Live Blog

• After another song from Jill Sobule and some introductory remarks, Walt welcomes Steve Ballmer to the stage. He’s drinking a massive iced-coffee, as if he really needs the caffeine …
• Walt kicks things off with a question about the souring economy. Ballmer’s opinion of it is apparently more sober than most. Ballmer says this is a “different recession. A recession implies that you sort of go down and go up. In this case, I think this is money that’s just got to come out of the economy….We’re really resetting the economy. Maybe we should think of today as normal and yesterday as the bluebird.” So how long will this continue, asks Walt. Ballmer says to think things will return to the good old days quickly is naive….“Is this a 50-year phenomenon? I don’t think so. But it’s not going to be over in three months, either.”
• So how does this affect your business? Ballmer says Microsoft (MSFT) is doing a lot of soul-searching and flattening out its business and cost base. “We’re shaking up the future product investment stream.” That said, he notes that the company continues to invest aggressively in R&D. “We’re investing in areas where there’s room for improvement.” Interesting euphemism.
• Referring to poll data, Walt notes Microsoft’s paltry share of the search market. “There’s a lot of distance between you and Google,” he says. “Is search the most important thing to you as CEO or are you more concerned with Windows, etc.?” “Our foremost concern is great people,” says Ballmer. “I spend more of my time on talent than trying to be ‘the search guy.’” He refers to Microsoft’s “seven big things.” What are they? “I’ve got seven children, I love,” says Ballmer, referring to Microsoft’s various businesses. “Look, we’re obviously where we are in search and we want to do better….We’re hoping to be one of the companies that moves the industry forward….The PC business continues to be big, we’re going through an economic reset, but there’s still vibrance there.”

• Ha. Walt convinces Ballmer to refer to Google (GOOG) as Google, rather than “the market leader” as he has in years past. “Goo… Google,” he says.
• Walt refers to another slide about search–how consumers choose search. He notes that most choose search out of habit and because of the brand. Given that, how can Microsoft compete? We’re about to find out apparently. But first a video…
• It’s a “Star Trek” parody– “Search: the final frontier. To boldly go where someone had gone before.” “A bold search for a new name.” Video runs over Microsoft’s chronic renaming of its search engine.
• And there it is: the new name is “Bing.”

• Referring to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, Ballmer jokes that the name might have been Boom–“We should have named it ‘BOOM!’”
• Why Bing? Obviously we needed a better name, says Ballmer. “We needed a name that says this is all about search.” Ballmer doesn’t seem to really know. “I’m not the creative guy, here…short mattered…people like to ‘verb up’…works globally, doesn’t have negative connotations.” Walt: So everyone is going to walk out of here and say “Bing me”? Clearly that’s Ballmer’s hope. “This is a very important step…it’s not a substitute for innovation, but we need to build brand equity in addition to technology equity.”
• Was securing the trademark problematic? Ballmer says there were a few challenges. Bing Crosby, apparently, was not an issue. In any case, Ballmer seems to enjoy saying the word of his new search service. Maybe Microsoft should consider a new name for Zune. “Zing”?
• Ballmer brings out Yusuf Mehdi to demo Bing. It’s going live on June 3. From a UI perspective, it’s a box and a button format with screensaver-esque background. Demoing basic Web searches. Best Match denotes an official or definitive site–the site we know to be authoritative. Instant Answer–answers to obvious questions delivered along with search returns; a search for Oscars immediately returns a result for who won an Academy Award. A search for UPS (UPS) automatically returns a customer service number at the top of the page. Walt asks to search on “Microsoft.” Much laughter, but the search return does feature a customer service number.
• Bing also returns real-time flight data. Handy. Mehdi notes that Bing includes the technology Microsoft acquired when it purchased Powerset. Using it to “understand” pages, mine data. Walt notes that returns from Encarta, Microsoft’s now-defunct encyclopedia, appear along with material from Wikipedia. “Encarta? What’s that?” he jokes. Ballmer chuckles: “Encarta is an encyclopedia…that is not getting much ongoing investment.”

