AllThingsD » Robert Scoble

Glass Grovels (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:20:44 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

Look Ma, No Hands! How to Post Your Google Glass Videos to YouTube.

Peter Kafka — Fri, 03 May 2013 21:42:26 +0000

Google Glass is game-changing/ghastly/going to go the way of the Segway. Pick any or all!

In any case, it is coming, and at some point some of you who have one are going to want to use it post a YouTube video after you’re done skydiving or showering.

And now you can do so, courtesy of YouTube startup Fullscreen:

Fullscreen, recall, just rounded up money from the Chernin Group and Comcast.

So if you’re paying the country’s biggest cable company for monthly access to TV, take heart in the fact that a tiny slice of your check just made it easier for people with $1,500 gadgets to upload clips of your co-workers eating lunch.

Stick around to the end to hear an exchange Google Glass users are going to hear many times.

Viral Video: "Lucky Ones" Tech Mashup for Hurricane Sandy

Kara Swisher — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:03:55 +0000

As part of an effort to raise money for a few small businesses that were hurt by Hurricane Sandy, here’s a music video featuring 25 of Silicon Valley’s investors and entrepreneurs. The cameos in the video — organized by Mick Hagen of Undrip, the content discovery app — include David Hornik of August Capital, Leah Busque of TaskRabbit and, yep, Robert Scoble, all lip-synching to the song, “Lucky Ones.”

Enjoy:

Klout Revises Its Algorithm -- But Fear Not, It Says Most Scores Will Go Up

Liz Gannes — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:01:00 +0000

Klout today launches what it is describing as a major revamp to its algorithm, adding far more social signals and nuance to its measurement of online influence.

Klout is a controversial company, in part because it values people’s online activity with a score — but also because: 1) to many, that score did not seem terrifically accurate; and 2) the way the score was determined was not transparent.

The San Francisco-based company obviously isn’t backing away from the whole premise of scoring, but it is improving its efforts to be accurate as well as transparent, by telling the stories behind the scores.

Where Klout looked at fewer than 100 signals before, now it tracks about 400, including the number of Twitter lists a person is on, the number of people who’ve subscribed to them on Facebook, and how important they are on Wikipedia, as determined by a PageRank algorithm.

The company is also, for the first time, factoring in the “+K” its users can give each other as a sort of nomination for influence on a simple topic. But Klout was careful to tell me that this signal is capped to avoid abuse.

One of the criticisms of Klout had been that it seemed to have a skewed view of the world, where, for instance, Justin Bieber was the ultimate — he had a Klout score of 100 — and Barack Obama was hovering down at 94 (he used to be even lower, below tech pundit Robert Scoble). Klout noted that with the addition of Wikipedia edits and other factors, the two have flip-flopped: Bieber is now a 92, and Obama is a 99. Scoble is an 86.

Previous Klout changes had sparked anger at the company by driving many people’s scores down. A spokeswoman for Klout said she expected the opposite this time, as many people’s influence ranking will go up as additional signals are included. If true, I imagine that spoonful of sugar will make these changes go down more easily.

Also, in the coming weeks, Klout said, its scores will get somewhat more transparent. While the company won’t give away the particulars of its algorithm, it will show users a much more visual timeline of moments at which they were most influential.

The new timeline comes with awkward-funny labels such as, “You engaged Joe Fernandez and 18 others in this moment,” as you can see at left.

How Will Facebook's Zuckerberg Adapt to Working in the Public Eye?

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:30:36 +0000

As a 28-year-old CEO at the helm of the largest social networking company in the world, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has seen his share of scrutiny.

He will now get even more as a newly born public company leader, so we asked a panel of thoughtful insiders to reflect on how it might change his work style.

How do you think Mark Zuckerberg will adapt to working in the public eye?

Professor Frank Quattrone Talks History of Tech IPOs

Liz Gannes — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:30:34 +0000

These days, Frank Quattrone, the famous dot-com banker, tends to focus more on mergers and acquisitions than IPOs. But he made an appearance earlier this week to give a lecture about historic tech IPOs aimed at entrepreneurs looking to take their companies public.

