Perhaps one reason VCs don’t want to invest in Pebble is because they fear Apple.

– John Battelle, on the Pebble “smart” watch

Most prominently, Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray called the launch a “bad day for the Internet.” Though obviously his loyalties lie with Twitter, it’s a particularly notable charge given “Amac” was previously a lawyer for Google.

Bad day for the Internet. bit.ly/Am5bqz Having been there, I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way.

— Alex Macgillivray (@amac) January 10, 2012

Macgillivray linked to a blog post by John Battelle (who wrote the book “The Search” about Google) that said, “Ick. Remember when Google used to be a neutral player that crawled the Whole Dern Web? So sad to see that era pass.”

Elsewhere, pro-blogger-turned-VC MG Siegler waved the antitrust flag, while NYU law professor James Grimmelmann wrote, “Today is a good day to turn off Google+ and delete your Google Profile. I just did.”

Alexis Madrigal of the Atlantic added, “I just can’t help but wonder whether Google’s new social mission and the original Google mission will keep coming into conflict. And in the race to protect its flank from Facebook, Google will lose track of why we loved them in the first place.”

Google is now encouraging users to "upgrade to Google+"

When I asked Google yesterday about why it didn’t include services like Facebook and Google in search, Google Fellow Ben Gomes replied, “The key thing here is we only have access to content on Google. We’re open to other types of content, but in order to provide secure and consistent access, we can only provide what’s in Google, where we know the privacy settings and have the relevant graph and signals.”

As for the actual “Search plus Your World” features that Google promised today for English-speaking users of Google.com, they don’t seem to be available yet for many people. However, Google is already promoting the feature on its U.S. home page, and prompting people who click through to “Upgrade to Google+.” (Having a Google+ account isn’t required for the new personal search features, but obviously it enhances the experience.)

Asked for a timetable for the launch, a Google spokesperson said, “It started rolling out this morning and will roll out to everyone over the next couple days.” She did not give an estimate for how many users have the features so far.

Update: Twitter Complains About Google Giving Preference to Google+ Content

Deanna Brown (pictured here) will become CEO of Federated Media Publishing, replacing Founding CEO John Battelle, the online media company said.

Brown was brought in 18 months ago as president and COO, after stints at Yahoo, AOL and Scripps Networks Digital.

Battelle–who will become executive chairman, as well as chief strategy officer–had publicly written about a looking for a successor.

In a statement, Battelle said: “In May of 2009, I posted that I was looking for a partner to help take Federated Media to the next level. During Deanna’s tenure we’ve witnessed some exciting milestones as a team. Today I am thrilled to announce the next stage of our partnership as we continue to grow and evolve as a company.”

Here’s the official press release from the advertising and publishing company:

Federated Media Publishing Promotes Deanna Brown to CEO

Company Closes Strong 2010 and is Slated for Aggressive Growth in 2011

SAN FRANCISCO, February 2, 2011–Federated Media Publishing, the leader in powering the best of the Independent Web at scale, today announced that current president and chief operating officer, Deanna Brown, will take on an expanded role as chief executive officer.

Since joining the company in September 2009, Brown has been instrumental in leading all strategic initiatives for the company including growing revenue, building support for client teams, growing margins, maintaining top talent culture and growing Federated Media’s suite of products and services.

Key milestones during Brown’s tenure include:

· Six consecutive quarters of profitability for the company

· A 62 percent growth in top-line revenue and a 35 percent growth in ad programs

· Investments and acquisitions to help better serve partners, including TextDigger, BigTent, FoodBuzz and Clever Girls

· Continued focus on hiring top level talent to supporting client teams and new product offerings

Federated Media founder and Chairman John Battelle will take on a new role as Executive Chairman of the Federated Media Board of Directors and chief strategy officer. He will continue to focus on providing senior client service, core strategy, and leading Federated Media’s own events.

Battelle and the Federated Media Board of Directors have been planning this move for more than a year as part of plan to best highlight the strengths of both executives and their continued partnership.

For 2011, Federated Media will continue to focus on expertly servicing clients and powering innovation on the Independent Web. The company also plans to continue execution on an aggressive investment strategy that will help to expand client offerings, services and products in key lifestyle, business, technology and trend verticals.

