Remedy Health Media, a New York-based health information company, has bought HealthCentral, a start-up that offers online clinical and patient tools, community and content in a variety of topic areas.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Arlington, Va.-based HealthCentral has raised $50 million from investors such as the Carlyle Group, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Allen & Co., which was HealthCentral’s financial adviser for the transaction, was also an investor.

The market for online-based information about health has been a fast-growing one, but it’s still a nascent arena.

Here’s the official press release:

Remedy Health Media Acquires HealthCentral: Creates Industry-Leading Health Information and Technology Platform

NEW YORK, NY – Remedy Health Media, America’s fastest-growing health information and technology company, today announced its acquisition of HealthCentral, a leading provider of online clinical and patient community resources and tools that help millions of patients and caregivers take control of their health and improve their well-being. The acquisition brings together two companies with the shared mission of empowering patients and caregivers with the information and applications needed to efficiently navigate the healthcare landscape to receive better health outcomes. The acquisition is expected to close this week. Terms were not disclosed.

“This acquisition means Remedy now provides the health information industry’s leading portfolio of digital, mobile, and point-of-care information and technology products,” said Remedy Chief Executive Officer, Mike Cunnion.

HealthCentral’s CEO, Christopher M. Schroeder, adds, “This combination creates real opportunities for innovation in an industry segment that is growing rapidly and seeking new solutions. All of us at HealthCentral are very excited that the union of the two companies and the strength, scope, and reach of the new Remedy will be a unique force for better health and wellness.”

With the addition of HealthCentral, Remedy Health Media creates a market-leading platform for healthcare audiences seeking proprietary information and technology to manage their health concerns on their terms as well as marketing partners who want to connect with patients and caregivers on a number of platforms: online, in doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and through their mobile devices. The new Remedy Health Media will influence more than 150 million consumers annually. The company’s reach now includes 23 million unique monthly visitors to its health websites, more than 17 million patients and caregivers at pharmacy counters nationwide, a 20-million member customer database, and a network of more than 600,000 physicians.

“With the acquisition of HealthCentral, we’ve dramatically increased our online reach, sales capacity and our ability to create industry leading health information and technology applications,” notes Cunnion. “The combination creates exciting opportunities to provide even more value to our audiences, customers and strategic partners.”

Remedy Health Media is a Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) company; a leading global private investment firm focused on the information, education, media, communications and business services industries. “Communications growth will be driven by the convergence of technologies in digital and mobile platforms,” said David Bainbridge, Managing Director, Veronis Suhler Stevenson. “Nowhere is this more evident than in the health and wellness sector where the ability to access accurate information is paramount.”

HealthCentral is backed by leading interactive media and technology investors IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Carlyle Group and Allen & Company. Notes Alan Spoon of Polaris Ventures, “We are thrilled to join forces with Mike and the Remedy team. This combination is a unique opportunity to create the largest and most innovative platform for health seekers looking to take action on their terms, and connecting them with our partners and clients.”

Schroeder will remain involved in the business as a consultant to Remedy and the board of directors, and has been named an Advisor to Polaris Ventures.

The New York-based company will pay a dividend of 12 cents a share, starting in December, costing about $9.8 million a quarter. The move is notable because fast-growing companies, such as those in the Internet sector, typically preserve cash for expansion rather than return it to shareholders.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The new iPhone app allows you to take a picture of what you are about to stuff your face with, compares it with its databases and then sends back an estimate of just how many calories you are about to consume (or have consumed if you manage to down it before the result comes back). The app, from InterActiveCorp’s DailyBurn unit, costs $2.99.

Like the calorie signs at restaurants, what you learn may not be that pleasant, but some research seems to show we make better choices when armed with the information. Then again, other studies suggest that may not be the case.

DailyBurn CEO Andy Smith said he lives in New York, a place where some menus have to list calorie information.

“I know that affects my decisions,” he told Mobilized.

Smith admits that the app won’t be spot-on in estimating calories, but notes that’s not necessarily the point.

“It’s not super important to be accurate,” Smith says. “Just the act of tracking something can change behavior.”

Because it stores a record of the photos, the app can also be used as a visual food diary. The truly ambitious (or even the boldly gluttonous) can opt to share the pictures with their friends and family, using the in-app ability to upload to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

“Some people like that to keep them accountable,” Smith said.

I wasn’t that ambitious, but I did want to put MealSnap through its paces. I started easy, snapping a picture of a tangerine. I didn’t want to make things too easy, so I didn’t add the optional caption. Two minutes later it guessed it was an orange and told me it was somewhere between 43 and 65 calories. Next up I sent a bowl of peanuts in the shell, including the caption. Within a minute it came back and estimated that would add up to somewhere between 149 and 224 calories (not counting whatever I burned cracking those pesky hulls). I opted to take a pass on the peanuts.

I wanted something that I could compare with an actual calorie count. In the name of science, I decided to scoop myself some light ice cream (I know, I have a rough job). I measured out exactly one cup, which the product label said should be 240 calories. I then scooped it out, snapped the picture and added a caption. MealSnap estimated my midmorning indulgence in the range of 108-162 calories.

MealSnap is only for iPhone for now, though the company hopes to do an Android app eventually. DailyBurn is still in the final beta testing for the Android version of its main app, which tracks exercise and nutrition information. Smith said the 14-person company has more iOS expertise, but is working to quickly get up to speed on Android.

“We know we’ve got to do it,” Smith said. “It’s coming soon.”

Smith said that MealSnap reflects the direction the company hopes to go, with apps that are less scientific but more fun and easy to use.

Recently, BoomTown reported that Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site–was in early acquisition discussions with several suitors.

Now, said sources, Warner Bros. appears to be the frontrunner in various talks to buy the entertainment site, while Internet giant Yahoo has dropped out due to price concerns.