Speaking at an event put on by Wealthfront that I also covered here, Quattrone noted that he worked on his first IPO way back in 1982.

Going back even further to 1971, if someone had invested a dollar in Intel’s IPO, it would be worth $1,480 today, Quattrone said. To put that into perspective (or whatever’s the opposite of perspective!), if Facebook goes public at a $100 billion market cap that grows 20 percent per year for 40 years, the company would then be worth an unimaginable $146 trillion.

Quattrone noted the importance of the LinkedIn IPO experience in stabilizing market expectations, though he said the valuations of today’s late-stage venture capital round make him nervous.

He admonished would-be public CEOs, “Don’t go public before you can be public,” and, “Respect public investors and treat them as partners and important constituents.”

The tireless Silicon Valley social butterfly Robert Scoble attended the Wealthfront event, and posted video from it here.

The Quattrone part goes until about 26 minutes into the video, after which comes a pretty interesting panel of venture capitalists (which I suppose should get a NSFW warning, because there were F-bombs involved).

Greylock Goes Hollywood, Adds to WhoSay Funding

Liz Gannes — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:30:20 +0000

A start-up that counts megastars like Tom Hanks, Steven Tyler and Ellen DeGeneres among its active users now has a high-profile Silicon Valley investor: Greylock Partners.

In an interview last week, Greylock partner David Sze said he thinks a celebrity content management system will be a big business. “It used to be when these platforms first started, the top users were always digital stars — the Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble types. If you look at it today, there’s an amazing shift going on — it’s all general celebrities and the scale is order-of-magnitude multiples of when the tech stars were dominating the system.”

As I’ve described it before, WhoSay is a social media tool for celebrities, aimed at “helping them manage their social media presence and making sure photos and videos are posted on a page the stars themselves can control and eventually monetize.”

For instance, here’s a picture of Tom Hanks’s refrigerator, via an embed code that allows the actor to maintain the rights to his image. Hanks also used WhoSay last week to bitch about how RSS feed readers of Gawker’s headline about his new movie might think he was actually dead. (Tom Hanks knows what RSS is?!)

Greylock has one of the most extensive venture capital portfolios of the leading social Web companies, among them general and open platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora, Airbnb and Tumblr. WhoSay, by contrast, is a much more specific publishing tool.

WhoSay — which was incubated by Creative Artists Agency but operates independently — had already raised $6 million from investors including Amazon and High Peaks Ventures. Greylock is adding an undisclosed amount into a previous Series B round.

It's Called Google Propeller and It's Aimed at Flipboard (and Facebook, Too, Natch)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:25:10 +0000

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Earlier today, well-known digerati dude Robert Scoble posted on his social feed on Google+ that the search giant was working on a social and news reader.

“I heard from someone working with Google that Google is working on a Flipboard competitor for both Android and iPad,” posted Scoble. “My source says that the versions he’s seen so far are mind-blowing good.”

If blowing the minds of hot Silicon Valley start-up Flipboard and Facebook is the goal, then Scooby-Don’t's rumor is pretty spot-on.

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Google is indeed working on rolling out the new product, which is currently called Propeller.

Sources said Propeller is apparently one of a number of new socially focused announcements Google is prepping, including new apps. But the timing for their launch is unclear.

Here’s what is: Propeller is a souped-up version of similar reader apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Yahoo’s Livestand, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

Facebook is also making social versions of publications available within its site. So, instead of just seeing a sidebar on a news site of what stories your friends liked, you’ll get a personalized and reformatted version of the latest news when you visit that publication’s page within Facebook.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping them better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies.

Flipboard is the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, available only on the Apple iPad. The company is working on an iPhone version, too.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

Propeller is probably a better name, I will admit.

It’s not clear what Google’s Propeller will include in the product, such as Facebook integration, since the pair of Silicon Valley behemoths have not been able to partner over data exchange.

