Xoogler Doug Edwards Talks About New Book on His Time at the Search Borg (Video)

“I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59” is a pretty fair rendition of what it’s like to be strapped to a rocket ship of a start-up.

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Silicon Valley Commercial Office Vacancy Rate Nearly 20 Percent–And Rising

Anyone need 44 million square feet of office space? As the San Jose Mercury News reports, nearly 20 percent of Silicon Valley’s commercial office buildings stood empty at the end of 2009–the worse vacancy rate in at least 15 years. And the situation is expected to get worse in 2010.

NoTube: Supreme Court Blocks YouTube From California’s Prop 8 Trial

Here’s a historic first you won’t be seeing today: Coverage of a federal trial via YouTube. The Supreme Court has put a halt, at least temporarily, on plans let Google’s video site stream coverage of the “Proposition 8” trial, which kicked off today in a San Francisco courtroom.

Plastic Logic (Finally) Shows Off The Que, Its (Very Expensive) Kindle Competitor

After promising to deliver its take on Amazon’s Kindle for a couple of years, Plastic Logic is finally delivering: Here comes the Que, which the company promises is “more than an eReader.” It had better be: The first two versions of the gadget will cost $649 and $799.

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AT&T: Are They Trying to Lose Wireline Customers?

Wow, this is pretty strange behavior for a company that is hemorrhaging access lines. AT&T has unveiled plans to raise landline phone rates by more than 20 percent in California, according to both the San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Curse Heard Round the Globe–Well, Actually, Just the Web, But It's a Start for Yahoo

San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien made a lot of humorous hay at the expense of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz yesterday, in a joke piece called: “Bartz Unveils New &*%! Strategy for Yahoo.” O’Brien cleverly created a fictional transcript of a Yahoo staff meeting where Bartz–by now, well-known for her salty language–lets loose in an address about just how sick she was of competitors getting all the good press: “So we’re re-branding the company around excessive use of profanity. Our new marketing slogan will be, ‘Yahoo, (expletive) yeah!'” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

BoomTown Decodes Google's Phish-y Associated Press Blog (So You Don't Have To)!

Yesterday, in response to Associated Press board Chairman and MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton’s diatribe against those who shoplift news and his pledge to “protect news content from misappropriation,” Google posted a response on its public policy blog. Of course, that has nothing to do with the fact that most people think the Singleton speech was aimed at the search giant and its burgeoning power over the distribution of media, although Google was not named by him. Still, it’s always nice to make nice. Sort of. So, it was hard to resist translating this Google blog by one of its lawyers.

Silicon Valley Leaders Say No to Proposition 8 With New Group and Ad

Today, a panoply of prominent tech and Internet leaders is taking a very public stand against a controversial initiative before California voters, which would eliminate the current legal right of same-sex couples to marry. Silicon Valley has had a long history of supporting gay rights. And recently, Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin has made a strong statement opposing Proposition 8, while Apple gave $100,000 to the help defeat it.

Peter Kafka Takes On the Mediamorphosis in New ATD MediaMemo Blog

Oh, BoomTown could not resist making the obvious literary pun on the debut of Peter Kafka’s new daily blog, MediaMemo, on AllThingsD.com. I am referencing, of course, Franz Kafka’s famous 1915 novella, “Metamorphosis,” about a man who turns into a bug–except that the transformation is fraught with so much more meaning. And thus it will be in Peter’s column, as the most excellent writer and reporter plunges into the topic–as he writes in his first explanatory post–of “the ongoing battle between the established media business and the technology that is reshaping it day by day.”

Live From New York: ATD Hires Peter Kafka to Pen a New Media and Advertising Blog

Although we did not raid the offices of Silicon Alley Insider and “steal” Peter Kafka, as the fanciful SAI kingpin Henry Blodget alleges–had it been a raid, BoomTown would have properly hog-tied Blodget so he could not make such spurious allegations!–it is true that SAI’s current managing editor (pictured here) will be coming to work for us at AllThingD.com soon. He will write a daily still-unnamed new media blog from New York City, starting at the end of October.