The reason for interest from the Time Warner-owned studio, said sources, is due to a spate of recent digital efforts, including its expansion of a movie rental experiment on Facebook.

As MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote last night:

Facebook users watch “The Dark Knight” on the social network for $3. Now it has added five more movies, and is asking more money for three recent releases: It will cost you 40 Facebook Credits–the equivalent of $4–to rent “Inception,” “Life As We Know It” and “Yogi Bear” on the site. The first two “Harry Potter” movies, however, are at the original price.

Flixster has a strong presence on the Silicon Valley social networking giant, which could make it a good vehicle to attract people to the movie rental effort, as well as a popular mobile app.

Interestingly, Rotten Tomatoes was once owned outright by another traditional media giant: News Corp.

It is now only a minority shareholder, after trading Rotten Tomatoes for a 20 percent stake in the combined entity a little over a year ago.

News Corp., which owns 20th Century Fox Studios, is not bidding for Flixster, several sources said.

The price being discussed for the San Francisco-based start-up is between $60 million and $90 million.

Any acquisition negotiations could always fail, of course. In fact, Flixster held advanced discussions in late 2007 with IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Flixster trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings and news and even posts user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook, and on mobile devices.

Co-founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in venture funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering angel investments, such as from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The combination with Rotten Tomatoes and its more robust Web presence made a lot of sense. It features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news.

The site is famous for its clever fresh and rotten tomato rating system for movies.

I have not received a response from emails sent to Flixster and Warner Bros. requesting comment.

The national broadcast television networks aren’t the only ones debuting a fall series season.

CollegeHumor Media, the online comedy video site, is also trying out three longer-term, weekly series rather than the more typical “viral one-offs,” it said.

“The whole idea is to get people to start thinking of CollegeHumor less as a comedy show, and more as a comedy network.” said CollegeHumor’s President of Original Content, Sam Reich, in a statement.

Thus, the New York-based unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) is offering:

“Full Benefits”–What happens when your friend with benefits is also a co-worker? Well, presumably, hilarity ensues!

“Hello My Name Is”–A professional make-up artist is hired to apply prosthetics to cast member Josh Ruben. When the process is complete, does hilarity ensue?

“Very Mary Kate”–Life can be tough for a former child star with only a few billion dollars, a 26-bedroom apartment and a trusty bodyguard to her name. Hilarity or something like it, I think.

As you will see from these three videos, they are all still a little not-ready-for-prime-time, but it’s a nice effort, especially from the adorkable couple in “Full Benefits.”

Enjoy:

Yahoo and Electus, the multiplatform content studio headed by former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman, debuted its first original, branded entertainment programming tonight with “Ready, Set, Dance!”

The site, which is now live on Yahoo Music and sponsored by State Farm, merges the candid-camera phenomenon with reality television and “aims to tap into the pop culture interest in television dance shows and dance videos on the Web….”

The Yahoo (YHOO) site is relatively spare right now, with only one episode, titled “Magic Sparkle Chunk and Frisky Ris.”

Reads the description of the show: “Will’s ‘Magic Sparkle Chunk’ style is invading the tranquility of Madison Square Park, while Marisa and her moves will do their best to win over the Times Square crowds.”

“Magic Sparkle Chunk” is as described, and it is both riveting and humiliating. Which is pretty much the point.

Even though no one knows about it, there are already 29 comments, such as: “He’s got chutzpah–besides, if it’s all about fun, he’s got it. She was a bit too serious and honestly…just not as entertaining as the chunky shiney thingie wingie.”

Yahoo’s partnership with Electus was unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show by Yahoo execs Joanne Bradford and Jimmy Pitaro, both of whom you can see in a BoomTown video interview below.

Ironically, U.S. sales head Bradford left Yahoo earlier this year for Demand Media, and Pitaro, as I reported today, is expected to leave the company soon from his post as VP of Media.

Silverman left the broadcast-television network under a cloud last year, but immediately announced he had struck a deal with Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) to form a studio–called Electus–to make multiplatform content that is backed by big brand advertisers.

The move is similar to a new kind of production company started several years ago by former ABC and Yahoo exec Lloyd Braun and his partner, Gail Berman.

Braun has created online programming for Microsoft (MSFT), including an innovative celebrity site called Wonderwall, as well as producing television shows for networks.

Silverman’s take was to focus on an episodic style, although much of what has been done online so far in this genre by many others has been only moderately successful.

But execs at Yahoo believed that advertisers have been looking for opportunities to put their brands near quality content online.

With the deal, which has been touted by CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo is putting big hopes in Silverman, who had been a successful producer of television programming in his early career.

But his tenure at NBC was marked by a lot of negative publicity about him personally and, more importantly, by a sharp downturn in ratings.

Here is the first of 12 episodes:

And here is Bradford and Pitaro talking about the Electus deal:

Finally, here is the official press release:

Yahoo! and Electus Launch ‘Ready, Set, Dance!’–a New Original, Branded Entertainment Program Sponsored by State Farm®

· First program launch from the Electus-Yahoo! partnership

· The initiative, created by Notional in partnership with Electus, introduces a new creative format and taps into America’s interest in dance; Available on Yahoo! Music

SUNNYVALE, Calif., September 29, 2010–Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Electus, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today unveiled the first integrated content initiative of the brands’ previously announced content partnership, bringing a new format of original, branded entertainment programming to the web with “Ready, Set, Dance!” Merging the candid camera phenomenon with reality television for digital distribution, the program, which was created by Notional in partnership with Electus, aims to tap into the pop culture interest in television dance shows and dance videos on the Web and will make its premiere debut on Yahoo! Music today. “Ready, Set, Dance!” extends the State Farm® “Why Agent?” brand campaign and creatively engages its young-adult audience. Electus will have overall distribution rights on “Ready, Set, Dance” for all platforms including television, motion picture and digital.