Which is an understatement, I know.

But sources said it would be available on both Apple’s iPad and Google’s Android tablets.

In any case, stay tuned and thanks to Scoobs for the tip!

[Photo credit: This Noogler Propeller Hat -- which is given to all new Googlers -- is in the collection at the Computer History Museum, the gift of Marcin Wichary; the image is by Mark Richards.]

Scooby-Don't Doesn't Need Your Stinkin' Help, Google+

Kara Swisher — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:16:05 +0000

Robert Scoble, a.k.a. my favorite wacky character in Silicon Valley, is asking Google+ to take him off its suggested user list. In a post on the search giant’s social networking effort — on which he is a popular figure — the man I have nicknamed Scooby-Don’t wrote, among other reasons: “Any list that has Paris Hilton but not so many other deserving people on it isn’t a list I want to be on.” Rut-roh!

QOTD: If Palm Could, Then Maybe HP Couldn't?

Tricia Duryee — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:50:22 +0000

“Palm did what Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft couldn’t: Build a better experience than Apple.”

– Robert Scoble, January 8, 2009

Robert Scoble Explains His Attempted Worldwide Domination of Google+ (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:01:33 +0000

While at an event yesterday, I ran smack into Silicon Valley tech personality Robert Scoble, the man who never met a social network he didn’t try to hijack.

So, of course, Scooby-Don’t — as I like to call him — has been one of the more active users of Google+, the new offering from the search giant, which some have complained is breathtaking both in its speed and its scale of digital pollution.

Some have even blocked him, due to all the Google+ algorithms that surface around him a lot because of his massive popularity.

That’s because Scoble brings with him a noisy army of 43,131 people so far who have put him in Google+ Circles (he has 3,645 Circles himself), which he attends to as a good cult leader should — with lots of love and online chitchat.

Even Scoble has acknowledged the problem on Twitter, noting in a tweet: “Google+ is seeing noise effect I have never seen before. I totally would block myself.”

Fat chance! But at least he’s funny about his machinating to become King of Google+.

Here’s my video interview with him, which is vintage Scoobs:

[ See post to watch video ]

How About #Dontvoteforme, So BoomTown Gets the No. 140 Spot in Time's Tweet-Off

Kara Swisher — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:35:45 +0000

Yes, it is perverse, but I really want to come in dead last in Time magazine’s “140 Best Twitter Feeds.”

Why? Well, there’s no way I am getting near the top with the likes of Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga in the same list, so I felt the 140th–get it?–slot on a Twitter poll is the next best thing to aim for.

Here’s the deal, according to the magazine’s Web site:

“TIME picks the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the conversation. Take a look and vote on whether you think these top tweeters should be on our list.”

The list is split up into categories, such as authors (Neil Gaiman, who is #1, and Margaret Atwood), celebrities (Gaga and the inevitable Justin Bieber) and companies (Zappos and Whole Foods).

There is also a technology group, with luminaries such as New York VC Fred Wilson, man-about-Web Kevin Rose and, of course, the King of Tweets Robert Scoble.

I am in that group too, with the description: “When this woman reports a rumor, you can pretty much count on it to be true.”

Thanks…I think–although I prefer to call it reporting a fact.

In any case, early on, I was doing badly in the voting–as I had hoped and is entirely correct considering I am unknown to anyone but certain geeks–and was right near the bottom with some suspect deal sites.

But by last night, GigaOm’s Om Malik had dropped below me, along with Wilson. I was at the unacceptable 131 spot.

This will not stand! Thus, so I can shoot the moon, I urge everyone to vote for:

132 Mike Allen
133 Om Malik
134 Amazon Deals
135 Fred Wilson
136 DealDivine
137 Nieman Lab
138 Best Buy Deals
139 Coupons.com
140 Steven Johnson

A well-known writer and entrepreneur, Johnson has 1.4 million followers on Twitter and does not deserve this ignominious loss as much as me.

