San Mateo

Google+’s Horowitz Talks About Joining Board of Wordnik, as Online Dictionary Site Garners $8M More in Funding (Video)

Kara Swisher in Media on July 25, 2011 at 6:14 am PT

It’s the first board seat ever for Horowitz, who has been a bit busy of late launching the search giant’s first successful social networking product.

Voices

Silicon Valley Group Seeks to Give Area an Edge

Pui-Wing Tam, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on December 30, 2010 at 12:18 pm PT

Cities across Silicon Valley are trying to capture some of the corporate growth unfolding in the region. In San Mateo, that has resulted in a public-private partnership called the Edge. The effort was launched in late 2009 as an initiative of the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce and also is funded by companies with offices in the area, such as mutual-fund company Franklin Templeton and online software company Salesforce.com Inc.

Conduit Dumps Google Search for Microsoft's Bing

Kara Swisher in News on December 1, 2010 at 6:00 am PT

In an interesting move in the search space, Conduit–a fast-growing start-up that helps publishers make and distribute apps using Web browser toolbars–has entered a strategic partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search service. In doing so, it is leaving its existing search deal with Google and will instead offer Bing to its network of 260,000 publishers and 200 million users.

Voices

Gizmodo to Cooperate With Probe Into Lost iPhone Prototype

Shira Ovide, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 16, 2010 at 2:09 pm PT

Gizmodo said it has reached an agreement with California authorities over access to some computer and other material related to an investigation of how the technology website obtained a prototype of the new Apple Inc. iPhone months before its release. In April, Gizmodo published details and video of the new iPhone 4 model. The website said it paid to obtain the phone, which was allegedly left behind in a bar by an Apple employee.

Breaking: FTC Greenlights Google-AdMob Deal–A Giant Bouquet of Flowers Immediately Sent to One Infinite Loop

Kara Swisher in News on May 21, 2010 at 9:27 am PT

In the regulatory equivalent of a surprise switcheroo, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had officially closed its investigation of the $750 million AdMob deal with Google, which had been at risk over the past months, citing adequate competition in the mobile advertising market, especially from Apple. After the unanimous 5-0 decision, the FTC said in a statement: “The Commission said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency’s concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc.–the maker of the iPhone–to launch its own, competing mobile ad network.”

Close Encounters of the Regulatory Kind: Google-AdMob Brace for the Worst

Kara Swisher in News on May 3, 2010 at 6:12 am PT

While executives at both AdMob and Google are pulling out all the stops to convince federal government regulators otherwise, multiple sources close to the situation said that the pair now expect the Federal Trade Commission to try to block the acquisition of the small mobile advertising start-up by the search giant. While the situation could change, of course, sources said that the lack of any kind of indication of clear direction of the inquiry this late in the game by FTC staff–which recommends action to its five commissioners–is a bad sign.

Google Acquires AdMob for $750 Million in Stock (Plus the Press Release and Video With CEO)

Kara Swisher in News on November 9, 2009 at 9:33 am PT

Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million, a huge price for an innovative start-up that hass pioneered online ads on mobile and now smart phones. BoomTown visited AdMob last fall and posted about how it was likely to eventually be acquired by…Google! The move is a major one for the search giant, which has been pushing hard into the mobile advertising space as it seeks to grow its already considerable Web business. AdMob is arguably the fastest out of the gate in the nascent arena. Plus, here’s AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui in a video interview with me last November, as well as the official press release on the sale.

VMware Forks Over $420 Million for SpringSource (Plus the Press Release, Etc.)

Kara Swisher in News on August 10, 2009 at 1:22 pm PT

It’s certainly acquisition fever in Silicon Valley today. After it was announced that Facebook had bought FriendFeed, now comes the news that VMware has purchased SpringSource, a privately held enterprise and Web application development and management cloud computing start-up. The price? That would be $420 million in cash and stock. With the purchase of Spring Source, Palo Alto-based VMware–which is a top player in the virtualization space–is adding to its cloud-computing application-management strength and also its ties to the open-source community.

Facebook's Privacy Chief (And California Attorney General Candidate) Chris Kelly Speaks!

Kara Swisher in News on May 12, 2009 at 2:52 am PT

BoomTown tried to get Chris Kelly to give up more during an onstage interview I did with the Facebook chief privacy officer last night at the third “Tech Policy Summit” and was only moderately successful in the endeavor. Oh he is a smoothie all right, as a lawyer and now as a wannabe politician. Kelly–who is still working at the social-networking site, where his job is to make sure consumer data, privacy, the children and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation are all safe and sound–is also running for the job of California’s attorney general.