Oscars

Smoking and Tweeting in Line at the Oscars

The Artist people were in line in front of me and now I smell like cigarettes and entitlement.

– Kaui Hart Hemmings, author of “The Descendants,” tweeting about her Academy Awards experience. The film adaptation of her book was shut out of the Oscar race, while “The Artist” was the big winner of the night.

On Twitter, the Oscars Were Huge — But Not Whitney Houston Huge

Peter Kafka in Media on February 26 at 10:47 pm PT

Big TV event + lots of people on Twitter = lots and lots of people Tweeting about the Big TV event. But not that many people.

Oscar Night Means a Torrent of Twittering. Trendrr Gets Ready to Tally It Up.

Peter Kafka in Media on February 26 at 9:39 am PT

Like the Super Bowl and the Grammys, tonight’s Academy Awards will generate a flood of social media commentary — and lots of work for the start-ups trying to track all of that.

Roll of the DICE: Videogame Leaders Name the Industry’s Best

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on February 9 at 6:22 pm PT

The videogame industry is hosting an Oscars-like ceremony Thursday in Las Vegas, where a few hundred of the top leaders will recognize the achievements in the interactive arts and sciences.

Viral Video: Fake Kim Richards’s Guide to the Oscars

Kara Swisher in Media on January 26 at 12:07 am PT

It’s hard to mock the already ridiculous “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” — but this effort is superb.

Yahoo Focuses on Tentpole Events With New Head

Kara Swisher in News on April 20, 2011 at 7:11 am PT

At least one thing in yesterday’s lackluster first-quarter earnings report for Yahoo that got its Microsoft-search-bashing CEO Carol Bartz excited was the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s traffic gusher for big tentpole events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars. There will be more of that, it seems, with the elevation of Yahoo exec Sam Silverstein as head of its special events coverage. Sources said it will be a major area of emphasis, given obvious advertiser interest.

Liveblogging Yahoo's Q1 Earnings Call: Get Me to Funky Town

Kara Swisher in News on April 19, 2011 at 2:21 pm PT

MicroHoo is funky! At least according to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the Silicon Valley search giant’s first-quarter earnings conference call about its recent financial performance. Yahoo’s results showed a continued worrisome revenue growth stall, due in large part to a search advertising fall-off, and a still-turning turnaround.

News Byte

Social Is Sticky: GetGlue Hits 1M Users

Liz Gannes in Social on April 13, 2011 at 9:00 am PT

GetGlue, the leading TV check-in service (especially in terms of business development deals), announced today it has reached one million registered users. The company wouldn’t disclose how many active users it has, but it does say activity is way up: in the first quarter of 2011, GetGlue users checked in as many times as they did in all of 2010 (users check into TV shows they’re currently watching in order to share them with friends, earn stickers and chat). GetGlue users checked in 31,000 times around the Oscars, accounting for one-twelfth of all tweets mentioning “Oscars” during the first 30 minutes of the event.

Viral Video: "The Whipped Cream Situation" on TWiT

Kara Swisher in News on March 1, 2011 at 12:15 am PT

On Sunday, BoomTown tossed my mohawked dog Phineas in the Mini and motored up to lovely Petaluma to appear live and in studio on Leo Laporte’s fine “This Week in Tech” online show. It was a week full of news–from the about-to-launch Apple iPad to Google taking aim at content farms to the Oscars. And also whipped-cream bras.