But that’s not to say that it’s not full of lines and crowds as usual at SXSW.

Organizers of event, which started Friday and runs through Tuesday, said they expect a 30 to 40 percent increase in attendance from 2010′s 14,000 attendees.

SXSW has in recent years acquired a reputation as an ideal environment for launching social technology products, because it’s such a concentrated hotbed of socializing by people with smartphones.

But, honestly, it’s such a concentrated hotbed of socializing, these apps seem barely necessary.

Just walk around the streets and you’ll find relevant people and friends. In fact, schedule planning and friend finding are so fragmented across all these different apps, they’re almost superfluous.

On the plus side for attendees (and opportunistic locals), the various check-in and group messaging apps are so eager to get brand recognition that they’re offering free rides to downtown Austin from the airport (Fast Society), free grilled cheese sandwiches (GroupMe), free tickets to see Big Boi (Foursquare) and free beer (everyone).

This could just be me trying to rationalizing a Zen attitude for my own personal aimless wandering, but I think there’s a larger theme about the fragmentation of SXSW as both a business and social event.

Physically, this year there are more conference locations than ever, with panels and speeches across the river and down at a conference center near University of Texas Austin. (Plus the regenerating line around the block at Apple’s pop-up iPad 2 store, which is a sort of satellite event of its own.)

There’s also no one 2011 focal point that everyone’s buzzing about, like last year’s interview with Twitter’s then-CEO Evan Williams. The introductory keynote on Saturday by SCVNGR’s Seth Priebatsch about how a game layer can improve the world was entertaining, but hardly filled the room.

This sort of destabilization has unintended benefits. For instance, this morning a panel on social TV with participants from Twitter, Next New Networks and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” attracted an audience far beyond the capacity of its allotted room. Would-be audience members–including experts on the topic from NBC and the New York Times–who had trekked way across town first thing in the morning set up their own ad-hoc panel next door. (Here’s a write-up and the #rebeltv hashtag conversation.)

Embedded below is a gallery of some moments from the first days of SXSW Interactive 2011, including a mobile photobooth for Instagram pictures called Instaprint, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley playing an actual game of Foursquare and Ditto CEO Jyri Engeström at the rocking steampunk/burlesque launch party co-hosted by his venture firm.

The money, doled out via 500 $1,000 credits to photography mecca B&H Photo, is meant to reward some of YouTube’s most popular content providers. And it’s supposed to remind people how fruitful it can be to provide YouTube with good content.

Google’s video site usually does that by other means. For instance, it is happy to point out that members of its “Partner” program can now make real money–in some cases, a full-time living or even more–by supplying YouTube with popular clips.

But YouTube’s most public embrace of its partners will happen if the video site ends up acquiring Next New Networks, a Web video producer/distributor dedicated to putting out low-cost, high-view videos, like the ones featuring Obama Girl or the Bed Intruder. That is, exactly the kind of videos that YouTube is rewarding with today’s handouts.

News of the sale talks were first reported in the New York Times last week. And at the time, I’d assumed that YouTube was going to be able to buy Next New at a bargain basement price, in large part because the start-up is on its third CEO in three years.

But people familiar with the company tell me that if it does sell to Google, investors who have put in $26 million will get at least a decent return on their investment. So we’re looking at something in the $50 million range at a minimum, perhaps much more.

YouTube is Next New Networks’ primary distribution partner, which makes the proposed deal a bit of a head-scratcher for some: Why pay for stuff you’re already getting?

But YouTube apparently thinks it is worth its while to lock in that content pipeline. And it’s willing to spend a whole lot more than $500,000 to get it done.

Here’s one of the YouTube partners getting $1,000 worth of new equipment: “MysteryGuitarMan,” in a clip he put out last month that has since garnered almost 1.5 million views.

In second place on YouTube’s annual Rewind list is Key of Awesome’s parody of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok,” with 51 million views since being released in February. (The original music video by Ke$ha herself has only 34 million views on YouTube.)

And third is sixth-grader Greyson Chance’s school performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” which blew up online and scored him a record deal with Ellen DeGeneres. It’s been seen 34 million times since April.

Both the Gregory Brothers and Key of Awesome are affiliated with independent (though closely aligned with YouTube) video shop Next New Networks. And it’s notable that every one of the top three videos is musical–an original, a parody and a cover song–with two of them taking inspiration from current songs by pop stars.

