According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo is in advanced talks to buy 5to1, a self-serve premium advertising platform, for $25 million.

The Los Angeles start-up is run by Jim Heckman, a well-known Internet exec.

It also was co-founded and funded by Yahoo Americas head Ross Levinsohn, but he apparently divested himself from 5to1 when he joined Yahoo.

Levinsohn and Heckman worked together at Fox Interactive, a News Corp. unit.

The company had raised about $13 million in venture funding, including from Fuse Capital, which was where Levinsohn worked before coming to Yahoo.

That link is likely to make the deal, which is not yet complete, carefully scrutinized inside and outside Yahoo.

BoomTown is swanning around Los Angeles today, so it seemed apt to post this amazing video, in which one of its movies was made real in the skies.

That would be Disney-Pixar’s animated gem “Up,” in which a house was carried away by balloons.

The National Geographic Channel replicated that film;s iconic theme in real life for a new television cable series called “How Hard Can It Be?”

Hard, as it turned out, but still doable. It required a cluster of 300 helium-filled weather balloons to lift a 2,000-pound house–along with a lot of engineers and other smart folks.

The house sailed for about an hour, 10,000 feet up, which–for some reason, as goofy as the effort was–made my heart fly too.

Enjoy:

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is the gift that keeps on giving–at least to Greg Coleman.

He’s the Chief Revenue Officer at the Huffington Post, for which the Internet giant just forked over $315 million to acquire.

Sources said Coleman, who has run advertising sales at the privately held news and opinion site since the fall of 2009, will get a multimillion dollar payday from the deal, even though he is not staying on after it closes, since AOL has its own top ad guy.

Except that this is the very same Greg Coleman who had been running ad sales for AOL for only two weeks when Armstrong took over from ousted CEO Randy Falco in February of 2009.

Coleman was gone from AOL by the end of April, replaced by Armstrong with current ad sales head Jeff Levick.

And for those three months of work Coleman got paid out his entire three-year AOL contract.

Not bad work if you can get it.

Actually, many credit Coleman’s energetic work at the Huffington Post for turbocharging its ad sales revenue to $31 million in 2010 and projected revenue upward of $60 million in 2011.

Coleman is an experienced online ad exec who was at Yahoo for seven years, responsible for all advertising revenue worldwide. He came to Yahoo from Reader’s Digest.

But Coleman ran into Yahoo’s management buzz saw after trouble hit the company in 2007. He was one of the first in a long line of execs to leave the troubled company, departing in one of its many controversial reorganizations.

But Yahoo’s ad business did grow strongly under him and former Yahoo ad exec Wenda Millard.

Before AOL, Coleman ran a Los Angeles-based start-up called NetSeer, which focused on ad targeting.

Memo to soon-to-be unemployed Greg: You’re definitely buying lunch next time I see you, and keep in mind that BoomTown is feeling partial to caviar.

In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

The deal was signed late this afternoon, and the board of directors of each company and shareholders of the privately held Huffington Post have approved the transaction.

In an exclusive video interview BoomTown conducted earlier today in Dallas, just before Super Bowl XLV, both Armstrong and Huffington were jovial that the whirlwind deal, begun in November, actually worked out so quickly.

Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:

“One plus one equals 11.”

Get it? One and one next to each other is the number 11!

Let’s move on, shall we?

AOL said it is expected to close in the late-first or early-second quarter of 2011.

Once culminated, it will put Huffington in charge of all AOL content and other properties, including well-known names such as Engadget, Moviefone, MapQuest and TechCrunch.

She said she plans to move to New York from Los Angeles, although she will also maintain her longtime Brentwood home there.

And content for all these sites will be integrated deeply into the Huffington Post, giving it a huge new infusion of editorial material.

More to the point, the flashy acquisition–which essentially came together in less than two weeks in January–will become the linchpin of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s aggressive, if risky, strategy to focus the long-troubled company as a content and advertising powerhouse.

For AOL, the deal gives it a popular branded site that is very good at generating lots of page views and impressions very efficiently–which is the company’s whole thrust these days.

That means lots more ad inventory to sell and an injection of content talent, giving AOL the scale it desperately needs.

The move also obviously gives AOL a much-needed editorial identity and cohesion, which it doesn’t really have.

In fact, many think AOL needs a rallying point to bring clarity to its hodgepodge of recent acquisitions that all center on the notion that a strong company has yet to emerge in the premium content space.

Here is a mock-up of the front page of AOL tonight (click on it to make it larger):

While it all makes for a riveting narrative by the charming Armstrong, AOL still has not delivered the business turnaround promised after its spinoff from Time Warner in 2009.

Wall Street, which has given Armstrong a lot of rope, has become more impatient of late to see results–especially more robust increases in its display advertising business, as its access business dies off–after AOL spun off from Time Warner in 2009.

In its quarterly report last week, AOL reported earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $596 million.

But, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, although that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and eight percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

In any case, the move is a good one for the Huffington Post since it will vault it to the next level of growth.

Other companies, such as Yahoo and NBC Universal, had looked at the company as a purchase target, and many expected it to eventually sell out to a larger company.

Sources close to the Huffington Post said that that outcome seemed the most likely, and the recent expansion of the site and its audience made it a good time to do a deal now.

Talks with Yahoo last year went nowhere, sources said, but Armstrong was not as slow to act.

Indeed, the actual deal happened quickly, said Armstrong and Huffington in a video interview with BoomTown earlier today (which you can see here).