Federated Media Publishing, which recently bought a community platform aimed at parents, announced tonight that it was making another acquisition.

This time, it’s a site called Foodbuzz.

According to the site, which calls itself a “food blog community,” it has exclusive deals to sell advertising for 4,400 independent food bloggers, making it a top food property.

Foodbuzz has raised $1.75 million in funding.
FM declined to give any financial details of what it paid for the San Francisco-based start-up.

FM bought community platform BigTent earlier this month, as it seeks to create large networks of niche content to better sell premium advertising.

In an interview with BoomTown after the BigTent acquisition, FM CEO John Battelle said the move was to further strengthen its tools for both the advertisers and publishers it serves, especially to create better “content conversations.”

Battelle also said that the additions to FM’s offerings are moving it toward helping content makers and advertisers create more relevancy, well beyond simply serving ads.

Here is the official press release from FM:

Federated Media Publishing Acquires Foodbuzz

Combination creates the largest and best collection of independent food bloggers

SAN FRANCISCO–Federated Media Publishing (FM), a media company that powers the best of the independent web, today announced the acquisition of Foodbuzz, the leading online food property.

Exclusive relationships with more than 4,400 independent food bloggers allow Foodbuzz to reach more than 14 million unique users per month. Combined with FM’s premier food sites, including Serious Eats and Bakerella, the new offering is the best way for marketers to engage with top-quality audiences discussing food.

“There’s a reason so many people share recipes, watch their favorite chefs on TV and talk about where they ate last night,” said Deanna Brown, President and Chief Operating Officer of FM. “Food is a universal topic that everyone loves to discuss. With Foodbuzz, FM can invite brands into the very best of those discussions at significant scale.”

“When you look at the innovative display-ad units, content marketing and blogger outreach programs created by both of our companies, this combination is a natural fit,” said Ben Dehan, the Founder and CEO of Foodbuzz, who is joining the senior management team at FM. “The sales teams, product mixes and great bloggers from both FM and FoodBuzz belong together, and we can’t wait to put this new offering in front of the best brands.”

FM’s purchase of Foodbuzz comes on the heels of three other significant transactions:

• The acquisition of BigTent, the leading community platform for local groups, especially groups of parents.

• The acquisition of semantic-search technology from TextDigger.

• A partnership with the Clever Girls Collective to reach audiences on more than 1,000 top-quality lifestyle blogs.

Federated Media, the San Francisco-based advertising and publishing network, has acquired BigTent, a platform hosting more than 15,000 communities, mostly made up of parenting groups, especially moms.

Financial terms of the deal with BigTent, also located in San Francisco, were not disclosed.

BigTent has raised $5 million in venture funding from Menlo Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

In an interview earlier today, FM CEO John Battelle said the move was to further strengthen its tools for both the advertisers and publishers it serves, especially to create better “content conversations.”

Along with leveraging BigTent’s members by linking top brands with the parenting community, the platform could be used by publishers to reach their bases.

This is the second acquisition for FM within several months. In August, it acquired semantic search start-up TextDigger, a platform that allows content owners to include semantic indexing in search.

Battelle said that the additions to FM’s offerings are moving it toward helping content makers and advertisers create more relevancy, well beyond simply serving ads.

“People might look at us as a school of fish, but suddenly realize we are a shark,” said Battelle. “We want to create meaningful interactions on the independent Web.”

The shark metaphor scares me a bit, but it will be interesting to see what FM chomps up next.

Here is the official press release from FM:

Federated Media Publishing Acquires BigTent Platform for Groups

SAN FRANCISCO –Federated Media Publishing (FM), a next-generation media company, today announced the acquisition of BigTent, the leading platform for trusted parenting groups.

More than 8 million parents engage deeply with FM authors, the best independent voices on the Web. Millions more rely on BigTent to stay connected with local school, community and shared-interest groups.

“The combination of our two audiences gives marketers a powerful new way to reach the most valuable consumers online,” said Deanna Brown, President and Chief Operating Officer of FM. “Moms are busy, so they’re picky about where they spend their online time. They read high-quality writing from the best bloggers and they engage with each other in the most useful communities.”

BigTent’s thousands of groups continue to function as they always have, with the same great customer service, and the platform continues to welcome new groups. Each group has its own private, secure social networking environment and a set of tools that save precious time and enrich communities.

