Does Comcast (CMCSA) have other plans? COO Steve Burke made it seem so this morning, when he told analysts that a “Hulu Premium” was “certainly not in the cards.”

An odd comment to make given that 1) Team Hulu’s premium plans didn’t slow down once news of the GE (GE)/Comcast deal broke, and 2) Comcast won’t own NBC, and thus its stake in Hulu, for another year or so.

Burke did go out of his way to say that he liked NBCU’s strategy of putting its broadcast shows up for free via Hulu, while keeping cable programming, which it sells to people like Comcast (CMCSA), more or less off of the Web.*

Of course he does! That’s the rationale behind the company’s “On Demand Online” plan, whereby cable programming is offered on the Web only to cable subscribers.

I asked Burke to clear this up during a media Q&A call this morning and he gave me an extended nonanswer/walk-back that amounted to something like actually, you know, we don’t actually own NBC, so we don’t have anything to do with Hulu, which we think is great, by the way. And then he kicked the question to NBC CEO Jeff Zucker, who offered up a nonanswer of his own about not wanting to discuss roadmaps, etc.

My hunch here: Burke would like a mulligan on this one. And Hulu’s short-term plans haven’t changed at all.

But down the road, things may very well get interesting: For starters, note that NBC’s exclusive Web licensing deal with Hulu (which is actually only sort of exclusive, but more on that later) expires in the spring of 2011, which could be within a few months of the close of the Comcast deal. And recall that Comcast was one the parties hollering loudly at Disney (DIS) not to sign on with Hulu earlier this year.

Still, I’d be surprised if Comcast makes a major overhaul with Hulu as soon as it gets a chance. The company is going to spend the next year promising politicians and voters that it’s not going to use its clout to cut off anyone’s access to anything. So to pull back on a wildly popular Web site would make for difficult optics, as they say.

At first, that is.

Related note: I can sadly confirm that Comcast does indeed intend to rebrand its awkwardly named “On Demand Online” service, which is supposed to roll out nationwide within weeks, with the infinitely worse “Xfinity” moniker.

As in “Fancast Xfinity TV” and “Xfinity.com,” as Broadcasting & Cable first reported last night.

Ugh. All I can say is that I used to refer to the whole thing as “Web TV You’ll Need to Pay to See” and got guff from the folks in Philly, who thought that was misleading. But it’s accurate, and it is way, way better than the new option.

*Sort of: NBC keeps most of its cable offerings off of Hulu, but not off of the Web. You can’t see last night’s episode of “Top Chef” (Goodbye, Jen!) on the joint-venture site, but you can see it on NBC-owned Bravo’s site.

On the call: Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts, COO Steve Burke, CFO Michael Angelakis

CEO Brian Roberts: The deal will make us “strategically complete.” [Translation: We promise not buy anything else!]

Obligatory praise for Jeff Zucker for “completely transforming NBC into one of the premier cable operators in the business,” which is the same way Zucker likes to describe himself.

This deal is so incredibly easy for us to finance that we’re increasing our dividend by 40 percent. [Also, we're doing this with both hands tied behind our back!]

CFO Michael Angelakis: If you get confused, there’s an appendix at the end of our presentation.

Did you know that Fandango is a “female-oriented” site? Me either.

Comcast has a “clear path to control” the joint venture by buying out GE’s (GE) interest, but future payouts are capped at $5.75 billion.

Debt ratings agencies have signed off on this, so don’t worry. They never get this wrong.

Roberts: Can’t stress this enough: We’re not buying a faltering film company and a flailing broadcaster; we’re buying a bunch of profitable cable channels. Cable channels. Cable channels.

Also, we’re buying at the bottom of the cycle, so some of the duds that we’re buying may end up having upside.

[Roberts is right about this, by the way: Networks really do rise and fall over time, almost independently of what management does. Remember ABC's peril in the pre-“Lost" era?]

Oh yeah. There are some theme parks, too.

Okay. Back to the deal: Cable channels, cable channels, cable channels. They are great. We love them. Affiliate fees are growing 12 percent a year, ad sales are up seven percent a year. Check out the awesome slide on page 19. “I think this is a wow slide” (see below).

Some more praise for Zucker.

COO Steve Burke: Cable channels. Cable channels. Cable channels. We love the ones we own, but they’re “subscale” compared to what we’re buying from GE.

We’re going to cross-promote the heck out of these and figure out how to make G, Style and Versus more valuable, like NBCU does with Bravo, etc.