Tweet that.

JustSpotted Offers Celeb Tracker for SXSW A-Listers

Liz Gannes — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:40:52 +0000

The thousands of people descending on Austin right now all dream of meeting the same people. The Ashton Kutcher of life is the Ashton Kutcher of tech, but there are many celebrities specific to this little world–such as Kevin Rose or Gary Vaynerchuk.

Thus, JustSpotted, the social media celebrity-tracking service, is launching a SXSW edition of its mobile Web app that helps users stalk tech A-listers by combining public records of what events they plan to attend (via sites like Plancast), live check-ins (from sites like Twitter) and user-contributed sightings (contributed directly to JustSpotted).

Tech A-listers might be a dubious distinction, but the site, which will be available starting later this afternoon, will be pre-loaded with them–the examples given are Guy Kawasaki, Mark Zuckerberg, Zappos’ Tony Hsieh, Vaynerchuk and SV Angel’s David Lee.

Users can also search for any name they choose, such as potential investors and super users they want using their new app.

SXSW has become more of a VIP experience, with secret parties and private back rooms. And though geek spring break is bigger than ever, the fact that all these people are crammed into one small downtown area gives hope for serendipity.

But when serendipity isn’t enough…

Intern Becomes Real Live Blog Dude–ATD Hires Drake Martinet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whew! Then again, he is young!

Still, Drake has done a lot so far.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, as usual, much more to come….

IPad Bandit Terrorizes Gotham!

Peter Kafka — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:37:42 +0000

Holy gadget lust, Batman!

Here’s one way to respond to a hardware shortage: A Manhattan Apple store lost two boxes of iPads in two different robberies last week.

Police reports suggest that the same guy (perhaps with the aid of an accomplice) was behind both thefts. In both cases, the robberies occurred outside Apple’s Upper West Side store, when UPS (UPS) was dropping off new shipments of the gadgets.

The store’s employees, understandably, tell the New York Post they now have “a heightened security presence.”

Modest proposal: Why not leverage the legions of crazed Apple (AAPL) fans who are already willing to spend their free time standing outside the company’s stores? I bet you wouldn’t even have to pay them to help police the property–don’t you think Robert Scoble, et al would clamor for a chance to become deputized Apple loss-prevention experts?

Weekend Update 04.10.10–The Afterglow Edition

Drake Martinet — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:22:56 +0000

The tech media were catching up on sleep this week after all that iPad build up–years of speculation, rumor mills and photoshopped images. This week, at long last, we all got our hands on one of these little guys, and now we can stop talking about it. Right.

Kara started off the week by dispatching yours truly to join Robert Scoble in the overnight line outside the Palo Alto Apple (AAPL) store. There were a couple dozen padinistas who braved the cold to get theirs first, and we put together some videos of all the fanboy nerdery. Kara then jetted off for a couple of her signature high-profile interviews and reported back to all of us at AllThingsD. She confirmed suspicion that Yahoo (YHOO) CTO Ari Balogh will be leaving for family reasons and dropped names of possible successors. She rounded out her road trip with a Flip video of Kevin Johnson, CEO of Juniper Networks (JNPR). They talked about the iPad, as Johnson is a pretty good guy to comment on how it may affect things like, say, networks.

John took the week off, but Digital Daily was alive and kicking, at least during the Apple OS 4 event. We liveblogged all the action from Jobs, Forstall and Schiller, right from 1 Infinite Loop.

MediaMemo was abuzz with an exclusive from the West Coast early in the week. We ran into Chatroulette creator Andrey Ternovskiy in line while waiting for our iPad, and he gave MediaMemo a sneek peek of coming attractions for the Internet meem du jour. Peter then moved on to some good news about advertising, for a change. It seems that Internet ads are coming back, if not as fast as media types might hope. In the same vein, Peter posted a breakdown of Apple’s new iAd platform and what it may mean for the media industry, how it might make developers money and how it wont suck.