“BigTent groups are the social fabric of their communities, and we’re thrilled by the new and better ways we’ll now be able to serve them,” said Laney Whitcanack, the co-founder of BigTent, who is now Chief Community Officer at FM. “With FM, we have a partner who values their voice and is committed to their ongoing support and growth. Working together, we’ll continue to build authentic and meaningful opportunities for major brands to engage with these trusted groups.”

The purchase of BigTent follows FM’s recent expansion of its ability to reach parents online through a partnership with the Clever Girls Collective and the increase in its technical capabilities with the acquisition of semantic-search technology from TextDigger.

As it is described on its Web site, the map (which is the brainchild of Web 2.0 impresario John Battelle) chronicles “these shifting points of control–strategic chokepoints on an increasingly crowded board.”

Indeed, from Facebook to Google (GOOG) to Apple (AAPL) to Twitter and more, it is cheek to jowl these days trying to control the consumer experience.

Here’s a snapshot of the map (click on it to make it larger), which you can see here in its entirety to have fun with.

But while it’s technically possible to use that same technology to Skype with your friends or families or whomever, airlines won’t let you do it.

The reason should be self-evident, but not to Federated Media’s John Battelle. Who apparently does this all the time.

Except on a flight this week, when a United Airlines attendant told him that using Skype in flight is a security violation.

That’s not true. But with the help of the Web–and, apparently, State Department employee Katie J. Stanton–Battelle pieces it together: Airlines ban in-flight video chat because it’s incredibly annoying for everyone who’s not chatting.

Or in Federal Aviation Administration-speak, the airlines are “simply responding to the overwhelming majority of their customers, who prefer silent communications to the public nature of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) calls.”

Battelle insists his Skype chats provoke nothing but “amusement” from his seatmates. But my hunch is that it’s only dumb luck that has kept him from getting pummeled by a fellow passenger to date. That United attendant did him a real favor.

Still, in the past few years, the search giant has started flexing its ad prowess on its own behalf, in limited ways: It has taken out ads to push products like its Chrome browser, its Nexus One smartphone, and even its position in its fight/negotiation with China. All using Google ad products, of course.

So I guess this a natural next step: Google ads advertising Google advertising. Google (GOOG) has at least eight of these YouTube spots, which the company is promoting via banner ads.

I think they’re quite clever. And I’m assuming they’re copyright-compliant–note the licensing note in the “Batman” spot. No need to tangle with the people at Time Warner (TWX) while you’re still locked in a legal battle with Viacom (VIA). I also appreciate the plug for The National, which is indeed a great band.

The only odd thing here is that the “Search on” campaign is  advertising…Google search. Which really doesn’t need a boost.

If anything, you’d think Google would be trying to sell advertisers on its display ads. But perhaps that’s coming, as CEO Eric Schmidt hinted during last week’s earnings call.

Thanks to John Battelle for spotting.

Representing new media, in a discussion over the future of journalism, are Federated Media’s John Battelle; Marissa Mayer, who leads Google’s (GOOG) search services and consumer products like Chrome; and Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times (NYT), and The Wall Street Journal’s top editor, Robert Thomson, stand in for the old guard.

Aggregator sites like Huffington Post and online portals like Yahoo (YHOO) and Google have seen their readership, advertising revenue and influence increase. Meanwhile, traditional-media types have criticized these forces for unfairly leeching their reporting and hurting their business models. We’ll be alert for verbal sparring.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

John Battelle (pictured here), the founder, chairman and CEO of Federated Media Publishing, told his staff this morning that he will begin a search for a new top exec to take the company into its next stage of growth.

Battelle, who is apparently not leaving the San Francisco-based company, wrote that the new exec–whose title could be CEO–would report to him.

In a post on the FM site about the move called “The Start of Something, Again,” he wrote:

“It’s time to take it to the next level. FM is no longer a scrappy startup, and while its leadership team is deep and experienced, we’ve come to the conclusion that to take the company to the place we all know it can go, we need an additional leader on board. So today, I’m announcing that I’m officially launching a search for that position. It used to be you did this in private, but we live in the world of social media, and one of FM’s mores is transparency. I want to honor that value today.