[We're about 40 minutes into the call, and this is the first discussion about the Web.] The JV will be a Top 10 company with 82 million uniques.

At least for now, Comcast is still talking about “On Demand Online,” not XTREME ONLINE RAWKS or whatever the company is supposedly going to call it.

Q&A:

Can you give us more color on new businesses you may create once you combine? Also, what are you going to sell off?

Burke: There are “literally dozens of innovative ideas that come out of this combination.” Like interactive advertising. Targeting, etc. (via cable, not Web). We can launch new channels, new video-on-demand packages, more windows. A lot of opportunities.

Roberts: We don’t plan on selling anything. But “we have a long time between signing and closing” to learn about the assets we’re buying.

A lot of people have tried vertical integrations like this and they haven’t worked. What’s going on here? Also, how are you going to work with businesses like Hulu, which threaten your business?

Roberts: Some of these have worked. Think of [Liberty Media Chairman] John Malone’s deals. Or Time Warner (TWX) buying Turner. Or even News Corp. (NWS) and DirecTV. Anyway, that’s the past. Let’s look to the future. More important is that we believe this deal works with zero synergy benefits. [That's for you, Jeff Bewkes.]

[Um, anyone else get bumped off the call? Nope, just me. Apologies, will go get the Hulu the rest of Roberts's answer later, but I'm guess it was something along the lines of "we love Hulu and have no intent to crush it like a bug, and besides, we're one of three networks that will own it."]

Please explain how you’ll negotiate for, say, the Olympics and other assets when you don’t actually own NBC yet.

Roberts: [GE CEO] Jeff [Immelt] and Jeff [Zucker] will have to run their business until the deal closes.

What about regulatory hassles?

Roberts: No worries. This is a “pro-consumer transaction.” And check out all the things we said to that effect earlier this morning.

Burke: Both local advertising and national advertising are recovering. An analyst notes that GE has never told us much about NBCU because it hasn’t had to. So we’re going to get a much better look at how the business works going forward.

Why are you sticking your regional sports deals into this joint venture? Also, why not just hand the money you’re spending on this deal back to investors, via share buybacks?

Burke (I think): When you think of sports, its hard not to think of NBC Sports and Dick Ebersol [ahem]. Also, we think there’s some synergy with some of NBC’s local broadcast stations.

Angelakis (I think): We’ve already bought back $14 billion worth of stock in six years, and we’ll keep buying back stock. Also, check out our dividend. But we need a balance. This deal gives us financial returns and long-term strategic returns.

Roberts (I think): The timing is good. Size is appropriate–we can handle it. “You gotta like the business….We think it’s a reasonable risk. That’s what we’ve always done at Comcast.”

As for regulatory risk, if Washington wants us to make a really really serious change that blows up the rationale for doing this, we have the ability to back out. But we don’t think that’s going to happen. “Is there a break-up fee?” the questioner asks. Answer: No.

What does this mean for TV Everywhere/On Demand Online? (and Hulu)?

Burke: NBC has been careful not to put too much cable content on the Internet. We think that’s a smart strategy, “not that they asked us.” We think that going forward, you’re going to continue to have free broadcast stuff on Hulu, and cable stuff on TV Everywhere.

Roberts: Windows in general, our focus has been on expanding offerings, putting them on multiple platforms. All of those things are more likely to occur in a way that benefits distributors, content owners and consumers. “What about Hulu premium?” the questioner asks. Answer: “That’s certainly not in the cards.”

Here’s Comcast’s pitch in chart form:

ComcastNewPDF_12.3.09 –

“There would be no question that I would be perfect to run it,” Karmazin said. “But there is no chance that I will ever take another job outside of Sirius XM. I just renewed my contract. It’s exactly what I want.”

Exactly what he wants, except maybe for that perennially-under-a-dollar share price–though according to Karmazin, that’s going to change. “I think today, you’ll start to see quarter after quarter of growth,” he said. “You’ll see us making free cash flow. You’ll see us with…over $2.5 billion of revenue. We’ll start to make money, and we’ll start to keep investing in content. And I think our future will be great.”

Unassuming guy, that Karmazin…

The former French water utility has the ability to hold up the deal due to its 20 percent stake in NBCU and a put option that gives it the right to sell the stake back to back to GE (GE), hang on to it or take the thing public.