The pair started talking in early November of last year at the Quadrangle Conference in New York and continued their discussions through the holidays.

Armstrong made the official offer to Huffington by phone in January, while she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he was snowed in in New York.

Five time multiple to the Huffington Post’s upward of $60 million in expected revenue for the coming year, and nearly 10 times the $31 million for 2010, the offer was accepted quickly.

AOL used cash for $300 million of the purchase and $15 million in stock for the rest.

“The idea of turning a fire hose of traffic onto our content made enormous sense,” said one person close to the situation. “Everything is changing so fast, it seemed like the time was right.”

An IPO was also considered for the Huffington Post, sources said. But since the site only recently moved into profitability–although barely–such an event would have been farther out.

That’s despite the fact that the Huffington Post has seen fast-growing traffic and influence, spurred in part by Huffington’s larger-than-life persona in both the mainstream media and blogosphere.

The wide-ranging site–which has added a number of content areas in recent years beyond its flagship political offering–currently has almost 26 million unique monthly visitors, according to recent stats, moving in close range to established news organizations such as the New York Times.

That kind of success seemed unlikely when the Huffington Post launched on May 9, 2005, positioning itself as as a liberal counterweight to the popular right-leaning Drudge Report.

But the Huffington Post’s heady mix of celebrity bloggers, personality and voice, as well as aggressive curation of links from other sites, quickly caught on.

To fund its efforts, the New York-based online media company has raised $37 million from angel investors such as Lerer–the largest individual shareholder, followed closely by Huffington–and venture firms such as Greycroft Partners, Softbank Capital and Oak Investment Partners.

The growth has not been without controversy around issues such as lack of payments to bloggers who contribute and accusations that the site uses too much content from other Web sources when linking.

And Huffington herself has also been a lightning rod, which has been both positive and negative for the site.

But, there is no question she is one of the Web’s most prominent players, along with writing books, appearing on television frequently and being a fixture at high-profile events in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

That includes a never-ending panoply of parties that feature a potent mix of movie stars, corporate poo-bahs, glad-handing politicians and lots of journalists from all over the media.

In fact, full disclosure, I was at one of those parties this past weekend for actor Colin Firth and others involved in the making of the Oscar-nominated film “The King’s Speech.” (Apropos of nothing, actor Helena Bonham Carter is as smart as you would expect, but much more delicate.)

As part of the AOL deal, CEO Eric Hippeau–who has been integral to professionalizing the business and will be joining Lerer Ventures–and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman will leave the Huffington Post.

Ironically, Coleman was replaced by Armstrong as head of ad sales at AOL after he took over as CEO. Coleman got a big payout and will now apparently get another.

But the rest of the 200 Huffington Post employees are moving over to AOL with Huffington, who Armstrong hopes will be the company’s ace in the content hole going forward.

There are likely to be changes to come too at AOL, within weeks, especially in its content-side management and site staffs.

AOL provided some quotes in support of the deal from prominent Internet figures who know Huffington well.

“Arianna is one of the preeminent authors and editors of our time, and Tim has a remarkable track record of business success,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “Bringing them together creates tremendous potential for AOL.”

And Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

“Editorial vision and leadership are essential in order to transmute our shared cacophony of voices into a valuable dialogue. Arianna’s expertise, empathy, and entrepreneurial enthusiasm forms a kind of alchemy turning mere words and phrases into powerful expressions of humanity.”

Inter-Internet harmony: How sweet!

Here is the official press release, with all the details, but there is also an 8 am ET AOL conference call tomorrow:

AOL AGREES TO ACQUIRE THE HUFFINGTON POST

Acquisition Will Solidify AOL’s Strategy of Creating a Premier Content Network With Local, National and International Reach

Arianna Huffington To Lead Newly Formed The Huffington Post Media Group Which Will Integrate All Huffington Post and AOL Content, Including News, Tech, Women, Local, Multicultural, Entertainment, Video, Community, and More

The New Combined Media Group Will Reach 117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally

Group Uniquely Positioned To Redefine the Future of Brand Advertising and Marketing For an Engaged and Influential Audience

New York, NY–February 7, 2011–AOL Inc. [NYSE:AOL] announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors*.

The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age–leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement.

The new group will have a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world**. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

“The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

Armstrong continued, “Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years–though now at light speed–by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more–more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Huffington continued, “By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better.”

Kenneth Lerer, The Huffington Post’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said, “The Huffington Post team has created a potent brand with the proven track record of knowing how to grow traffic, inform and entertain its readers and build a one-of-a-kind online community. Add that to the powerful scale and resources of AOL and you have the perfect combination for today and the future. Together these two companies will be a premier online content provider. From local citizen reporting through AOL’s Patch, to The Huffington Post’s national reporting on politics, business and culture, consumers will have access to everything they want whenever they want it.”

AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Harry Shearer, Senator John Kerry, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Lawrence Summers, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Craig Newmark, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Russell Simmons, Sean Penn, Bill Gates, Norman Lear, Charlie Rose, Elizabeth Warren, Tavis Smiley, Sheryl Sandberg, George Clooney, and former President Bill Clinton. And the audience speaks back, generating four million comments a month***.

The Huffington Post’s affluent, influential audience, that is growing at a rate of 22 percent (December 2009 vs. December 2010)****, when combined with AOL’s massive scale, video offerings and local expertise, will represent an incredibly desirable demographic for a broad range of advertising partners across the board.