Also on the 2010 most-watched Top 10: YouTube star Annoying Orange, advertising phenomenon the Old Spice guy, the Double Rainbow guy, an OK Go music video (the band left its label deal after a YouTube embedding rights spat), the “Twilight: Eclipse” trailer, a Jimmy Kimmel short involving Justin Bieber and a stunt-driving video by Ken Block.

YouTube split out major label music videos, as their viewing numbers are in a different stratosphere. Plus, the top-watched music videos list is more boring, with Bieber, Shakira, Eminem and Lady Gaga accounting for all 10 spots (and Bieber, who was discovered through YouTube, taking four of the top 10). Bieber’s video for his song “Baby,” which took the top spot, has been seen more than 408 million times since February.

Aside from videos, YouTube also released some additional stats, including its most-searched-for terms by month. YouTube has been measured as the top U.S. search engine after Google itself.

January – Haiti
February – Luge
March – eclipse trailer
April – iPad
May – Eminem Not Afraid
June – shakira waka waka
July – double rainbow
August – bed intruder
September – halo reach
October – whip my hair
November – firework

And lastly, YouTube also launched today a site aimed at the media called YouTube Trends, which explains the most viral content on the site at any one time.

A lot of video! AOL says that 5Min’s library and distribution deals, along with its existing video offering, gave it a total of 493 million video streams in October. Which is a pretty big number–and bigger than any other U.S. Web property except for Google’s YouTube.

Comparing AOL’s homegrown video with the stuff that 5Min offers–content other publishers (including CBS, Hearst and Scripps Networks) make that it syndicates out–isn’t apples and apples: Different video has different costs, and the amount AOL will be able to get for the stuff will vary widely depending on the property it runs on, and the real estate it gets there.

But making all of that work will now be Ran Harnevo’s responsibility. Harnevo ran 5Min up until the sale, and he has now been named senior vice president of AOL Video, a unit that didn’t exist prior to the deal. Harnevo will report to AOL content boss David Eun; he says that all 45 of his former 5Min employees are staying on at AOL, too.

Near term: Expect to hear more from the company about other partnerships designed to get high-quality video on the site, along the lines of deals it has already announced with Next New Networks, Vuguru and Electus.

Today, BoomTown interviewed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, along with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, at the Online News Association Conference in Washington, D.C., about the future of journalism on the Web.

Afterward, I talked to him about the future of content on AOL, most particularly its new homepage revamp that focuses intently on editorial “curation,” rather than a more social direction being taken by rival Yahoo.

I also got a short demo of the new homepage, which is rolling out right now, instead of Monday as has been reported.

The new version–with a clean and spare design and a rotating logo–prominently features local news, video and content from AOL’s network of sites, such as Engadget.

It also launches three original video shows: A morning promotional feature called “You’ve Got”; a two-minute news program called “Daybreak,” with former “Wallstrip” host Lindsay Campbell–yay!–and produced by Ben Silverman’s Electus; and “The One,” an expert/opinion segment, done by Next New Networks.

The redo is yet another splashy move by AOL and Armstrong to push the company into a new direction of growth as its core access business declines.

It’s one wrapped almost completely around content, in hopes that creating premium branded content will attract lucrative advertising.

So far, not so good, as AOL’s ad revenues continue to lag in the midst of a difficult turnaround effort.

Presumably, Armstrong hopes a new look will help goose results in a better direction.

Here is a screenshot of the page, which is now available to users (click here to see the full image):

But just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I asked the folks at Clicker, the online video guide, to tally up what kinds of video options the iPad offers for now. And I got the same answer: Plenty of full shows if you pay, very little if you don’t.

Paid:
Netflix app (requires subscription plan starting at $8.99 per month):
10,000 TV episodes
6,000 movies

iTunes (sold via individual downloads):
25,000 TV episodes
3,000 movies
3,000 music videos

Free:
ABC:
Approximately 200 full TV episodes via app. None via Safari browser.

CBS:
One full TV episode and clips

NBC:
No full TV episodes. Some broken up into low-quality clips on mobile site.

Fox:
No full TV episodes.