There’s no reason for Vivendi to do anything but the first option, but the company is not going to come out and say so, which means that negotiations for GE to buy the stake aren’t going as fast as it or Comcast (CMCSA) would like. Vivendi itself wrote down the value of the stake by a few billion earlier this year, but that was then, and this is now. New York Post:

The deal, which many assumed would be announced today, is being held up because Vivendi is playing hardball in its negotiations with GE, said several sources close to the deal.

“They’re trying to squeeze every nickel they can out of GE,” said one of these sources. “Why wouldn’t they?”

But again, there’s no reason for this deal not to get done, and Vivendi itself made a strong case for it on Friday by announcing plans to spend some $4 billion on Brazilian telecom GVT. The proceeds of a $6 billion sale sure could come in handy for that, no?

While we’re at it: I wouldn’t read all that much into reports that Comcast plans to appoint current NBCU head Jeff Zucker to run the new business. Perhaps they really do. But even if Comcast didn’t, it would have no choice but to say it does. Remember that any deal will take a very long time to clear regulatory review and that someone has to keep running NBCU in the meantime. This stuff will get more meaningful when we’re closer to showtime.

The numbers, via parent company GE’s (GE) release this morning: NBCU posted a $732 million operating profit, up 13 percent year over year, on revenue of $4 billion, which is down 20 percent. Important footnote: As GE explained during its earnings call, if you adjust NBCU’s performance for one-time gains, operating profit would actually be down nine percent.

Still, even that result is an improvement over previous quarters. So perhaps those numbers will cheer Comcast investors, who have been beating up the cable company ever since news of its talks to buy NBCU surfaced last month.

GE usually spends very little time discussing NBCU’s performance during its earnings calls, since investors are much more concerned with the rest of the company’s performance, and in particular, its troubled finance arm. But perhaps the pending Comcast (CMCSA) deal will change that this time around.

Some notes from the earnings call: GE CEO Jeff Immelt has joined the “recession is over” crowd, but only mentioned NBCU briefly during his opening statement. He says scatter pricing–ads that marketers buy during the TV season, as opposed to the spring “upfronts”–is “better.”

GE booked a $283 million one-time gain from the sale of some of its stake in the A&E cable channel. And it took charges on write-downs related to its stake in NDTV, its Indian TV investment, as well as the Weather Channel, which it bought alongside some private equity groups for $3.5 billion last year. But the company still ends up $89 million ahead in the one-time events column–the equivalent of a penny per share of earnings.

And as the company explains in the table below, if you take out the one-time gains, NBCU’s quarterly profit increase turns into a loss. This is a reverse of previous quarters, when the company told investors to ignore one-time losses that made horrible earnings look even worse.

More color on the scatter market: CFO Keith Sherin says Q4 pricing is up “double digits” for primetime TV spots, and more than 20 percent for cable TV.

Asked a vague question about the proposed NBCU deal, Immelt gave a vague answer, noting that while “NBCU is a great franchise that’s consistently delivered income growth and cash…we always evaluate our portfolio.” He then suggested that GE doesn’t need to sell NBCU, which is the right thing to say. “We just want to be ready for several scenarios….We don’t have a specific pronouncement, or a specific need for cash.”

Here’s GE’s broad-stroke description of NBCU’s quarter (click to enlarge):

After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together.

That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work.

According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

When it was unveiled last Wednesday, the companies said Microsoft (MSFT) will run search technology for the two, while Yahoo (YHOO) will sell the premium search advertising.

That SEC filing could answer a number of questions some still have about the deal, such as whether there is a large break-up fee that Microsoft would pay Yahoo in case the deal is scuttled.

That’s just the outcome that Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to avoid.

“We think of it as an outreach effort to explain how we are creating a strong No. 2 to Google,” said one source close to the situation. “The main goal will be to show that a better competitor in the marketplace is a good thing.”

While the companies are prepping for opposition from Google (GOOG), sources close to the thinking at the dominant search company said it is more likely to be muted and indirect.

That’s especially true since a MicroHoo makes Google–currently under a lot more government scrutiny than ever before–look like less of a bully.

Thus, Google’s tactics would entail less direct statements and more pointing out the discrepancies between what Microsoft said when Google tried to get approval for a search deal with Yahoo last year and what it argues now.

“They will probably not be that obvious, but they will be there still,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to me, in an off-hand remark at the software giant’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.

It’s a game of legal chicken that Ballmer knows well.