“Ready, Set, Dance!” (readysetdance.yahoo.com) is a 12-episode program that combines Yahoo!’s reach and consumer insights with Electus’s creative expertise to provide Yahoo! Music’s audience with a quick, smart, and high-energy dance competition series. Hosted by pop star Adrienne Bailon, “Ready, Set, Dance!” will live on Yahoo! Music and will be promoted across the Yahoo! network.

State Farm will be seamlessly integrated into the “Ready, Set, Dance!” experience, with a goal of reaching a young-adult audience through fun and interesting content that drives home State Farm’s brand message.

The show features two contestants who will be selected by a series of entertaining auditions. Once chosen, the contestants will be caught by surprise anytime or anyplace, and must immediately break into their dance routines for a chance at “Ready, Set, Dance!” fame and fortune. Each week, viewers can vote on their favorite dancer, and winners will receive $10,000 in each of the six dance contests.

“‘Ready, Set, Dance!’ showcases the best of online marketing and programming by providing relevant and entertaining branded programming at mass scale,” said Jimmy Pitaro, vice president of media at Yahoo!. “Our ongoing relationship with Electus will not only offer great original programming like this for Yahoo! users, but will also give advertisers like State Farm fresh opportunities to integrate their brand into the next generation of digital programming.”

“We are excited to collaborate with Yahoo! and State Farm on this new format,” said Drew Buckley, Chief Operating Officer of Electus. “Yahoo! is known for executing extremely successful branded programming that consumers and advertisers love, and ‘Ready, Set, Dance!’ will look to expand upon that initiative.”

“Yahoo! Music and Electus brought a great concept in “Ready…Set…Dance!!”, said Tim Van Hoof, Advertising Director at State Farm. Understanding the popularity of dance contests among our target audience, State Farm sees this as an innovative opportunity to connect with young adults in the online space in a fun, engaging way.”

Yahoo! has a long history of partnering with marketers to develop custom programs to help them reach their targeted audiences. Yahoo!’s successes in the original programming and branded entertainment space include: “Primetime in No Time,” the most watched original program online; “Tech Ticker,” the most watched finance show online; and “Who Knew?”, which recently became the most successful original program to launch on Yahoo!, with more than 40 million streams in the first four months. “Ready, Set, Dance!” follows State Farm’s first video series partnership with Yahoo! — “Spotlight to Nightlight” — which launched in 2009 and garnered more than 7.2 million video streams.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100928/first-ben-silverman-online-program-ready-set-dance-debuts-on-yahoo/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100415/clickers-jim-lanzone-talks-about-tv-on-the-web-and-shows-off-l-a-digs/ http://allthingsd.com/20100415/clickers-jim-lanzone-talks-about-tv-on-the-web-and-shows-off-l-a-digs/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:58:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26741

During my recent sojourn in Los Angeles, BoomTown dropped in on the Melrose Avenue HQ of Clicker, the Web site trying to make search sense of premium video on the Web.

I had a chat with Jim Lanzone, former CEO of Ask, the fourth-place search service owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), about whether such a service could survive with giants like Google (GOOG) around.

Lanzone is certainly trying to differentiate Clicker, which aims to steer clear of both copyright issues and huge bandwidth costs by simply being a helpful friend to consumers in search of good video from television, movies and the Web itself.

As Katherine Boehret’s review of the Clicker service in November described it:

[Clicker is a] free Web site that aims to be the TV Guide for all full episodes available to watch on the Web. It searches over 1,200 sources, so it can index some 400,000 episodes from 7,000 shows. Results include television programs as well as “Web originals,” or shows that are native to the Internet and are of broadcast quality. Clicker either plays the video on its site or links you to where this content is shown on another hosting site–like NBC or Hulu. If a show isn’t available online, Clicker tells you so you don’t have to keep hunting all over for it.

To try to improve its Web search efforts, Clicker raised another $11 million in venture funding in February in a round led by Jafco Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. The funding follows an $8 million round announced last fall.

Here’s the video of my interview with Lanzone, who also gave me a short tour of Clicker’s HQ:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100415/clickers-jim-lanzone-talks-about-tv-on-the-web-and-shows-off-l-a-digs/feed/ 14 http://allthingsd.com/20100211/aardvark-confirms-it-has-been-acquired-but-not-by-what-company/ http://allthingsd.com/20100211/aardvark-confirms-it-has-been-acquired-but-not-by-what-company/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:20:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24367

Aardvark, the social search engine that has been the subject of much attention since it was founded in late 2007, confirmed that it has been acquired.

“We can confirm that we signed a deal to be acquired,” wrote CEO Max Ventilla in an email to BoomTown this morning.

But Ventilla would not reveal the buyer, which a report by TechCrunch earlier this morning said is Google (GOOG), for $50 million.

The Silicon Valley search giant has since confirmed that it is the buyer. “We have signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aardvark, but we don’t have any additional details to share right now,” said the company in a statement.

There have been other possible suitors along with Google, from Facebook to Yahoo (YHOO) to Microsoft (MSFT) to IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), which gave the San Francisco-based start-up a serious look-see to differentiate that company’s lagging Ask search service.

The 30-person Aardvark has raised a total of $6 million from August Capital and others to perfect and distribute its service.

It uses social networks, such as Facebook, to get relevant answers via email and instant messaging. It also has a Web version.

In many ways, Aardvark is yet another version of the iconic Six Degrees, mixed with Yahoo Answers or expert sites, a cup of Twitter-like sociability, and completed with a big dollop of algorithmic calculation.

Its founders, including Max Ventilla and Damon Horowitz, worked at Google and wanted to try to solve the problem of data that cannot be easily reduced to a keyword query.

At least that’s the goal of the innovative Aardvark.

Here is a recent video interview I did with Ventilla and Horowitz, in which they tried their best not to answer the potentially multimillion-dollar question about being bought.