• Demoing media searches now. Video searches pull up a nice screen of thumbnails that play in the search pane when clicked. On to weather. Bing gives a full five-day forecast, as opposed to what Google offers–a single day, I think. Search for a city returns, weather, events, sports games, video mentions of the area.
• On to shopping. A search for a Canon (CAJ) camera returns a hybrid search shopping page. Price comparisons, user reviews. Also, Cashback, which rewards people for purchases made through the site. Here’s a nice feature: Farecast. Flight search–issues a query across airlines by price, hops, etc. Also tracks flight pricing trends. Tells you if your fare is likely to go up.
• Bing seems to be designed specifically to keep people on its search pages as opposed to sending them off to other sites. Is that what Microsoft is trying to do? Won’t this annoy content owners? Ballmer says no and adds that content deals are possible. “We’re not trying to get in the way of copyright holders,” he says. “If value should be redivided somehow between content providers, advertisers and search engines, let’s have that conversation….We’re not trying to profit off of anyone else’s work.”
• Recalling Ask’s big redesign and it’s subsequent rise and fall, Walt asks if the same thing might happen to Bing. “No,” says Ballmer. Bing is too tremendous a stride. It differentiates itself from Google. It might not appeal to everyone, but if it appeals to 20 percent of them, that’s a success. Ask wasn’t able to do that.
• Ballmer: “Search has not been a dynamic category in terms of innovation.”
• Not at Microsoft, anyway …

• Walt circles back and notes that Ask spent an enormous amount of money on a rebranding campaign that ultimately failed despite some good buzz. How much money is Microsoft dedicating to the Bing branding campaign? “Lots,” says Ballmer. “When I approved the budget, I gulped, and a gulp in a $60 billion company, well, that’s a big gulp.”
• Walt asks Ballmer about the overhaul of Windows and how important it is in an era when we’re moving to cloud-based services and from PCs to netbooks and mobile devices. Ballmer seems puzzled by the question. Smartphones are PCs. Netbooks are PCS. “The Web is designed for the PC….Most of these mobile apps are substituting for the fact that the original app wasn’t designed for the PC,” he says.
• Walt refers to some survey data again. Notes that many consumers say they don’t plan to purchase a netbook in the near future. How do you interpret that? Ballmer: “I just think netbook is a funny brand….What is a netbook? Is it defined by its operating system, its memory, its screen size? They’re really just PCs. I bet if you asked people if they planned to buy a portable computer you’d get a much better response….It’s a little hard to know what the heck the difference is between the netbook and the PC.”
• Walt: Windows 7 is on track? Ballmer: “I’m not sure what ‘track’ it is, but whatever it is, it’s on it.”
• On to the Q&A. First question: How is Microsoft going to convince users to learn the new Windows 7 and Office UI? Ballmer says change is difficult. Notes that he hates whenever The Wall Street Journal changes its format. He says Microsoft’s internal testing has determined that the changes the company has made to the OS and Office suite are good ones that will be embraced. That said, there will always be some difficulties.
• Questioner asks about natural-language search, wondering how Bing would deal with a search for a Hilton hotel in Paris, when there’s the possibility that it might return a list of results for Paris Hilton. He asks for a demo, but Ballmer declines. He can try it for himself on June 3.
• Question about Microsoft’s efforts in the medical arena. Ballmer: “Health’s a tough business. People who make IT decisions in the medical industry don’t make them quickly.” That said, Microsoft is “full speed ahead” in the area.
• How is Microsoft differentiating sponsored searches in Bing? Cashback is obviously differentiated, Ballmer says. Paid side is tougher though.
• Final question from Walt: Does Bing mean that your interest in Yahoo (YHOO) is waning? Ballmer jokingly recites the standard bullet points. “I think there’s a lot that can make sense in terms of a search partnership, not an acquisition,” he says in a monotone. “Whether such a thing will happen I don’t know.” Walt presses him further about a meeting between Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. Ballmer jokes that the meeting was actually a note that Bartz left for him in the Green Room. According to Ballmer, it read: “The makeup couldn’t fix me if it tried.”
• Quick update: we managed to get our hands on the actual note: It was left next to the makeup in the Green Room and reads:

Steve,

Forget it

Won’t help

Ha

Carol

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

http://allthingsd.com/20090527/randall-stephenson/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/randall-stephenson/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 15:17:09 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=223

Randall Stephenson is just two years into his tenure as CEO of AT&T (T) but he faces challenges that have been decades in the making. Among them: remaking AT&T amid the steady decline of its landline business, future-proofing its business as our appetites for bandwidth grow, competing with the likes of Comcast (CMCSA) in the cable TV market and fending off the proponents of Net neutrality, who don’t care much for the idea of a two-tiered Internet.

Beyond this there is the issue of continuing to build out AT&T’s wireless business, which–if not iPhone-dependent–is certainly nursing a hell of a habit. In its fourth-quarter AT&T added 2.1 million wireless subscribers. 1.9 million of them were iPhone accounts. Astonishing. But AT&T’s exclusive deal to peddle the Apple iPhone in the U.S. expires next year. The company is obviously eager for an extension. But what is it willing to do to get it?

Incidentally, we had a fairly big announcement from AT&T this morning. The company said it is upgrading to High Speed Packet Access 7.2 technology. That means considerably faster mobile broadband speeds. The upgrade is slated to begin later this year, with completion expected in 2011.