Already, for example, Microsoft and Yahoo execs have been aggressively reaching out to major publishers and advertisers to get their staunch support.

That included calls immediately after the deal was announced last Wednesday to such execs as Martin Sorrell of the WPP Group (WPPGY) and Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal, a unit of GE (GE).

In Washington, D.C., both companies have legions of lawyers to try to make sure the Justice Department, which will review the case due to its antitrust implications, has all the information it might need.

And, more to the point, they want to avoid the debacle that took place when Yahoo and Google tried to get approval for their failed deal last year.

That deal was ended by Google after it became clear that Justice was going to fight it by arguing that top search companies hooking up hurt competition and stifled innovation.

In addition, there might be Congressional scrutiny, with possible hearings, similar to those held when the Yahoogle deal was pending, such as in the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.

And, of course, there are actually independent groups concerned and they have also been in contact with regulators.

“There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a D.C.-based group that works to promote consumer privacy and protection online, in a statement last week. “While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.”

Sources said Microsoft and Yahoo also plan to petition regulators in the European Union this week, which is likely to be most concerned about privacy issues involved in their union.

They will also be doing the same in other key countries worldwide, such as Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.

And, finally, given how involved state attorneys general became in beaching the Yahoo deal to partner with Google, they also will be starting outreach to key states, such as California, where Silicon Valley-based Yahoo is headquartered.

“Once again, it will be the Lawyer Employment Act of 2009,” joked one person close to the deal. “At least, that shows there is some economic benefit to this deal already.”

While we all wait in breathless regulatory anticipation, here are interviews I did at last year’s Senate hearings on Yahoogle, with lawyers from Google (David Drummond), Microsoft (Brad Smith) and Yahoo (Mike Callahan).

Incredibly, they are the very same lawyers who will be pretzeling themselves in entirely different shapes than they pretzeled themselves a year ago.

I would expect nothing less!

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090804/yahoo-microsoft-regulatory-filings-begin-this-week-let-the-legal-game-playing-begin/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090717/happy-days-arent-here-again-another-miserable-quarter-for-nbc/ http://allthingsd.com/20090717/happy-days-arent-here-again-another-miserable-quarter-for-nbc/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:38:11 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=9400 Yesterday, Google (GOOG) told Wall Street that its business had “stabilized” during the spring, but it may be one of the only media companies that gets to say that.

GE’s (GE) NBC Universal, for instance, just posted second-quarter results that were as bad as its first quarter. Jeff Zucker’s TV and movie unit said revenue was down eight percent and profit down 41 percent for the three months ending June 30; in the previous quarter, revenue was down only two percent, while profit was down 43 percent.

Per usual, GE said NBC’s cable business was doing okay (which makes sense since it gets a guaranteed income stream from cable operators), but that its overall ad business and local TV markets were getting killed. Or in technical terms, they’re seeing “continued pressure.”

Three months ago, GE went out of its way to make the point that if you stripped out one-time charges like write-downs, its earnings drop would have only been in the 15-25 percent range. It may make the same argument again during the earnings call later this morning, so I’ll check back then.

UPDATE: Once again, NBC is arguing that its earnings aren’t that terrible. The company had to take nearly $100 million in charges this quarter, and last year it had some one-time gains. So really, the company argues, its earnings are down a mere 24 percent. Here’s the highlight reel from the earnings call. Note the lines about upfront sales being slow and Web display ads being hit. Click chart to enlarge.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090717/happy-days-arent-here-again-another-miserable-quarter-for-nbc/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090702/jeff-zucker-full-d7-interview/ http://allthingsd.com/20090702/jeff-zucker-full-d7-interview/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:40:18 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=2259

Jeff Zucker runs one of the world’s leading media and entertainment content companies, which is also being caught in the throes of a major shift, due to the impact of the Internet over the last decade.

In this onstage interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Zucker talks about the state of the television business; the changing advertising market; the impact of Hulu, an online premium video joint venture the GE (GE) unit NBC launched with News Corp. (NWS); and precisely what he meant when he said that the Web was turning “analog dollars into digital pennies.”

Here’s the video of the full D7 session (the video does not include a short intro video done by NBC’s “Late Night” host Jimmy Fallon, which includes a ribald joke about Zucker marrying Courtney Cox):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090702/jeff-zucker-full-d7-interview/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090702/nbc-universal-president-and-ceo-jeff-zucker-the-full-d7-demo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090702/nbc-universal-president-and-ceo-jeff-zucker-the-full-d7-demo/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:37:34 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=15375

Jeff Zucker runs one of the world’s leading media and entertainment content companies, which is also being caught in the throes of a major shift, due to the impact of the Internet over the last decade.

