AllThingsD » multimedia

Yahoo's Mayer Has Met with Hulu Execs in a Preliminary Look-See at Premium Video Unit

Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:20:44 +0000

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently met with top execs at Hulu, the premium video service whose big media company owners have been considering selling it for some months.

Sources said Yahoo is “in the process,” although the Silicon Valley Internet giant has not made any kind of formal bid. Other players whom sources said are considering purchasing all or parts of Hulu include: Former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin, who now has a successful and well-funded multimedia and investment company called the Chernin Group; Guggenheim Partners digital arm, which is led by former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn; and Amazon.

Sources said Mayer also had an extensive getting-to-know-you meeting, which was apparently not held at Hulu’s offices in Santa Monica, Calif., along with COO Henrique De Castro. The discussion is taking place in the wake of Yahoo’s failed bid — largely engineered by De Castro — to purchase a majority stake in France Télécom’s Dailymotion video service, after a top French government official said Yahoo could not own 75 percent of the company.

Had the deal — which was reportedly valued at $300 million — gone through, it would have been the most significant by Mayer since she took over at the company last July. Thus far, she has limited her purchases to small mobile startup.

While the meetings with Hulu are only preliminary, Yahoo has been to this video rodeo before, having seriously considering buying Hulu when it was previously being shopped by its owners, News Corp., Disney and Comcast. (News Corp. also owns this site.)

Of course, if Yahoo’s interest becomes more serious, Mayer will have to make important visits to top execs at those media giants, since they control the rights to critical content, and thus Hulu’s value.

As Peter Kafka noted in a previous post about Hulu’s possible sale, “much hinges on the licensing rights News Corp., Disney and Comcast would provide for the money-losing site, as well as what happens to the $300 million debt its owners have taken on in the last year.”

Without those rights, Hulu by itself is a very pretty Web site and video platform, but not worth the billions it would be with very long-term television rights, content that attracts users. Currently, sources said its media owners are offering two to three years of rights, with a lot of flexibility over removing content from the site, which is not quite as attractive a deal (to say the least).

But video is a key component of Yahoo’s strategy going forward. Along with mobile efforts, Mayer has explicitly told investors that video was a key to company under her tenure.

Coincidentally, today in an onstage interview at a Wired conference in New York, Mayer broadly addressed the video issue when asked a question about the topic, noting it was important across all of Yahoo’s properties.

“I think video is really important … video is something that we’re all innately designed and born to experience, everyone is born being able to watch and to hear,” she said. “Video is just this amazing format.”

Mayer would know that well, having been at Google when the search giant bought YouTube, ironically snatching it at the last minute from a competing bid by Yahoo, which was then led by Terry Semel. Since then, YouTube has become the most important and powerful player in the space by far.

Yahoo, despite being one of the largest video players on the Web, has mostly been a lackluster competitor in the arena, pinging over the years from creating original content to doing branded deals with media companies, but never establishing a major beachhead with consumers as Hulu did from scratch.

Short of a full acquisition, there may be a way for Yahoo to partner and invest in Hulu, instead of buying it outright that works for all sides — owners get a new owner to foot part of the bill and also increase distribution, and Yahoo can claim that it’s providing users with exponentially more content that would help Yahoo’s long-declining engagement problem.

Sources said News Corp. and Disney have mulled scenarios where one or both companies hang on to the site, while Comcast has no control over Hulu’s fate, having given up its management rights to the site as a concession to federal regulators.

But the strength of the Hulu brand is clear and it has had some success in building a more significant business. While a lot of its video offerings are free, about four million people are paying for a Hulu Plus subscription.

Still, Hulu’s strength might be lagging, especially given after talented founding leader Jason Kilar recently left. Last year, Hulu was a top 10 video site, according to comScore. No longer — in a report in March, it had dropped out of the top 10.

While this likely has more to do with methodology than real decline in Hulu ratings, it does show that while it’s the biggest thing Yahoo could buy or invest in, Yahoo itself has plenty of video views, many more than Hulu.

The question for Mayer then is how much of Yahoo’s multi-billon-dollar cash kitty she wants to bet on a big video play. She might also be considering buying several smaller ones, said sources, with Yahoo having also looked at some smaller video sites, including Blip and Grab Media.

A spokeswoman for Hulu declined to comment and Yahoo PR has not responded to a query for comment (if ever).

BermanBraun's Mom.me Enters the Crowded Parenting Space, Offering "Mass With Class"

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:10:00 +0000

In an interesting new entry into the highly competitive online parenting space, Santa Monica, Calif.-based BermanBraun is trying to use a mix of high-brow design with an ethos of casual hip and a simple content focus for a new site called Mom.me.

“We think there are ways to speak a lot more eloquently to this audience,” said Anne Marie O’Neill, editor of the site that recently launched. “It’s been conceived as a lifestyle site for moms who happen to be parents.”

It has a lot of competition, of course, including from Disney, which recently acquired the hipster parenting blog platform, Babble Media. And there are many others, too, such as Johnson & Johnson-owned BabyCenter, NBC’s iVillage, Parents.com and CafeMom.

But the Mom.me approach is trying to differentiate with a variety of social and other tools, including offering personalized ways to get only curated content based on the age group of a child.

“This is a group that grew up with the Internet and they are comfortable there, but are also sophisticated,” said O’Neill, who was formerly deputy editor at Time Inc.’s Real Simple magazine. “We think of Mom.me as mass with class and are trying to be very modern and realistic about parenthood as possible and talk to moms as we talk to each other.”

Mom.me is also the first big site launched on the Whiskey Media publishing platform, which BermanBraun acquired in March.

And it is the first time the multimedia production company is not using a big portal connection for its distribution, making it BermanBraun’s first wholly owned and operated site.

The company has previously worked with Microsoft’s MSN on the celebrity site, Wonderwall, as well as a women’s style site called Glo. And it also inked a deal with AOL for sites on pets, men and weather.

But, this time, it has created the site as part of an advertising partnership deal with Starcom MediaVest Group and a content and distribution arrangement with Demand Media.

“This is a different model, using a whole bunch of traffic drivers,” said Lloyd Braun, co-CEO of the firm. “We are going to do this with a number of key categories we want to go after.”

Procter & Gamble is the founding advertiser for Mom.me.

Here are some screenshots of the slick site, including a very fabulous slideshow on, well, baby poo — which I did not think could be done with such class:

Viral Video: "Attack the Block" and BoomTown Debut at SXSW

Kara Swisher — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:15:42 +0000

Like many a geek–and after a decade away–I’m headed to South by Southwest later this week.

To get in the mood for the well-known multimedia festival in Austin, here’s one of the films making its debut this coming weekend.

