Here’s a really terrific video tribute to legendary Hollywood director and producer Steven Spielberg, done for the recent 2012 David O. Selznick Achievement Award from the Producers Guild.

It highlights a plethora of films Spielberg has made over his long movie career, many of which — once you see them strung together — have a heavy techie, special-effects or simply sci-fi element.

It’s pretty impressive to see such a significant body of work collected so well.

Enjoy:

We are thrilled to welcome another strong reporter to the AllThingsD team: Lauren Goode, who will cover consumer tech products and issues. She’ll be based in New York.

Lauren comes to us from the digital arm of our sister news organization, The Wall Street Journal, where she was a video producer and reporter, from 2008 to 2011. She helped launch the Journal’s live-streaming video programming and produced and co-hosted the daily “Digits” technology show, which regularly features our ATD staff along with Journal reporters and editors. (We hope to see her there from time to time as a guest herself now.) She was also a contributing writer to the Digits blog on WSJ.com, and wrote posts on consumer technology products.

Prior to joining the Journal, Lauren worked in cable television from 2003 to 2008, producing and writing shows for A&E Television Networks’ award-winning “Biography” series, after having started her career as a production assistant at ESPN in New York.

The addition of Lauren to AllThingsD is just the latest move in an expansion that has seen our staff more than double in the past year, including adding new reporters, editors and developers. This has allowed us to broaden and deepen our coverage, to break more news and also to begin doing different types of stories than many other blogs offer, such as our recent series on Facebook’s smartphone effort.

We have more new coverage and staff expansions planned, so stay tuned. And, as always, thanks for your readership, which has been increasing strongly quarter after quarter. We aim to keep earning your loyalty and trust.

Going forward, Lauren can be reached at lauren@allthingsd.com, and you can read more about her bio and ethics statement here.

– Walt & Kara

Scott Moore, who runs the U.S. arm of Microsoft’s MSN portal, will depart the company, according to sources.

The well-known content exec is reportedly headed to another job, sources said.

Moore has worked at Microsoft twice in this career — first as publisher of its Slate online magazine. He came back to the software giant in early 2009, after a stint at Yahoo running its media operations.

At MSN, he was U.S. executive producer, responsible for leading the content and programming strategy for the service. Some of his most prominent initiatives were several innovative sites with Hollywood producers BermanBraun, as well as a rehaul of MSN in 2009.

What Microsoft does next with its portal business is a big question, of course, as it has aimed all its firepower — and gigantic piles of money — at its Bing search service. Thus, MSN, while one of the more highly trafficked sites on the Web, has often taken a back seat.

It seems the computer-generated imagery in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” convinced critics and audiences that the well-worn movie series prequel is a winner.

It grabbed $54 million at the box office over its opening weekend.

Its producer, Peter Chernin, told me that a lot more of the film than it seems — including the stunning opening scenes in the wild that look like a real-life nature special — were mostly CGI, used to prep audiences for extended scenes of the apes morphing into believable rebels.

Here is the last trailer for the movie:

Yahoo’s Luke Beatty said he is not worried.

“We welcome the change,” he insisted about Google taking aim last Friday at so-called “content farms,” producers of low-quality content that spam up the Web and the search giant’s results. “And we endorse what Google is doing 100 percent.”

That’s ironic, given among those allegedly hit hardest by changing of its famous algorithm–based on early, and perhaps questionable, surveys–is Yahoo’s Associated Content.

But, if true, and traffic at Associated Content–which the Silicon Valley Internet giant bought for $90 million last May–is indeed badly hurt, it’s obviously going to be a problem for Yahoo, which relies on advertising revenue as its core business.

A quick poll by Sistrix, a search engine optimization firm, using one million keywords before and after Google’s changes, showed that Associated Content’s “visibility index”– including keyword and ranking positions ranking and clickthrough rate–was down 93 percent.

So yesterday, Beatty, who founded Associated Content and now works at Yahoo, dialed up BoomTown to talk about what the Google shift will mean to Yahoo.

First off in the wide-ranging interview, he noted, “everything on the Web is changing all the time,” noting that Associated Content used to rely more on the now weakened Digg and RSS for its traffic and distribution.

“Obviously, that has changed and we have still managed to grow,” he said.

Beatty said it is still not clear that the new tweaks in search criteria at Google would mean for Associated Content’s offerings–coming from 400,000 contributors of all kinds.

“Our data will not be reconciled for weeks…but some will be up and some will be down,” he said, adding the overall, “I suspect it will be down, although it’s not accurate by any means in the numbers released so far, since there is no way you can know this early.”

Still, it’s obvious that Google’s latest move has not been not good for Associated Content, although Beatty noted that the Silicon Valley search king is no longer the main source of traffic for Associated Content material.

Instead, that would be the owned-and-operated sites of Yahoo, most of all, and–increasingly–social networking sites such as Facebook.

“When we sold the company, we know that sites of Yahoo itself would be the biggest driver of our growth and that was the plan,” said Beatty. “And, though smaller, social means of distribution are clearly the way people are now finding our content.”