Cable networks (FX, AMC, USA, etc.):
No full TV episodes

Clicker would also like us to note to that it has access to another 175,000 clips that will work on the iPad, from sources ranging from ESPN to CNN to Next New Networks. Noted! But if you’re waiting to watch complete episodes of programs like “30 Rock” or “The Daily Show” for free on your iPad, you’re going to be disappointed for quite some time.

And to be clear: This is a business development issue for the networks, not a technical one. They certainly know how to convert their videos from Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash standard to the HTML5 standard Apple (AAPL) is championing–they’re just not sure they want to. We’ll get to the internal debates some of the networks are having on this topic down the line.

This sounds alarming, but you can think of it as an amicable divorce: Spark gets back all of its bubble-era investment and Eqal gets to keep going, with fresh money from new and existing investors.

Spark led a $5 million series A round in the company in April 2008. Eqal co-founder Miles Beckett wouldn’t tell me how much of the round Spark accounted for, but did say that the VCs were made whole in a transaction that closed at the beginning of this year.

So what happened? As far as I can tell, it’s a straightforward story: Eqal changed directions and Spark didn’t want to stay on board.

Eqal began life as a video-production house spawned by the surprise success of “lonelygirl,” the supercheap, superpopular Web series that crested on YouTube in 2006, just as that site was acquired by Google (GOOG). But by 2009, as the market for Web video ads was slow to develop, Eqal was shifting from developing its own Web video to helping other people make and distribute stuff.

If you want to paint that in a positive light, you can say that Eqal had become a Web video-platform company. A less attractive way to describe Eqal is as a Web video-services company. The difference is meaningful if you’re an investor because “platform” is a scalable business while a service company requires more money and effort and offers less lucrative returns.

Any way you slice it, Spark wanted out. “They wanted to zig and we wanted to zag,” Beckett says. He notes that current management and some original investors, including Ron Conway, helped finance the buyout; Eqal also rounded up new money from investors like Scott and Cyan Banister.

The deal is a much better outcome for Spark than Veoh, another Web video bet, was. That one collapsed in a bankruptcy-protection filing earlier this year. The firm still has money in two other Web video investments: Next New Networks and 5Min.

Meanwhile, I’m still looking for examples of companies that can say they’re doing a booming business by concentrating solely on making original Web video. Anyone?

Here’s a clip of “lonelygirl,” the series that put Eqal on the map. Below it is an example of the company’s new work, a promotional campaign for Kraft’s (KFT) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, starring food celebrity  Paula Deen.

This week: We grabbed a Caltrain up to San Francisco to meet with Lance Podell, CEO of Next New Networks, the Web video network whose shows usually mix hi-fi production and lo-fi hosts for that ultra-Webby feel that the kids are raving about.

Or so Podell hopes.

Who: Lance Podell

What: Chief Executive Officer

Why: According to Lance, Next New Networks is aiming to transform its existing lineup of 12 Web TV “networks” into a content behemoth that competes with the big cable guys. Oh yeah, and they plan to monetize it too. Eye rolling aside, at the end of 2009, they were nearly profitable.

Where: nextnewnetworks.com (Web site); @NextNewNetworks (Twitter); New York, N.Y. (analog place)

Who else: You name it. Next New Networks competes for face time with an armada of YouTube stars (although they try to recruit some of them too). How does it stack up? Well, the camera work in the latest webisode from YouTube star Fred isn’t anything to write home about, but you don’t have to sit through video advertising either.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job Ever: I had a job for a very brief time at a start-up called Savatar; it’s hard to even think about it. [Ad giant] WPP (WPPGY) had invested in this company that was supposed to build Web sites for all the WPP companies. This is like back in 1994. Not only did it crash and burn, but they made me go into I don’t know how many meetings and promise things I just knew we could never deliver.

When He’s Not Busy CEOing: I’m a dad a lot. My son plays just about every sport, so I’m at a lot of games. I also enjoy chasing my little girls around the house.

Gadget of the Moment: I’d love to buy an Internet-enabled TV. I was in the early days of interactive television trials and I really want to see that come to fruition.

Wishes There Was an App For: I really want to be able to use my BlackBerry with my Mac.

Fails At: Ugh, it’s a long list. My son would say understanding that he’s always right.

Bio in 140 Characters

Lance went from Lafayette College to the HBS, and then into the ad game. Next New Networks brought him in to be the ad money rainmaker.