And here is Armstrong’s internal memo to the AOL staff:

AOLers,

We are taking another major step in the comeback of AOL. Today we are announcing that we have agreed to acquire The Huffington Post, one of the most exciting, influential, and fastest growing properties on the Internet. We believe in brands, quality journalism, and the positive role of communities in the world–The Huffington Post shares our values and the combination of the two companies will create the premier global and local media company on the Internet.

Co-founded six years ago by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, The Huffington Post has grown to become an industry leader–one of the Web’s most popular and innovative sources of online news, commentary, and information. Arianna and team have created a brand and a destination that focuses on the consumer experience. By combining The Huffington Post with AOL’s network of sites, thriving video offerings, local expertise and enormous reach, we will create a company that is laser-focused on serving our audiences across every platform imaginable–social, local, video, mobile and tablet.

The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus–80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.

The Huffington Post is a strong influencer brand and it attracts a valuable audience, including a great focus on women’s content. In addition, Arianna Huffington is a world-renowned expert on women’s topics and issues, and has enabled The Huffington Post to grow rapidly by continually developing new audiences.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a scaled connection between global and local communities on one platform. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way.

The Huffington Post will join the family of AOL Brands that are destinations for an influencer audience, brands like TechCrunch, Engadget, AutoBlog, and Moviefone. Uniquely, The Huffington Post is the platform for influential people–the people that drive trends, commerce, politics, entertainment, news, and information. Adding this strategic platform to our already strong network of sites, including the AOL homepage, has the potential to make AOL the most influential company in the content space.

Arianna Huffington is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Internet space and someone that is even more successful in building communities and relationships in every corner of the globe. The Huffington Post and Arianna have created a company that has partnered with the most successful and well-known leaders in all aspects of society that touch important topics to give consumers direct access to the most influential decision makers and community leaders.

This acquisition will create a high-quality and diverse digital ecosystem encompassing local, national and international news, politics, entertainment, technology, fashion, sports, health, personal finance, green, lifestyle, the arts and more. This deal will combine the amazing talent at AOL with the innovative and talented staff of The Huffington Post. Here are just a few high-level points around what this deal brings to market:

* Together, AOL and The Huffington Post will have 117MM unduplicated domestic monthly UVs, and ~270MM monthly UVs worldwide (according to comScore Dec 2010).

* The Huffington Post is one of the fastest growing web properties on the Internet. It grew 22% last year–that’s faster than Twitter, which grew 18% – and 15x as quickly as the Internet grew last year (comScore Dec ’09-’10).

* Both AOL and The Huffington Post count powerful, affluent users among their top loyal visitors, significantly over-indexing in $100K+ income users.

* AOL passed Hulu in unique viewers on video in the fourth quarter of 2010; video views on AOL are up 400 percent year-over-year.

* Between AOL’s innovative Project Devil ad unit, engaging users for 27 seconds longer than traditional display ads, and The Huffington Post’s highly-vocal community, with 4MM+ comments per month, we will marry attention-grabbing content and brand experiences for both advertisers and consumers.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a premier global/local syndication network at scale. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely, informative and entertaining way.

To maximize the strategic advantage of this great deal, we will be creating a new group at AOL called The Huffington Post Media Group. Within this group will be AOL Media, AOL Local & Mapping, AOL Search and our new friends at The Huffington Post. We will continue operating the towns structure, AOL.com and HuffingtonPost.com.

I’m thrilled to announce that Arianna Huffington will join AOL’s executive team as President and Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group. We have asked Jon Brod to lead the overall operational integration on the AOL side of the combined entities. Jon will lead the local group integration and work closely with David Eun and the teams in AOL Media. We will work quickly with The Huffington Post to create a combined organizational design to coincide with the deal closing. While we wait for the required regulatory reviews to be completed and the transaction to close before implementing the design, we will move very quickly to plan the details of the integration of the two companies. To this end, we will announce the new organizational structure as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we will continue creating great content and products for our consumers within the town structure and stay laser-focused on the aggressive goals we have set for our winter luge. We are on the right track and will continue our weekly operating cadence and town structure to drive successful results against our company goals.

Here’s a special message for all of you we taped to welcome The Huffington Post and Arianna to our AOL Family:

http://today.office.aol.com/company-news/2011/02/aol-agrees-buy-huffington-post

And of course we wanted to welcome Arianna to our “You’ve Got” video of the day–check her out on AOL.com.

We will be holding a company all hands meeting to address your questions related to today’s exciting news. We will video conference from our New York office on the 6th Floor at 9:30 AM ET and will be joined by Arianna Huffington and key executives from her organization. We will also be holding a call for our west coast offices at 2:00 PM ET and for our Patch offices at 2:45 PM ET. See below for meeting info (conference rooms will be sent out shortly).

AOL is playing to win…and The Huffington Post and AOL will occupy a unique place in the future of the Internet. Let’s go get it done.

–TA

(More full disclosure: As has been previously reported by MediaMemo, All Things Digital had the briefest and most preliminary of discussions with Armstrong about moving to AOL last year, while exploring several other options. All’s well that ended well: We stayed at Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.)

So, this was my genius strategy on the should-I-switch-from-AT&T-or-not question with the rollout of the Apple iPhone on Verizon in one week:

Everyone else would ankle on over to Verizon, like a stampede of digital cattle, with promises of a more robust network, thereby lightening the load on AT&T and making it easier to hold a call.