In an email later, Beatty underscored this point:

“Search traffic is not our focus within Yahoo–it hasn’t been for 10
months…traffic sources have changed endlessly over that last six years…search is one, albeit an important one and clearly, [but] now it too is changing and we see the future of our content distribution coming from O&O properties and social networks, as much as anything.”

Still, Beatty said Associated Content will adapt as long as Google does not make its tweaks on a network basis and rather than on a site basis. (Interestingly, that would presumably include Google’s own–and often spammish–Blogger property, which is fueled by its powerful AdSense engine.)

“It appears that changes have been made on an asset-by-asset basis
is good–networkwide cramdown would be inappropriate and uneducated,” he said.

Still, the best way to fight the Google initiative is by delivering higher quality content, which Beatty said was being done at the company via a series of ongoing measures to improve overall submissions.

Those include a Yahoo style guide for content creators, a two-tiered human editor review process, analytical analysis, a featured contributor program and, interesting, an online tutorial process called the Yahoo Contributor Network.

It’s not exactly Harvard University, of course, but Beatty said there is more to come.

“We are committed to supporting and helping our contributors navigate through this and every other change in the crowdsourced content economy,” he said. “We want the best article to get more traffic.”

Of course, with Google’s doubtlessly continuing changes in its criteria for what good content is, presumably, that won’t be Yahoo’s to decide.

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.

It’s just a post on the popular entertainment blog “Deadline Hollywood.”

But it’s a clear indication the makers of the movie about the origins of Facebook are gunning for maximum attention and Oscar buzz with only a few weeks to go before its debut.

In fact, awards columnist Pete Hammond was pretty much channeling the marketing plan of Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin for “The Social Network,” which has its premiere in New York on September 24 and its wide rollout on October 1.

Rudin–the volcano of a producer about whom I would like to see a biopic like the one he is sticking it to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with–has apparently been personally inviting every online chatterbox (not me!) and their mother to screenings of the film from the Sony (SNE) movie unit, Columbia Pictures, in recent weeks.

Writes Hammond:

It’s a smart strategy but even without a personal invitation from one of the film’s producers this is already the current must-see movie on every Oscar watchers list. As an example of that, one blogger actually got on a plane from Toronto to New York just to see Social Network, then headed immediately back to Toronto. His subsequent review was a rave declaring it the one to beat for Best Picture (a little premature on that I think). That’s just one example of the praise now starting to hit the Internet from Hitfix to Slashfilm to Chud and all cyber points inbetween.

A little premature perhaps, but it seems to have worked with Hammond:

I saw it at the first opportunity on Monday and would have to say fairly objectively that The Social Network is Sony’s best shot at Best Picture in years, a lock for Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. And most importantly, Oscar nominations in every major category including Director for David Fincher, Writing for Aaron Sorkin, lead actor for Jesse Eisenberg (playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), Supporting Actor for both Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, editing and so on. It also looks like it will be a major box office hit, hitting a nerve with the young demographic that are on the front lines of moviegoers…

Despite its high-tech bones, what Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is tell a time-honored very human story, a social document for a generation that has as much relevance now as movies like On The Waterfront, Network, All The President’s Men, and The Graduate did in their time.

Expect more of the same from those who get sucked up into the marketing machine for “The Social Network” in the next weeks, even though it appears it will be devastating to the real-life version of its main subject, Mark Zuckerberg.

And really, really unfair, according to MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka, by taking one aspect of his personality–awkward arrogance or perhaps arrogant awkwardness–and twisting it into a much deeper malevolence.

I have no doubt in my mind that Zuckerberg pulled an epic geek sandbagging on the clueless Winklevoss twins by promising to work on their goofy concept for a social networking site at Harvard University, then not doing so and working on his own ideas instead.

And, for sure, he had a painfully typical start-up falling-out with his own early partners.

But let’s get real here–they all got paid off plenty for being present at the creation of something they themselves never could have created.

Does anyone honestly believe the Winklevii were capable of making Facebook, or any reasonable facsimile, any more than Zuckerberg was capable of rowing in the Olympics?

While hitting some right notes about Zuckerberg’s mannerisms–conversations with him can be very perplexing–the Mark of “The Social Network” is largely fictional.

Certainly, he has some glaring faults (and so do I!).

But they are no worse that other tech leaders’, from Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) to Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL) to Silicon Valley’s own twins, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google (GOOG).

Interestingly, the night before what turned out to be a very difficult onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June, at a dinner just south of Los Angeles, Zuckerberg fretted to me about the film.

“It’s what a lot of people will think I am like, because it’s a movie and that has impact on their perceptions,” he said with a lot of concern in his voice.

I pooh-poohed his complaints and told him not to worry about it too much.

“It’s just a movie,” I said. “No one believes what they see at the movies anymore.”

But as this film chugs along–gaining Oscar velocity right onto the stage of the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard on February 27, 2011–I can now see Zuckerberg might have been right all along.

So says TV producer Steve Levitan.