The Five Questions

You guys have been around for a while now. I don’t know if I’d call you “New,” but what’s “Next” for you ?

We don’t just believe in just creating shows and niche content. We believe that the hosts of our shows have to also be a member of the community the show is aimed at. On our indy mogul network for example, Eric Beck literally runs one of the shows, Backyard FX [Think McG meets MythBusters]. He creates Hollywood-style special effects in your backyard for under $100. He’s really doing it. That’s step one.

Step two is we are asking you to contribute. It’s very Web-like, in a very Web way, right? Not like TV. We want you to contribute your thoughts, videos, comments and posts, following the video. Again, not like TV. We don’t have six-month development cycles. Every week that host is coming up with the next episode and we are relating it back to the community and their experience in the prior week.

So, the model is: No more broadcast, just piece together enough niche content, plus some revenue model, to equal profitability?

That’s true, what you said is entirely true. But I don’t want to get too bogged down in that. And the end of the day though, we are an entertainment company, so niches can mean a variety of things. Early on, the company’s goal was to have 100 “networks.” I think that was just an audacious goal to set for the sake of goal-setting. What we’ve done over time is try lots of things, see what works and what doesn’t, see where the passion within our company is, and build on that. And, as the YouTube audience has grown and matured, we can start to look there for shows that are popular and communities of interest.

Also, advertisers are asking for a lot. They want to reach moms, for example. So we are looking for gaps in the Internet that are also things moms want to watch. We don’t create programming specifically to satisfy the advertisers.

A good example of how the relationship works is that Caress had hired Carson Kressley [the "Queer Eye" guy] as a spokesperson, and as part of the ad agreement, we had him on our women’s talk show. Now, Carson wasn’t scripted by Caress, he just came on the show. It was a women’s talk show and he acted as though he were on the “Ellen” show, for instance.

You guys put your content everywhere: YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo–all of them. Are you concerned about a platform like Hulu setting up a pay wall and potentially adding a level of complication to your viewers’ experience?

We’re not concerned yet. If Hulu were to change to paid content, I don’t know that it would start with the Web originals. Do I imagine that three years from now that Web original programming will have the same kind of brand impact as something that comes out of NBC? Yes. Because Internet TV is changing everything. Our programs can be viewed on TiVo. They can be viewed on FiOS. Once, we had the kind of loyalty that might warrant it, would I be interested in selling some content behind a wall? Yeah, I’d look at it.

So you are confident that you can turn a profit without making people pay?

You know, you are talking to an old ad guy here. We have always said we’d never be able to pay for the next thing with just advertising and yet we always have. I believe we will pay, not for everything. For some things.

So if advertising is what’s “Next,” then what will those “New” ads have to do differently?

The advertisers that do really well with us, the ones who really get it, are the ones who come to me and say they want to hear their products advertised in the voice of the show host. They want the ad to sound like the voice of that community. They don’t want me to use their eight words that are in every print ad. They don’t want me to say that they are 100 percent reliable, safe and colorfast. They want me to talk about their brand in the way that the community will connect with it.

Another area that I think is hugely compelling is in the area of interactivity. And I think fashion is just the first place it should go. The idea of watching something on TV and then being able to immediately buy what the actor is wearing is just incredible to me.

The In Living Color Interview

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100312/almost-famous-lance-podell-of-next-new-networks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091207/will-a-web-video-star-shine-at-sundance/ http://allthingsd.com/20091207/will-a-web-video-star-shine-at-sundance/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:55:51 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=13656 The next wave of media stars is supposed to rise up from the Web, but so far examples have been few and far between (how’s that Fred movie coming along, by the way?).

But here’s another Internet success trying to make the leap into the big time, which is still, like it or not, defined by traditional media outlets: Bobby Miller, whom some of you may know as the host of Next New Network’s “Reel Good Show,” is going to try to dazzle the judges at Sundance, where he’s gotten a short film he directed into next year’s festival.

Even winning an award at Sundance is no guarantee of anything, but it’s by far the highest-profile festival in the country, so showing up certainly can’t hurt your chances. And getting “TUB” into Sundance is an achievement itself, since only 70 shorts were accepted out of more than 6,000 submissions.

Next New Networks, which is supposed to be both a production house and distribution outlet for cheap, quick video, is also trying to make the leap from money-burning start-up to success story. But that’s a different story, and at some point, maybe not-so-newish CEO Lance Podell and I should chat about that.