Session Highlights

Live Blog

• After some brief introductory remarks from Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson, who jokes about implementing an 18-second delay for expletive-fond Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, and a welcome song from Jill Sobule, Walt welcomes Randall Stephenson to the stage and the second day of D7 begins.
• For a first question, Walt, referring to poll data, asks Stephenson why some folks might not be interested in buying an Apple iPhone because of AT&T. Stephenson notes that AT&T is improving network quality and reducing churn.
• Walt says he gets frequent reader mail complaining about AT&T service coverage. Stephenson says the company is way down the road in terms of the level of data traffic on the networks. Behavior changes radically. He says AT&T is a year ahead of other carriers in terms of network management, managing the volume and behavioral changes from adoption of new devices.
• Walt: Let’s talk for a moment about the iPhone. It’s a data-intensive device. You weren’t ready when you first launched the iPhone 3G. What happened? Stephenson says the company wasn’t quite ready. “But we’re improving.”
• Walt asks the audience how many people use AT&T. Many hands raised. How many had it before the iPhone? A fair bit. How many are satisfied with the service? Also a fair bit. Clearly, AT&T’s service must be getting better.
• The level of data volumes we are seeing on our networks is changing customer behavior dramatically, says Stephenson. This is challenging, but the company is addressing it.

• Walt: If we project out farther past the iPhone, are the mobile networks we have going to be able to handle these new data-intensive devices? Stephenson: The answer is clearly no. That’s why we’re buying more spectrum and moving toward LTE. What’s so good about LTE? Speed levels of 20 megs plus, for one, says Stephenson, who admits that real-world performance will be somewhat less than that.
• Stephenson says AT&T is more than doubling the theoretical speed of the network. Does this mean the speed of our handsets will also double, asks Walt. Not on current handsets. But on future ones, which will all be backward-compatible.
• When you upgrade the network to 7.2 will it have any negative impact on the network as data demands grow, asks Walt. Stephenson says no. “It’s all network management….We’ll have a whole new capacity.”
• Walt: In a world where both you and Verizon (VZ) go to LTE, will I be able to take my handset and switch to Verizon’s network? Stephenson says the LTE standard is consistent and should permit that.
• The conversation shifts to Wi-Fi. Walt asks about AT&T’s Wayport efforts. “When we look at the world today and the world of the future, the fixed-line bandwidth requirements are not slowing. Then you move to the wireless broadband world, where bandwidth requirements are not slowing either. You need a bridge between the two.” That bridge is WiFi, adds Stephenson, noting that the company sees extraordinary WiFi usage among it smartphone users.
• Stephenson talks for a moment about automatic authentication and says AT&T is working to implement it. “The current system is kludgey. People want it seamless.”
• Walt asks about the company’s broadband business. Stephenson says it’s doing well. Notes that it is doing nearly as well as Verizon’s FIOS business.

• Walt asks how the economy is affecting AT&T’s various businesses and the advance of the company’s capital spending plans. Stephenson says the board business has obviously been affected. Business is slowing especially in enterprise and the consumer phone business. Interestingly enough, people are more apt to disconnect the home phones than they are broadband. So AT&T continues to aggressively invest in mobile apps and in wireless infrastructure. He notes that the company is really pushing hard to build out its U-verse network. “I’ve been through a few of these recessions in my 20 years in this business, and it will turn. So you must continue to invest and prepare for the day when it does.”
• What about competitors? What are they doing? In wireless, says Stephenson, competitors also investing. A lot of capital is coming into the wireless business. In broadband, cable guys have not slowed down. Telecom structurally in a good place. Regulatory structure continues to bring in capital.
• Back to the issue of the iPhone. Was it worth it to sign the deal with Apple (AAPL)? How has it worked out? “It’s worked out terrific. We have no complaints.” He notes that the company incurred dilution, but has benefited by getting the premier customer in the space–one with high data usage and low churn. “I’m very pleased with the deal.”
• Walt asks if the company has suffered from the iPhone’s fixed data charges. It’s not a variable charge. How does that offset the dilution that AT&T has to pay? We made a bet, says Stephenson, that the industry was heading toward smartphones, and that was a good bet. Now we’re seeing dramatic uptakes in usage, so the pricing model must change. And it will change. The market will dictate that change more than anything else. But right now the economics of the iPhone are very good for us.
• Walt: Have you ever called Steve Jobs and just asked him to put a keyboard on the iPhone? Stephenson chuckles. No. “If Steve wants to put a keyboard on the iPhone, I’m sure he will.”
• Walt: Are all these new operating systems arriving at market problematic for AT&T? The iPhone, Palm’s (PALM) WebOS, Android? Would it be easier if there were fewer platforms? Stephenson: Do I want to see fewer platforms? Yes, it’s better for my business. Will I see fewer platforms? I don’t think so. So we need to take advantage of it and use it as an opportunity.