It’s called “Attack the Block,” and is about a teen gang fighting an alien invasion. Plus, it has the best tag line ever: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.”

Which is just about how I am feeling about SXSW!

In any case, despite my lack of hipster cred, I will be there for a party hosted by WordPress with drinks by The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and All Things Digital on Friday, as well as to interview Flipboard Co-founder and CEO Mike McCue on Saturday in an afternoon session with the subtitle: “Game-Changer or Passing Fad?”

NetworkEffect’s Liz Gannes and The Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret will also be at SXSW, so expect plenty of coverage from Texas.

Until then, enjoy this movie trailer, y’all:

Atrix 4G: Faux Laptop With a Phone For Brains

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:37:55 +0000

Today’s best smartphones are really hand-held computers. They run a vast variety of applications, from productivity programs to games, that mimic what laptops do. Their biggest limitations for serious work, gaming, Web surfing and multimedia are their small screens, cramped keyboards and tinny speakers.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, what if you could use the brains and connectivity of such a hand-held computer to drive a laptop-size screen, keyboard and speakers, thus overcoming these limitations? Well, Motorola Mobility has devised a new phone and accessory that aim to do just that: to make the phone the only computer you need.

I’ve been testing this new phone, the Atrix 4G, an Android device that will cost $200 with a two-year contract and will run on AT&T’s network. It’s slated to be available by March 6. I’ve also been testing its unusual and clever accessory called the laptop dock, which looks like a large netbook, with an 11.6-inch screen, full keyboard, touch pad, and stereo speakers. This dock, the price of which depends on when you buy it, has no processor, no file storage and no connectivity of its own. It’s dormant until you plug the Atrix into a slot behind the screen.

When you dock the phone, the faux laptop comes alive. It duplicates the phone’s screen on its larger display and lets you use its connectivity and apps. It also contains a battery that charges the phone. The image of the phone’s screen, and any of its apps you run, can be actual size or blown up to use the dock’s larger screen.

With Motorola’s Atrix 4G smartphone, the laptop is the accessory. The phone shown docked to the laptop dock.

Full-Screen Firefox

Even more interestingly, the dock gives you access to a full, and full-screen, PC version of the Firefox Web browser. Firefox is tucked away inside the Atrix but is available only when the phone is plugged into the laptop dock or a second, smaller dock that’s meant to connect to a TV or desktop monitor. The smaller dock lacks a built-in keyboard, battery or screen.

The laptop dock costs $500, but AT&T will knock the price down to $300, after rebates, if you buy it at the same time you buy the phone. That brings the combined price of both devices to $500—the same as the separate price for the dock. The smaller dock, called the multimedia dock, costs $190.

In my tests, the Atrix and the laptop dock performed mostly as advertised. The phone had no trouble driving the larger screen or the full Firefox browser.

I was even able to insert a flash drive into one of the dock’s two USB ports and copy songs, photos, videos and documents into the phone’s internal memory using the keyboard and touch pad. I edited and wrote text in an app called Quickoffice on the phone using the laptop dock’s keyboard, and ran various other apps, including the popular game Angry Birds, on the larger screen.

The Firefox browser worked as normal, using either the phone’s cellular or Wi-Fi connections to access the Internet. And both the phone itself and Firefox can run Flash videos, which mostly played fine.

But the combination of the phone and dock wasn’t as fast, smooth or versatile as having a real laptop, even though to use them you’re essentially carrying around a light laptop (the dock weighs 2.4 pounds). Many apps on the phone aren’t as polished or powerful as typical PC apps, and I found them clumsier to use with the keyboard and touch pad, as opposed to the touch screen for which they were designed.

Installation Issue

Also, other than Firefox, you can’t install PC programs. You can use Web apps inside Firefox, such as Google Docs or the stripped-down Web versions of Microsoft’s Office apps. For email, you can either use the program based in the phone or any Web-based program via the Firefox browser, such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. But you can’t, say, install iTunes, or PC-based games, or the full versions of Outlook or Microsoft Word.

And there is only a primitive file system, limited to the capacity of the phone, which is just 16 gigabytes, with an option to expand to 48 gigabytes.

The dock’s screen required a lot of scrolling when using Firefox, partly because the browser has a lot of menus and toolbars. To address this, Motorola lets you convert Web pages to versions with the Firefox controls stripped out, so you just see the content.

There’s another problem with the laptop dock. When you make or receive a voice call while the phone is docked, you must rely on the phone’s microphone and speakers, hidden behind the screen of the dock. As a result, calls sounded muffled on both ends, even though the phone automatically switches into speakerphone mode. Motorola says it is working on this issue.

Despite the drawbacks, some folks will surely be attracted to this innovative combination.

If you mostly do your computing tasks on a phone or a PC Web browser, storing files in the cloud and using phone or Web-based apps, Motorola has you covered. And the fact that the dock can charge the phone is a big plus.

Motorola’s Atrix 4G

The Phone Side

What about the phone itself?

Well, it’s one of the nicest smartphones I’ve tested. Its processor makes it fast, and it has a 4-inch, high-resolution screen—almost as high as the iPhone 4′s, though not quite as sharp to my eye. It runs an older version of Android, but Motorola is promising an upgrade.

The phone also has good battery life. It lasted a full day while I was testing it and Motorola claims up to nine hours of talk time. Photos and videos I took with the phone were sharp, and it has a front camera for video calls.

The Atrix also has two other notable features. First, it can take advantage of AT&T’s souped-up 3G network, which the carrier calls 4G because it can supposedly achieve 4G data speeds.

In my tests, in the D.C. and New York areas, the speed wasn’t especially impressive, averaging just a bit better than 3G speeds on other AT&T phones I’d tested.

There is also a fingerprint sensor built into the phone, which you can use instead of a pass code to secure the phone. It worked fine for me.

Overall, this is a very nice Android phone that can imitate a limited version of a laptop. That may be enough for some folks, but fall short for others.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Rupert Murdoch’s Daily for iPad Debuts Feb. 2

John Paczkowski — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 18:03:29 +0000

The Daily, the iPad newspaper News Corp. was supposed to unveil a few weeks ago, has a new launch date and a new venue for its debut: Feb. 2 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will preside over the event, which was originally to be held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. But he won’t be accompanied by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who recently took another medical leave of absence. Instead, he’ll be joined Eddy Cue, Apple vice president of Internet services–the guy who runs the the iTunes Store.

The Daily, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka previously reported, is expected to use a new “push” subscription feature from Apple, where iTunes automatically bills customers on a weekly or monthly basis, and a new edition shows up on customers’ iPads every morning. Tweaks to that feature are reportedly the cause of the delayed launch.

News Corp., which owns this Web site, reports earnings this afternoon.