So let me be clear: I am in no way leaving the business. This new leader–the title will depend on the person–will be responsible for running the business–taking all reports and managing to our plan–but he or she will be working very closely with me.”

FM, which sells online advertising for a large group of social-media sites and blogs, raised $50 million in funding a year ago from Oak Investment Partners, giving it a valuation of over $200 million.

The start-up had previously raised about $4.5 million from other investors, including the New York Times, the Omidyar Network and Panorama Capital.

FM reportedly did $40 million in revenue last year and has been cash-flow positive for many years, although the recent economic downturn has impacted its bottom line.

Here is a video interview I did last night with Battelle and others at a dinner he and Tim O’Reilly threw in San Francisco for Silicon Valley movers and shakers, related to the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit that they organize.

He did not mention the exec search at FM, though–instead he talked about the next phase of Web 2.0, which he is now calling “Web Squared.”

No kidding.

Here’s the video–which also includes CBS (CBS) Interactive exec Zander Lurie suggesting a more buxom name for D: All Things Digital:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090515/federated-media-will-search-for-new-leader-says-founder-and-ceo-battelle-plus-a-web-squared-and-double-d-video/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090403/web-20-expo-an-%e2%80%9camerican-idol%e2%80%9d-for-startups/ http://allthingsd.com/20090403/web-20-expo-an-%e2%80%9camerican-idol%e2%80%9d-for-startups/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:13:06 +0000 Marisa Taylor http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=10163 During the “Launch Pad” session, five start-ups took a grilling from developers, journalists and venture capitalists, then faced a crowd vote at the Web 2.0 Expo’s version of “American Idol.”

As attendees texted their votes, moderator John Battelle, founder of Federated Media Publishing, jokingly asked: “Want to have a dance-off?”

None were necessary. The techies in attendance were starry-eyed for all things mobile, picking Nitobi’s PhoneGap, an open-source tool for building mobile apps, as the People’s Choice winner. Life-tracking site zeaLOG was a close second.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090403/web-20-expo-an-%e2%80%9camerican-idol%e2%80%9d-for-startups/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090302/five-geek-guys-just-sittin-around-talkin-about-online-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20090302/five-geek-guys-just-sittin-around-talkin-about-online-media/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:33:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=10505

Last week, I went to the 15th Stanford Accel Symposium, hosted by Stanford University’s MediaX and the VC firm Accel Partners.

With the honking big title of “The Delta Conference: The Impact of 2008 Dramatic Events on the World of Digital Media and Technology,” it was not quite that dramatic.

But there were a few nuggets to be found at the event, including a panel on online media with a stellar gang, all talking about microblogging, content and where it is all going in this horrible econalypse.

It was kind of like “The View,” except all guys in khakis and oxford shirts. You know, a typical Silicon Valley gathering.

BoomTown did video interviews with all the panelists about their takeaways from the chat: CBS (CBS) Interactive top terrier Quincy Smith, former Yahoo (YHOO) and now LinkedIn bigwig Jeff Weiner, former Yahoo and now Microsoft (MSFT) bigwig Scott Moore, former exec at Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL and now entrepreneur Jim Bankoff, and Federated Media head John Battelle.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090302/five-geek-guys-just-sittin-around-talkin-about-online-media/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081124/mark-zuckerberg-talks-twitter-with-john-battelle-when-he-was-talking-to-twitter-about-buying-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20081124/mark-zuckerberg-talks-twitter-with-john-battelle-when-he-was-talking-to-twitter-about-buying-it/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:41:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=6971

Here’s the video of Web 2.0 Summit host John Battelle interviewing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a few weeks ago, in which Battelle floated a rumor that the social-networking site might be interested in buying Twitter.

If you want to see the exchange, it starts at 22:15 minutes, when Battelle asks: “Is Twitter just a feature of Facebook?”

Awkwardness ensues from there until 23:07 minutes, with no direct question about an actual acquisition effort asked.

Thus, Zuckerberg does not have to fib in front of the Web 2.0 crowd about talks that were just then winding down between Twitter and Facebook, which offered $500 million in its stock to buy the popular microblogging site.

Actually, sources said, while Zuckerberg and Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Evan Williams did meet and get along well, the deal was primarily negotiated by Spark Capital partner Bijan Sabet (Spark is a Twitter investor) and Facebook deal guy Dan Rose.