That dream ran smack into reality yesterday, after my iPhone dropped calls 37 times, just as a plethora of reviews came rolling in about how the Verizon version does not drop them.

In fact, All Things Digital’s Walt Mossberg, in his Personal Technology column, was talking about me in this passage in his review:

“On the big question, I can say that, at least in the areas where I was using it, the Verizon model did much, much better with voice calls. In numerous tries over nine days, I had only three dropped calls on the Verizon unit, and those were all to one person who was using an AT&T iPhone in an especially bad area for AT&T: San Francisco.”

In other words, I am Patient Zero of dropped calls and, as many are, I am sick of it and want a change.

I don’t need to go into why this would be a good thing, because everyone who has had an iPhone for years with AT&T knows the situation.

Calls. Drop. All. The. Time.

To be fair, not all the time, but with a regularity in the U.S. that is almost comical. In fact, it is great for a punchline at speeches I give, if it were not so irksome.

But, after a while you seem like a whiner complaining–kind of like that person who yammers on about how bad traffic is in Los Angeles–since it has been the state of the situation since the dawn of iPhone.

But, on a recent round-the-world trip, it started to really bug me, since I experienced no dropped calls in either Europe or China on other wireless network carriers.

The feeling was euphoric. My phone actually made calls! And kept them! Like a mobile phone should!

I know: Pathetic.

Nonetheless, being able to have a conversation with my kids that did not drop off regularly–Hello, Loui…beep…Hello, Louie, it’s Mama callin…beep…Hello, Louie, it’s Mama calling to say please stop dangling your brother from the…beep–would be nice.

That’s why I might have to rethink my whole strategy of being the only one left on the AT&T network next week–might not be such a winner.

Because, like someone who might suddenly be able to belly up to the buffet at a restaurant that has heretofore been besieged by the marauding hordes, I might find the fare a little less than appetizing once I get to actually enjoy it.

It’s not all departures!

Yahoo is hiring former News Corp. and Disney online exec Mickie Rosen (pictured here) to run its Audience unit, which includes the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s powerful content sites, sources said.

Starting next week, Rosen will report to Americas head Ross Levinsohn, who has worked with her before, at both News Corp. and Fuse Capital.

Her new title is SVP of the Yahoo Media Network, which is apparently a rebranding of Audience.

Previous to this job, Rosen was CEO of Tecca, a price-checking service Fuse created in partnership with Best Buy.

It’s likely she will remain based in the Los Angeles area, where Yahoo has a large office in Santa Monica, Calif.

The move is Levinsohn’s first management rejiggering since he took over last year, and there is likely to be more to come.

Rosen, who has also worked at the Fandango online movie ticketing site, will replace interim audience head Raymond Stern, who will be–as before–running partnerships and business development, as well as Yahoo’s listings business.

Rosen’s new job had actually been that of former Audience head David Ko, as well as former Media VP Jimmy Pitaro.

Ko left Yahoo and is now heading mobile games at Zynga, while Pitaro is a top digital exec at Disney.

More to come from Levinsohn, but here is Rosen’s bio from the Fuse Web site:

Mickie has over 20 years of operating, strategy and investing experience. For the past dozen years, she has been at the intersection of media and technology, in both large companies such as News Corporation and The Walt Disney Company and in small, early stage start-ups.

Prior to joining the firm, she was the head of entertainment for Fox Interactive Media where she was responsible for properties such as AmericanIdol.com, Rotten Tomatoes and the entertainment channels of MySpace. Mickie also led content acquisition across the Company, and was a lead in envisioning, structuring and negotiating Hulu, the premier video joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal.

Prior to Fox Interactive Media, Mickie was the head of product development, marketing and public relations for Fandango, where she helped lead the company from an early-stage start-up to profitability as it became a leader in its space (acquired by Comcast). Mickie was also a senior executive with an e-learning start-up, an Idealab! consumer robotics company and Disney’s Corporate Alliances group, where she negotiated deals and managed Disney’s top global partners such as Coca-Cola, American Express and AT&T.

Mickie built the foundation of her career with McKinsey & Company, where she spent seven years consulting with senior management on strategy, operational and organizational issues across a number of industries, including media and technology.
Mickie has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a B.A. in Economics from UC San Diego, and is based in Los Angeles.

The movie was chosen for the group’s best picture award, while David Fincher got best director, Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg was named best actor and Aaron Sorkin received the best screenplay award.

The win is a strong indication that the movie is going to be the one to beat at the Oscars, which take place February 27. Nominations for the top prize for movies will be announced January 25.

“The Social Network” has already won awards from critics in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Indiana and the National Board of Review.

It has also been nominated for multiple Golden Globe Awards, and was named to the American Film Institute’s top 10 of 2010.

(See the movie’s Web site for a thorough list of awards and nominations.)

It’s skimming the cream off the top.

It will not blanket America with offers, but rather only enter markets where there’s enough luxury experiences and high-end restaurants for its target audience of highly educated, 25-to-40 year-olds (In other words–affluent, wealthy and plain ol’ rich people).

Gilt City is an extension of the New York-based Gilt Groupe, which provides invitation-only access to products and experiences at discounted prices. Gilt City competes more directly with Groupon and LivingSocial by offering discounts to spas, restaurants and cosmetic treatments, like Botox. So far, it’s launched in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo.