Viral Video: The British Library's Stiff Upper App

Kara Swisher — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:32:29 +0000

Earlier today, All Things Digital noted a new app from the British Library.

Called Treasures, it’s a mobile multimedia look at more than 100 prized items from its collections, including the original version of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the world’s oldest Bible, hand-painted medieval books, Nelson’s battle plan for Trafalgar and doodles by Leonardo.

And here’s the very classy video that explains the app. available on the Apple iPhone and iPad and also Google’s Android smartphones:

Finally, a Quick Way to Check the Codex Sinaiticus on the Go

Voices — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:30:31 +0000

Here’s a new app that’s sure to class up the reference folder on your phone. The British Library today released Treasures, a mobile multimedia look at more than 100 prized items from its collections, including the original version of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the world’s oldest Bible, hand-painted medieval books, Nelson’s battle plan for Trafalgar and doodles by Leonardo. Truly priceless items–and speaking of price, if you act now, this app can be yours for the low, low introductory price of $1.99 for the iPhone and Android versions, and $3.99 for the HD iPad versions, all available in their respective marketplaces.

Rupert Murdoch's "Daily" iPad Newspaper Set for January Launch

Peter Kafka — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:50:23 +0000

Want to get a gander at “the Daily,” Rupert Murdoch’s much-discussed but still sorta-secret iPad newspaper? Wait a month.

News Corp. plans to launch the publication the week of January 17, multiple sources tell me.

The caveat here is that launch plans have moved around a couple of times in the past few months; until recently, lots of folks expected to see this thing in December. But this latest date looks like a much safer bet. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

Given that News Corp. has hired dozens of blabby journalists for the Daily, and interviewed many more, lots of other details about the app/service have leaked out already: It will come out daily, it will sell for 99 cents a week, it will use lots of video and it will have cool multimedia bells and whistles, including some kind of 3-D effect that lots of people are very excited about. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs may or may not participate in a launch event.

Most important for other media companies: The Daily is supposed to use a new “push” subscription feature from Apple, where iTunes automatically bills customers on a weekly or monthly basis, and a new edition shows up on customers’ iPads every morning.

If we do see that on the Daily next month, expect to see several other new iPad apps using the same feature shortly afterward.

That offering won’t resolve Apple’s dispute with conventional publishers, who want to be able to control their subscriptions–or at least get access to subscriber data–for iTunes app versions of their print products. But for new, digital-only products like the Daily, that data isn’t as crucial, and the ability to set up a recurring subscription would be a big step forward.

What Does an iAd Look Like on an iPad? It Looks Pretty Awesome (Of Course)

Peter Kafka — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:56:00 +0000

Apple’s iAd program was supposed to make its way to iPads in 2010. Instead, it won’t make an official rollout till next year. But Apple is offering a preview of what an iAd will look like right now, via a campaign for Disney’s upcoming “Tron” sequel.

The best way to see it is by downloading the TV Guide iPad app, where you’ll find it prominently displayed. It’s like any other “in-app” ad you’ve seen before–click on a banner, and you get a barrage of multimedia–except that in this case it’s intensely fun.

It helps that the ad is for a movie, which translates perfectly on the iPad. And that the movie fuses action, nerddom and nostalgia. And Jeff Bridges!

And note that Apple has always understood the appeal of movie trailers and the Web: Remember when Apple’s movie trailers site was one of the most novel and well-trafficked places on the Internet?

So if you’re wondering if the iPad is a great place to advertise movies via iAds, that question should be answered. The real question is how the format will fare for other products: So far, Apple’s pricing and control issues have made iAds on iPhones and iPods less than a resounding success.

But that’s business talk! Ignore that for now! Get your iPad out and go look at the pretty moving pictures!

No iPad? Then you’re going to have to imagine. Here’s a screenshot:

And here’s a shakycam video:

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse at Dive Into Mobile

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:45:26 +0000

When Sprint CEO Dan Hesse joined the company three years ago, the third-largest carrier was bleeding subscribers from having a poor reputation for customer service and facing stiff competition from the likes of AT&T, which holds the exclusive on the iPhone.

Since then, Sprint has stemmed the losses, mostly by beefing up its customer service and by investing in the prepaid sector to attract a wider audience during the economic downturn. Going forward, Sprint looks to its 4G strategy for growth through its ownership stake in WiMax-provider Clearwire. Next up, Hesse joins Walt Mossberg onstage.

3:45 pm: Walt welcomes Dan Hesse to the stage. You can’t have mobile without networks, says Walt. You’ve led the way on 4G; tell us about it.

3:46 pm: Dan: We are getting San Francisco up soon, and will have 120 million POPs by the end of the year, or about a third of the country.

He explains what 4G is: 3G for was email and Web pages, but 4G is for multimedia and video.

The best analogy is that 4G is the wide open freeway vs. an interstate that provides the same speeds, but you have to stop along the way.

3:48 pm: Walt: Why are you using WiMax when the two other carriers are using LTE?

Hesse: Back in 2008, we wanted to be first, and WiMax was available right now. (Lots to do with TDD, and other technical mumbo jumbo). Technically, there’s no difference. I can’t deny that LTE will be a bigger ecosystem, but we couldn’t wait. We thought the market was ready.

With the success of the iPhone, we thought it was ready now.

Walt: How much leadership did it give you?

Hesse: Well, it made Verizon move a lot faster….In 2010, we’ll have 120 million POPs, and the EVO and Epic (two 4G phones) have been really successful.

Walt: How successful?

Hesse: If you were to go to Clearwire’s wholesale numbers, you should think of Sprint’s lion’s share of the wholesale numbers.

Walt: Was it worth the investment?

Hesse: I think so.

3:53 pm: Hesse: 4G is one element of many.

Walt: You like Consumer Reports, unlike the guy here earlier [AT&T's Glenn Lurie].

Hesse: Sprint is the fastest growing brand of postpaid in the U.S.–not the Nextel brand, where we’ve been losing subscribers.

3:55 pm: Walt: Are you going to get the iPhone?

Hesse: Can’t say.

Walt: Would you like the iPhone?

Hesse: Under the right conditions, yes, I would. It’s a wonderful phone.

3:56 pm: Backing up a bit, Walt now asks about an industry trend toward tiered pricing for data plans, where the more you use, the more you pay.

Sprint hasn’t yet limited users’ traffic.

Hesse: Customers will pay a premium for simplicity. Even if it’s not in their best economic interest, they will go with the unlimited plan. We were the first to come out with truly unlimited text, voice and data with the Simply Everything plan.

3:59 pm: Walt: Are you not going to do tiered pricing?