• What about the Palm Pre? “Would I like to see the Pre on our network some day? Of course I would,” says Stephenson. “We obviously talk to all the handset manufacturers. We want a broad selection of devices in the lineup. That’s important. Devices right now are what’s driving the customer adoption as much as anything.”
• Stephenson says he’s seeing dramatic uptakes in data usage. Pricing models will change over time, he says. How it changes will depend who you are. He notes that costs are variable in wireless–every new bit has a direct cost tied to it, unlike wireline business. AT&T margins are 40 percent-plus in Q1 on wireless business.
• Walt: Can you foresee a day when you’re not running retail stores? Why do you want to run stores when you’re really a network company? Stephenson says distribution is changing. But a retail presence is always going to very important, and I always want to have a part of that.
• Moving on to the Q&A: How do you transform wireline customers into wireless and broadband customers? Integration is very important, says Stephenson. If you already have AT&T Wireless, it’s a natural step to add broadband and even wireline if it’s offered as a bundle.
• Why can’t we have data roaming on LTE from the beginning and avoid the mistakes of the 3G networks? Stephenson says the LTE network will have similar roaming agreements as those on the current networks. “It’s in all our best interests.” The industry always evolves to a point where broader coverage is needed and these agreements become necessary. You’ll see that with LTE as well.
• Question about SlingBox on 3G network being rejected: Who decided that? Stephenson says that terms of service agreement for the customer do not allow customers to move live stream video over the wireless platform. Not like the fixed line side. If you start congesting network with data, voice quality goes down. We have to maintain some quality, so it’s not allowed under terms of service.
• Responding to a question on warrantlessly providing data about customers to the government, Stephenson says AT&T will act within the law in all regards to customer information and privacy. “We will comply with the law, absolutely,” he says.

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090527/randall-stephenson/feed/ 13 http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-jill-sobules-morning-voice/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-jill-sobules-morning-voice/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 14:40:34 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=812 Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule took the stage this morning to start Day 2 off on a musical note. No more songs about Rupert Murdoch (yet) but she promises to sing about the end of the world tomorrow.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-jill-sobules-morning-voice/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d7-video-singer-jill-sobule-serenades-rupert-murdoch/ http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d7-video-singer-jill-sobule-serenades-rupert-murdoch/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 01:33:44 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=602 At last year’s D6 Conference, singer/songwriter Jill Sobule was introduced to media mogul Rupert Murdoch–and apparently, he made quite an impression. To commemorate the occasion, Jill composed a song about their meeting and performed it from the stage to kick off D7.

Here are a few photos from Jill serenading Rupert Murdoch:

• Jill Sobule.
• Kara and Jill #1.
• Kara and Jill #2.
• Crowd applauds Sobule.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090526/d7-video-singer-jill-sobule-serenades-rupert-murdoch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090413/jill-sobules-internet-funded-album-california-years-debuts-tomorrow/ http://allthingsd.com/20090413/jill-sobules-internet-funded-album-california-years-debuts-tomorrow/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:01:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=12145

We consider Jill Sobule to be the musical muse of ATD–which we desperately need since we are obviously way, way too jacked into the matrix.

That’s precisely why we have the gifted singer-songwriter appear annually at our D: All Things Digital conference–to kick off each day’s sessions with one of her songs and, more to the point, add a lot of much-needed levity and nontechie soul to the proceedings.

And tomorrow, Sobule’s Internet-funded album, “California Years,” produced by the legendary Don Was, debuts. I urge everyone to click the link here and get a copy–online, of course.

And by Internet-funded, I mean that the $75,000 needed to produce the album was raised entirely through an innovative Web initiative Sobule ginned up in late 2007 via a site called Jill’s Next Record.

Sobule wrote about the effort several times in our Voices section, where you can read about her asking for ideas here, launching her fund-raising site here and, finally, talking about the result here.

Sobule (pictured here in cartoon form)–whose big mainstream hit a few years ago was a much-better-than-hopelessly-dopey-Katy-Perry “I Kissed a Girl”–had worked her way through four record labels (she was dropped by two and two went belly-up) with six CDs.

Sick and tired of the way musical artists had their work funded, she essentially asked her fans to become her record label, writing on her site: “It would be a sort of patronage thing, where you guys are the Medici family, except I give you prizes for donations of certain amounts.”

The $1,000 “platinum” level, for example, got the donor a theme song and the $5,000 “diamond” level got a house concert by Sobule.