In any case, here’s wishing Miller the best of luck. But it will be interesting to see when, if ever, a Web star who’s made it big in cyberspace turns down an opportunity to cross over.

Meantime, here’s an example of what Miller has been up to so far (note that he’s chatting up College Humor’s Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld, who are also working on the Web-to-something else leap)

And here’s a preview of “TUB.” The 23-second trailer has some Kevin Spacey/“American Beauty”/shower scene action, which may or may not be safe for work. Nothing explicit, though:

TUB – TubMovie.com from bobbymiller on Vimeo.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091207/will-a-web-video-star-shine-at-sundance/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091016/its-another-tequila-start-up-bob-pittmans-new-venture/ http://allthingsd.com/20091016/its-another-tequila-start-up-bob-pittmans-new-venture/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:14:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19478

Earlier this week, while in New York, BoomTown paid a visit to well-known media and Web exec Bob Pittman to hear about his newest venture.

And, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good.

That’s because the former MTV wunderkind, AOL top exec and currently, investor in a wide range of media and Web companies, is making tequila instead of Internet sites.

Thank God it’s Friday!

That might be the liquor talking, since accurate reporting is a requirement at All Things Digital–but this was one of the more enjoyable interviews I have had with Pittman over many, many years.

After leaving the job of COO at then-troubled AOL Time Warner (TWX) in 2002, Pittman has been investing via the Pilot Group in Web start-ups like Thrillist, iLike, Zynga, Next New Networks, as well as radio and television properties.

Pilot sold DailyCandy to Comcast (CMCSA) in 2008 for a reported $125 million.

Tequila-making is yet another unusual tack for Pittman, who is now busy trying to turn “Casa Dragones”–which is made from the blue agave plant in Mexico–into the next big thing in the high-end liquor business.

Aiming directly at the top-shelf brands like Gran Patrón, Pittman is trying for a “sipping” tequila, in contrast to most versions, which typically deliver a sharp kick.

Using a series of tasting parties and marketing efforts to make the $275-a-bottle tequila a must-have at key bars and clubs, it will be interesting to see if Pittman can turn spirits into profits.

Here’s Pittman talking about his tequila adventure in a video interview (and, below it, Joe Nichols singing one of my favorite country songs, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off”):

Joe Nichols – Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091016/its-another-tequila-start-up-bob-pittmans-new-venture/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090207/weekend-update-020709/ http://allthingsd.com/20090207/weekend-update-020709/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:24:24 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=12673 What spreads faster than economic gloom and doom and is more infectious than professional anxiety? That phenomenon known as “25 Things.” Just in time for Facebook’s fifth birthday, the record-breaking waste of time may have reached critical mass this week. It’s certainly been the topic of much conversation, including on BoomTown. Elsewhere this week:

BoomTown provided continuing coverage of the Yahoo (YHOO) merry-go-round. This time, PR head Jill Nash announced her departure. As the company’s chief communications officer, she’s had a challenging two-year run. New CEO Carol Bartz definitely has some PR ideas of her own, including offering cash prizes to employees who provide info on their colleagues who leak information to the press. Not a huge deterrent yet, apparently–it didn’t take long for BoomTown to get info on both Nash’s farewell memo and Bartz’s bounty system. Next, New Networks, the publisher behind BarelyPolitical and its hugely viral Obama Girl videos, has widened its purview to include the tech sector with BarelyDigital, which the online network has envisioned to include regular shows, tech news remixes and the like. It’s rumored that Obama Girl will be making a cameo appearance or two. If the first two features are any indication, the future looks pretty funny. In another round of executive musical chairs, Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL ad head Lynda Clarizio will be leaving the online service, to be replaced by former Yahoo ad exec Greg Coleman. Microsoft (MSFT) is launching a slick new celebrity site on MSN called Wonderwall, created, designed and produced by BermanBraun Interactive, a Hollywood company run by former Yahoo media chief Lloyd Braun. And speaking of musical chairs, MSN is clearly upping its content ante–earlier this week, it hired Yahoo’s recent media head Scott Moore, who used to work at Microsoft.