Gilt Groupe has raised upward of $50 million in venture capital, and will still have to contend with Amazon-based LivingSocial, and Groupon, which aims to raise up to $1 billion after spurning a buyout attempt by Google.

Gilt City’s President Nathan Richardson promises us it still has aggressive goals, but that its plans look different from the others. “We won’t be in a lot of secondary markets, but there’s 40 markets that have the depth we need.”

Meanwhile, Groupon and LivingSocial are in more than 100 markets each today.

“The high-end of the market is enormous,” Richardson says.

Unlike Groupon and LivingSocial, Gilt doesn’t send out a deal every day, but rather offers up to three deals in a weekly email, because “that makes it worthy of reading in your inbox.” In Chicago it’s up to sending two a week, and in Los Angeles and New York, it’s now sending two to three.

In addition to offering discounts on restaurants, spas and beauty, Richardson says Gilt is also selling experiences.

For example, on the Fourth of July in New York, it hosted a party on the retired aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, which was positioned right under the fireworks. ”Not only did the offer sell out, we had three times as many people on wait list,” he says. ”We have the opportunity to extend our curated lifestyle brand to events. People have come to expect us to be consistent. It’s not hit or miss. We want to make sure the email surprises our customers and is always on brand and something we feel proud of.”

To make his point, Richardson often talks about the deal’s “exclusivity,” not how deep the discount is. But why would an exclusive restaurant–which presumably has no trouble selling out–be interested in offering a discount to Gilt’s subscribers?

Richardson says it’s an opportunity for these brands to introduce new opportunities or extend its franchise to a new audience.

For instance, a new restaurant opening in New York’s Flatiron District offered a deal that introduced a new menu to the public. The chef signed the menu and visited the patron’s table for a chat. Another upscale eating establishment used Gilt to promote availability of a private dinning room.

Richardson says that in a survey Gilt conducted, customers said that 80 percent of the time they had the intention of going back to a restaurant, gym or skin-care provider at full price, and in 60 percent of the cases they did go back.

Despite new reports of the funding today, the line of credit from TriplePoint Capital is months-old, and we’ve learned it was used primarily for building out a new warehouse in Louisville, Ky.

According to our sources, who declined to be named, only $5 million of the $15 million has been drawn down from the facility, and it’s one of three lines of credit the company has. The company spokeswoman declined to comment.

The Gilt Groupe is a members-only online retailer focused on luxury brands. It has seen huge success in offering deep discounts on items for short periods of time. More recently, it has set its sights on the local deals business, similar to the businesses being built by Groupon and LivingSocial. It has also expanded into offering luxury travel deals.

Gilt’s local deals site, called “Gilt City,” offers bargains on items ranging from massages to frozen yogurt. So far, it’s launched in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. It’s going up against two feisty and well-funded competitors: LivingSocial, which just raised $175 million in capital from Amazon, and Groupon, which turned down Google’s $6 billion acquisition bid.

A round of funding raised this summer supported those product rollouts. In total, the company has raised upward of $50 million from investors, including General Atlantic and Matrix Partners.

The line of credit shows that the emerging company still needs additional financing for one-off capital projects as resources are pulled in other directions. A big focus is likely on hiring a local salesforce, which is considered a specialty of Groupon. Still, Gilt Groupe is considered one of the more likely IPO candidates, and has said in the past that it expects to achieve gross revenues of $400 million to $500 million by the end of this calendar year.

The idea of being rewarded for being a consumer is getting a lot of heat of late, as retailers seek to take advantage of the fast-moving social phenom among consumers, especially young ones.

Thus, a wide range of efforts to combine location-based mobile apps with purchasing, both online and offline.

Earlier this week, BoomTown posted on a funding for one such start-up, Topguest, which links check-ins with airline and hotel loyalty programs.

Today, another company in the space, shopkick, announced it had added another store–Minneapolis-based Target–to its list of retailers deploying its platform and mobile app.

As with customers of Macy’s, Best Buy and others, users of the shopkick app will receive points and other rewards, as well as instant mobile coupons, just for walking in the store.

The point being: Retailers need to reward foot traffic and not just purchases.

The Target partnership is limited now to 242 stores in the Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City and the San Francisco area.

Target will also offer scannable mobile coupons to customers for redemption at checkout.

It will be interesting to see how effective apps such as shopkick are as they roll out, as consumers test them.

Unlike others that offer quick deals–from Foursquare to Facebook to, now, Yahoo–shopkick uses its “kickbucks” as an enticement simply for being present in a store or scanning certain barcodes.

It’s certainly easy enough–my son, Louie, did it with ease and definite enjoyment–although a user does need to remember to fire up the app when entering a participating store.

There is also a small device retailers need to install need to make the shopkick ecosystem work.

CEO Cyriac Roeding, a former EVP for CBS’ mobile unit, created the concept for the Menlo Park, Calif.-based start-up while an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins.

The company has raised $20 million in venture funding from Kleiner’s iFund, longtime Silicon Valley investor Reid Hoffman, as well as Hoffman’s home at Greylock Partners.

Here is a video interview I did with Roeding about where shopkick is going next:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101116/shopkick-checks-in-with-target-ceo-cyriac-roeding-talks-about-social-shopping/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101110/playboy-goes-geo-local-with-scout-app-even-as-iconic-media-company-attempts-turnaround/ http://allthingsd.com/20101110/playboy-goes-geo-local-with-scout-app-even-as-iconic-media-company-attempts-turnaround/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:00:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37113 How about some check-ins at the Playboy Mansion?