Walt devoted his column this week to an all-iPad followup. He answered some burning questions about the iPad and made clear some points that had even confused Weekend Update. Mossberg’s Mailbox was full of questions about steaming video, computers for school and running Windows on a Mac. Walt always gives the straight talk, and the questions answered this week were no exception. Katie also did the iPad shuffle this week, writing a review of some of the best apps currently offered for the new device. She broke them down well in writing and even threw in a little video for good measure. She never disappoints.

That’s all for now from Weekend Update. We’re going to go curl up with our iPad and Wi-Fi and not come out till June. Or at least until Kara makes us come back next week for another installment.

Yes, BoomTown Made Drake, the ATD Intern, Camp Out for the iPad

Kara Swisher — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:18:32 +0000

This weekend, while BoomTown was still indisposed, All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet was dispatched to the Palo Alto, Calif., Apple store–in the heart of Silicon Valley–to camp out with the freaks and geeks awaiting the 9 am PT sale of the iPad Saturday.

Yes, he camped all night to nab two of them “magic tablets.”

While doing so, Drake found one Microsoft (MSFT) Windows computer user, did pinch-and-zoom exercises with some “iPadanistas” and generally seemed rather punchy, despite all the Apple (AAPL) mania.

And, inexplicably, he managed not to get an interview with the attention-seeking missile that is Robert Scoble.

In any case, here are two videos Drake did (and you can see his interview with the founder of Chatroulette, also waiting in the line, here):

Technologizer's "The Future of Windows": Scoobs, Foley, Baig, Windex Wisecracks From BoomTown and More!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:15:51 +0000

Check out the interesting observations made by a range of media and tech folks in a post by Technologizer titled, “The Future of Windows: 28 Perspectives and Proposals” on the 25th anniversary of the 1.0 version of the groundbreaking operating system.

The simple question being asked: How can Microsoft keep Windows relevant?

My wisecracking first answer: “Well, a more liberal policy on Windex, I suppose. Wait, you mean the software?”

Actually, I did try to recover, noting that I was not wedded to Apple (AAPL) systems, which I have mostly been using for years now, if Microsoft (MSFT) nailed touchscreen technology and worked better at innovative integration of social networking, software, Web and devices.

No surprise, blogger Robert Scoble had a laundry list of requests, such as these:

“I want everything I touch to be socialized. Why doesn’t Outlook know anything about Facebook? Why don’t my photos automatically get pushed to Flickr? Why don’t I have a news app on my desktop that brings in Tweets from Twitter? Why aren’t notifications built into the system at a deep level?”

ZDNet’s most excellent Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley was more dramatic:

“But what Microsoft really needs to do to insure Windows’ continued relevance is to be unafraid of introducing a whole new operating system at some point. At some point, in the not-too-distant future, Windows is going to need to be supplanted by ‘the next big thing.’”

USA Today’s Ed Baig would not go that far:

“Now, I’m by no means suggesting that Microsoft has to start from scratch when it comes to the traditional Windows OS for computers, much less prescribing specific changes…But what I am saying is that Microsoft shouldn’t be burdened by the shackles of legacy computing as it looks ahead.”

No matter what, of this I am still certain: More Windex!

Or as Toula Portokalos said in the movie comedy, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”: “My dad believed in two things: That Greeks should educate non-Greeks about being Greek and every ailment from psoriasis to poison ivy can be cured with Windex.”

Check out the other 24 ideas and add some of your own below.

BoomTown Can Count on Scooby-Dooby-Don't for Laughs: The Roast Video

Kara Swisher — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:48:20 +0000

Sadly, due to the sniffles and some minor hacking (thanks, kids!), BoomTown had to miss the roast of well-known blogger Robert Scoble that Startup2Startup hosted at its holiday party last night on Pier 38 in San Francisco.

I was skedded to be one of the roasters, though, so I sent along a video of all my video encounters over the years at various tech events with the man I like to call Scooby-Don’t.