But, in the end, as BoomTown reported earlier today in a detailed report on the failed deal, Twitter rejected that bid.

As is usually the case, the deal broke down over price–was $500 million worth of Facebook stock actually worth $500 million?–and the typical concerns about integration and costs. Also, Twitter wanted an all-cash deal.

But, more important was a feeling among Twitter investors and execs that the start-up should still take a shot at building its revenues–there are none right now–as well as it had done at building its growth.

In fact, Twitter’s fast growth in the “status update” arena has been a frustration to Facebook, some sources said, although Zuckerberg goes out of his way to compliment Twitter in the video below:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081124/mark-zuckerberg-talks-twitter-with-john-battelle-when-he-was-talking-to-twitter-about-buying-it/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20081110/the-video-i-forgot-to-post-from-the-web-20-summit-last-week/ http://allthingsd.com/20081110/the-video-i-forgot-to-post-from-the-web-20-summit-last-week/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:26:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=6254

I blame post-election exhaustion for rendering me comatose after Tuesday, which is how this video I did at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week got stuck in my to-do-later pile.

(I did manage to get the MySpace Music party video up though, but that was because it was more fun!)

Well, it has since been fished out, including interviews with conference organizers John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly, as well as Demand Media’s Richard Rosenblatt (who is apparently scared of me, which is just the way I like it) and Microsoft’s man-in-Silicon-Valley Dan’l Lewin.

The overall message of the Web 2.0 Summit: Batten down the hatches, except tech always rises to the surface like some kind of econalypse-fighting styrofoam.

Well, we will see about that particular miracle, but here is the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081110/the-video-i-forgot-to-post-from-the-web-20-summit-last-week/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081104/the-web-20-show-must-go-on-right/ http://allthingsd.com/20081104/the-web-20-show-must-go-on-right/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:00:07 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=5662 On Wednesday, about 1,000 of the tech industry’s elite will begin schmoozing at a three-day conference here on Web 2.0 technologies, in what is now a vastly different business climate than a year ago.

At the onset of the Wall Street meltdown, many in Silicon Valley seemed to have their heads in the sand. But in recent weeks, with lightening speed, venture capitalists are suddenly preaching to their portfolio companies to cut costs, generate revenues and become profitable, fast, or die. So it will be interesting to see if the Web 2.0 Summit, founded by Tim O’Reilly, the president of O’Reilly Media Inc., and John Battelle, chairman of Federated Media Publishing and a co-founder of Wired, will also inject more much needed realism without the incessant hype that is often found at these conferences.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081104/the-web-20-show-must-go-on-right/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20081103/web-20-conference-this-week-lance-armstrong-al-gore-jerry-yang-mark-zuckerbergand-lionel-ritchie/ http://allthingsd.com/20081103/web-20-conference-this-week-lance-armstrong-al-gore-jerry-yang-mark-zuckerbergand-lionel-ritchie/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=5981

On Wednesday, an always worthwhile Internet-focused conference, the annual Web 2.0 Summit, kicks off in San Francisco.

The lineup for the three-day event is particularly good this year and it is also a perfect time to take the temperature of the Internet’s movers and shakers, given all the hubbub of late with the weak economy. (BoomTown will thus be there with the trusty–and shaky–Flip video, chronicling it all for future generations.)

Speakers will include bicycle champ Lance Armstrong, Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang, former VP Al Gore, Google.org head Larry Brilliant, Paul Otellini of Intel (INTC) and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, among others, chattering away on a wide range of topics. (You can see the full schedule here.)

There’s also, of course, a passel of parties, including one on Thursday night thrown by MySpace Music. And it will–shades of Web 1.0!–feature an exclusive performance by Lionel Richie (and also DJ AM).

I am, I shall admit it and without irony, a closet fan of Richie. And why not, with so much infectious fluff to choose: “Hello,” “Say You, Say Me,” “Three Times a Lady.”

Most importantly, I will be curious to see if there will be “Dancing on the Ceiling” among the beaten-down start-up crowd. (See that music video below and ponder exactly why you know you know each and every word to that funkadelic song.)