The video also includes a tour of Aardvark, whose offices are, of course, called the Mechanical Zoo:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100211/aardvark-confirms-it-has-been-acquired-but-not-by-what-company/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100126/yahoo-beats-expectations-in-fourth-quarter-earnings-but-revenue-and-earnings-still-down/ http://allthingsd.com/20100126/yahoo-beats-expectations-in-fourth-quarter-earnings-but-revenue-and-earnings-still-down/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:22:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23543

While it was no blowout, Yahoo reported slightly stronger results for the fourth quarter than had been expected by Wall Street today after the markets closed, with revenue down eight percent compared to last year, rather than the predicted 10 percent drop.

Analysts had been estimating that Yahoo (YHOO) would have net revenues of $1.23 billion in the quarter, after commission due to advertisers were taken out.

Instead, it posted $1.258 billion in revenue. Revenue had been $1.38 billion in the same period a year before.

Earnings were right on target to what was expected, $119 million for the quarter, or 11 cents a share. In the same period a year ago, Yahoo has lost $278 million, or 22 cents a share.

Yahoo shares were up almost three percent after the results were unveiled, with the stock rising to $16.45.

BoomTown will liveblog the earnings call, which takes place at 2 pm PT today, where analysts will surely be interested in outlook in the year ahead.

One area of interest will be getting growth back at Yahoo.

Owned-and-operated search revenue was down 15 percent from a year ago, for example, although it was slightly up from the previous quarter and was the first sequential increase since the third quarter of 2008.

Display advertising was down only one percent compared to the same period last year and up significantly on a sequential basis from $399 million in the third quarter of 2009 to $503 million in this quarter.

The results included a four cents a share charge related to costs for the company’s search deal with Microsoft (MSFT).

Here is the press release (without charts and legalese at bottom) from Yahoo on the results:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

YAHOO! REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER 2009 RESULTS

Company Exceeds Revenue Business Outlook, Demonstrates Ongoing Improvements in Search and Display Advertising

SUNNYVALE, Calif., January 26, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today reported results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2009.

Revenues were $1,732 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, which exceeded the top end of the Company’s business outlook range. Revenues decreased 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 and increased 10 percent from the third quarter of 2009. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations and divested business lines, revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 would have declined 5 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. Revenues were $6,460 million for 2009, a decrease of 10 percent compared to 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations and divested business lines, revenues for 2009 would have declined 6 percent compared to 2008.
Income from operations for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $119 million, compared to a loss of $278 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. Income from operations for the fourth quarter of 2009 included $40 million in restructuring charges and $32 million in advisory and retention costs related to the Microsoft search agreement, which amounts were not included in the Company’s business outlook for the fourth quarter of 2009.

Net income per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $0.11, including charges of $0.04 per share related to the Microsoft search agreement and restructuring charges. For fourth quarter of 2008, net loss per diluted share was $0.22, including a charge of $0.39 per share primarily related to a goodwill impairment.

Non-GAAP net income per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $0.15, compared to $0.21 for the fourth quarter of 2008. Net income per diluted share for 2009 was $0.42, compared to $0.29 for 2008. Non-GAAP net income per diluted share for 2009 was $0.63 compared to $0.70 for 2008.

“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to 2009, which was a transformative year for Yahoo!,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “We beat the high end of our revenue guidance, saw demand for premium display advertising improve significantly, and grew Owned & Operated search advertising revenue sequentially for the first time since the third quarter of 2008.

“Our business has positive momentum and we feel good as we head into 2010,” said Bartz. “We’re pleased that the midpoint of our Q1 revenue outlook marks the first quarter of year-over-year growth in six quarters.”

Business Highlights

• Owned & Operated display advertising revenue grew 26 percent compared to the third quarter of 2009–compared to a 16 percent increase during the same period in 2008.

• Owned & Operated search advertising revenue continued to stabilize, increasing 4 percent compared to the third quarter of 2009, the first sequential increase since the third quarter of 2008.

• Yahoo! finalized its Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement with Microsoft Corporation, and is still hopeful that the transaction can close early this year.

• Yahoo! formed a strategic partnership with Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning producer Ben Silverman’s newly formed content studio Electus, an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp. The partnership will produce original programming for Yahoo! users while providing advertisers new opportunities to integrate their brand messages into the next generation of online programming.

• The Company launched Yahoo! Ad Interest Manager, which takes transparency in online advertising to a new level–providing significantly greater control over users’ interactions with interest-based advertising to improve personal relevance and build trust.

“We’re intensely focused on improving execution in all areas of the company, and our solid financial results for the fourth quarter demonstrate the progress we’re making,” said Yahoo! Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse. “We’ll continue to execute against our key financial objectives of accelerating revenue growth, and increasing our operating margin and returns on capital over the next few years.”

Q4 Revenue Results

• In the fourth quarter of 2009, marketing services revenues declined 4 percent and fees revenues declined 7 percent, compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.
• Marketing services revenues increased 11 percent and fees revenues decreased 1 percent, compared to the third quarter of 2009.

• Marketing services revenues from Owned and Operated sites were $971 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, a 9 percent decrease compared to $1,063 million for the same period of 2008. The decrease was primarily driven by a 15 percent decline in search advertising revenue and a 1 percent decline in display advertising revenue.

• Marketing services revenues from Affiliate sites were $564 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, a 6 percent increase compared to $531 million for the same period of 2008.

2009 Revenue Results

• In 2009, marketing services revenues declined 10 percent and fees revenues declined 12 percent, compared to 2008.

• Marketing services revenues from Owned and Operated sites were $3,553 million for 2009, a 12 percent decrease compared to $4,046 million for 2008. The decrease was primarily driven by a 13 percent decline in search advertising revenue and a 9 percent decline in display advertising revenue.

• Marketing services revenues from Affiliate sites were $2,121 million for 2009, a 7 percent decrease compared to $2,270 million for 2008.