As you will see below from our geek version of Seinfeld-Newman faceoffs, I like to poke fun at the gooney enthusiasm of Scoobs–who never met a wacky gadget he did not squeal over, a social whatever start-up he did not proselytize or a line for a new iPhone he did not sit in all day and night.

In all seriousness, the blogosphere could use a lot more of Robert, who is big-hearted and infectiously warm, loyal and funny, in his own goofy way, and never cruel. Plus, he knows how to make fun of himself.

But most of all, Robert truly cares about innovation in tech, even if he also likes to tweet every time he has an errant thought about just about anything.

You can watch videos of the event here–the proceeds of which went to charity–or search #scobleroast on Twitter for more.

Here are my video interviews of Scoobs:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here is Web Strategy’s Jeremiah Owyang’s slide presentation roast too:

Roasting Scoble

View more presentations from jeremiah_owyang.

Twitter Tackles Spam, and Sets Its Sights on Bigger Challenges (Take a Guess)

Peter Kafka — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:49 +0000

Now that Twitter doesn’t have to worry about raising money ever again (right?), it can spend time tackling all sorts of projects, big and small. Here’s one of the latter: The company has created a better way for users to flag spam accounts.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that Twitter has replaced a cumbersome and completely nonintuitive process with one that makes more sense. That’s good, right?

The flip side is that spam really isn’t one of Twitter’s most pressing problems.

In fact, Twitter’s antispam qualities were one of its best features from the very start: “Spam” on Twitter isn’t like other services’ spam since no one can actually send you spam and clog up your inbox. You only see it if you’re gazing at messages that include your name. So it’s aesthetically offensive, but not the kind of thing that actually makes Twitter less useful.

In the more proactive category: Twitter’s “lists” feature, which curates interesting groups of Twitter users to follow, should debut next week, I’m told. This one does tackle a more significant problem for Twitter: New users come to the site and have no idea what to do or whom to pay attention to. (Twitter’s quasicontroversial “Suggested Users List” doesn’t really cut it, though it does drive Robert Scoble nuts, which is amusing.)

And in the time-to-get-serious category: Actual revenue generation. Twitter’s giant cash pile means the company doesn’t have to start making money anytime soon. But it’s going to start trying, I’m told, with a series of…well, I heard them described by someone familiar with the company’s plans as “experiments.” Alternate name for them: “Don’t freak out if this stuff doesn’t work.”

We already know what one of them is: A plan to sell both Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) access to Twitter’s data stream. But I’m told we should see other kinda-sorta trials in coming months.

NPR's Honchos Talk Digital at "Think In" in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:14:24 +0000

Last Friday, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller and Digital Media SVP and GM Kinsey WiIson came to San Francisco for a “Digital Think In” to pick the brains of some Silicon Valley types about where the public radio icon should go, digitally speaking.

While NPR actually has been pretty fast-forward with podcasts and a robust Web site, it still has to think about what social networking means to it and whether a day is coming when broadcasting online will be bigger than offline.

Also, what’s up with Twitter?

These and other questions were discussed at frog design Friday with a passel of Web types like investor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, Toni Schneider of Automattic, craigslist founder Craig Newmark and LinkedIn founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Also, ubiquitous blogger Robert Scoble, who wants NPR to open itself up like a can of beans.

The Think In participants were charged with making suggestions related to five main topics: Social media and connection to the audience, NPR’s national network of more than 800 stations, the potential of its open API, expansion of platforms and how to diversify its revenue model.

BoomTown always likes crowdsourcing innovation, even among the digital elite.

While at the event in the morning, I talked to Schiller, who came to NPR last year after a stint as general manager of the New York Times online unit, and also to Wilson, who previously worked as executive editor for USA Today and ran its digital efforts before that.

Along with my video interview with them, below, you can check out some more detailed information from the event here.

