apple Planning?
• Apple’s Tablet: Read Different?
• Imaginary Demand for Mythical Apple Tablet Exceeds All Estimates
• Apple Tablet Coming to AT&T?
• New From Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster: The Apple iPad
• Rumored Apple Netbook Actually an E-Book?
• iTablet: Apple’s Killer App for Higher Ed
• iFugly

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100122/tablet-bandwidth/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100106/microsofts-ballmer-will-not-be-showing-slate-pc-at-ces-opening-tonight/ http://allthingsd.com/20100106/microsofts-ballmer-will-not-be-showing-slate-pc-at-ces-opening-tonight/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:55:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22695

As much as BoomTown likes a good computer tablet faceoff, sources with knowledge of the situation said that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will not be whipping out the secret “Courier” slate PC, which the company has been noodling on, in his keynote speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight. Instead, he will be showing off a new Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) slate that runs Microsoft (MSFT) software.

Last night, the New York Times reported that the software giant would do so in a blog post titled: “Microsoft and H.P. to Reveal Slate PC Ahead of Apple.”

Apple (AAPL) will be launching its much heralded slate at an event in San Francisco Jan. 27, as All Things Digital has previously reported.

The Apple device is garnering the expected flood of hype, of course. So don’t expect Ballmer to pointlessly go against the tide of this particular tsunami, thereby painting its slate efforts as also-ran.

Instead, his speech will more likely focus on the company’s new Windows 7 operating system, cloud computing, portable and mobile devices and Microsoft’s “software plus services” motto.

While Ballmer might talk about a range of products related to Microsoft, and there will be multiform hardware shown, including multitouch, tablet-type devices, there will be no grand showing of the one called the Courier, which Microsoft is reportedly working on with HP.

Hence the possible confusion over the PC slate.

Now please go back to gushing over the Apple iSlate ad nauseum!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100106/microsofts-ballmer-will-not-be-showing-slate-pc-at-ces-opening-tonight/feed/ 18 http://allthingsd.com/20091005/while-fanboys-breathlessly-await-steve-jobs-apple-itab-they-should-probably-thank-bill-gates-too/ http://allthingsd.com/20091005/while-fanboys-breathlessly-await-steve-jobs-apple-itab-they-should-probably-thank-bill-gates-too/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:10:54 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18935

Way back in the fall of 2001, when BoomTown was but a less-aged version of myself, I attended a keynote speech at the now-defunct Comdex show in Las Vegas, where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates continued to bang the drum for one of his long-running obsessions: The tablet computer.

“The tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available whenever you want it, which is why I’m already using a tablet as my everyday computer,” Gates said at the time to the audience gathered at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “It’s a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.”

Well, that did not happen.

But Gates did keep his promise about using a tablet–he kept on doing so and also harping on the topic all the time, with Microsoft even releasing a giant tabletop Surface several years ago and supporting multitouch in the coming Windows 7.

I recall Gates talking about the idea of how important the tablet is on innumerable occasions, more than any single concept I can recall.

It is ironic, then, that all the hype has suddenly and firmly coalesced around the particulars of the tablet that Apple (AAPL) will be unveiling in the coming months.

And now that CEO Steve Jobs is back fine-tuning the whole shebang, the obsession has moved into overdrive, punctuated only by endless stories about every single new app for the iPhone and fights over some of those new apps for the iPhone.

It’s a complete aside, but how ironic is it that Apple has somehow managed to make Google (GOOG)–the Skynet of the Internet–seem like a victim over this Google Voice shrillathon?

Back to the Apple tablet, which is playbook hype for iconic computer giant.

Besides being a secret project everyone in Silicon Valley seems to know about, the coming device is enjoying full-on breathless reportage of every single possible button and every possible feature, with every single bit of functionality parsed, dissected, masticated and spat back out.

But let’s be honest–in the end, this Apple tablet is probably going to be some kind of giant, sleeker, more glorified and doubtlessly niftier version of the iPod touch, called the iTab or the iPad or the iAmSoCoolAren’tI?, at three times the price.

Now, as it turns out, Microsoft (MSFT) is also at work on a table device, this time called the Courier.

This development became known recently after a demo video of it in use was somehow “leaked”–three guesses about which software giant in Redmond, Wash., put that out, and the first two don’t count!–to Gizmodo.

It seems to be some kind of tablet mixed with a journal mixed with a day planner, with a hinged two-page look. Digital writing and a stylus are involved, but also lots of touchscreen action.

Well, I say, good for Microsoft, and perhaps for Gates, who has now mostly disengaged himself from the day-to-day particulars of the behemoth he built, including the Courier.

Nonetheless, in all likelihood, Apple will still garner the most buzz in this tablet faceoff and will, more than likely, sell more.

A delicious irony, given that in their fascinating and long-running rivalry, it has usually been Jobs playing the hopeless dreamer and Gates the one who makes bank from the dreams of others.

No longer, which should make this round between Microsoft and Apple the most interesting of all.