Cash Flow and Cash Balance

• Cash flow from operating activities for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $351 million, a 9 percent increase compared to $321 million for the same period of 2008. Cash flow from operating activities for 2009 was $1,310 million, a 30 percent decrease compared to $1,880 million for 2008.

• Free cash flow of $220 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 was flat compared to $219 million for the same period of 2008. Free cash flow for 2009 was $957 million, a 27 percent decrease compared to $1,312 million in 2008.

• Cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable debt securities were $4,518 million at December 31, 2009 compared to $3,522 million at December 31, 2008, an increase of $996 million.

Business Outlook

Revenue for the first quarter of 2010 is expected to be in the range of $1,575 million to $1,675 million. Income from operations for the first quarter of 2010 is expected to be in the range of $90 million to $110 million. This business outlook excludes advisory and retention costs related to the Microsoft search agreement and restructuring charges, as these amounts are not currently estimable. See “Yahoo! Inc. Business Outlook.”

Conference Call

Yahoo! will host a conference call to discuss fourth quarter 2009 results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time today. A live webcast of the conference call, together with supplemental financial information, can be accessed through the Company’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/results.cfm. In addition, an archive of the webcast can be accessed through the same link. An audio replay of the call will be available for one week following the conference call by calling (888) 286-8010 or (617) 801-6888, reservation number: 72652623.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100126/yahoo-beats-expectations-in-fourth-quarter-earnings-but-revenue-and-earnings-still-down/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/ http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:12:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21949

[UPDATED]

Now that the digital equivalent of a super-vac, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, has sucked up some decent music start-ups–Imeem and iLike–for a song, to bolster the social networking site’s efforts to expand into an entertainment portal, what’s next?

According to several sources, the News Corp. (NWS) unit has turned its omnivorous attentions to Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.

Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.

Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run by its IGN Entertainment division.

Rotten Tomatoes features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news. It has community feature that is just in beta, so it would be a nice fit with Flixster.

A MySpace spokeswoman declined to comment at the moment.

In 2007, the start-up was close to being acquired by IAC/InteractiveCorp (IACI) for $100 million, several sources said. But the deal went south when CEO Barry Diller changed his mind at the last minute.

Founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering an angel investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

Flixster has attracted a huge audience–upward of 50 million–who trade all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook.

While Amazon (AMZN) unit IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is still larger in terms of traffic, the more innovative Flixster has been growing much faster and is more social, which makes it attractive to MySpace, sources said.

More important is the mobile growth. Flixster is the No. 1 movie app on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and leads on other smartphones too.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/feed/ 11 http://allthingsd.com/20091211/aardvarks-max-ventilla-and-damon-horowitz-speak-plus-a-tour/ http://allthingsd.com/20091211/aardvarks-max-ventilla-and-damon-horowitz-speak-plus-a-tour/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:11:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21829

Earlier this week, BoomTown motored over to the San Francisco HQ of Aardvark, the social search engine that has been the subject of much attention since it was founded in late 2007.

While there, I got a tour of the 30-person start-up, which has raised a total of $6 million from August Capital and others to perfect and distribute its service.

Aardvark uses social networks, such as Facebook, to get relevant answers via email and instant messaging. It also has a Web version.

In many ways, Aardvark is yet another version of the iconic Six Degrees, mixed with Yahoo Answers or expert sites, a cup of Twitter-like sociability, and completed with a big dollop of algorithmic calculation.

Its founders, including Max Ventilla and Damon Horowitz, worked at Google (GOOG) and wanted to try to solve the problem of data that cannot be easily reduced to a keyword query.

At least that’s the goal of the innovative Aardvark, unless it ends up selling itself off to any of a wide range of companies, from Google to Facebook to Yahoo (YHOO) to Microsoft (MSFT) to IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), to differentiate that company’s lagging Ask search service.

Or not.

Ventilla tries his best not to answer that potentially multimillion-dollar question in this interview with Horowitz.

The video also includes a tour of Aardvark, whose offices are, of course, called the Mechanical Zoo.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091211/aardvarks-max-ventilla-and-damon-horowitz-speak-plus-a-tour/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20091202/diller-maybe-i%e2%80%99ll-hold-on-to-ask-com-after-all/ http://allthingsd.com/20091202/diller-maybe-i%e2%80%99ll-hold-on-to-ask-com-after-all/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:30:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30123

“We’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes. And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator.”

– IAC CEO Barry Diller, Oct. 28, 2009

Turns out Barry Diller isn’t all that interested in selling off IAC’s (IACI) Ask.com search engine, “speculative” though its future might be. Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York on Wednesday, Diller said he’d rather partner with another search company than divest Ask outright.

Evidently that’s the message he’s been giving to any party that’s inquired about buying Ask. “The people who called us were on exploration missions, on a stand-alone buy as an asset,” he said. “That is different than having conversations with other people in the vineyard, in the area of search.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091202/diller-maybe-i%e2%80%99ll-hold-on-to-ask-com-after-all/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-bebo-ceo-and-aol-top-exec-shields-and-shines-murdoch-to-form-interactive-content-start-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-bebo-ceo-and-aol-top-exec-shields-and-shines-murdoch-to-form-interactive-content-start-up/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:53:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18550

Former Bebo CEO Joanna Shields and Shine Group Chairman and CEO Elisabeth Murdoch have formed a content start-up to produce across media platforms, both online and offline, with a focus on social engagement, according to sources.

The new venture, which does not have a name, is being financially backed both by Shine and by Shields, who left AOL this summer after running its community and communications division.

Shields engineered the sale of social networking site Bebo to the Time Warner (TWX) online unit for $850 million in early 2008.

Sources said this new company, based in London, will invest, develop and partner to create a variety of content offerings that also incorporate interactive and social networking elements. It will also help the vast array of Shine content in interactive efforts.