Hesse: So far, we aren’t, he says, which gets a round of applause from the audience. But Sprint did up the cost of the unlimited plans of the most capable devices on the network.

4:00 pm: Walt: Unlimited means unlimited or doesn’t it?

Hesse: No, it doesn’t. What if they have the SlingBox streaming 24×7?

4:01 pm: Hesse: The trend is toward one plan for all of your devices, like tablets, phones, PCs, etc.

Walt: Are you going to offer plans for all those devices?

Hesse: We are thinking about it. That’s the next step to simplicity. Three years ago, it was about one device.

4:02 pm: Walt: People aren’t counting minutes, now they are counting megabytes and things people don’t understand.

Hesse: Something has to give; what’s going to be the form? Do you have meters, do you have tiers, do you increase the price of the unlimited plans?

Another option is to have a lot more spectrum available to add capacity at a lower cost.

Walt: Are you talking about taking away the spectrum that the elderly use to watch their TV?

Hesse: If more spectrum is available, you can use more frequencies, which is a lot less expensive than splitting cell sites and putting in more towers.

Walt: There’s some confusion about Clearwire. They are opening stores and selling laptops and modems. You own most of that company, and they are building your WiMax network. Why are they competing with you?

Hesse: I have a wholesale business that resells minutes to Leap, so it’s the same thing.

4:06 pm: Walt’s giving Hesse grief about the structure of the Clearwire deal. Despite Sprint owning roughly 54 percent of the company, Sprint doesn’t control the board.

Walt: Who did that deal?

Hesse: Two thumbs pointing at himself [me]. When you have this many owners of the company, we can’t agree.

4:08 pm: Walt: What’s the value of 4G?

Hesse: The experience is really fast, and we offer unlimited plans on 4G. There’s a five-gigabyte cap on 3G, but 4G is completely unlimited.

Walt’s curious if 4G is really life-changing and transformative. Sprint’s beating the other guys by 2x, not 10x or 20x.

Hesse: My son showed me his speed test on his EVO at home, and it was over 8 mbps, so it depends.

4:11 pm: Questions from the audience. The Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley asks about the potential deal between Clearwire and T-Mobile, which may be falling apart because of Clearwire’s recent $1 billion in debt that it has raised.

Hesse deflects the question despite several reports to the contrary, by saying he didn’t know anything about that.

Another audience question: What’s your stance on network neutrality?

Hesse: The FCC has come out with a proposal, and we are very supportive of it.

Viral Video: BermanBraun Doesn't Just Make Web Sites ("The Cape" on NBC Debuts Soon)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:15:49 +0000

Here is a new teaser trailer for a midseason replacement television show on NBC called “The Cape.”

It’s from Hollywood multimedia production company BermanBraun, which is known in tech for the handsome content sites it makes for Microsoft’s MSN portal, such as the celebrity-focused Wonderwall.

And partner Lloyd Braun also ran Yahoo’s media unit for a bit.

“The Cape” is about a good cop who is framed and has to turn himself into a crime-fighting hero to regain his old life and family. With a cape, natch.

There is a lot of broodiness and moodiness and there are also carnival misfits in the show, which premieres January 9.

Here is the trailer for the show:

Intern Becomes Real Live Blog Dude–ATD Hires Drake Martinet

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:29:51 +0000

It is always nice when an intern makes good, and that is entirely the case with Drake Martinet (pictured here), who joins All Things Digital–as of yesterday, in fact.

We could not be happier. Plus, we knew he was our kind of geek after he agreed to spend the night in a tent next to Robert Scoble, to cover last year’s Apple iPad release.

That was when Drake was an ATD intern, until he headed to the New York Times this past summer to work on social media efforts in the newsroom.

And that’s one of the many things he will be working on here, making ATD more Facebook-worthy, Twittified and YouTubed within an inch of our lives.

Drake will also be working on upgrading our multimedia efforts–which is to say, figuring out a more sophisticated strategy for us than BoomTown’s Flip video camera assaults, helping mesh up business development efforts with our editorial integrity, analyzing our analytics and even making sure our new interns are up to snuff.

And, for his next trick, he will also be doing posts on interesting early start-ups and emerging ideas, much in the same way he did a bang-up job with a feature called “Almost Famous” when he was an intern.

Whew! Then again, he is young!

Still, Drake has done a lot so far.

After receiving his masters degree from Stanford University’s graduate program in journalism this year, and spending time in the school’s design program (the d.school), Drake moved to Brooklyn to work for the Times.

In addition to his weekly start-up column for ATD, his written, photographic and video work has appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous Web sites and blogs.

A native of San Diego, Drake first moved to Northern California to attend the University of California at Davis. He has lived in the greater Bay Area for the last eight years, excepting short stays in Louisiana, Washington D.C., New York and Chile.

When not working on a story or doing a little Web development, Drake can be found at his workbench building all manner of things physical and electronic, like the solar-powered Timbuk2 backpack that accompanies him almost everywhere.

He also loves to twist through the Peninsula hills on his classic Triumph motorcycle. (And, now that he is our employee again, perhaps we’ll make him do it with Scoble in tow.)

Drake joins a spate of recent hires at ATD, including: Liz Gannes on social (now appearing here in her new blog, NetworkEffect); Tricia Duryee on e-commerce; Ina Fried on mobile; and, last but not least, Arik Hesseldahl on enterprise.

And, as usual, much more to come….

A Fall Guide: How to Pick Your Next Computer

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:05:08 +0000

If you’re shopping for a new computer this fall, you won’t find big surprises. But you’ll still have to juggle a lot of technobabble terminology and watch your budget. Perhaps the biggest question for some buyers will be whether to get a tablet or a laptop, now that Apple’s iPad is a proven hit and a flood of competitors is on the way.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, here is my annual fall computer buyers’ guide, a simplified road map to the key decisions shoppers must make. I’ve focused on laptops—the most common purchase—but much of this advice also applies to desktops. As always, these tips are for average users doing the most common tasks. This advice doesn’t apply to businesses, to hard-core gamers, or to serious media producers.

Tablets vs. Laptops: If you’re looking for a light-duty, highly portable computer, it’s worth considering the iPad, which starts at $499, instead of a small laptop. This is especially true if you’re in the market for a secondary computer, or one mainly for use on the go. Many owners of iPads, including me, are finding it handily replaces a laptop for numerous tasks, such as Web browsing, email, social-networking, photos, video and music. It has superior battery life, lighter weight, and it starts instantly. I don’t recommend it for people who are creating long documents, especially spreadsheets and presentations, even though it is capable of those tasks. And I don’t recommend it for users who require, or prefer, a physical keyboard.