Levitan has made a bunch of money working on hit TV shows like “Just Shoot Me,” and he’s likely to make some more with ABC’s “Modern Family.” So it’s not a huge surprise to hear him make a case for the status quo.

But Levitan is also a self-professed nerd who loves technology and has tried hard to figure out how to incorporate it into his TV show. He has played around with Twitter and has created special clips for Web viewers. Problem is, he says, he can’t figure out how Internet eyeballs do him any good. And that includes the two million viewers he believes watch his show every week on Hulu.

One day, that’s going to change, as advertisers start to value Web viewers as much as TV viewers. But they’re not there now. Here’s Levitan explaining the state of the business at the D8 conference last week:

Anyone feel differently? Happy to hear from you. And I’ll put the same question to Ricky Van Veen, the College Humor co-founder who is now trying to make TV shows at IAC’s (IACI) Notional. We’re chatting this morning at Mashable’s Media Summit in New York. Here’s a conversation we had on the topic last fall:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100608/why-tv-still-wont-embrace-the-web-quite-yet/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/ http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 15:42:17 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=19929 That was fast. And not that surprising: Forbes Media, which invested in digital news start-up True/Slant two years ago and brought on founder Lewis Dvorkin as a “consultant” this spring, has now bought the entire company. Dvorkin’s new title is chief product officer.

Dvorkin’s old company tried to build a platform for free-lance bloggers, paying each contributor a small per-piece payment based on traffic and other goals (here’s Walt Mossberg’s review of the site, from 2009). Forbes COO Tim Forbes, whose company owned a 20 percent stake in True/Slant, tells me the publisher will use True/Slant in some way. But what he’s really buying here is Dvorkin, who had previously worked for the magazine in the late 1990s before heading to AOL (AOL).

“I’m tremendously excited to have Lewis come aboard as chief product officer. That’s the core message,” Forbes says. He adds that he hadn’t thought he would buy True/Slant when he brought Dvorkin on to overhaul his Web site and magazine this spring, though it seems as if the idea didn’t come completely from out of the blue. “It wasn’t planned because we didn’t know how things will play out.”

All right. So how’s Forbes Media doing, anyway (disclosure: I worked for Forbes for 10 years)?

Okay-ish, Forbes ventures. He says his family company is still looking for a “very senior executive” to fill the place of Jim Berrien, Forbes magazine’s former publisher, and Jim Spanfeller, who ran the Forbes Web site. That job search, which has been running since last summer, is for a single position.

And the business itself? “Business improves,” Forbes says. “The world heals, and we’re seeing real improvements in order flow. Things are getting better.”

Here’s the release:

Lewis Dvorkin to Lead All Forbes Editorial Areas as Chief Product Officer

The Company to Acquire True/Slant

New York, New York (May 25, 2010) – Forbes announced today that it had agreed in principle to acquire True/Slant, a unique, web-based, news platform company. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Lewis Dvorkin of True/Slant will be joining Forbes to lead all editorial areas at Forbes as Chief Product Officer effective June 1.

Mr. Dvorkin started consulting with Forbes in April of this year. He had been Executive Editor of the Forbes magazine from December 1996 to April 2000. In his new capacity Mr. Dvorkin will be creating and implementing many new initiatives in the editorial product and the engagement of Forbes’s audiences. He will be charged with re-architecting the Forbes.com website; redesigning the magazine; and will assume responsibility for all editorial product across Forbes.

In making the announcement Tim Forbes, President and COO said: “These times demand new models for delivering information and engaging audiences and for the ways we run our business.

“Lewis Dvorkin, a seasoned journalist (including a previous stint with Forbes), a business entrepreneur and founder of True/Slant, and a social media pioneer is the ideal leader for Forbes editorial vision and products at this stage.

“Forbes mission and message will not change. There will be new opportunities for people inside Forbes; new opportunities for audiences to have a deeper relationship with Forbes; and new opportunities for marketers to engage with our important audiences.”

“To participate and lead Forbes into its next stage of media life is truly exciting,” said Mr. Dvorkin. ”Forbes is a trusted brand with deep and specific meaning to those interested in information that inspires and enables them to succeed and to create wealth.”  He continued, “With all of Forbes’s great experts, the wealth of Forbes data, and its real-time web features, we have a unique ability to stimulate the social media conversation. Our journalists, producers, audiences, marketers and all variety of entrepreneurs will be engaged as they never have been before with one another. Forbes is stepping ahead of everyone on this one.”

Mr. Dvorkin brings to this new position thirty-five years experience in both old and new media platforms. Besides his years at Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Page One Editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Senior Editor at Newsweek, and an editor at The New York Times. After leaving Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Senior Vice President, Programming at AOL, where he was responsible for News, Sports and Network Programming and played a significant role in the launch of TMZ.com.