And what her fans are getting now in the completed album is superb–a sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always moving work. (My young sons cannot stop singing her perfect song, “San Francisco,” for example.)

As Sobule writes:

“‘California Years’ was written over the last three years, following my move to the West Coast. It was influenced by the sights and sounds of the Golden State, especially the seductive, but not always sunny Los Angeles. Maybe the next record will be ‘The Utah Month’ or ‘Back to Brooklyn.’

“The whole thing was made possible by a small but mighty fan base. They gave me the love, encouragement and the dough to do this. I was truly surprised and so very grateful. This record is for them.”

Let’s cheer on efforts like Sobule’s and hope for a hit. Because hers is indeed a small but mighty effort, as all kinds of content creators try to figure out businesses in the new digital age, unafraid of the changes inevitably coming (AP might want to take notes about this).

Here is Sobule in a long interview on NPR last week (which you cannot embed, bad NPR!) and another video below on CNN about her digital project:

And here are two videos I did with her about the effort. The first has one of the songs on the new album, called “Nothing to Prove,” and the other an update on what she wants to do next, digitally and musically speaking:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090413/jill-sobules-internet-funded-album-california-years-debuts-tomorrow/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090213/happy-valentines-day-a-geek-love-poem/ http://allthingsd.com/20090213/happy-valentines-day-a-geek-love-poem/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:00:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9713 Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, of course, so here’s a lovely sentiment on a T-shirt from the fine folks at ThinkGeek.

(BoomTown is still in an Elmer’s glue coma from making 252 handmade cards with 33 pounds of glitter, which my sons’ school insists on instead of the store-bought kind from Walgreens that I prefer.)

In any case, big, sloppy hugs all around to the readers of All Things Digital–except for those who know just who they are.

But to make up, please don’t think sending a romantic Twitter to us or one of those dumb digital virtual gifts of silly-looking little animals and baked goods on Facebook is going to cut it.

That’s right, you need to send a whole email to show that you really care! And maybe an iTunes gift certificate for Jill Sobule’s fabulous new “California Years” record too (I am wearing out my advanced copy, but it is officially out in April, including the apt song, “Bloody Valentine”).

Also a Tesla.

After all, love is bling.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090213/happy-valentines-day-a-geek-love-poem/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20081231/memo-to-all-crepe-hangers-its-still-aint-nobodys-business-if-jobs-is-or-isn%e2%80%99t/ http://allthingsd.com/20081231/memo-to-all-crepe-hangers-its-still-aint-nobodys-business-if-jobs-is-or-isn%e2%80%99t/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:00:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8025

Now, it’s getting flat-out macabre.

That would be the continuing swirl of attention the health of Apple icon Steve Jobs has been getting.

Rumors of his impending demise have been popping up periodically since the too-thin crisis of the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and look like they won’t stop until it actually comes true.

My grandmother used to have a perfect rejoinder for this kind of funeral-chasing behavior, which was prevalent among her gang of Italian sisters, who–whenever anyone caught a cold–predicted the worst outcome: “Don’t be a crepe-hanger.”

This time, more rumors surfaced yesterday in Gizmodo, curiously, a week before the Macworld at which he is famously not appearing. The site used a single–yes, that’s right–source saying his illness and not Apple’s business troubles with the conference’s organizer, IDG, was the reason for his pull-out.

The rumor, of course, sent Apple (AAPL) shares into a tailspin for the day, before others–such as CNBC’s Jim Goldman–posted just-as-strong refutations of the Jobs-Is-On-His-Last-Legs stories.

Blogger Robert Scoble even talked to a worker at a yogurt store that Jobs frequents and got a health report (good!).

Oh, dear–yogurt workers as medical experts? What’s next? Brain surgery consultation from the Starbucks barista? This is what we’ve descended to?

It has to stop, because the fact of the matter is that Jobs’s health is still nobody’s business, as it has not been throughout this bizarre obsession with one man’s personal issues.

In a post in late July, the last time this issue surged, I wrote:

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations from stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Why?

Well, any Apple investor has to know by now that Jobs suffered from a rather serious bout with a curable version of pancreatic cancer some years ago and that recovery includes inevitable complications.”

And, indeed, the only decent argument you can make to focus so intently on Jobs’s health of any relevance is the impact on Apple company stock, which is self-righteously trotted out each time these specious reports emerge.

The thing is, a lot of companies have been run by execs with health issues (and countries too–VP Dick Cheney’s ticker has been misfiring for a long time now, for example, and he still seems to have been running the show with a verve we wish he perhaps did not have so much of now).

But, to be fair, I will acknowledge the issue. But if anyone does not get that Apple’s CEO has health issues by now, they are ignorant in the extreme. The situation should be baked into the stock price.