If you don’t like the iPad, there will soon be alternatives. For instance, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which has a 7-inch screen versus the iPad’s 10-inch display, and runs Google’s Android operating system, will be available this month from major wireless carriers. Sprint, for example, will offer it at $400 with a two-year contract. But some tablet buyers may want to wait till the first half of next year, when many more models will be available, and Apple will likely roll out the second-generation iPad.

Netbooks: These low-cost, low-powered little Windows computers are losing popularity, but are still available, typically for about $350 to $500. They are being hurt by the rise of tablets and by light but larger laptops. Some buyers also find the screens and keyboards are too cramped. But these are evolving. Some now have bigger screens and roomier keyboards. And Dell will soon introduce a sort of hybrid netbook-tablet. Called the Inspiron Duo, this model, starting at $499, has both a regular keyboard and a touch screen that flips around when the lid is closed to act like a tablet.

Windows vs. Mac: Windows laptops can be much less costly—and come in many more styles and varieties—than Mac laptops. The Macs start at $999, versus as little as $500 for a decently equipped Windows portable. Windows laptops are still dominant. But Apple laptops are stylish and reliable, and usually boot much faster than Windows machines, in my tests. Also, Apple scores high on surveys of customer support. Its latest models, like the new, light MacBook Airs, have extraordinarily good battery life. Macs also aren’t affected by the vast majority of malicious software, have much better built-in multimedia software and, at extra cost, can run Windows programs in cases where Mac equivalents aren’t available.

The light but speedy 13-inch Toshiba R705 offers good battery life.

Cost: Most of the popular consumer Windows laptops cost $500 to $800. You can get full-size laptops for as little as $280, but their processors and graphics are weak and some lack webcams. If you can afford it, a light but speedy 13-inch machine like the Toshiba R705 offers very good battery life for just under $800. All-in-one desktops typically cost around $1,000 and some, like the HP TouchSmart, offer touch screens with special touch software. Apple’s popular all-in-one iMac starts at $1,199.

Processors: The most promoted chips are Intel’s i3, i5, and i7 Core models, the latter two of which can turn on and off some of their functions to boost power or save energy. But there is nothing wrong with buying a PC that uses chips from rival AMD, which usually cost less. For average users, Intel’s older Core 2 Duo still works just fine, even with the latest software. Intel’s weaker Atom processor line powers most netbooks.

Graphics: Integrated graphics, which share the computer’s main memory, are fine for most common tasks, but costlier discrete graphics, which have dedicated memory, can speed things up by taking some of the load off the main processor. They also are better for games. Some computers have both and can switch among them.

Wireless: More and more laptops are coming with optional cellular modem chips in addition to Wi-Fi. These can be handy while traveling, but be warned that they require a cellular data contract, which can be costly.

Connections: If you plan to connect your laptop to a TV, look for a connector called an HDMI port, which is used on most high-definition TVs. Some laptops also come with a feature called Wireless Display, or Wi-Di, which, with an extra-cost adapter, can beam your laptop screen to a TV without a cable. There is a new, much faster USB port, called USB 3.0, but, so far, it’s on very few machines.

Memory: Aim for 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new computer, and never settle for less than 2 gigabytes.

Hard disks: A 320 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, though 250 gigabytes is OK if price is key, or if it’s your secondary machine. Solid-state disks, which lack moving parts and use flash memory like smartphones do, are faster and use less battery power. They cost much more, but are coming down in price fast. However, they typically offer much less capacity.

64-bit: Many models now use a 64-bit architecture, which allows properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy 64-bit, which will become more and more important.

Touch: Some Windows 7 computers have touch capability built into the screen, though Windows wasn’t designed with touch as a core element and the combination isn’t ideal. Computer makers try to resolve this with special touch software, which you should try in a store. Apple laptops use huge touch pads as the multitouch surface, instead of the screen.

As always, don’t buy more machine than you need.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Tallying Up Viewers

Suzanne Vranica — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:00:25 +0000

Some of the nation’s biggest media companies and advertisers, seeking to develop new ways of measuring audiences, could make Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone the vehicle for a study of how Americans consume media on a range of devices–from TV sets to mobile phones to computers.

The study would be one of the first major initiatives of the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, a high-profile collaboration between the media and ad industries begun last summer with much fanfare.

“When you go from a single-media world to a multimedia world, then all the media-measurement techniques have to change” says Jane Clark, managing director of CIMM.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Sharp New Competition In the E-Reader Arena

Beth Callaghan — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:34:53 +0000

Japanese electronics giant Sharp announced today that it will launch two e-readers sometime this year with advanced multimedia capabilities that will support audio and video as well as text display. The gadgets–which will reportedly resemble Apple’s iPad and iPhone–will launch in Japan later this year, and will ship internationally in the near future.

Consumer Reports: By the Way, the iPhone 4 is Also the Best Smartphone on the Market

John Paczkowski — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:07:48 +0000

Well, this is ironic. Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 4, the smartphone that Consumer Reports says it can’t recommend, is also the one ranked highest in its latest ratings. The device scored 76 out of 100 points–two points ahead of its closest rivals, the iPhone 3Gs and the HTC Evo 4G (click on image above to enlarge).

The product evaluation agency rated the iPhone 4 “Excellent” in its display, navigation, Web browsing, multimedia and battery life categories, “Very Good” in phoning and messaging and “Good” in voice quality.

In short, the iPhone 4 is hands-down the best smartphone available today, but Consumer Reports advises against buying it.

[Image credit: Consumer Reports]

Viral Video: Hotmail Updates From the Dark Ages

Kara Swisher — Wed, 19 May 2010 07:05:34 +0000

Well, it took Microsoft long enough to update the features of Hotmail, which the company is announcing this week.

Some new doodads include better filtering, more social integration, lots of multimedia content, such as photo slideshows and–perhaps most importantly–the ability to use Microsoft Office software documents like PowerPoint within the online email service.

It’s a wonder it took so long for Microsoft (MSFT) to upgrade and innovate–Dear Windows Live Hotmail team, conversation views in email is not new to anyone but you–the service, although it remains No. 2 after Yahoo (YHOO) Mail. Google (GOOG) Gmail is third.

Microsoft, which blogged about the changes here, has called the whole shebang of releases in its Window Live services “Wave 4.”

Wave 3, um, was in 2008.

Still, here is a very good Microsoft video about it all, though I am not sure what’s up with the orange-dot lady:

Adobe to Apple: You Wanna Hug It Out? Let's Hug It Out!

John Paczkowski — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:55:28 +0000

Though it should have ended after Steve Jobs’s withering “Thoughts of Flash” essay, Adobe’s long and unsuccessful campaign to persuade Apple to embrace the multimedia platform on its mobile devices continues. Today the company added still more fuel to the Flash flame war by taking out full-page pro-Flash advertisements in the business sections of a number of major newspapers.