Forbes Media encompasses Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, the #1 business site on the Web that reaches on average more than 18 million people monthly. The company publishes Forbes and Forbes Asia, which together reach a worldwide audience of more than 6 million readers. It also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesWoman magazines, in addition to licensee editions in China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100519/blip-tv-raises-10-million-for-more-web-video-you-probably-wont-see-on-hulu/ http://allthingsd.com/20100519/blip-tv-raises-10-million-for-more-web-video-you-probably-wont-see-on-hulu/#comments Wed, 19 May 2010 12:00:35 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=19657 YouTube isn’t the only Web video company celebrating its fifth anniversary. Blip.TV doesn’t have a celebratory channel, but it is marking the occasion in style: The New York-based company has raised $10 million in a C round led by Canaan Partners and Bain Capital.

Blip doesn’t make Web video–almost none of the Web video companies that survived the last bubble do that. Instead, Blip helps distribute clips, generally made by small-time producers, and sells ads against them. It splits the proceeds with the producers.

And like many other Web video outfits, Blip still isn’t profitable, though I’m told that could change by the end of the year. But Blip has a modest burn rate and has been steadily ramping up its list of big brand advertisers. Which is why it has been able to get away with raising only $8 million prior to its newest round.

Here’s an interview I shot with CEO Mike Hudack yesterday, in which he explains how a Web video company can survive without the backing of Google (GOOG) or big media companies. And he sketches out his vision for Web video’s future: Lots of people spending very little to make interesting stuff, and making enough money to keep on doing it.

Following that, a clip of Nostalgia Critic, one of Blip’s most successful shows. I don’t get it, but plenty of people do.

BLIP.TV RAISES $10.1 MILLION IN FUNDING

Online Media Company Secures Capital from Canaan Partners and Bain Capital Ventures.

NEW YORK, NY – May 19, 2010 — Next generation television network blip.tv today announced the closing of its third round of institutional capital, led by Canaan Partners and existing investors Bain Capital Ventures. The company will use its new funding to accelerate the growth of the independent Web shows that blip.tv hosts and distributes, expand its content services team, continue to grow its international advertising sales force and develop new products for viewers and producers.

“Blip.tv turns five this year, and I couldn’t be happier with our success to date and our growth plans for the future,” said blip.tv CEO and co-founder Mike Hudack. “We started in 2005 with a simple mission: to change the entertainment industry by making independent show production sustainable and scalable. We’re moving on to the next phase of executing against that mission, and with help from both Canaan Partners and Bain Capital Ventures I’m confident that we’ll be successful. We’re making more shows sustainable every single day, and now we’re going to accelerate that change even faster. This is an extremely exciting time.”

More than 44,000 independent show producers visit the blip.tv show creator dashboard every day to review statistics, engage with their communities of viewers, manage their shows, and release new episodes across blip.tv’s extensive distribution network. Together these shows attract more than 90 million video views a month. Eighty-five percent of those views are paired with targeted, direct-sold advertising from brands such as PepsiCo, Chevrolet, Samsung, Starbucks, AT&T and Scion.

“We’ve been following blip.tv’s growth for years, and we’re excited to invest in the company as it continues to change the entertainment industry,” said Warren Lee, Venture Partner at Canaan Partners. “Blip.tv has executed on its vision, and the company is creating a new Web television industry that is drawing top talent from traditional television networks, the film industry and garages across America. We look forward to working with Mike and his team to continue transforming entertainment together.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100519/blip-tv-raises-10-million-for-more-web-video-you-probably-wont-see-on-hulu/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100420/liveblogging-yahoos-first-quarter-earnings/ http://allthingsd.com/20100420/liveblogging-yahoos-first-quarter-earnings/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:59:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=27190

BoomTown liveblogged Yahoo’s first-quarter earnings call with analysts today, which started at 2 pm PT.

Earlier today, Yahoo said its net income spiked to $310 million, or 22 cents a share, in the period.

Revenue, after subtracting what Yahoo (YHOO) pays in advertising commissions, was $1.13 billion.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of nine cents per share and net revenue of $1.17 billion.

Here we go:

2:02 pm PT: Investor lady said stuff. But, yay, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was on the call, so–not that I don’t enjoy CFO Tim Morse, also on the call–it promised to be much livelier.

Bartz got on first and called it a “solid” quarter. Nothing fancy, but pretty accurate.

She quickly turned it over to Morse for the numbers.

It’s all in the charts and slides here, but Morse did stress the importance of the search and advertising partnership with moneybags Microsoft (MSFT).

It is like cost-savings manna from heaven–$78 million in this quarter alone–for Yahoo. In fact, it’s the gift that will keep on giving, noted Morse, although not in those words.

Also, advertising, especially display, is back! Search, not so much. Revenue per search down, share down–a true weakness for the No. 2 search player.

More numbers from Morse, who began to lull me into an afternoon nap, so there was joy on my part when he said: “On a final note…”

Overall, Morse said that things are looking up.

2:21 pm: Bartz is back, noting first that the ad market is looking up and that marketers are looking to get creative with Yahoo’s “digital canvas.”

“Science, art and scale,” said Bartz.

I had no idea Yahoo was Rembrandt!

She used examples of work the Silicon Valley Internet giant is doing with retail giant Walmart (WMT).