Speaking of dreaming of dreams, it is always a good time to post the video of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream”:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091005/while-fanboys-breathlessly-await-steve-jobs-apple-itab-they-should-probably-thank-bill-gates-too/feed/ 10 http://allthingsd.com/20090922/more-modest-results-for-microsofts-marketing-blitz-now-its-yahoos-turn/ http://allthingsd.com/20090922/more-modest-results-for-microsofts-marketing-blitz-now-its-yahoos-turn/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:29:57 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11164 Another month, another half-point: Microsoft’s search market share crept up again in August, according to the newest numbers from comScore. Since Steve Ballmer and company launched Bing at the end of May with a $100 million marketing push, they’ve moved from eight percent to 9.3 percent.

Per usual, you can either argue that these modest gains are good news for Microsoft (MSFT), especially because they come after months of declines. Or you can argue that they are way too modest, given the hype and the media blitz that accompanied the launch.

My question: If you’re Carol Bartz and company and you’re about to launch a Bing-sized marketing campaign of your own, do Microsoft’s results give you encouragement or pause?

Again, the half-full argument is that the Bing blitz proves that given enough brute force, you can indeed use offline advertising to change online behavior, at least in the short term.

Half-empty: At least Microsoft’s pitch has an intriguing come-on–”Hey you! We’ve got a search engine that works better than Google (GOOG)! Come see for yourself!” But unless I’m missing something, there’s nothing equally compelling powering Yahoo’s “Its You!” push.

Maybe I’m wrong: Yahoo (YHOO) formally takes the drapes off its campaign this morning at a series of Advertising Week events. I’ll report back a little later today.

In the meantime, here are the newest comScore (SCOR) numbers, courtesy of JP Morgan’s Imran Khan (click on table to enlarge):

[Image credit: Seattle Municipal Archives]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090922/more-modest-results-for-microsofts-marketing-blitz-now-its-yahoos-turn/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090810/now-that-theres-facefeed-does-that-make-twoogle-more-inevitable/ http://allthingsd.com/20090810/now-that-theres-facefeed-does-that-make-twoogle-more-inevitable/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:59:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17321

MicroHoo. Check! FaceFeed. Check!

And Twoogle? Let’s check!

Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) have finally partnered. Microsoft is already a big investor in Facebook. And today, the huge social networking site just picked up online content-sharing site FriendFeed, which is chock-a-block full of ex-Google execs.

Now, one has to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier if Google (GOOG), the cash machine of a search giant, finally ponied up and bought the most recent star of Web 2.0?

That would be, of course, Twitter.

While previous rumors in the early spring that Google was imminently poised to acquire Twitter proved premature, the investors of the fast-growing microblogging service and Google execs have got to be thinking the same thing right about now:

Do we need each other to make some real-time noise?

It’s true that a lot of the hubbub around the idea of Twitter selling out has been mostly hype.

In addition, there are a lot of good arguments to be made that the San Francisco start-up is likely to be fine on its own and will soon find some very lucrative revenue streams.

Still, it is probably very disconcerting for Twitter to be holding onto the tail of the tiger of its own phenom and hope that it will not turn out to be a bad decision to imagine it will always be thus.

Linking up Twitter and Google is certainly a big idea, giving Google de facto ownership of real-time search, a big lift in the status-update game and yet another major and innovative Internet name brand.

It would also likely ensure that Twitter will dominate its sector for a very long time.

In other words: Gentlemen–and, since this is Silicon Valley, I do mean pretty much all gentlemen–start your engines.

Because whatever happens, it certainly will be fun to watch from the sidelines as MicroHoo, FaceFeed, Twoogle and more crash into one other and make the Internet as thrilling a place as it has ever been.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090810/now-that-theres-facefeed-does-that-make-twoogle-more-inevitable/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d-day-in-the-seventh-year-we-didnt-rest-mostly-because-of-meetings/ http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d-day-in-the-seventh-year-we-didnt-rest-mostly-because-of-meetings/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 07:07:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=13846

We launch the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., today, after a long weekend of preparations and way too many meetings, as you can see in the video below.

(Including packing the swag bags for attendees, upon which one of my kids sits in this photo.)

The conference kicks off with an evening interview tonight with Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams.

Walt Mossberg and I will be asking the pair about everything from their business plans for the hot microblogging service to the huge hype around their start-up to the state of innovation in Silicon Valley to what they plan to do next.

BoomTown will update after the interview, but you can follow the proceedings–in live blogs and video–as they happen on our All Things Digital D7 site here, so check early and often, starting at about 6:30 p.m. PDT.