In this onstage interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Zucker talks about the state of the television business; the changing advertising market; the impact of Hulu, an online premium video joint venture the GE (GE) unit NBC launched with News Corp. (NWS); and precisely what he meant when he said that the Web was turning “analog dollars into digital pennies.”

Here’s the video of the full D7 session (the video does not include a short intro video done by NBC’s “Late Night” host Jimmy Fallon, which includes a ribald joke about Zucker marrying Courtney Cox):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090702/nbc-universal-president-and-ceo-jeff-zucker-the-full-d7-demo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090605/when-barry-met-tim-and-jon-and-rupert/ http://allthingsd.com/20090605/when-barry-met-tim-and-jon-and-rupert/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:33:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7982 New York’s Internet Week was a relentless, exhausting gauntlet of parties, attended by the same group of Webby hustlers, who gripped, grinned and gulped down drinks and snacks, night after night.

It was great!

And it finished off in style last night with an excellent bash featuring all of the same players, plus their bosses, on a rooftop garden in midtown Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. The Founders Club, which really isn’t a club at all but a recurring high-end digital media schmooze, hosted the event and made sure it was populated with plenty of bold-faced names.

Among them: News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch; IAC (IACI) CEO Barry Diller; Tim Armstrong, the former Google (GOOG) exec now running Time Warner’s AOL (TWX); Jon Miller, News Corp.’s newly appointed chief digital officer; NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker and several of his employees, including Jimmy Fallon.

More on Jimmy later. But here’s a clip of Diller introducing Armstrong and Miller to the crowd, featuring a brief cameo by Murdoch, who used to be Diller’s boss and is currently Miller’s boss. (And mine, too, since News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site). Apologies in advance for the Blair Witch camera work and the muted volume, which you’ll need to turn up in order to hear the speakers.

But I do think they’re worth listening to, particularly when Diller describes the old days, when a handful of companies in New York and Los Angeles controlled the media landscape. Now, Diller notes, “anybody who has a keyboard and a send button, can publish to the world, and that is an extraordinary change.” I think he was trying to say that this was a good thing, but to me it sounds a bit like a bittersweet eulogy.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090605/when-barry-met-tim-and-jon-and-rupert/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090603/in-case-you-missed-it-heres-the-print-version-of-d7-um-online/ http://allthingsd.com/20090603/in-case-you-missed-it-heres-the-print-version-of-d7-um-online/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:53:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14145

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal did a special Technology Report section, made up of excerpts of selected interviews from the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

It includes sessions with Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer ringing in Bing; Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz trying to find a reason to curse at BoomTown; Roger McNamee and Jon Rubinstein of Palm (PALM) introing the Pre; Twitter Co-Founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams saying “we do not know” was the microblogging service’s mantra; entrepreneur Mark Cuban talking smack about the Internet; cable legend and Liberty Media (LMDIA) Chairman John Malone cracking wise; and NBC Universal (GE) head Jeff Zucker doing the Hulu.

As the event’s hosts and interviewers, Walt Mossberg and I also did a mini-essay about the event, in which we continued to jest about various goofy names that digital eras had been given.

As we wrote:

“Before the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week in Carlsbad, Calif., we declared—with our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks—that Web 2.0 was over and Web 3.0 had begun.

While we were poking fun at Silicon Valley’s incessant need to stick a hyped-up catchphrase on each and every development, the use of such jargon was actually important, because we think that the digital sector is now moving full bore into an entirely new cycle of profound change.”

We decided to focus in on smart phones and the mobile platform as critically important in the next era, although what we were talking about was the complete integration of computing into every part of our lives in a way that is seamless, ubiquitous and, ideally, dead simple.

As we also noted in the essay:

“From using easy gestures to grab any piece of information from the Web to having powerful computers in the palm of your hand to being able to quickly dip into complex social networks to getting real-time information from across the globe as it happens, this is an era when computing could become as integrated and invisible as electricity and just as important.”

So read all about online and in print (if you saved a copy) and you can also watch video highlights on this site too.