Search is not so pretty: “I don’t think it is any secret that we have had a hard row to hoe in search,” Bartz said.

The bad crops metaphor is right!

2:27 pm: Microsoft deal stuff, though Bartz gave few details.

Suddenly, she threw a bit of a tantrum about those who focus too much on Yahoo executive talent, or–actually–the departure of executive talent from the company, which she called “borderline” obsessive.

I think she just took a smack at my reporting and called me the Vincent Van Gogh of the Internet, since All Things Digital breaks most of those stories.

Memo to Carol: I have covered both goings and comings. Did you miss the Blake Irving piece just this week?

And, frankly, when you lose your chief ad sales person and CTO in a month, it’s kind of a big story.

I am a bit obsessed with Yahoo, it is true, but I still have both ears. (Unless Judy comes at me with some scissors for giving you a hard time!)

End of my tantrum.

Bartz then moved onto details about programming and other features at Yahoo–sports, mobile, Facebook integration–and the company’s recent content deal with Hollywood producer Ben Silverman.

She called what he makes for Yahoo “video snacks.”

Smacks and snacks!

2:37 pm: Q&A time!

First up, a question about search and display.

Morse answered: Display great, search not.

Next: Flat page views and how do you increase engagement?

Bartz will “take a whack at that,” since she is clearly in a whacking mood.

Engagement is a big focus and Yahoo is working on it: More interactivity, social networking, better targeting.

Bartz said she has been getting a lot of diet recipes in that targeting, although she has no idea why. I think she looks great!

Next: What’s up with search declines again?

Morse: We are working on it!

Bartz: “We’re not a long-tail buy.”

Now, a tax guidance question (which means I headed to the bathroom at this point).

Next: What up with international? Also, another question about search decline trends–there has to be a morning after!

“We’re not fighting comScore (SCOR) on this,” said Bartz. Good idea.

“We have a lot of effort going into this,” she added. Stabilization is apparently the new up.

2:50 pm: I missed the last question because I had been looking at an OMG! story about actress Sandra Bullock not wearing her wedding ring. What can I say, except that Yahoo content is a lot more interesting than this earnings call.

But essentially, Bartz was talking about making Yahoo’s internal operations more consistent, which has been one of her favorite memes.

There was also a China question, but Yahoo is not running the show there.

More about the search alliance with Microsoft and its costs.

“There are a lot of moving pieces on this,” said Morse, which means he does not know yet.

He added that Yahoo might buy back some stock, but did not give specifics.

More search questions, this time about how Yahoo sells it. Bartz sounded weary of the questions about this key arena.

I can almost hear the internal dialogue in her head: “WHY THE #@&%*# ARE THEY SO BORDERLINE OBSESSED!?!”

Face it, Carol, we can’t get enough of your search non-answers.

Bartz moved onto Yahoo’s strength in the content space. She is right about this, which is Yahoo’s major differentiation.

And again she stressed the artistic canvas metaphor, for both content and advertising.

Yahoo is the Da Vinci of Digital! The Michelangelo of Microchips! The Picasso of Pixels!

I am borderline choked up at the thought of it.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100420/liveblogging-yahoos-first-quarter-earnings/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100413/digital-bromance-producer-lloyd-braun-and-msns-scott-moore-talk-about-online-content-on-a-tv-set/ http://allthingsd.com/20100413/digital-bromance-producer-lloyd-braun-and-msns-scott-moore-talk-about-online-content-on-a-tv-set/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:49:33 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26515

Yesterday, BoomTown interviewed Hollywood producer Lloyd Braun (pictured here) onstage in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters annual confab about the future of television in the digital age.

While broadcasters finally seem to finally be embracing the fact that everything in their world is going digital and that business models are fast-changing, it’s still a long and complicated road forward.

Braun, as well as many other longtime entertainment execs, are trying to forge the gap, by trying to operate in both worlds. While his stint as the top media exec at Yahoo (YHOO) did not go so well, he kept on the rocky digital content path, even as he continued to produce more traditional fare for television.

So last week, I motored down to Long Beach to the set of a very elaborate pilot for an action drama that he is shooting for NBC called “The Cape,” to talk about television, as well the latest Web site he launched in partnership with Microsoft’s MSN.

Called “Glo,” the Web site is a highly stylized women’s lifestyle destination in partnership with magazine giant Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.

Glo is the second dramatic site designed, created and run by the Los Angeles-based BermanBraun, which is headed by Braun and his business partner, Gail Berman.

The first was an innovative celebrity site, Wonderwall, whose consumer engagement metrics have pleased advertisers so much that MSN ordered up another one aimed at fashion, decor, relationships and beauty.

Here’s the video of an interview I did with Braun, as well as MSN U.S. head Scott Moore, in the bowels of the Queen Mary’s engine room, where “The Cape” is being shot:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100413/digital-bromance-producer-lloyd-braun-and-msns-scott-moore-talk-about-online-content-on-a-tv-set/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/ http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:40:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24516

Jim Cameron, famed Hollywood director, producer and writer, has agreed to an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

With the bazillion-dollar haul from “Avatar,” the innovative filmmaker is getting a lot of kudos in the entertainment business. But the D8 audience is probably more interested in all the high-tech, mega-geek stuff about movies that Cameron (pictured here) will surely wax on about.