Here’s the final prep video, including several meetings Walt and I attended today, a view of the ballroom being outfitted and another movie review–we took the staff to see “Terminator Salvation” last night to get pumped–by my annoying geek brother:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d-day-in-the-seventh-year-we-didnt-rest-mostly-because-of-meetings/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090520/pre-shortages/ http://allthingsd.com/20090520/pre-shortages/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 11:00:23 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=17937 One of the simplest ways to create a shortage, and the buying frenzy that typically accompanies it, is to announce that there will be one. And this is precisely what Sprint CEO Dan Hesse did for the Palm Pre Tuesday. Speaking at J.P. Morgan’s Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference shortly after Sprint announced the handset’s street date, Hesse said he anticipates that supplies will be limited, at least initially. “We don’t intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while,” Hesse said. “We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time.”

Interesting thing to say in advance of a product launch on which so much is riding, don’t you think? Unless you’re already trying to foster the perception of excess demand. As Gartner analyst Hugues De La Vergne noted last month, “It’s important to have a success like selling out. The Pre has to live up to the hype or else they’ll lose their momentum to rival products coming out soon after.” And clearly, that’s a very real danger here. Though, to be fair, there are other possible explanations. It could simply be responsible production scheduling. It might also be that Palm’s financial situation has forced the company to temper its launch run-rate in order to retain adequate capital for marketing and customer service. Or it could be that Pre really is the blockbuster device Palm (PALM) and Sprint (S) believe it to be and no amount of supply will be enough to meet the initial and overwhelming demand for it. It could be that the Pre is the next Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

“What the iPhone has shown is that if you really do have a compelling device that is revolutionary then customers will switch to your service,” said Hesse. “We think the Palm Pre stacks up very well against the iPhone.”

We’ll find out come June 6.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090520/pre-shortages/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090323/when-overhyped-silicon-valley-start-ups-collide-a-picture-is-worth-1000-words/ http://allthingsd.com/20090323/when-overhyped-silicon-valley-start-ups-collide-a-picture-is-worth-1000-words/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:28:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=11138 Here is a great chart, posted on Flickr by Facebook third-party app maker Narendra Rocherolle, that shows the rising popularity of the search word “Twitter” on the social-networking site’s Lexicon.

Facebook’s Lexicon counts “occurrences of words and phrases” on its Walls over time.

Facebook, which had tried to buy Twitter late last year, has recently done a redesign that some critics are saying is too much of a panicked reaction to the hype around the microblogging service, although Twitter’s audience is just a tiny sliver of Facebook’s.

Still, Twitter’s becoming the digital trend of the moment, especially in the what’s-hot-today media, has to have last year’s golden child, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, more than a just little irked.

Here’s the chart (click on it to make it larger):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090323/when-overhyped-silicon-valley-start-ups-collide-a-picture-is-worth-1000-words/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081014/apple-apple-all-around-but-not-a-drop-of-thinking/ http://allthingsd.com/20081014/apple-apple-all-around-but-not-a-drop-of-thinking/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:13:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=5131

Hey, did you hear that Apple is launching some sort of new notebook thingamabob today?

If you didn’t, it can’t be because the Apple-product-release-hyper-hype cycle let you down.

Below, for example, is a screen grab Techmeme’s top stories early today. This list will balloon to more and more obese proportions as soon as the much-leaked rumors–a new MacBook from a single piece of godlike metal! With a sleek black border! And some secret-looking inputs to spin gold from hay at home!–about what the iconic computer maker is up to are officially confirmed or not this morning.

That you can always feel the anticipation in the air whenever Apple makes any move is, in a way, fascinating.

And the news-to-come was even boosting Apple’s shares yesterday, which have been taking a severe beating in the recent market meltdown and, before that, on false rumors of a heart attack suffered by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs.

All seems to be forgiven from when Apple (AAPL) underwhelmed at its “Let’s Rock” event only a month back, where its ho-hum redo of its iPod line failed to live up to all the breathless excitement of its fanboys.

No matter. Next!

AllThingsD.com’s Johnny Apple-blogger John Paczkowski of Digital Daily will be there, of course, posting at the media-clogged launch, as it happens, and mightily contributing to the blog-smog that will start collecting over Cupertino, Calif., at 10 a.m. PDT.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081014/apple-apple-all-around-but-not-a-drop-of-thinking/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20080508/webby-congrats-to-here-comes-another-bubble/ http://allthingsd.com/20080508/webby-congrats-to-here-comes-another-bubble/#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 08:21:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080508/webby-congrats-to-here-comes-another-bubble/ BoomTown was the first to put up the hugely popular spoof video called “Here Comes Another Bubble,” by the San Francisco-based Richter Scales.

And, the first to report on the controversial story of it then being taken down by YouTube (GOOG), in a fight the group had with a local photographer, Lane Hartwell, who objected to the use of a photo she took that was in the video without her permission or payment to her for its use.

The Hartwell photo was removed, and the copyright controversy eventually died down. And the video still remains very funny and even more realistic than ever, given the series of crazy Web 2.0 funding valuations of late.

And now “Bubble”–which opens with a BoomTown interview with investor Peter Thiel, who denies such a thing as a bubble in tech–has won a Webby Award for Best Viral Video.

Well, congrats to the creators of the video, which mocks the current Silicon Valley culture with affection, set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”:

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