Tough love–or irony–seems to be the theme, with the ad opening with a big “We [heart] Apple” and continuing with a reprimand about Apple’s position on Flash, which Adobe claims in a bit of bloviatory grandstanding is a threat to freedom and the evolution of the Web.

The ads have been launched in concert with a new “Freedom of Choice” channel on the Adobe Web site in which the company lays out its arguments in more detail with some “Setting the Record Straight” usage statistics and an open letter from Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock:

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company–no matter how big or how creative–should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.

When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe’s business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end–and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.

We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web–the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody–and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

That’s a wonderful worldview, but as a refutation of Jobs’s 1,671-word point-by-bloody-point gutting of the Flash platform, it’s a bit lacking. And ultimately it’s just more rhetoric–good rhetoric, after bad, if you will.

Does Adobe (ADBE) really believe it can shame Apple (AAPL) into reconsidering its position? Perhaps it needs to give “Thoughts on Flash” another read. Or better yet, it should heed the advice of its own co-founders:

“The best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.”

If that’s your belief, Adobe, then why bother with this silly war of words? Show us Flash running–and running well with minimal resource consumption–on some mobile devices. As Altimeter Group partner Michael Gartenberg wrote this morning, “All the Adobe ads don’t matter if they can’t make a compelling case to the mass market why they should care about Flash.”

UPDATE: Adobe, in answer to my question above, offers these videos of Flash Player 10.1 prerelease running on a handful of smartphones and tablets.

PREVIOUSLY:

Good Luck With That Alleged Antitrust Complaint Against Apple, Adobe…

Adobe CTO: Flash on iPhone Doesn’t Suck and Apple Knows It

A Possible Apple Antitrust Inquiry? Nothing to See Here…

Microsoft on Flash: What Steve Said

Adobe: We’re Done With You Too, Apple

Apple to Adobe: I Know You Are, but What Am I?

So Much for Flash on the iPhone

Adobe: Flash for Mac Is Getting Better–Really!

Yahoo Tries to Recover From "It's Y!ou" Ad Disaster by Attacking Google's One Box (This Is Going to End in Tears)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 06 May 2010 06:28:33 +0000

Say it ain’t you, Yahoo.

And yet, here’s one of the major new conceptual directions of the troubled Internet giant’s next pricey marketing campaign, aimed at recovering from its first advertising foray, which is widely considered a failure: A full frontal attack on search leader Google.

BoomTown posted several weeks ago that the new effort was being rolled out.

And now it’s here–and, in part, it’s an odd attempt to mock the simple and elegant white box that allowed Google (GOOG) to steal Yahoo’s thunder many years back, as well as lightning and any other weather system worth owning.

“There’s nothing to look at but a box and a button,” says the voice-over in the Yahoo (YHOO) marketing video–which you can see below–about an unnamed, but obvious, Web site. “When you look at this homepage nothing looks back at you. You come to this place so you can leave.”

Well, yes! Because it’s a search page!

No matter, according to Yahoo, which remains intent on pushing the idea of being “the center of your online life.”

Which has, of course, increasingly become Facebook. The social networking giant has done exactly zero advertising to get its 500 million users and has been steadily surpassing Yahoo in a number of key consumer metrics.

In fact, Facebook is Yahoo’s true nemesis, although the new ads push Facebook, as well as Twitter, in order to focus on Yahoo as the place to interact with a lot of different sites and services in one place.

“Today we are excited to preview the next phase of the Yahoo! marketing campaign, showcasing the amazing content and experiences people can find only with Yahoo!. We want people to experience first-hand how Yahoo! is the place where all the things, people, experiences, information–everything you care about–come together,” said Yahoo marketing head Elisa Steele in a blog post on the company’s Yodel Anecdotal blog tonight. “It’s a place that gets to know you, a place that surprises you. And we’ll demonstrate it by letting you sample the products, see them in action and have experiential encounters.”

Well, at least that sounds better than the willfully vague $100 million campaign Steele launched with noisy fanfare last fall with the motto: “It’s Y!ou.”

Yahoo never really answered what exactly “you” was, which is why CEO Carol Bartz finally admitted to a group of reporters in March that the effort “didn’t have a really good call to action.”

Actually, it had none and–more important–did not increase traffic in the key U.S. market (as you can see in the chart), although Yahoo execs tried mightily to spin it as successful in some international markets and as an opening effort to revive the tarnished brand.

A pretty pricey effort it was, causing Yahoo to pretty much dump the WPP Group (WPPGY) ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, and hire Omnicom Group (OMC) unit Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the new work.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal tonight, Yahoo will spend $75 million to $85 million on the renewed multimedia campaign, although it seems to be part of the original outlay of $100 million.

The Journal said there was a new slogan: “Your favorite stuff all in one place. Make Yahoo your home page.”

The more specific effort will show off partners that Yahoo has been integrating into the service, as well as its own properties.

And as it turns out, that’s why the “It’s You” tagline is remaining, with a spate of efforts to make it more specific and product-centric.

According to the article in the Journal, there will be a lot of marketing gimmicks, such as kiosks, giant Apple (AAPL) iPhones with a huge Yahoo search app, and photo booths.

While that is all well and good, Yahoo’s key issue–besides its talent brain drain–remains its lack of new and innovative products, which are being pumped out aggressively by Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft (MSFT) and, yes, Google.

At least we now know why Bartz took aim at Google’s search business model in a BBC interview recently, noting it was one-note.

As Yahoo is now trying to paint Google’s main product offering in its new marketing materials and, presumably, its upcoming ad campaign.

But, in fact, touting its simple search box on its own, Google spent very little on its utterly charming “Parisian Love” commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl and scored off the charts in a number of surveys.

It’s about exactly how useful one box can be.

Compare that Google marketing video with Yahoo’s effort below and decide for yourself which marketing material works better:

Yahoo! Tile Video @ Yahoo! Video

Here are more new Yahoo ad examples:

And here is the full text of Steele’s blog:

A Sneak Peek of Exciting & Fresh Stuff from Yahoo!

Posted May 5th, 2010 at 7:11 pm by Yahoo!, Blog Editors

Odds are that sometime in the last six months you have experienced the Yahoo! “It’s You!” campaign somewhere in your world: reading the news you crave every day, during your favorite television show, searching on why lady bugs have spots, on the side of the bus you take to work. Our goal with this campaign was to make a connection with our hundreds of millions of users over the world and have fun with your favorite stuff, all in one place!