Still, let’s hope none of them go as far as the dudes and dudettes in this video below, who manage to take total nerd much more seriously than you can imagine (and with a pitch-perfect tone that almost makes you think they are actually not kidding–which they might not be):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/ http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:40:36 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d8.allthingsd.com/?p=284

Jim Cameron, famed Hollywood director, producer and writer, has agreed to an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

With the bazillion-dollar haul from “Avatar,” the innovative filmmaker is getting a lot of kudos in the entertainment business. But the D8 audience is probably more interested in all the high-tech, mega-geek stuff about movies that Cameron (pictured here) will surely wax on about.

Still, let’s hope none of them go as far as the dudes and dudettes in this video below, who manage to take total nerd much more seriously than you can imagine (and with a pitch-perfect tone that almost makes you think they are actually not kidding–which they might not be):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091214/turnabout-is-fair-play-boomtown-decodes-rupes-journalism-is-not-a-free-cow-op-ed/ http://allthingsd.com/20091214/turnabout-is-fair-play-boomtown-decodes-rupes-journalism-is-not-a-free-cow-op-ed/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:05:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21729

Last week, BoomTown translated an opinion piece written by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published in The Wall Street Journal that focused on defending the search giant from criticism that it was, well, killing journalism.

One of the louder critics, in fact, has been Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp. (NWS), who has been loaded for bear in regard to Google (GOOG), leveling a series of high-profile verbal attacks on the company.

Last week, Murdoch published his own piece in The Journal, which he owns (along with this Web site), on the topic of the wrenching changes in the news business and in which he never mentioned Google by name.

But the company was there anyway, so, in the interests of equal opportunity balloon-pricking, I must also render Murdoch’s post through my decoding machine, because it’s only sporting!

His op-ed, The Journal noted, “has been adapted from his Dec. 1 remarks before the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop on journalism and the Internet.”

What Murdoch wrote: Journalism and Freedom

Government assistance is a greater threat to the press than any new technology.

By RUPERT MURDOCH

Translation: Crikey, as they say in Australia, I have been getting a little wobbly over Google’s growing power, but those bludgers in government will always make me go more troppo.

And, unlike Eric Schmidt, I didn’t need to be called Emperor Palpatine to scare people. Plain old “Rupe” works just fine to give most people the shakes.

What Murdoch wrote: We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame.

My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever–limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us.

Translation: Please try to ignore the salient fact that it was actually Rupert Murdoch–me!–who has been loudly clanging the bell of late about how Google is laying waste to journalism, much as Sean Hannity did to that poor Alan Colmes nightly for a dozen years.

Also, please ignore that I am saying my message is just the opposite, because–really–I hate government more than I hate Google, so this makes perfect sense if you really think about it.

But don’t think about it, mate!

Murdoch wrote: From the beginning, newspapers have prospered for one reason: The trust that comes from representing their readers’ interests and giving them the news that’s important to them. That means covering the communities where they live, exposing government or business corruption, and standing up to the rich and powerful.

Technology now allows us to do this on a much greater scale. That means we have the means to reach billions of people who until now have had no honest or independent sources of the information they need to rise in society, hold their governments accountable, and pursue their needs and dreams.

Does this mean we are all going to succeed? Of course not. Some newspapers and news organizations will not adapt to the digital realities of our day–and they will fail. We should not blame technology for these failures. The future of journalism belongs to the bold, and the companies that prosper will be those that find new and better ways to meet the needs of their viewers, listeners, and readers.

Translation: Teri: Cue the speech about what journalism means for the little people! But also make sure we get in how News Corp. gets all this digital hoo-ha too and how we are not going to let those pointy-heads of Silicon Valley think we are not ready to rumble!

What Murdoch wrote: First, media companies need to give people the news they want. I can’t tell you how many papers I have visited where they have a wall of journalism prizes–and a rapidly declining circulation. This tells me the editors are producing news for themselves–instead of news that is relevant to their customers. A news organization’s most important asset is the trust it has with its readers, a bond that reflects the readers’ confidence that editors are looking out for their needs and interests.

Translation: There was a trophy cabinet and award wall just like that at The Wall Street Journal before I bought it. I ate it it for breakfast.

What Murdoch wrote: At News Corp., we have been working for two years on a project that would use a portion of our broadcast spectrum to bring our TV offerings–and maybe even our newspaper content–to mobile devices. Today’s news consumers do not want to be chained to a box in their homes or offices to get their favorite news and entertainment–and our plan includes the needs of the next wave of TV viewing by going mobile.

The same is true with newspapers. More and more, our readers are using different technologies to access our papers during different parts of the day. For example, they might read some of their Wall Street Journal on their BlackBerries while commuting into the office, read it on the computer when they arrive, and read it on a larger and clearer e-reader wherever they may be.