Hosted by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle, the Web 2.0 Summit is called “Web Mets World” this year. By that, BoomTown is inferring that its organizers think it is time for the Internet to grow up. But why don’t we let them speak:

The commercial web is now a teenager—it’s been fifteen short years since Marc Andreessen released the Mosaic browser. To put this in perspective, television as a commercial medium reached its fifteenth birthday in 1956—the year Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national TV…as we pondered the theme for this year, one clear signal has emerged: our conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to ask how the Web—its technologies, its values, and its culture—might be tapped to address the world’s most pressing limits. Or put another way—and in the true spirit of the Internet entrepreneur—its most pressing opportunities.”

And, of course, here’s Lionel:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081103/web-20-conference-this-week-lance-armstrong-al-gore-jerry-yang-mark-zuckerbergand-lionel-ritchie/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20071018/dinner-and-chatting-with-rupe-aka-boomtowns-new-boss/ http://allthingsd.com/20071018/dinner-and-chatting-with-rupe-aka-boomtowns-new-boss/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:57:51 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071018/dinner-and-chatting-with-rupe-aka-boomtowns-new-boss/ Did I wangle a seat right next to soon-to-be Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch last night at the Web 2.0 Summit dinner?

Of course I did, continuing in the shameless BoomTown tradition of trying to get gratis meals with moguls (like our ongoing efforts to raise money for DonorsChoose.org and get a free lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang).

(Here’s a picture above that I nicked from Valleywag, as they called me “abrasive” in their post and said I was carrying water for News Corp.-owned MySpace with my incessant questions about rival Facebook’s business model and insane valuation. To the first, I say that’s like a commercial sander calling Comet abrasive and, to the second, I obviously now have to start slapping MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe’s handsome face around to maintain my scratchy cred.)

In any case, the News Corp. chairman and CEO could Web 2.0 it up with the rest of the geeks, as it turned out, and managed to touch on topics ranging from the Facebook valuation to the state of the media industry to the need for even more digitization across the landscape.

If you want to see Murdoch in action, here’s some snippets of his onstage interview, along with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe with conference co-host John Battelle. It’s a little hard to hear, but worth the watch.

He talks about such topics as his love of Silicon Valley, the future of MySpace (owned by News Corp.), the renewal of DeWolfe’s contract, Google, Facebook, his hope for the New York Times (Would he like to kill it? “That’d be nice,” he answered.), the “half-dead” CNBC (the main competitor of his new Fox Business channel) and, of course, his plans for his newest shiny toy, The Wall Street Journal (more culture!).

I asked him, no surprise, about the $15 billion Facebook valuation, which prompted Murdoch to say News Corp. was drastically undervalued. That’s cheeky!

Thanks also to the other Web 2.0 Co-Host Tim O’Reilly for asking Murdoch when he was going to fire BoomTown! Job security? Nope! Rupe’s answer: “There’s still time!” (Hopefully, after he shivs the Times and CNBC.)

Here the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20071018/dinner-and-chatting-with-rupe-aka-boomtowns-new-boss/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20070905/digital-daily-live-blogs-at-apple-event-and-more-to-come-like-rupe-and-myspace-co-founder-at-web-20/ http://allthingsd.com/20070905/digital-daily-live-blogs-at-apple-event-and-more-to-come-like-rupe-and-myspace-co-founder-at-web-20/#comments Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:53:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070905/digital-daily-live-blogs-at-apple-event-and-more-to-come-like-rupe-and-myspace-co-founder-at-web-20/

Our very own Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski–he of the arched eyebrow–did such a good job live-blogging our own fifth D: All Things Digital conference this year that we thought we would step up our game and send him out and about more often.

First stop, Apple’s special event today, starting at 10 a.m. PDT, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where Steve Jobs will yawn and all hell will break loose. We know, it’s some iPod news–and we are probably using the term “news” rather loosely here–but John will be on the case in text and video!

And there will be more exciting, you-are-there-but-not-really live blogging ahead from John, such as the upcoming Web 2.0 conference, helmed by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly and also in San Francisco, in mid-October.