In addition, Apple is run by a lot of other competent people besides Jobs and they too are part of its success. Here’s a news flash–Steve Jobs does not conceive, manufacture and wrap every iPhone and iPod.

That is the kind of mythology that has, of course, been propagated a lot by Apple and it is–like a lot of things–a bit true in a bigger concept.

But, as I recently said, when Jobs inevitably leaves the company, probably on his own two feet in retirement, the Cupertino HQ will not suddenly be taken up to the skies as if it were the rapture.

Maybe the yogurt shop guy knows about when that’s going to happen.

Speaking of rapture, here’s singer Jill Sobule singing about that at a recent D: All Things Digital conference.

And, in a second video, she sings perfectly about how we should behave when it comes to what is inevitable for us all. People riveted by Jobs’s fate might do well to take her sage advice.

Here are the videos:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081231/memo-to-all-crepe-hangers-its-still-aint-nobodys-business-if-jobs-is-or-isn%e2%80%99t/feed/ 20 http://allthingsd.com/20080822/so-what-do-i-know-now-part-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20080822/so-what-do-i-know-now-part-2/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:17:33 +0000 Jill Sobule http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=3002 Last year, here on the Voices blog, I asked you all for your thoughts on how to finance and put out my next record. I got some swell advice, as well as some good wishes. Many agreed that the patronage system–asking fans to donate money–was a promising idea.

Well, I did it! I put up a Web site called jillsnextrecord.com, and within two months I reached my target figure of $75,000.

I really had no idea if I would make it, or end up embarrassed with just my mom donating at the “polished rock level.” By the way, the polished rock level (free early download) was $10. But you could donate all the way up to “weapons-grade plutonium” ($10,000), where you get to sing a duet with me. One businesswoman from the United Kingdom, named Jo Pottinger, flew in last month to sing and, honestly, did a bang-up job.

So, how have I spent my money so far? Well, I got production help from my pal Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt). He got me a great rate at the old A&M studios (where Carole King did “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell did “Blue” and where so many of my favorites recorded). Normally, I would never be able to afford to record there.

He also hooked me up with some of my favorite old-time session players, like Jim Keltner, who played on all those Beatles solo records. We recorded old-school and played live with not much overdubbing–and that includes the vocals.

I wanted to have the energy and looseness of some of my favorite childhood records, before everything got so quantized and auto-tuned. And because of that, we did it really fast.

Oh, I have also booked a day where I will sing and play guitar on 10 songs to a click track. My idea is to release it with the audio files so that people (pro or amateur) can put the tracks on their garage band or pro-tools and mix, produce and deconstruct the songs as they see fit. Thinking of having a contest for the best production.

Dave Carpenter, Jill Sobule, and Don Was

So, now that I have spent a little more than half my budget on recording, plus another $10,000 on various stuff (donation prizes, Webmaster fees, the PayPal percentage, iPhone apps), I have around $25,000 left to play with.

I still don’t want to license the record to any of the labels. But now I have to figure out how to do all the things they traditionally do (distribution, marketing, publicity) and take advantage of the opportunities with new media (which they have not been so great at).

There have been more than a few companies that have come to me with their new paradigms for how to make money in this digital age–mostly how they can make money. I am trying to look at all of them (some do sound sort of promising and intriguing).

Oh, and I still want to have hard copies available too–I have a friend who will make a mini graphic novel that would include two pages for every story (song).

So here I am, asking you smartypants AllThingsD.com people for ideas. You do seem to know more than most in the “industry.”

By the way, I reopened the Jillsnextrecord site recently, upon request, for those who told me they wanted to donate and have their names in the liner notes (or sung in a song). If any of you are interested–and I’m just saying–it will still be up until we go to the printers in a week or two.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080822/so-what-do-i-know-now-part-2/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080410/microhoo-jesus-is-coming-look-busy/ http://allthingsd.com/20080410/microhoo-jesus-is-coming-look-busy/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:50:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080410/microhoo-jesus-is-coming-look-busy/

Everybody remain calm.

While it might have looked like it was the rapture for major Internet players yesterday–what with everyone and his mother getting sucked up into the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover tussle and disappearing into the ether of confusion that now reigns over the situation–it is best to keep moving toward the light of harsh reality for illumination.

And the reality in three parts, addressing the trifecta of big news yesterday, is:

I DO NOT LIKE MONOPOLIES, I DO NOT LIKE THEM, JERRY-I-AM

Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) will not and, more importantly, cannot make any significant search-ad deal in any way longer than the two-week test they announced to terrific fanfare yesterday.

It is a regulatory no-no of such an obvious nature, that Microsoft (MSFT) has to prove almost nothing to win on the merits of the fact that Google dominates the arena with such power that it cannot be linked with anyone else.