Translation: Teri: Tell Jon Miller to get on a plane stat and start chit-chatting with those Asian manufacturers asap. I am not going to let Amazon (AMZN) head Jeff Bezos guffaw me into oblivion with his Kindle or have “American Idol” get hijacked by Apple (AAPL) or have those Google (GOOG) twins shine me on, even as they are developing some magic mobile phone.

What Murdoch wrote: My second point follows from my first: Quality content is not free. In the future, good journalism will depend on the ability of a news organization to attract customers by providing news and information they are willing to pay for.

The old business model based mainly on advertising is dead. Let’s face it: A business model that relies primarily on online advertising cannot sustain newspapers over the long term. The reason is simple arithmetic. Though online advertising is increasing, that increase is only a fraction of what is being lost with print advertising.

That’s not going to change, even in a boom. The reason is that the old model was founded on quasimonopolies, such as classified advertising, which has been decimated by new and cheaper competitors such as Craigslist, Monster.com, and so on.

Translation: My second point follows from the first: We can’t charge for milk when we have been giving away the cow for free.

And, frankly, the old media have been lending out Bessie to every Web site that comes looking for a gallon, free of charge, in abject fear that no one likes milk anymore.

In the good old days, when we were the only beverage around–I like to call it a “quasiMOOnopoly”–we could set any price we wanted.

Now, unfortunately, everybody’s got milk.

What Murdoch wrote: In the new business model, we will be charging consumers for the news we provide on our Internet sites. The critics say people won’t pay. I believe they will, but only if we give them something of good and useful value. Our customers are smart enough to know that you don’t get something for nothing.

Translation: People will pay, once we de-index our sites from Google and they can’t get their daily dose of the New York Post’s Page Six for free. Where else will they get the latest online tidbits on the Tiger Woods scandal, for example?

Okay, from everywhere. But Page Six names at least 46 percent more mistresses than TMZ, and that’s worth something.

What Murdoch wrote: That goes for some of our friends online too. And yet there are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production. Some rewrite, at times without attribution, the news stories of expensive and distinguished journalists who invested days, weeks or even months in their stories–all under the tattered veil of “fair use.”

These people are not investing in journalism. They are feeding off the hard-earned efforts and investments of others. And their almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not “fair use.” To be impolite, it’s theft.

Right now, content creators bear all the costs, while aggregators enjoy many of the benefits. In the long term, this is untenable. We are open to different pay models. But the principle is clear: To paraphrase a famous economist, there’s no such thing as a free news story, and we are going to ensure that we get a fair but modest price for the value we provide.

Translation: By “friends,” I mean “sworn enemies,” also known as “Google.” (Until it meets with me to do a deal and then it is “friends” again.)

By “tattered veil of ‘fair use,’” I mean “the law I am going to get gutted by my 1,473 lobbyists in Washington, D.C.”

By “to be impolite, it’s theft,” I mean “to be impolite, it’s theft by Larry and Sergey.” (Until they meet with me to do a deal and fork over the moolah, and then it will be a “business arrangement.”)

By “there’s no such thing as a free news story,” I mean “I hope to trick those Google-obsessed Bing boys at Microsoft (MSFT) into paying me that boatload of money they aren’t sending Carol Bartz of Yahoo (YHOO).”

What Murdoch wrote: Finally, a few words about government. In the last two or three decades, we have seen the emergence of new platforms and opportunities that no one could have predicted–from social networking sites and iPhones and BlackBerries, to Internet sites for newspapers, radio and television. And we are only at the beginning.

The government has a role here. Unfortunately, too many of the mechanisms government uses to regulate the news and information business in this new century are based on 20th-century assumptions and business models. If we are really concerned about the survival of newspapers and other journalistic enterprises, the best thing government can do is to get rid of the arbitrary and contradictory regulations that actually prevent people from investing in these businesses.

One example of outdated thinking is the FCC’s cross-ownership rule that prevents people from owning, say, a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Many of these rules were written when competition was limited because of the huge up-front costs. If you are a newspaper today, your competition is not necessarily the TV station in the same city. It can be a Web site on the other side of the world, or even an icon on someone’s cell phone.

These developments mean increased competition, and that is good for consumers. But just as businesses are adapting to new realities, the government needs to adapt too. In this new and more globally competitive news world, restricting cross-ownership between television and newspapers makes as little sense as would banning newspapers from having Web sites.

Translation: Oh, I do not like Silicon Valley, but I dislike government even more!

And now that Google is its bogeyman instead of me, I really hope to finally be able to gut all those annoying cross-ownership rules that prevented me from owning the entire media landscape of every major city in America.

This must be done immediately, because those icons on people’s cellphones–especially that dangerous iFart app–are poised for attack!