Here’s my video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Take That, Twitter! Facebook's Cox and FriendFeed's Taylor Talk About the Deal (But Not BoomTown's $50 Million Guess on the Price)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:42:14 +0000

After Facebook announced today that it had acquired online content-sharing site FriendFeed, BoomTown had a short chit-chat with Facebook’s Director of Product, Chris Cox, and FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor.

Although neither budged on telling me about the purchase price, which various Silicon Valley venture capitalists I spoke to estimated to be about $50 million in cash and stock, they both talked about how copacetic the two companies were.

Benchmark Capital and angel investors had put about $5 million into the start-up, which–while innovative–has failed to garner the red-hot growth of either Twitter or Facebook since it was founded in 2007.

(I mean, even if No. 1 FriendFeed Fanboy Robert Scoble said that too, it must be so!)

Cox and Taylor said the companies came together after several months of casual conversations, probably sometime after Twitter spurned Facebook’s $500 million stock-and-cash offer last year.

But, as in failed love affairs, moving on is the next best thing to do!

“At its core, we have the same vision for these types of products around real-time sharing and discovery,” said Taylor. “The ideas we have and view from Facebook were converging, so this made sense.”

He also noted that Facebook’s huge user base of upward of 250 million people–especially compared to FriendFeed’s one million monthly unique visitors–”was an offer we could not pass up.”

While in a previous interview with me Taylor and one of his other co-founders, Paul Buchheit, said they wanted to remain independent, the former Googler said “this was right thing for our company.”

And how, since Facebook was working on a lot of the content- and update-sharing features that FriendFeed had been pioneering so well, and Twitter had pulled so far ahead in the horse race.

Taylor agreed, referring to Facebook. “When such a large successful company is working on solving that problem too, we realized we could work more effectively in their organization,” he said.

Facebook’s Cox agreed that one-plus-one equaled Twitter-killer. (Well, he did not say that–I did!)

“We have watched [FriendFeed's] products from the beginning and the people themselves are just amazing,” he said, making the purchase sound a lot more like a talent acquisition than anything else.

Cox noted that time was a-wasting too in the real-time and sharing arena.

“I think all this stuff is evolving very quickly and and at the speed of light and there are not many that understand it at a deep level,” said Cox. “We just feel it’s important to have those people in the room and in the building, and not just on Facebook.com, but everywhere in the world.”

While it is unclear what kinds of products would evolve, both said a “culture match” would facilitate good things.

Not that it will be easy, said Cox: “Facebook operates at such a scale that we approach this with a high degree of humility.”

Neither would comment about my question of which side would have to now reign in FriendFeed fanatic Scoble, who loves the service the way a tween girl loves Robert Pattinson of “Twilight.”

Here is my video interview with Taylor and Buchheit last December, as well as a tour of FriendFeed’s Mountain View, Calif., HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

Memo to All Crepe-Hangers: It Still Ain't Nobody's Business If Jobs Is or Isn’t

Kara Swisher — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:00:58 +0000

Now, it’s getting flat-out macabre.

That would be the continuing swirl of attention the health of Apple icon Steve Jobs has been getting.

Rumors of his impending demise have been popping up periodically since the too-thin crisis of the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and look like they won’t stop until it actually comes true.

My grandmother used to have a perfect rejoinder for this kind of funeral-chasing behavior, which was prevalent among her gang of Italian sisters, who–whenever anyone caught a cold–predicted the worst outcome: “Don’t be a crepe-hanger.”

This time, more rumors surfaced yesterday in Gizmodo, curiously, a week before the Macworld at which he is famously not appearing. The site used a single–yes, that’s right–source saying his illness and not Apple’s business troubles with the conference’s organizer, IDG, was the reason for his pull-out.

The rumor, of course, sent Apple (AAPL) shares into a tailspin for the day, before others–such as CNBC’s Jim Goldman–posted just-as-strong refutations of the Jobs-Is-On-His-Last-Legs stories.

Blogger Robert Scoble even talked to a worker at a yogurt store that Jobs frequents and got a health report (good!).