MediaMemo asked: What happens when one of the world’s richest men lets loose a swarm (a small swarm) of mosquitoes at a high-end conference? Nothing too exciting, really, but when you consider that the stunt was the publicity-generating part of Bill Gates’s talk at TED, which was a discussion of malaria and some of the problems the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is facing head-on, it gets pretty compelling. Kindle 2.0, the new generation of the device dubbed the “iPod of the book world” will be unveiled Monday at a New York press event, but how many of the devices have been sold thus far? Amazon’s (AMZN) not telling, but Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney estimates the number at 500,000–and believes that the Kindle will be a $1.2 billion business next year. Obviously, a lot will depend on Monday and the new device’s reception. MediaMemo also took some time out this week to wish Facebook a happy fifth birthday, and to stack its track record next to Google’s at the same age, with interesting results. Even the pros are getting hit hard these days–in its quarterly earnings report this week, News Corp. (NWS) missed its estimates, recorded an $8.4 billion write-off and lowered its guidance. CEO Rupert Murdoch admitted that the downturn is worse than he thought. He also admitted that he spent $2.8 billion too much for Dow Jones. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

Digital Daily followed the trial of four Google executives this week on criminal charges of defamation and breach of privacy after a much-publicized two-year investigation. Google (GOOG) insists the charges are unwarranted and “akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post.” Clearly, the ultimate outcome will have a huge impact on the future of a free, open Internet. MySpace said this week that it has identified and ousted 90,000 registered sex offenders–and those are just the ones brilliant enough to use their real names. There’s no way of knowing how many are actually using the service or how to prevent them from re-registering once they’re deleted. A free an open Internet, indeed. DD also pondered the future (or lack thereof) of the Motorola (MOT) handset division. Co-CEO Sanjay Jha says the company is committed to making the business work, but its products are looking boring and outdated, and a turnaround would be prohibitively expensive to execute. In the words of one analyst, the company’s problems are “gruesome.” On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft continues to vehemently deny reports that it’ll be producing its own smartphone. In a report this week, analysts from Broadpoint.AmTech speculated that the device could be uncrated later this month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Meanwhile, it’s been up in the air for two years whether or not iPhones will ever be uncrated in historic Georgetown. Apple (AAPL) has been around the table a few times now with preservationists wary of the architectural impact of an Apple store, no matter how much the business traffic is needed in the neighborhood. Looks like perseverance may have finally paid off, though–Georgetown’s Apple store could open later this year.

In Personal Technology this week, Walt Mossberg took a look at a program called Foxmarks, which sets out to synchronize bookmarks among all of your browsers and all of your machines. Sound a little too handy to actually work well? Walt found it does a pretty good job, with a few caveats. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt responds to readers who want to know more about doing “techie” maintenance on their PCs to keep them running well, whether or not to buy a 15-inch MacBook Pro, and options for email within Windows 7, which won’t ship with a built-in email program. In the Mossberg Solution, Katherine Boehret tests Google Latitude, an opt-in program that lets users track one another’s movements on their smartphones using GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell towers. Kind of like Gawker Stalker, only with permission and without Lindsay Lohan (unless you happen to be Lindsay Lohan).

Last but not least, Silicon Valley lost one of its own this week. The widely admired and much loved Mike Homer, whose rare, severe illness was a rallying point for many over the past months, passed away last weekend and was laid to rest on Thursday.

More next week.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090207/weekend-update-020709/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090203/barely-digital-mocking-geeks-instead-of-pols/ http://allthingsd.com/20090203/barely-digital-mocking-geeks-instead-of-pols/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:58:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9388

The fine folks at BarelyPolitical, who made the famous–infamous, really–Obama Girl online videos that went viral during the presidential election, have moved onto the tech sector for their comedy inspiration.

The latest Next New Networks comedy site is called BarelyDigital and is up in beta, with plans to roll out a full online network.

An NNN press release said “the vision is to feature a number of regularly scheduled shows, including product reviews, comedy sketches, mashups and remixes of tech news footage, and digital shorts.”

Apparently, Obama Girl will be making a few cameos too. Not surprisingly, the site is aimed at men aged 18 to 35 years old.

Here are the first efforts, one on a “Hipster iPod” and another below it called “YouTube Comment Fight.”

Hipster iPod:

YouTube Comment Fight

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090203/barely-digital-mocking-geeks-instead-of-pols/feed/ 1