What Murdoch wrote: In my view, the growing drumbeat for government assistance for newspapers is as alarming as overregulation. One idea gaining in popularity is providing taxpayer funds for journalists. Or giving newspapers “nonprofit” status–in exchange, of course, for papers giving up their right to endorse political candidates. The most damning problem with government “help” is what we saw with the bailout of the U.S. auto industry: Help props up those who are producing things that customers do not want.

The prospect of the U.S. government becoming directly involved in commercial journalism ought to be chilling for anyone who cares about freedom of speech. The Founding Fathers knew that the key to independence was to allow enterprises to prosper and serve as a counterweight to government power. It is precisely because newspapers make profits and do not depend on the government for their livelihood that they have the resources and wherewithal to hold the government accountable.

Translation: You bailin’ out me? You bailin’ out me? You bailin’ out me? Then who the hell else are you bailin’ out? You bailin’ out me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the %*#! do you think you’re bailin’ out?”

What Murdoch wrote: When the representatives of 13 former British colonies established a new order for the ages, they built it on a sturdy foundation: a free and informed citizenry. They understood that an informed citizenry requires news that is independent from government. That is one reason they put the First Amendment first.

Translation: Teri: Please insert the clarion cry of the First Amendment here, as it always stirs the heartstrings.

What Murdoch wrote: Our modern world is faster moving and far more complex than theirs. But the basic truth remains: To make informed decisions, free men and women require honest and reliable news about events affecting their countries and their lives. Whether the newspaper of the future is delivered with electrons or dead trees is ultimately not that important. What is most important is that the news industry remains free, independent–and competitive.

Translation: Believe me, if we could push a button and get rid of the whole Internet, News Corp. and Time Warner (TWX) and Viacom (VIA) and CBS (CBS) and the whole lot of us old media players would.

Barring that, whether the newspaper of the future is delivered with electrons or dead trees is ultimately not that important.

What is most important is that the news industry shake down big piles of dough from those Silicon Valley moneybags–whether they be Google or that Mark Zuckerberg kid, whenever Facebook goes public, or those Twitter dudes (if they figure out a way to make any money outside of fund raising)–in order to remain free, independent–and competitive.

It is, after all, the American way.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091214/turnabout-is-fair-play-boomtown-decodes-rupes-journalism-is-not-a-free-cow-op-ed/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20091028/changing-the-world-through-the-web-video-interviews-with-zuckerberg-kutcher-shah-and-rospars/ http://allthingsd.com/20091028/changing-the-world-through-the-web-video-interviews-with-zuckerberg-kutcher-shah-and-rospars/#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20002

Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

It turned out to be a lively session with the sharp digitally-focused group, which was the first tech panel at the six-year-old conference.

Here are video interviews I did with each of them (and you can see other video scenes from the conference here):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091028/changing-the-world-through-the-web-video-interviews-with-zuckerberg-kutcher-shah-and-rospars/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/ http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:26:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19313

For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time.

(He also appeared onstage in 2006 at D4 in an interview with Walt Mossberg, which you can see here.)

In fact, the man behind movies like “Men in Black” and TV shows like “Pushing Daisies” (and who likes to sport a Stetson and cowboy boots 24/7) does a gadget review column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”

Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from movie or TV sets.

And, compared to the cinéma vérité style of BoomTown (translation: shaky filming and bad sound), Sonnenfeld’s vlogs are pretty high quality, although they are not too overdone as those from Hollywood types always are, and it’s hard not to admire the editorial use of a martini.

Here’s his intro video vlog below, as well as one about a cross-country trip Sonnenfeld and his “analog” dog, named Lucky, took in a 2010 Ford Taurus SHO (super high output) and another about his experience helping his wife, Sweetie, cook for some film industry friends using the Traeger Professional Wood Pellet Grill.

Next week: A chain saw, although I hope Sonnenfeld will go light on the martinis for that demo.

From Crackle: The Esquire Digital Man Preview:

From Crackle: Ford Taurus SHO:

From Crackle: Traeger Professional Wood Pellet Grill:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact/ http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:00:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=7902

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact-2/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:00:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=7902

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081105/google-and-yahoo-ahem-downsize-ad-pact-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080923/ten-gallon-congrats-to-barry-sonnenfeld/ http://allthingsd.com/20080923/ten-gallon-congrats-to-barry-sonnenfeld/#comments Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:22:50 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=4215

One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6).

So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.

A gadget freak, as well as an entertainment mogul, Sonnenfeld was very entertaining and insightful about Hollywood’s uncomfortable relationship with technology in his interview with Walt Mossberg in 2006 at D4 (and which you can find here in photos and video).

Backstage at the Emmy Award show, which annually fetes the television industry, Sonnenfeld–who always tries to get Walt and me to ask outrageous questions of speakers at the conference in exchange for walk-ons on his shows and movies (so far, we have not bitten, although he has gotten off some good ones as an audience member in the Q&A part of the interviews)–gave a typically saucy interview to the press about his win.

And, no surprise, Sonnenfeld did manage to deliver one perfect geeky quip, as the music cue started to cut off his speech on Sunday night, which I doubt the glam crowd there got, but was not lost on me:

“Love TV and fear the Internet.”

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