Shields will be CEO of the start-up, which will operate under Shine, an independent and private television production company with programming in 24 countries.

In the U.S., for example, its Reveille unit is responsible for such shows as “Ugly Betty” and “The Biggest Loser.” (Both of which are BoomTown faves.)

Shine’s fast growth has been spearheaded by Murdoch, who is the daughter of News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch.

But Elisabeth Murdoch has struck out on her own in forming Shine, which already has shown a strong interactive bent for a television company.

The combination of television and Web content is an arena that many are once again jumping into, aiming at creating branded interactive content, fueled by advertising.

Former NBC Universal exec Ben Silverman–who sold Reveille to Murdoch, in fact–has recently left his programming job at the television network to start a similar kind of company with longtime entertainment and Internet kingpin Barry Diller of IAC/InteractiveCorp (IACI).

And former ABC programming and Yahoo exec Lloyd Braun also runs a television and Internet production company with longtime Hollywood player Gail Berman, including recently creating the Wonderwall celebrity news site for Microsoft (MSFT).

In addition, Yahoo (YHOO) and a spate of small content start-ups, as well as big media companies, are all trying to figure out how to create and monetize content online in a multimedia effort that bridges all kinds of distribution vehicles and more deeply involves viewers.

Bebo was actually trying to do that too. Under Shields, it had been a pioneer in creating a variety of innovative online original content, including “KateModern” and “Sofia’s Diary.”

But new management at AOL, now headed by former Google (GOOG) exec Tim Armstrong, has sidelined Bebo to its new ventures division and is likely to try to sell it. Company execs at both Time Warner and AOL now say the purchase was a costly mistake.

That might be true, but it was clearly a financial coup for Shields–who has worked at both Google and RealNetworks (RNWK)–and Bebo investors.

And, given the track record of both Shields and Murdoch, it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-bebo-ceo-and-aol-top-exec-shields-and-shines-murdoch-to-form-interactive-content-start-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090908/digital-management-musical-chairs-the-tooth-free-edition/ http://allthingsd.com/20090908/digital-management-musical-chairs-the-tooth-free-edition/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:30:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18208

Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today as its new communications czar is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.

Garlinghouse came to the Time Warner (TWX) online unit after a year-long break, preceded by six years at Yahoo (YHOO).

As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending.

In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) CEO and chairman Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

But, given all the movement of late, this insider seat-switching seems more frantic than ever, as allegiances shift, competitors become friends and colleagues become rivals faster than you can tweet.

When he left Yahoo last summer, in fact, the digital chatter was that Garlinghouse would take a job either as a venture capitalist (he had been one once) or helming a start-up (that too, at Dialpad.com).

In fact, sources said, Garlinghouse had been considering two mobile gigs, but opted for helping to try to overhaul a troubled Web giant.

Fixing messes was the impetus of Owen Van Natta, who left a top job at social networking giant Facebook in early 2008 and by the end of the year, headed over to run Project Playlist, a controversial online music-sharing service.

But then he had hightailed it by spring to try his hand at reviving MySpace, as its CEO.

His boss, News Corp. (NWS) digital head Jon Miller, did the same, getting the hook (unfairly to my mind) at AOL several years ago and then creating an investment firm with former MySpace head Ross Levinsohn.

The pair considered being part of a bid to oust Yahoo management in 2008.

Miller’s freedom lasted only until he got an offer that he presumably could not refuse from News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch recently. (Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

The list goes on, chock full of ex-Yahoos, in fact.

Its one-time COO, Dan Rosensweig, left the company in 2006, for example, and joined the well-known private-equity firm, Quadrangle Group.

But, soon enough, he was scooped up by Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to run its Guitar Hero division.

Yahoo Network head Jeff Weiner also departed from the Internet giant, in mid-2008, for a stint at two VC firms.

He landed at LinkedIn, the business-networking service where he was named CEO in late June.

Greg Coleman ran Yahoo ad sales until mid-2007 before taking a job at AOL earlier this year, which he lost after it got new management soon after.

At Yahoo, Coleman sparked with former advertising sales head Wenda Harris Millard, whom he ousted. She went onto Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) and left there this spring for the Media Link consultancy.

Presto! She is now helping MySpace’s Van Natta fix the social networking site’s ad business.

Current Yahoo U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford actually came from Microsoft last summer, via her own short visit to the troubled ad start-up SpotRunner.

Former Yahoo search techie Qi Lu now runs digital for Microsoft (MSFT), along with a big gang of ex-Yahoo techies he has recruited.

And Scott Moore is even better at the switcheroo. He was at Microsoft running MSN U.S. content, switched to Yahoo as its media poobah, left last year to consider a start-up and then headed back to Microsoft as head of U.S. content this year.

But former Google (GOOG) execs have also been busy shuttling hither and yon, mostly to innovative start-ups.

Of course, many find refuge at Facebook (COO Sheryl Sandberg, PR major domo Elliot Schrage and many more) and Twitter (GC Alexander Macgillivray and COO Dick Costolo).

Recent departures–such as Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who landed at Accel Partners for now–are also likely to find new homes soon enough.

And, of course, there’s always Garlinghouse’s new boss, former Google ad head Tim Armstrong, who took over at AOL earlier this year.

We’ll skip former Joost CEO and former Cisco (CSCO) exec Mike Volpi (who is now a VC); former Netscape Communications/short-term VC/ex-banker/current-for-now CBS (CBS) digital head Quincy Smith; and Joanna Shields, who has worked at Real Networks (RNWK), Google and Bebo (which was bought by AOL)–for now.

Because, around and around and around it always goes, as you can see in this funny video below, which I posted previously:

[Musical Chair designed by Jacob Mathew.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090908/digital-management-musical-chairs-the-tooth-free-edition/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090629/welcome-to-the-fcc-julius-now-get-to-work-on-a-national-broadband-plan-please/ http://allthingsd.com/20090629/welcome-to-the-fcc-julius-now-get-to-work-on-a-national-broadband-plan-please/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:04:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=15185

Last week, after much delay, longtime Internet exec Julius Genachowski (pictured here) was confirmed by the Senate as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

It is an important role for the future development of the Web, of course, although it took a dog’s age into the new Democratic administration to approve him.