But, best of all, All Things Digital be posting the full video of all the sessions on this site soon.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090603/in-case-you-missed-it-heres-the-print-version-of-d7-um-online/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090529/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d7-in-quotes/ http://allthingsd.com/20090529/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d7-in-quotes/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 07:00:45 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=1284

Like last year’s D6 conference, this year’s D7 has had its share of memorable lines. A selection of some of the better ones below:

“He drew arrows everywhere. It looked like a Dilbert cartoon.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the org chart that company co-founder Jerry Yang drew for her while wooing her for the CEO job

“Unless you are selling porn, and weird porn, it’s not worth going the subscription route.”

– Arianna Huffington, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

“There’s always going to be someone trying to rush the fat kid to the head of the buffet.”

– Mark Cuban on a potential bandwidth crisis

“We should have named it ‘BOOM!’”

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggests an alternative Steve Jobs-esque name for Bing

“The Pre eats iPhones for breakfast.”

– Roger McNamee jokes about the Pre’s prowess

“People in the music industry, we’ve had a horrible record of shooting ourselves in the head.”

– Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff states the obvious

“I’ve always said that if we described Twitter in three sentences, the first two would be about not putting too much fidelity on it, and the last sentence would be ‘we don’t know.’”

– Twitter co-founder Biz Stone

“You can’t take nine women and make a baby in the month; there is a process.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz

“Down 15 percent is the new flat. I mean, isn’t it? C’mon.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the econalypse

“It is a product that has changed the face of wireless communications.”

– AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson makes obeisance to the Apple iPhone

“Would I like to see the [Palm] Pre on our network some day? Of course I would.”

– AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

“Do you want me to say something naughty now?”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to Kara Swisher

“Are you leading up to ‘I’m too old and too stupid to know what the Internet is?’ Cause by the way, Walt is 61 and I’m only 60. So… f— you.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz brings down the house with the f-bomb

“They’d have to have big boatloads of money.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz names Yahoo’s selling price to Microsoft

“I don’t see the benefits of a tablet over a notebook.”

– RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis

“That was pretty cool.”

– Walt Mossberg reviews the unreleased Nokia N97 from the D7 stage

“The people who fired you [from AOL] were later fired, so that must feel great.”

– Kara Swisher to Jon Miller, chief digital officer of News Corp.

“I’m sorry we’re starting late. Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room.”

– Kara Swisher

“I wouldn’t have bought it.”

– Mark Cuban on YouTube

“‘First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots.’ That’s where we are on the Internet.”

– Mark Cuban quotes Warren Buffet

“We just want everyone to get along.”

– Twitter co-founder Evan Williams on claims that the company will someday kill Google

“When someone in the government wants you, it’s not a good place to be. You don’t want to be someone’s skin on the wall.”

– Mark Cuban on his legal problems

“So what have you been up to besides dancing and fighting the government?”

– Kara Swisher to Mark Cuban

“We need companies to say, ‘this matters.’”

– Activist Eve Ensler calls for rape-free cell phones

“We like to call them minicomputers.”

– Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo renames the smartphone

“The discussion we need to have is about saving journalism, not saving newspapers.”

– Arianna Huffington, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

“You are so lucky I wasn’t born in this country!”

– Arianna Huffington, on running for president

“We’d like to be the most-watched TV network. We don’t have to be.”

– NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker on ratings

“If you were a business picking a space in which to compete, you wouldn’t pick one with Microsoft, Apple and Google.”

– Mozilla chairman Mitchell Baker

“Steve,

Forget it

Won’t help

Ha

Carol”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz‘s note to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

“It’s aimed at women.”

– Roger McNamee on the Palm Pre’s mirror

“I worked with Steve for many years and learned a tremendous amount from him, the value of user experience and design–taste. I also learned the idea of great marketing.”

– Apple alum and Pre-designer Jon Rubinstein on Steve Jobs

“Most people think of the browser as a pane of glass, they don’t realize that it really effects the way they see the Web.”

– Mozilla CEO John Lilly

“Encarta is an encyclopedia…that is not getting much ongoing investment.”

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the now-defunct Encarta

“It’s not hard, I’ve been watching ‘Green Acres’ for years.”

– Kara Swisher on her imitation of Arianna Huffington’s accent

“You’re now where Google’s “don’t-be-evil” bulldozer is heading.”

– Walt Mossberg to Mozilla execs John Lilly and Mitchell Baker

“I like Chrome.”

– Mozilla CEO John Lilly reviews Google’s new browser

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090529/my-lyrical-technique-will-leave-your-body-weak-d7-in-quotes/feed/ 0