That’s not exactly on the menu for a new mobile application being launched by the iconic adult-oriented media company today, called Scout (although BoomTown wishes it were).

Powered by Xtify’s geolocation push notification technology, Scout will be available first in New York and Los Angeles, and initially only on smartphones using Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Users of the Scout app get exclusive nightlife-oriented offers and information about events, clubs and bars aggregated by Playboy’s editors. And when users are near any of these venues, they get push notifications alerting them.

In a statement, Paul Lee, Playboy’s recently installed head of new digital ventures, noted the move was to leverage the famous Playboy brand.

“Scout is a first step in Playboy’s strategy of utilizing new digital platforms to extend our brand in the nightlife arena and to build new revenue streams for the company,” he said.

Playboy could use any help it can get right about now. Yesterday, the company reported a wider loss than expected, due to increasing weakness in its television and publishing divisions, even as it tries to grow via the licensing of assets such as its well-known bunny logo.

Presumably, using that brand to combine relevant content and location-triggered push notifications is yet another attempt to right itself.

Here are two screenshots of the Scout app (click on the images to make them larger):

And here is the official press release:

Xtify Powers Playboy Scout Mobile Application with Location-Based Messaging Technology

Playboy’s Nightlife and Entertainment Content Will Now Reach Users Wherever They Are, Whenever It’s Most Relevant

NEW YORK, November 10, 2010–Xtify, Inc. today announced the release of Playboy Scout, a mobile application enhanced with location-triggered content delivery using the company’s geo-location push notification technology. Playboy Scout is available on Android™ phones nationwide and will soon be launched on other smartphone platforms. The Scout application presents Playboys audience with exclusive nightlife oriented offers and information about events, clubs, and bars which have been reviewed and recommended by Playboy’s editors, and delivers push notifications to users when they are in proximity of venues of interest.

“Scout puts Playboy’s nightlife expertise in the hands of our customers at the time and place they’re most likely to use it–when they’re out with friends and looking for new experiences,” said Paul Lee, managing director of new digital ventures, Playboy Enterprises, Inc. “The Playboy brand and the Xtify platform allow us to offer a compelling value proposition in the location-based space, and we’re excited to leverage Xtify’s innovative messaging technology to deliver new services to customers. Scout is a first step in Playboy’s strategy of utilizing new digital platforms to extend our brand in the nightlife arena and to build new revenue streams for the company.”

Xtify offers the only location-based push notification technology that allows publishers to send notifications to their mobile audience even when the application is closed. To access Playboy Scout, customers simply download the Scout application directly from the Android Market™ to their smartphones to begin receiving mobile alerts featuring content such as VIP access to Playboy events and venue reviews from Playboy’s editors. Xtify’s geo-location platform allows Playboy’s Scout application to alert customers of nightlife events and local points of interest, without the customer needing to open the application.

“Playboy is an authority in the nightlife space with entertainment content that is even more relevant when unleashed from the confines of a computer or magazine,” said Josh Rochlin, CEO of Xtify. “With the Scout application, we are seeing the future of how geo-enabled offerings will allow brands to have a more meaningful relationship with their mobile customers. Xtify’s push notification technology and management tools make it easy for Playboy to deliver the most relevant, timely and highly engaging offers and content to its readers, ensuring a satisfying consumer experience with each notification.”

“When Mr. Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago, the brand redefined nightlife,” said Jimmy Jellinek, Chief Content Officer, Playboy Enterprises, Inc. “Today the Playboy brand continues to be an authority on nightlife and we intend to leverage that expertise in the digital realm.”

The Playboy Scout application is now live in New York City and Los Angeles with additional cities receiving the alert system throughout 2011. City content will also be updated every few weeks as new locations are reviewed by Playboy’s editors. Additionally, users will be alerted to special offers and perks in select cities across the country.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101110/playboy-goes-geo-local-with-scout-app-even-as-iconic-media-company-attempts-turnaround/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101028/the-top-ten-list-for-new-yahoo-u-s-head-ross-levinsohn-the-boomtown-rules/ http://allthingsd.com/20101028/the-top-ten-list-for-new-yahoo-u-s-head-ross-levinsohn-the-boomtown-rules/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:30:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36421

Dear Ross,

Perhaps more than anyone, BoomTown is thrilled to have you back in the Internet ops game, after several years on the sidelines.

Besides introducing an exciting new character and plotline into the daily digital drama set in Sunnyvale, Calif.–kind of like when one of Alexis Carrington’s ex-husbands returned after a bout with amnesia on “Dynasty”–it’s clear you are not going to be a shrinking violet.

Plus, you know how to handle drama after all those crazy years herding digital cats at News Corp.’s MySpace.

In other words: Nobody puts Ross in the corner!

But it’s a very big job you have, running both Yahoo’s massive media properties, as well as its giant sales organization–especially after all those years of long lunches as a venture investor.

Thus, I prepared a short list for you–kind of a Yahoo cheat sheet–to cut out and put in your cyber-wallet, and pull out if the need should arise:

10. If you have any internal emails, product roadmaps, acquisition plans and–especially–juicy memos, please immediately forward them to kara@allthingsd.com via the secret Gmail account every Yahoo staffer has. (Don’t worry, everyone does this! Really!)