Hopefully, he and the other commissioners can soon get to work on a wide range of major digital issues, such as a national broadband plan that does not cost Americans a fortune.

Genachowski, a close tech adviser to President Barack Obama, was seated along with Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican appointee who was confirmed for a second FCC term.

After the Senate approves two others–Democrat Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker for the GOP–in the next month, it will round out the five-member panel.

(The other FCC commissioner is a Dem, Michael Copps, who has been acting chairman while Genachowski got approval.)

Genachowski, a former FCC staffer, was most recently working as a VC at Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital. But he is best known to many in Silicon Valley as a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI).

He is likely to make his debut to chair his first meeting this coming Thursday, and it is a humdinger of dull:

According to the FCC’s Web site, the July open meeting, held in Washington, D.C., will consider three items:

1.) Amendment of the Commission’s Rules to Provide Spectrum for the Operation of Medical Body Area Networks: The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allocate spectrum and establish service and technical rules for the operation of Medical Body Area Networks to monitor patients’ physiological data.

2.) Amendment of Service and Eligibility Rules for FM Broadcast Stations: The Commission will consider a Report and Order concerning changes in the FM translator rules to allow AM broadcast stations to rebroadcast their signals on eligible FM translator stations.

3.) Amendment of Part 101 of the Commission’s Rules to Accommodate 30 Megahertz Channels in the 6525-6875 MHz Band: The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing whether to provide licensees with authority to operate on channels with bandwidths up to 30 megahertz in the Upper 6 GHz band and whether to extend conditional authority to two additional channel pairs in the 23 GHz band, as well as an Order addressing a related waiver reques.

But the site also mentioned that “the Meeting also will include a presentation on the status of the Commission’s process for developing a National Broadband Plan.”

Now, that is something BoomTown would like to know about since this country is effectively still in the dirt-road period, in terms of high-speed broadband access for Americans.

But, of course, the cost of what we do get–which is very substandard compared to a lot of other countries–is also very pricey.

Let’s hope Genachowski–who has a lot of other issues on his plate, especially as the media industry undergoes drastic reconfiguration too–can do something about it.

In a related note, Lawrence Strickling was also OK’d to run the telecom division of the Commerce Department, which is the agency with the dough ($4.7 billion in government funds) to help the create this supposed Internet infrastructure boom with the FCC.

I remain dubious of any movement in the arena, but still hopeful.

And, until there is some action from Genachowski, here is a highlights video from an onstage interview Walt Mossberg and I did with former FCC chairman Kevin Martin–along with Verizon (VZ) Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam–at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008.

Here is the D6 video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090629/welcome-to-the-fcc-julius-now-get-to-work-on-a-national-broadband-plan-please/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090211/where-in-the-world-is-americas-cto/ http://allthingsd.com/20090211/where-in-the-world-is-americas-cto/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:30:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9627

With the naming of Oracle (ORCL) President Charles Phillips to President Barack Obama’s 16-Member Economic Recovery Advisory Board a few days ago, another Silicon Valley tech mandarin fell off the list to become America’s first chief technology officer.

The job–which was promised by President Barack Obama during his campaign and underscored when he released a memorandum on transparency and open government that outlined some of the CTO duties the day after he was sworn in–remains unfilled.

In fact, so does the Federal Communications Commission chairman’s post, which insiders said a month ago would go to former IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) exec Julius Genachowski. But he has not been nominated yet.

Both Genachowski and Phillips were on a short list floated in November by The Wall Street Journal for CTO. The third name on it, Level 3 (LVLT) exec Don Gips, has since been named to a high-level White House job.

While the continuing economic crisis has sucked all the oxygen from the room, the Obama administration has still made a lot of promises about tech issues, from improving broadband to making the government more transparent and digital.

So, who is getting the job as head geek?

Could it be well-known entrepreneur Mitch Kapor? Google (GOOG) guru-in-resident and Internet father Vint Cerf? Or some other tech-savvy Silicon Valley figure?

BoomTown is, of course, rooting for Steve “Woz” Wozniak. Once he wins “Dancing With the Stars” this season, he will be the only nerd capable of the two-stepping one needs to survive in Washington.

Post new guesses in comments below.

And, until someone is appointed to fix the nation’s computers, here is the Jan. 21 memo Obama released about some of the tasks ahead for America’s CTO:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

[Photo of the t-shirt from ThinkGeek.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090211/where-in-the-world-is-americas-cto/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/genachowski-to-head-fcc-maybe-he-can-finally-fix-my-broadband/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/genachowski-to-head-fcc-maybe-he-can-finally-fix-my-broadband/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:02:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8398

Finally, someone who might actually understand the Internet will be taking charge of the thus-far lackadaisical government body that plays the largest role in spurring its growth.

The Washington Post is reporting that Julius Genachowski (pictured here) will be tapped to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment, which will be announced in the next few days, to BoomTown.

Genachowski has previously worked for the FCC as its chief counsel under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. But he is better known to Silicon Valley as a longtime Internet exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI).

He is now a founder of a Washington, D.C.-based venture firm called LaunchBox Digital, which has invested in a plethora of unusually trendy Web 2.0 companies.

One of its investments, the social news aggregation service Socialmedian, was recently acquired by the German-based business networking site Xing for $7.5 million.

And Genachowski is also a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, another venture firm, and a special adviser at General Atlantic.

Perhaps most notably, he went to law school with President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thus, Genachowski worked the tech sector tirelessly for Obama’s election, along with organizing the campaign’s successful social-networking and online fund-raising campaign.