Today we are excited to preview the next phase of the Yahoo! marketing campaign, showcasing the amazing content and experiences people can find only with Yahoo!. We want people to experience first-hand how Yahoo! is the place where all the things, people, experiences, information–everything you care about–come together. It’s a place that gets to know you, a place that surprises you. And well demonstrate it by letting you sample the products, see them in action and have experiential encounters.

Keep in mind, this is just a sneak peek into the fun ideas and experiences we are dreaming up. Starting May 18th and throughout the year, you will begin to see finished new elements of the campaign, with many fun surprises across the Y! network, web and within venues such a cinemas, television and even in the air (on planes!).

The Yahoo! marketing campaign will show users how to tap into Yahoo’s industry-leading products and make the Internet far more personally relevant. Starting a band? Yahoo! Search–a smarter, more personal search, will help you find the gear, gigs and guitar heroes you need to rock out.

Going to the movies? Yahoo! can entertain and enhance the cinema experience. Starting in the lobby before the movie starts, we will showcase Yahoo! products and properties through interactive panels. Using the new Sketch-a-Search app we can help you find a restaurant for after the movie. At the start of the film, we’ll integrate Yahoo! Search into the movie trailers, simulating a Search Wow Module.

At 30,000 feet, Yahoo! will make it fun to travel. As passengers relax on airline flights, we entertain by showing how Yahoo! brings my world and the world together through our creative campaign and tailored Yahoo! content. Each flight will feature our full video campaign, and depending on the flight and time, Yahoo! content such as Funny or Die and other pieces of Yahoo! entertainment.

Keep track of the highest bid on a vintage skateboard on eBay, share your latest photos showing you landing that kickflip on Flickr and find out who’s dating who on Facebook–all from the comfort of your Yahoo! Homepage.

We can’t wait to share the new campaign where you spend a lot of your time- online. While scrolling through the “live” images you can add all your favorite items to your Yahoo! homepage. Making it relevant and personal.

So the next time you hop on a plane, check your email or go to the movies. Yahoo! can bring YOUR world and THE world together in one convenient place–wherever you are.

Elisa Steele, Yahoo! EVP & Chief Marketing Officer

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Nokia Accuses Apple of "Legal Alchemy." Stops Short of "Chymistry" and "Heresy."

John Paczkowski — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00:42 +0000

The rhetorical terpsichore in the Nokia-Apple patent-infringement spat is ramping up–and quickly. Late last week, the Finnish mobile phone maker asked a U.S. judge to dismiss Apple’s (AAPL) antitrust claims against it, disparaging them as “legal alchemy.”

“Through what charitably could be called an attempt at legal alchemy, Apple employs revisionist history, misleading characterizations, unsupported allegations and flawed and contradictory legal theories to turn these fruitless negotiations into a multi-count federal lawsuit,” Nokia (NOK) said in papers filed in federal court in Wilmington, Del. (full document embedded below).

“These non-patent counterclaims are designed to divert attention away from free-riding off of Nokia’s intellectual property, a practice Apple evidently believes should only be of paramount concern when it is the alleged victim,” the filing continued.

“Legal alchemy”? Where’s Nokia looking for legal inspiration, the Salem Witch trials?

Anyway, a blistering condemnation, but no more so than the one Apple (AAPL) let fly against Nokia in December, when it accused the company of copying the iPhone after finding itself caught flat-footed by the device’s success.

In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone a ground-breaking device that allowed users access to the functionality of the already popular iPod on a revolutionary mobile phone and Internet device. The iPhone is a converged device that allows users to access and ever expanding set of software features to take and send pictures, play music, play games do research, serve as a GPS device and much more….The iPhone platform has caused a revolutionary change in the mobile phone category.

In contrast, Nokia made a different business decision and remained focused on traditional mobile wireless handsets with conventional user interfaces. As a result, Nokia has rapidly lost share in the market for high-end mobile phones. Nokia has admitted that, as a result of the iPhone launch, the market changed suddenly and [Nokia was] not fast enough changing with it.

In response, Nokia chose to copy the iPhone, especially its enormously popular and patented design and user interface….

As Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, stated at Nokia’s GoPlay event in 2007 when asked about the similarities of Nokia’s new offerings to the already released iPhone: “[i]f there is something good in the world, we copy with pride.” True to this quote, Nokia has demonstrated its willingness to copy Apple’s iPhone ideas as well as Apple’s basic computing technologies, all while demanding Apple pay for access to Nokia’s purported standards essential patent. Apple seeks redress for this behavior.

Seems to be quite a battle in the offing here. That said, we’re not likely to see a victor declared for another year or two. According to Nokia’s filing, the Delaware case probably won’t go to trial until spring of 2012. The International Trade Commission, however, is expected to issue its decision on the matter in June 2011.

031110 Nokia’s Opening Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss _D.I. 26_ –

My Kid’s an Honor Student at iPad University: Apple on the Rebound in Edu

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:20:50 +0000

In the ’80s, Apple’s share of the U.S. education market stood at 50 percent. These days, it hovers around 20 percent, thanks largely to falling PC prices and the advent of the netbook. But that’s changing, and quickly too (see chart below; click to enlarge).

With Apple (AAPL) inking multiyear Mac contracts with a number of school districts, it’s growth in edu is on the rebound. And now, with the iPad and its promise of hand-held education just a few weeks from market, Apple could be poised to see significant growth in higher ed.

Obviously, it’s impossible to predict whether the iPad will be the digital device to transform the classroom, but some analysts are enthusiastic about the possibility. Among them: Needham & Company’s Charlie Wolf. Reflecting on Apple’s performance in the U.S education market in a note to clients this morning, he suggests there may be big things ahead for the company.

“The soon-to-be-introduced iPad has the potential to change the buying dynamics in both the secondary and higher education markets,” Wolf writes. “At $500 before typical education discounts, the iPad is price competitive with all the PCs schools now purchase.”

That’s not all. Wolf continues: “And the device has the potential to go much further if, as it appears certain, education content is customized for the iPad to exploit its unique multimedia capabilities. It is not difficult to imagine classrooms where the iPad takes center stage, capturing a significant percentage of the school market in the process.”

Not difficult to imagine at all, though it may take some time to get there. As my colleague, Peter Kafka, reminds me, the iPad-as-textbook is likely quite a way off given that it requires buy-in from educational publishers, not to mention school boards and academia. Beyond that, there’s the need for applications that really take advantage of the portability and breadth of use that the iPad offers and to position it as a true an educational tool.

“To be successful in the secondary ed market, the iPad will need content and application developers to write applications that exploit the unique form factor and features of the iPad–content and apps that materially improve the ‘educational experience’ in the classroom,” Wolf told me in a brief email interview this morning.

“If that doesn’t happen,” Wolf added, the iPad could enjoy some success. But it would be far less than that which would occur if the iPad becomes a unique educational tool.”