9. If anyone offers you $31 a share for Yahoo, take it.

8. If someone asks you the question, “What is Yahoo?”: Run for the hills.

7. If anyone tries to drag you back to Sunnyvale from Los Angeles, resist, even after what happened to Lloyd Braun. There are no advertisers nor any significant digital media folks in Silicon Valley, however much anyone tells you there are.

6. If a billionaire shareholder activist named Carl whom you used to canoodle with about taking over Yahoo calls, please refer to No. 8.

5. If you can locate where Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has gotten to of late–he has been sighted at Yahoo “strategery” meetings and playing golf with advertisers–please send his coordinates to kara@allthingsd.com. I am not a stalker. Well, only a little bit.

4. If you have to ask who Judy is, you have already lost, because Judy is actually in charge at Yahoo. (By the way, since you are both from Jersey, work that angle hard!)

3. If a smiley, cheekboned, Don Draper-looking dude calls from AOL wanting to do a “reverse merger” and offers a ride on Air Tim to discuss it, please refer to No. 8.

2. If you feel frustrated and have the need to utter naughty words and curses, stifle it! That’s a job for the CEO!

1. Ignore me.*

* At your peril.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101028/the-top-ten-list-for-new-yahoo-u-s-head-ross-levinsohn-the-boomtown-rules/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20101027/its-now-official-yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-head-key-americas-unit/ http://allthingsd.com/20101027/its-now-official-yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-head-key-americas-unit/#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:54:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36403

As BoomTown reported yesterday as likely, Yahoo has finally hired former News Corp. digital exec Ross Levinsohn.

He replaces Hilary Schneider as EVP of the Americas region, the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s most critical unit.

That means Levinsohn will be in charge of both Yahoo’s powerful media properties and also its massive advertising business.

Levinsohn will report directly to CEO Carol Bartz, but will not be primarily located at its Sunnyvale HQ. Instead, he will remain in Los Angeles and work out of the company’s offices in Santa Monica.

One bright note: Bartz has finally hired an exec on her own whose prime expertise is in digital media and not related to enterprise and software.

Giant sigh of relief from ATD HQ, since Levinsohn actually realizes that things need to move a lot faster inside the giant bubble of Yahoo.

Today’s hiring had a few snafus. Levinsohn’s plane to Silicon Valley from his home base in the southland was delayed and he could not sign his contract until just now.

In addition, there had been a number of outstanding negotiating issues that were just resolved earlier this afternoon.

Thus, Levinsohn just signed moments ago and here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Yahoo! Appoints Ross Levinsohn as Executive Vice President of Americas

SUNNYVALE, Calif., October 27, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that the company has appointed Ross Levinsohn as executive vice president of the Americas region. As one of the direct reports of CEO Carol Bartz, Levinsohn will join the executive staff of Yahoo! in November and will be responsible for the company’s media group, advertising sales, and partnerships for the Americas region.

“Ross has a phenomenal track record of executing digital media strategies that increase user engagement and, most importantly, accelerate topline growth,” said Bartz. “I am confident that Ross’s strategic vision, in addition to his deep industry experience, will allow us to solidify our position as the largest digital media, content and communications business around the globe.”

Levinsohn has long been on the forefront of digital media innovation. Prior to joining Yahoo!, he was the co-founder and managing director of Fuse Capital, an investment and strategic equity management firm focused on investing in and building digital media and communications companies. Levinsohn previously served as the president of News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, where he was responsible for running the day-to-day business, designing the overall strategy and leading investments that helped transform the company into a leader in digital media.

Levinsohn also held senior management positions with AltaVista, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site, and HBO where he launched and oversaw a unit developing new programming and revenue streams.

“Yahoo! is one of the premier Internet companies in the world,” said Levinsohn. “Having this opportunity to work with a group of immensely talented people to enhance Yahoo!’s leadership position is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101027/its-now-official-yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-head-key-americas-unit/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101027/like-boomtown-said-levinsohn-not-signed-yet-but-poised-to-be-yahoos-u-s-head/ http://allthingsd.com/20101027/like-boomtown-said-levinsohn-not-signed-yet-but-poised-to-be-yahoos-u-s-head/#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:23:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36388

As BoomTown reported yesterday, former News Corp. digital head Ross Levinsohn’s appointment as the head of Yahoo’s Americas division is imminent.

He will be in charge of Yahoo’s massive media and advertising units.

But–and this just cracks me up–he has not actually signed on the dotted line yet and, thus, Yahoo could not announce it early this afternoon, as planned.

According to sources, there were several issues between Levinsohn and Yahoo to settle. His staying in Los Angeles–and not being located at the company’s Sunnyvale HQ–was not among those last negotiating points.

But those issues seem settled now and sources at Yahoo are confident that Levinsohn will sign sometime today, and the Internet giant will announce the news soon after.

Then the real fun begins.

So stay tuned…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101027/like-boomtown-said-levinsohn-not-signed-yet-but-poised-to-be-yahoos-u-s-head/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-yahoo-courts-former-news-corp-digital-exec-ross-levinsohn-as-u-s-head/ http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-yahoo-courts-former-news-corp-digital-exec-ross-levinsohn-as-u-s-head/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:11:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36229

He’s baaaaaack.

Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo’s North American head, according to several sources close to the situation.

While the deal is not completely struck, sources said Levinsohn is very close to taking the job.

Sources added, if he does, he is likely to remain living in Los Angeles, where he has long been located. Yahoo has a large facility in Santa Monica.

The move is a bold one for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who desperately needs to bring in major Internet talent to the company to shore up her worrisome inexperience in the space.