But it is a nice image of one Silicon Valley company coming to the rescue of another, helping to show how Yahoo could be better monetized and, therefore, be worth more.

(Although irony-alert: Outside of Yahoo’s own self-inflicted wounds, it is Google that is most responsible for knocking Yahoo’s teeth out in the search and search ad game.)

So, any further hook-up between the two seems sure to become the Justice Department Lawyer Employment Act of 2008, the likes of which we have not seen since Microsoft got its turn at being deservedly whacked for being a monopolist back in the last century.

Let’s face it, outside of those who cannot seem to shake the annoying Kumbaya mentality over at Google, a Yahoo-Google partnership is simply fantastical, like some out-of-control Dr. Seuss ditty.

They could not, would not with a goat. They would not, could not on a boat. They will not share an algorithm, they will not, will not, Jerry-I-Am.

TROUBLE AHEAD, TROUBLE BEHIND

In a post I did just before the heating up of the AOL-Yahoo talks was reported yesterday, I had written:

“Yahoo is still ferreting away with execs from Time Warner and its AOL unit–you know, that rat’s-nest of a deal in which AOL, Time Warner investment dollars and, oh, some old fishing rod of former exec Don Logan’s is thrown into Yahoo for a 20% stake, along with perhaps a dollop of Google involvement for added complexity.”

And, maybe it is just me, or–except for the fine fishing rod–is anyone else a little worried about the potential disaster of an AOL-Yahoo mashup?

As someone who wrote two–count ‘em, two!–books on AOL, including a very detailed narrative of the horrific AOL merger with Time Warner (TWX) a few years back, a union from which both sides have never adequately recovered, I am plenty worried.

From a Time Warner perspective, I get it. It allows the company to unload the lodestone of AOL from around its neck and finally give it some value.

I might point out that Time Warner had ample opportunity to so do over the years (more on that, tomorrow!).

And its inability to make much of the online unit must be disappointing to its new CEO Jeff Bewkes, who hated the original AOL merger more than most.

While Time Warner and AOL like to point to the success of Advertising.com, and there are some various bright spots here and there (Truveo, TMZ, Userplane), its online ad business is still not dominant enough and other parts woefully behind the efforts of others.

And its recent $850 million cash purchase of the very nice, but distant-third Bebo social-networking site reeked of desperation rather than the aspiration it was meant to be. With MySpace and Facebook battling for the big numbers, only help from a large traffic site like Yahoo might work.

That’s not to say that some of its deeply underutilized assets, like AIM, would not be a good add to Yahoo. But the benefit to Yahoo–except as a way to try to escape from or shake down Microsoft for more money–seems negligible.

Lastly, given that it would be a stock transaction without the need for a shareholder vote, I cannot imagine that a large number of them would not freak out at the uncertainty of an AOL-Yahoo merger versus a solid number from Microsoft.

RUPE-A-DOPE

How jaw-dropping are the rascally wiles of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. (owner of this site)?

First, he cozies up to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang like a White Knight, but gets caught up in the fact that Yahoo does not want him to have too much power.

Then, Murdoch heads on up to Redmond to play footsie with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, intrigued by the possibility of offloading MySpace and getting a better trade for it.

You just know he’s going to end up with the whole thing and Yang and Ballmer will be left scratching their heads over what just happened.

But, seriously, I am not entirely clear why Microsoft is also adding this level of complexity, even if it would give it a partner to add more money and assets to the deal.

I get the addition of MySpace might be nice. And so would some investment dollars from News Corp. (NWS).

And, most of all, I see how delicious it might be for Microsoft to be able to fire Google as News Corp.’s ad partner for MySpace (a firing, I suspect, Google might actually welcome, given its public complaints about the difficulty of monetizing social networking).

But I am not sure why Microsoft won’t just man-up and fork over a few more dollars to its original offer, which would end this circus pretty quickly.

My guess is that the deal-making fervor has gone to its head and it cannot just be seen as giving in to Yahoo’s exertions to show it really, truly could be worth more.

Ballmer should just deliver that need from Yahoo and do the deal.

And, for good measure, he might just consult Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

GETTING READY FOR THE RAPTURE

Finally, for those who want to rock out on the rapture, here is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, singing about it onstage at D5 last May:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080410/microhoo-jesus-is-coming-look-busy/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20070831/no-sacred-cow-vision-quest-day-45-yahoos-and-ex-yahoos-speak/ http://allthingsd.com/20070831/no-sacred-cow-vision-quest-day-45-yahoos-and-ex-yahoos-speak/#comments Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:05:57 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070831/yahoos-and-ex-yahoos-speak/ Our email box was full today with missives from Yahoos, ex-Yahoos and others, all of whom wanted to weigh in on the latest changes at the company.