He was also clearly on the short list to be America’s first chief technology officer, which might be too light on policy-making and too heavy on pontificating for Genachowski’s tastes.

As top telecom and, really, Internet regulator, Genachowski will have a lot more power and even more on his plate, including the rocky shift from analog to digital television, now set to take place next month, as well as dealing with net neutrality and a range of other key Web issues.

But top of the agenda will likely be how to make real Obama’s promise to drastically improve broadband access across this nation and lowering prices.

The slow speeds and high costs are an appalling legacy of Washington regulators and politicians, who have lived too long and too deep in the pockets of big telecom companies.

That has made the U.S. exactly what Softbank founder Masa Son once called in an interview I did with him at a D: All Things Digital conference: the “Third World of broadband.”

Hey, Julius, you’ll fix that, right?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/genachowski-to-head-fcc-maybe-he-can-finally-fix-my-broadband/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20080602/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d6-in-quotes-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20080602/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d6-in-quotes-2/#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:01:29 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080602/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d6-in-quotes/

This year’s D conference had its share of great lines–tired ones, too (we’re all clear on the subject of Facebook and information sharing, right?). Here’s a selection of the former…

Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.”

–Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

–Jeff Bewkes, president and CEO, Time Warner (TWX)

I will probably never be a CEO again.”

–Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang states the obvious

It’s a company that creates technology.”

–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers the question, “What is a technology company?”

Did you have anything to do with the New York Post’s endorsement of Obama?”

–Walt Mossberg to Rupert Murdoch

“Yeah.”

–Rupert Murdoch to Walt Mossberg

I didn’t leave business school to go bankrupt.”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on his first days at Microsoft

You would have loved Windows 1.0, Walt. You would have LOVED it.”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Microsoft’s philosophy is to ‘do things better.’ And Vista has given us lots of opportunity to do that.”

–Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates

Microsoft Bob? All Bill’s idea.”

–Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft Corp.

It makes revolutionary desserts you never could have imagined!”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recalls the slogan he used to market Coldsnap Freezer Dessert Makers at Proctor & Gamble

C’mon, you CAN’T be happy with the way this Vista thing has gone.”

–Walt Mossberg to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

In some ways the Web is the most important book in the world.”

–Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com (AMZN)

We try to stick to violence against small animals.”

– Activision (ATVI) CEO Bobby Kotick on violence in the company’s games.

I have to determine whether the joy of craplets is worth preserving.”

–Sony (SNE) CEO Howard Stringer on craplets on Sony PCs

Facebook is all about information and helping people share it.”

–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg demonstrate “I-Have-Nothing -To-Say-And-I-Am-Saying-It” public relations.

‘Sharing information?’ Isn’t that a drinking game? Every time Mark Zuckerberg says it you have to drink.”

–Kara Swisher

Page got one of the two chairs and Schmidt wound up on the floor.”

–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on meeting with Google’s (GOOG) Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt in his spartan apartment.

All lives are equal.”

–Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on D6 Highlights

Betamax 2.”

–Sony CEO Howard Stringer on what his epitaph would have been had Sony lost the DVD format war.

If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

–Sony CEO Howard Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business.

Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

–Barry Diller, chairman and CEO, IAC (IACI)

People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.”

–Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones

I could take him.”

–Dell (DELL) CEO Michael Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

It’s amazing how elastic the human brain turns out to be.”

–DEKA Research founder Dean Kamen

It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

–Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold explains the company’s “invest in inventions” business model.

Windows 95 was a nice milestone.”

–Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on one of the high points of his career

I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.”

–Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook

We think they’re fantastic … But you don’t want anyone to be a monopoly.”

–Rupert Murdoch on Google

Coming from Google, you don’t exactly spend a lot of time at Microsoft.”

–Facebook COO and former Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google Sheryl Sandberg

We’re trying to outbook the book.”

–Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Kindle.

There go the dairy ads.”

– Walt Mossberg on 23andMe’s discovery that colleague Kara Swisher is lactose intolerant

We didn’t buy Alaska to save a couple of elk.”

–News Corporation (NWS) Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch on Alaska as a solution to the current fuel crisis.

Where’s Rupert’s elk-despising gene?”

–Kara Swisher while reviewing Murdoch’s genotype

That’s not serious … he just wants to make himself a few hundred million dollars …”

–Rupert Murdoch on Carl Icahn’s proxy fight for Yahoo

You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?”

–Walt Mossberg grills FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the states.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080602/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d6-in-quotes-2/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20071029/diller-malone-smackdown/ http://allthingsd.com/20071029/diller-malone-smackdown/#comments Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:02:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071029/diller-malone-smackdown/

Don’t miss this most excellent article by Jessica E. Vascellaro in The Wall Street Journal this past weekend about the mogul-tussle–an Olympic sport!–between IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Barry Diller and John Malone of Liberty Media (both pictured here).

It’s called: “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” And what are they fighting over? Control, of course, and big piles of money related to IAC (see revenue chart below)!

It’s always nice when two extravagantly colorful business icons take off the gloves so extravagantly in public and don’t shrink from controversy.

In the piece, the normally quippy Diller comes off almost calm, though, compared to the particularly obstreperous Malone, who is clearly trying to spur Diller into doing something rash by ranting in public.

My advice: Keep a lid on it, Barry!

In any case, some choice quotes from Malone:

“There was a time when there was, I think, a 20% Barry premium. Today you could argue there is a Barry discount.”

“The hook is set. It is our company. Barry ain’t going to be able to spit the hook.”

“Barry doesn’t use his balance sheet effectively. He is not a financial guy.”

“There is not quite as much love for Barry on average [at Liberty]. [Liberty CEO] Greg [Maffei] has made it clear that he isn’t as enchanted with Barry as I am.”

“It is a little uncomfortable for Barry. Right now we are the shadow that walks around behind him.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20071029/diller-malone-smackdown/feed/ 2