Oh, dear–yogurt workers as medical experts? What’s next? Brain surgery consultation from the Starbucks barista? This is what we’ve descended to?

It has to stop, because the fact of the matter is that Jobs’s health is still nobody’s business, as it has not been throughout this bizarre obsession with one man’s personal issues.

In a post in late July, the last time this issue surged, I wrote:

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations from stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Why?

Well, any Apple investor has to know by now that Jobs suffered from a rather serious bout with a curable version of pancreatic cancer some years ago and that recovery includes inevitable complications.”

And, indeed, the only decent argument you can make to focus so intently on Jobs’s health of any relevance is the impact on Apple company stock, which is self-righteously trotted out each time these specious reports emerge.

The thing is, a lot of companies have been run by execs with health issues (and countries too–VP Dick Cheney’s ticker has been misfiring for a long time now, for example, and he still seems to have been running the show with a verve we wish he perhaps did not have so much of now).

But, to be fair, I will acknowledge the issue. But if anyone does not get that Apple’s CEO has health issues by now, they are ignorant in the extreme. The situation should be baked into the stock price.

In addition, Apple is run by a lot of other competent people besides Jobs and they too are part of its success. Here’s a news flash–Steve Jobs does not conceive, manufacture and wrap every iPhone and iPod.

That is the kind of mythology that has, of course, been propagated a lot by Apple and it is–like a lot of things–a bit true in a bigger concept.

But, as I recently said, when Jobs inevitably leaves the company, probably on his own two feet in retirement, the Cupertino HQ will not suddenly be taken up to the skies as if it were the rapture.

Maybe the yogurt shop guy knows about when that’s going to happen.

Speaking of rapture, here’s singer Jill Sobule singing about that at a recent D: All Things Digital conference.

And, in a second video, she sings perfectly about how we should behave when it comes to what is inevitable for us all. People riveted by Jobs’s fate might do well to take her sage advice.

Here are the videos:

Is Social Media Killing PR? (Or Maybe Vice Versa?)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:03:05 +0000

Last night, BoomTown was at the Horn Group offices in San Francisco to appear on a panel called “Is Social Media Killing PR?”

Focused on the “future of the media ecosystem,” it was moderated by Media Survey’s Sam Whitmore. Besides me, the other panelists were the Horn Group’s Susan Etlinger and Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist with Forrester Research.

The panel topic was inspired by recent blog rants by Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington, all of whom have taken potshots at the PR industry as unnecessary or broken in the new social media order.

Of course, as was the intent, their pieces caused a teapot-tempest in the sector, although I said at the start of the panel that I was not so sure that PR folks should bite at this particular bait from a trio of bloggers well known for liking to start controversial debates.

In any case, it was a good discussion to a packed audience about what the implications of social media are for the PR business–essentially, fewer press releases and more Twitters!

My take was that as much as things have changed, little actually has and that social media were not going to turn a weak pitch into a strong one.

All that counted a decade ago were good products and solid start-ups–and that is all that still counts today.

And, in fact, with all the social tools PR folks now have, it is easier than ever for them and companies to go right around the gatekeepers of the media directly to customers.

Here’s a short video I did at the event:

[ See post to watch video ]

They Will Survive–Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs Talk Downturn!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:32:57 +0000

Earlier today, BoomTown posted a video of star venture capitalist John Doerr’s 10 tips to start-ups for surviving the econalypse that he ticked off at a roundtable in Silicon Valley on Wednesday.

Beside the words of wisdom from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner, I also trolled for advice from the panel of well-known entrepreneurs I moderated at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” event.

Thus, here is the i-will-survive take from Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that makes the WordPress blogging software, Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0′s Epinions and Max Levchin of Slide.

As an added bonus, Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, also weighs in. And, of course, the inevitable blogger Robert Scoble gives his two cents (and also freaks me out once again!).

Here’s the video of the entrepreneurs, and below it, for your viewing pleasure, two versions of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor (the classic) and Cake (the weirdly good one):

[ See post to watch video ]