Now, it seems, both John and BoomTown will have to be in the front seat with our eyes wide open for that event, given that Web 2.0 will announce today that News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch (and new owner of Dow Jones and, by extension, this site) and MySpace Co-Founder Chris DeWolfe will be delivering its dinner keynote on opening night Oct. 17.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070905/digital-daily-live-blogs-at-apple-event-and-more-to-come-like-rupe-and-myspace-co-founder-at-web-20/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/ http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:57:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/

Is there a trend in my post yesterday about the deal former Hollywood execs Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman struck with Pepsi to make original online content that the entertainment and marketing arm of the beverage giant will have a chance to fund and sponsor?

“We want to create great online content … and also something that is more than a glorified Internet ad at the same time,” said Braun to me yesterday. “So we’ll work with Pepsi hand-in-hand to bake new kinds of ad solutions right in organically at the earliest possible moment.”

What struck me was that this was also the same line being touted by Facebook ad sales majordomo Mike Murphy, whom I interviewed Tuesday about what it will take to make the popular social-network site as popular with advertisers. (See video below again.)

Bandying about the phrase, “return on involvement,” he noted that it was his job to show marketers that becoming part of the conversation could be as important as much-measured click-through rates.

“Banners are great for branding, but this is a more relevant message that leverages social media,” said Murphy. “If we can help you make your idea or product relevant to a consumer and get the best involvement rate … it’s a different game.”

And then last month Valleywag posted here on an amazingly idiotic roundelay about a group of bloggers associated with John Battelle’s Federated Media being part of a Microsoft ad campaign, by weighing in on what the software giant’s “people ready” catchphrase meant to them.

I was going to write about it, and even talked to Om Malik (he was sorry and withdrew from the campaign) and Battelle (not so sorry, noting to me that how we all look at marketing has changed in the new paradigm).

But the prospect of headache-inducing debates about it that would go precisely nowhere stopped me cold. I come from an Italian family and I know from pointless arguments.

My own conclusion was that, even with all the disclosure, which could have been a lot better, it was probably a dicey and even flat-out wrong thing for most bloggers to do.

Except apparently for Michael “Pound Sand” Arrington, who doesn’t appear to care what most anyone thinks anyway. (Are you looking at me?)

But Battelle has kept bringing up another interesting phrase called “conversational marketing”–which again refers to engaging audiences more deeply with advertisers. Federated, in fact, is having a “Conversational Marketing Summit” in mid-September, with a laundry list of Web marketing honchos.

It apparently “brings together leaders in conversational media and marketing for a two-day dialog around the issues, lessons and opportunities of this emerging medium.”

I, for one, am looking forward to understanding what it all means, despite the fact my initial reaction is suspicious, as a reporter who naturally worries about the sidling up of ad-sales people to the editorial process.

That feeling of distaste was articulated by Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee, who wrote that the Pepsi deal “sounds kind of sleazy, honestly.”

Well, we shall see, of course, and this is just entertainment we’re talking about. And, perhaps more important, it seems to be an inevitable drift, given trends toward increased interactivity by consumers, especially younger ones.

“A lot of online content is already developed and ads and marketing are slapped on afterward,” Russell Weiner, vice president of marketing for colas at Pepsi-Cola North America told me yesterday. “We want to be part of the DNA of a show from the very beginning.”

And that, I think, is what they call the origin of the species. What species that might be, we shall all see soon enough.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070718/web-20-dinner-and-schmoozefest/ http://allthingsd.com/20070718/web-20-dinner-and-schmoozefest/#comments Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:27:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070718/web-20-dinner-and-schmoozefest/ I went to a dinner last night hosted by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly of the Web 2.0 Summit, and it was one of the more schmoozy events I have been to in a while.

The event–this year at Foreign Cinema in the Mission District of San Francisco–is held to elicit feedback from the Internet’s movers and shakers about the new directions the conference, set to take place in San Francisco in mid-October, should head in.

Except Battelle and O’Reilly already came up with a theme: “The Web’s Edge.”

I am not entirely sure what that means. Is it that it is at an edge? Or that we need to look at the edge? Or just that things just feel all pointy lately? Big thoughts all!

In any case, the party was a lot of fun and filled with digital personalities, like Mitch Kapor and Ann Winblad, as well as a few folks I interviewed like ex-AOLer Jon Miller, ex-Fox exec Ross Levinsohn, VC David Sze, Tina Sharkey of BabyCenter and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

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