Yahoo has been rocked by management turmoil–especially in the media and advertising unit–and also troubling weakness in revenue growth and innovative spark.

Levinsohn, one of the more colorful of Web personalities, certainly has a spark.

Levinsohn is currently an investor at Fuse Capital, which funds digital media and communications start-ups.

But sources said he has been itching to get back at a big company with scale in the digital media business and has been interested in Yahoo for some months.

At Yahoo, presumably, he will have purview over what Schneider did (and perhaps more), including the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s powerful media properties and its large advertising sales force in the U.S..

It’s likely Yahoo will hire a major ad sales exec to work under Levinsohn, and sources said the company has been in contact with several prominent execs to fill the slot left open with the March departure of Joanne Bradford to Demand Media.

Besides Schneider, also among the recent departures in the unit Levinsohn would run: VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro, who went to Disney, and U.S. Audience head David Ko, who moved to social gaming phenom Zynga.

Until now, Levinsohn is best known for his stint running digital operations for News Corp.’s then FIM unit.

It was at FIM that he rose to prominence after he bought MySpace, the social networking site that was once the hottest property on the Web.

At the time, Levinsohn and other execs also struck a gigantically lucrative advertising search deal with Google that garnered MySpace huge revenues.

After leaving News Corp. after repeated clashes with MySpace Co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe, he partnered with former AOL CEO Jon Miller in another investment company, Velocity Capital.

Ironically, both Miller and Levinsohn were the top choice of billionaire shareholder activist Carl Icahn as the execs he wanted to run Yahoo when he was agitating for change there a few years back in the midst of the failed takeover attempt by Microsoft.

When reached today, Miller–who now is the Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.–declined to comment on his former associate’s job prospects.

But he said: “If Yahoo is so lucky to get Ross, it would be great, because he is one of few people who understands all media.”

Indeed, although Levinsohn is better known as a dealmaker and media exec than as a sales expert, although he did manage digital advertising properties at FIM.

Previous to FIM, Levinsohn ran Fox Sports Interactive Media. He has also worked at the AltaVista Network, an early search pioneer, CBS Sportsline and Time Warner’s pay cable giant HBO. In addition, according to his bio at Fuse.

He also worked at Saatchi and Saatchi and in sports management and marketing with ProServ and Lapin and Rose Communications.

Yahoo declined to comment about the possible appointment of Levinsohn.

(And let’s hope Yahoo–especially the hip-shooting Bartz–doesn’t announce his arrival by also unfairly kicking former execs in the media and advertising unit in the teeth, as has been cloddishly done already too many times.)

BoomTown has also contacted Levinsohn via email and phone and has not heard back from the typically voluble exec.

But you can enjoy his stylings here, in a video interview I did with him in 2007:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-yahoo-courts-former-news-corp-digital-exec-ross-levinsohn-as-u-s-head/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:48:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34319

MySpace is trading most of the assets of its Fox Audience Network to the Rubicon Project in exchange for a significant equity minority stake, according to sources close to the situation.

Under the deal, which is nearly complete with a signed term sheet, MySpace will hand over a number of parts of FAN, including most of its 300 employees.

FAN–after a number of attempts to spin off from News Corp. (NWS), which owns the advertising network and MySpace–was recently spun into the social networking site after the departure of its top exec, Adam Bain, to Twitter.

But News Corp. and MySpace management decided it made less sense to keep most of FAN within MySpace, which is in the midst of a massive overhaul of the troubled service that will debut in a few weeks. MySpace will keep parts of FAN related to user data, said sources.

Both companies are based in the Los Angeles area. Rubicon is one of three big “yield optimizers,” which aim to help publishers manage their relationship with advertising networks so they get the highest possible dollar for the ad space. It competes with PubMatic and AdMeld.

A variety of rumors have swirled around FAN and a number of ad companies over the last several months. One recently in AdExchanger.com had Rubicon being folded into MySpace.

Not so. Instead, this deal is similar to one that News Corp. did in January of this year with Flixster, spinning its Rotten Tomatoes movie-review unit into the San Francisco social movie site for a large minority stake in the combined entity.

Several companies were looking at the pieces of FAN, sources said, but Rubicon was the cleanest option.

It’s a save all around. Sources said Rubicon had hired boutique investment bank Allen & Co. to look at a variety of alternatives for it and also had been reshuffling its staff.

BoomTown has calls in to both companies and am awaiting official comment.

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100830/emmy-awards-channels-glee-plus-bruce-plus-natch-betty-white/ http://allthingsd.com/20100830/emmy-awards-channels-glee-plus-bruce-plus-natch-betty-white/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:15:18 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33064

The clips from the 2010 Emmy Awards went up fast and furious all over the Internet last night, almost as soon as the acts were performed live on Sunday evening from Los Angeles.

That especially includes the one below from the opening, in which MC Jimmy Fallon enlists an odd mix of celebs, some from the cast of the television hit “Glee” for a take-off on, yes, “Glee.”

While NBC’s online site was not so quick with the clips from the broadcast–although it eventually had many–others were, which is pretty much how these events go now.

Here is the opener video, along with another of Fallon bidding goodbye to “24″ and “Law & Order,” a very funny spoof with the cast of the superb “Modern Family” and a Twitter shout-out by Fallon:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100830/emmy-awards-channels-glee-plus-bruce-plus-natch-betty-white/feed/ 0