Wolf believes higher ed will be easier, though. “Again it will depend on content developers–the publishers–exploiting the dynamic features of the device to enhance the educational experience,” he said. ”Simply formatting text books for the iPad will be OK, but it would eliminate any chance of a hockey stick of adoption.”

[Image credits: Needham & Company, Adam Tow]

Microsoft's New Mobile Phone Software Is Coming (and Its "Project Pink" Still Lives)–But Should It Just Give Up and Buy RIM?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:06:19 +0000

Next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft is likely to unveil Windows Mobile 7, the new version of its mobile operating system, trying to create some excitement around its foundering mobile strategy.

“Foundering” is probably kind, given the innovative strides both Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) have made in the smartphone arena in recent years by comparison.

That’s why rumors about the various attributes of the new mobile OS escalated again after Microsoft (MSFT) CFO Peter Klein noted at the company’s most recent earnings call: “As we have been saying from a product perspective, we are working very hard on the next version of Windows Mobile…we will be talking more about that in Barcelona in a few weeks.”

The most prominent of those rumors is that the new OS morphs into a kind of “ZunePhone,” incorporating functionality from the software of Microsoft’s digital music player.

And as one hand does software, Microsoft has also been doing the smartphone equivalent of a Long March with its “Project Pink,” the long anticipated multimedia touchscreen device that has been in development for a while by its Premium Mobile Experiences group.

That team is apparently hidden away in a Seattle office–as opposed to its nearby Redmond, Wash., HQ–and still includes some employees from Danger, the iconic company that designed the once-popular Sidekick mobile phone and was bought by Microsoft in 2008 for $500 million.

There, both Microsoft-designed hardware and software are being created, with some sort of device to come out this year, sources said, despite persistent rumors that the whole project would be scotched.

The hope–when the tech giant finally does end this very long gestation–is that it can finally get some traction in the increasingly important smartphone space, which is dominated by Apple’s iPhone and, farther behind, phones using Google’s Android operating system.

While Microsoft tirelessly argues that Windows mobile software is on many more phones around the globe than that of competitors, the challenge is clear externally–and internally, if you listen carefully to the griping about the company’s mobile strategy, which one exec there recently admitted to me was an “embarrassment.”

Indeed, this is why Microsoft and its giant wallet might be better served by buying one of the big and more established telecom companies, such as Research in Motion (RIMM), Palm (PALM) or even–as another Microsoft exec said to me, “Why not?”–Nokia (NOK).

Nokia has a market cap of close to $50 billion, with RIM at close to $38 billion. And Palm? A paltry $1.74 billion. Microsoft’s current valuation is $246 billion, and the company has $40 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand.

While the purchase of Danger was pricey given how little it has yielded as yet, to do such a deal would send shock waves throughout the industry and–if it were Nokia or RIM, both of which are non-U.S.-based companies–change the game immediately.

And, in fact, many sources at Microsoft have told me that CEO Steve Ballmer has expressed interest in buying RIM many times (while also dismissing any interest in Palm).

Well, at least, Ballmer is thinking big. And he should, because mobile, which everyone knows is the key platform in the coming era of computing, will be all about getting–as the saying goes–big or getting out.

Memo to Apple: You Might Want to Dispatch an iPad Team to Stanford U ASAP!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:22:25 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown dispatched intrepid All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet to the campus of Stanford University–located in the heart of Silicon Valley and where he is a student–right after Apple launched its new iPad tablet computer.

His mission: To find out if fellow students at the famous institution of higher learning–presumably one of the big consumer targets for Apple (AAPL)–were going to go out and get the mobile, multimedia device asap.

While there were no dopey jokes about the iPad name, it turned out: Not so much.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

BoomTown's Apple iPad Day, Starring Walt Mossberg (Plus a Steve Jobs Cameo!)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:43:57 +0000

Here is one of two videos I made at the launch of the iPad by Apple in San Francisco yesterday, stalking my All Things Digital partner, Walt Mossberg, to get his take on the event.

We talked about whether Apple could innovate enough with hardware and software to make a tablet computer finally become popular outside of Silicon Valley, as well as a range of other issues, from multimedia to mobility to price.

I did a pre- and post-event video interview with Walt about the new device and on my Flip camera caught a bit of him kibitzing with Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs about the iBooks application, battery life and whether Walt could write his eventual review of the iPad on, well, the iPad.

Here it is:

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo by Shibani Joshi of Fox Business Network]

The iPad Is a Multimedia Device. So Where Are the Media? Be Patient.

Peter Kafka — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:23:31 +0000

As predicted, Steve Jobs showed off a new multimedia device today. One thing he didn’t show off, though: Much in the way of new media.

Jobs and company clearly plan on incorporating new products from newspapers, magazine publishers, TV networks and Hollywood movie studios as the iPad rolls out. But there wasn’t much talk about any of those media products during the launch event.

The only mention of TV, music and movies, for instance, came as Jobs showed off the device’s multimedia features. But the implication, at least for now, is that consumers will get that stuff into their machines the same way they get it now, from iTunes, and at the same price–or via Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which Jobs did take time to demo. That is, no talk of subscription products or of other changes in the media consumption/distribution model.

The same goes for magazine and newspaper products. As predicted, Apple (AAPL) highlighted an iPad app designed by the New York Times (NYT), but there was no mention of how much the thing will cost or whether the paper will charge anything at all.

“This was a demonstration product. It’s too soon to discuss any details such as pricing,” Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty tells me via email.

Apple also highlighted games, bringing out demos from Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Gameloft. But both companies showed off versions of games you can already get for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Jobs did unveil one major media change: Apple is getting into the e-book world and competing with Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle head on. Jobs made a point of highlighting agreements with five big publishers: Pearson’s Penguin Group, News Corp.’s (NWS) HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, CBS’s (CBS) Simon & Schuster and McGraw-Hill (MHP). And, as reported, he showed off a higher price point for books than Amazon’s $9.99.

But even that seems fairly preliminary. While Jobs’s demo showed off splashes of color and a more “paper-like” presentation of the books’ pages, it didn’t feature much of the stuff you’d expect in an “enhanced e-book,” like video, audio, etc. So it will be interesting to see how the books, and their prices, evolve.

And that’s the key to all of this: It’s going to take some time. Keep in mind that Apple kept just about all the big media companies at arm’s length before the announcement and didn’t even acknowledge that there was a device until very recently.

Apple expects that like the iPod and iPhone, the iPad will be a big enough hit that media companies will adapt to the new hardware. Some of the media executives I spoke to in advance of today’s announcements were fine with that, but noted that many of them didn’t roll out new products for the earlier devices for a long time following their launch. We may be looking at a repeat here.