Overture

Déjà Hoo: Yahoo Has Done the Pre-IPO Legal Shakedown Dance Before

Kara Swisher in News on March 13 at 6:29 am PT

Been there, done that.

Yahoo Sues Facebook for Patent Infringement, Which Social Network Calls “Puzzling” (Including Filing)

Kara Swisher in News on March 12 at 1:15 pm PT

In what is either the boldest gamble of its history or the most boneheaded, Yahoo has filed a massive legal attack against the powerful social networking giant for intellectual property violations.

So It’s the Kodak Strategy for Yahoo — The Last Refuge of the Vaguely Patented

Kara Swisher in News on February 28 at 6:00 am PT

In poking Facebook, Yahoo might now learn what it is really like to be de-friended.

Voices

The “Mad Men” Years Are Giving Way to the “Math Men” Era

Chris Moore, Partner, Redpoint Ventures in Voices on January 20 at 3:50 pm PT

I love the “Mad Men” version of the ad business. The storytelling. The simplicity. The glasses of scotch at 10 am. But these days in digital, it feels like the Math Men media buyers (with their terabytes of data) are taking over for the Mad Men creatives.

Bill Gross's UberMedia Raises $17.5 Million From Accel, Index and Steve Case

Kara Swisher in News on February 14, 2011 at 9:04 am PT

UberMedia, which just bought TweetDeck for $30 million in equity last week, has raised $17.5 million in a round led by Accel Partners. The valuation for the Pasadena, Calif., start-up founded by well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross–which was actually struck some month ago–is $40 million.

Exclusive Video: Bill Gross Talks About TweetUp and Gives a Tour of Idealab

Kara Swisher in News on April 11, 2010 at 9:01 pm PT

Bill Gross is widely considered the man responsible for the invention of paid search advertising, which heralded such Web powerhouses as Google. Now, in a can-lightning-strike-twice effort and armed with $3.5 million in venture funding from a group of leading investors, the well-known entrepreneur talks about his decision to monetize Twitter on his own and gives a tour of his well-known Idealab incubator where his newest start-up, TweetUp, is being cooked up.

Paid Search Inventor Bill Gross Moves to Monetize Tweets With TweetUp–And Without Twitter (Plus Screenshots)

Kara Swisher in News on April 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm PT

Just as Twitter finally prepares to announce its plans to make money–after what has seemed an eternity–the man responsible for the invention of paid search is beating the microblogging site to the potentially profitable punch, and without its involvement. Armed with $3.5 million in venture funding from a group of leading investors, well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross is launching a public beta of TweetUp, a bidding marketplace akin to Overture/Goto.com, the first paid search system he created a decade ago.

Liveblogging the Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal Conference Call: The Carol and Steve Show Debuts!

Kara Swisher in News on July 29, 2009 at 5:32 am PT

BoomTown was so glad we had this time together with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, just to have a laugh or sing a song about a major search and advertising deal. I liveblogged the conference call, which I updated as it happened. Did Ballmer scream and jump up and down? Did Carol say something naughty? Read on!