All are insightful (and some are even funny, too).

No one is identified, but here are some of my favorite observations, since most of them say it better than I ever could.

No Experience Necessary

(I added the names in parentheses.)

Now we’ve got a CEO who has never been CEO before (Jerry Yang). A COO with limited operations experience (Sue Decker). A CFO who has never been a CFO in his life (Blake Jorgensen) and an EVP of ad sales with no sales experience (Hilary Schneider). Next, I think we’ll hire a CTO who is well versed in arts and culture with no prior tech experience. (Still a mystery.)”

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

I read your latest post and even though I am not at Yahoo anymore, I am going to go outside and use my newest gift to myself, my margarita blender, get brain freeze from too much ice being consumed too quickly, and try to get the confusion of their reorg out of my mind!

“If I was working at Yahoo reading this, I would not know what I am supposed to do tomorrow when I come back into the office! Therefore, I would instead go home tonight, get out my list of headhunters and start sending out the next stack of resumes I did not send out over the weekend!”

Will Work for Free

I’d actually like to be a Yahoo! As would many other people who care. You’d think they’d be looking for the passionate people who’d like to be there. You’d think any of these Internet companies would. But that is a long story.”

Kara Is Hilarious

The Yahoo posts were laugh-out-loud funny, but your coolness factor just went way up for having Jill Sobule at your house!”

Kara Is Mean

You are downright nasty…hard to believe you worked for The WSJ and not the NY Post. Maybe it’s time to lay off for a while? You must be able to write something more intellectually interesting.”

Note to that emailer above: More intellectually interesting than corporate high jinks? I think not!

And given the recent events at Dow Jones, what with our pending acquisition by News Corp., BoomTown and Page Six are about to be related by marriage. So we’re The WSJ and the NY Post!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070831/no-sacred-cow-vision-quest-day-45-yahoos-and-ex-yahoos-speak/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070823/jill-sobule-in-san-francisco/ http://allthingsd.com/20070823/jill-sobule-in-san-francisco/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:34:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070823/jill-sobule-in-san-francisco/ For those who enjoyed Jill Sobule singing onstage at D5, the witty singer-songwriter who has graced many tech conference stages will be at the Red Devil Lounge this Sunday in San Francisco.

If you need an inkling of what a talent she is, here are her four performances at D5. Sometimes she is funny, sometimes silly, sometimes deeply poignant (the last video here is a heartbreaker) and always amazing.

Do not miss these videos:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070823/jill-sobule-in-san-francisco/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070531/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-4/ http://allthingsd.com/20070531/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-4/#comments Thu, 31 May 2007 15:35:20 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-4/ Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule performs onstage on the final day of D5 in Carlsbad, Calif.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070531/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-4/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-3/ http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-3/#comments Thu, 31 May 2007 01:24:37 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070531/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-3/ Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule performs onstage at D5 in Carlsbad, Calif.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-3/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-2/#comments Wed, 30 May 2007 15:20:34 +0000 Adam Tow http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-2/ Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule performs onstage at D5 in Carlsbad, Calif.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-1/ http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-1/#comments Wed, 30 May 2007 15:15:30 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-1/ Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule performs onstage at D5 in Carlsbad, Calif.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070530/jill-sobule-performs-at-d5-part-1/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20070528/countdown-to-d-all-things-digital/ http://allthingsd.com/20070528/countdown-to-d-all-things-digital/#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 07:08:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070528/countdown-to-d-all-things-digital/ We’re all in Carlsbad, Calif., now, getting ready for our fifth D: All Things Digital conference, which will begin tomorrow night.

So here’s one of my movies to show you how we prepare for the annual conference, which is highlighted this year by a joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, the twin icons of the tech industry.

We’ll kick off the conference tomorrow night with an interview with Sen. John McCain, who is in the race to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States. We will talk to him about that, as well as the war in Iraq, but also hope to discuss a plethora of digital issues with him. McCain is one of the few politicians who knows a thing or two about the media, telecom and Web sectors.

Other interviewees on Wednesday and Thursday include: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; CBS CEO Les Moonves; News Corp. President Peter Chernin; Cisco CEO John Chambers; former AOL CEO Steve Case, who will talk about his new company, Revolution; famed director and producer George Lucas; Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley; Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom; and space tourist (and former Microsoft exec) Charles Simonyi.

We’ll also have demos from tech players like Palm legend Jeff Hawkins and others. And we are also excited to have singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who will perform several times throughout.

We’ll have full coverage of D5 on our site, starting tomorrow night, including liveblogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, pictures, video excerpts and more.

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