Former Myspace CEO Mike Jones is doing something similar — but he’s not stopping there.

Jones’s new Santa Monica, Calif.-based “technology studio,” called Science, will incubate ideas in-house, invest in other people’s start-ups, advise Silicon Valley companies on breaking into Hollywood, and maybe even look into reworking later-stage Internet companies like Yahoo.

To start, Jones has raised $10 million from investors including Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, the Social+Capital Partnership and Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures. He has also lined up three private equity partners for potential larger deals.

Why call it “Science”? Jones told AllThingsD this week: “I’m choosing to build a series of successful businesses with talent that I’m familiar with, and a method that we’ve proven works.” He added, “We’re at a point in our industry where it’s a little more science than art.”

Science will start with three verticals: The intersection of content and commerce, social systems, and mobile and location.

Prior to Myspace — which he joined in 2009 and wasn’t able to revive before selling it to Specific Media earlier this year — Jones had founded companies such as Userplane (sold to AOL) and Tsavo Media (sold to Cyberplex).

Also in the L.A. start-up scene, a new accelerator called Start Engine debuted earlier this week, promising it will focus on mentorship and accept 120 start-ups per year. The first class kicks off in January.

First photo by Flickr user Discover Science & Engineering.

Clearspring, the social-sharing company — in an effort to increase its business as a marketing analytics player — has acquired XGraph, a data science company.

Clearspring declined to provide the price it paid for XGraph, but said the deal was in cash and stock. The start-up raised $3.75 million just over a year ago.

The combined company has 85 employees — 70 at Clearspring and 15 at XGraph.

Execs at the the McLean, Va.-based company said the purchase will increase value to advertisers and publishers via audience targeting and data science. Clearspring is best known by consumers for its AddThis social-sharing tool, which provides a lot of detailed user data.

Clearspring raised $20 million in funding in May. At the time, the company said it planned to spend its new cash on acquisitions that leveraged data and built audiences more efficiently.

The New York-based XGraph focuses on modeling and monetizing the Web’s social graph.

“We get a lot of data points every day and making sense of them is something we have already been doing, but XGraph fits the bill to go even further in the multi-graph use of data,” said Clearspring CEO Ramsey McGrory. “It puts us in a position to be the market leader for the application of data.”

Key Compton, CEO and co-founder of the three-year-old XGraph, noted that the industry has become data-driven in new ways.

“People are connected to each other via social connections in a multi-graph platform,” said Compton. “I think there are some really interesting opportunities to access the data.”

Here’s the official press release for the deal:

Clearspring Acquires XGraph to Create Largest Multi-Graph on the Open Web

Company accelerates growth by deepening data team and technology

McLean, VA and New York. NY. — November 1, 2011 – Clearspring, provider of the largest social sharing and analytics platform, AddThis, announced today it has acquired XGraph, Inc., a leading data science company focused on modeling and monetizing the web-wide social graph. Clearspring’s massive reach and proprietary real-time data processing capability, coupled with XGraph’s audience technology, create the largest multi-graph platform on the web — mapping 1.2 billion user’s connections by brand affiliation, intent and social behavior.

The investment in XGraph’s data science capabilities marks another step on Clearspring’s rapid growth trajectory. XGraph’s team has deep data science expertise with applied backgrounds in advertising, sociology, mathematics and computer science. Their unique technology dynamically organizes users by shared connections and interests. XGraph’s team and platform will drive Clearspring’s existing efforts with publishers, advertisers and agencies forward while also setting the stage for new innovation.

“Clearspring is at the epicenter of two major shifts online — the web becoming social and personal, and advertising becoming data-driven and accountable. The common thread in both changes is data. To compete in this new world, companies will not only need the ability to access and process big data, but also have the ability to activate that data to create value for consumers, publishers and advertisers,” said Ramsey McGrory, Clearspring’s new Chief Executive. “The combined company has the people, technology and data to enable our clients to stay at the forefront of these changes. 2012 will be a breakout year for Clearspring.”

For advertisers, agencies and trading desks, Clearspring will immediately be able to provide the largest multi-graph audience targeting capabilities available on the open web. By using this technology to identify a brand’s core audiences and finding millions of other connected and like-minded people online, the company can now drive more efficient spending and increased campaign performance. Clearspring also plans to leverage this new capability to deliver publishers unique audience insights, monetization capabilities and actionable data products in the coming year.

“Most companies only capture one dimension of how we’re all connected, whether it be our friends or people we share with — a single graph approach. XGraph not only models these social connections, but also multiple other types of connections such as brand affiliations, intent and more — a multi-graph approach,” said Key Compton, XGraph’s CEO. “We’re truly excited to leverage our technology to unlock the value of Clearspring’s massive data set and help publishers and advertisers truly harness the power of the web-wide interest graph.”

XGraph is headquartered in New York with an office in Silicon Valley. All XGraph employees based in New York will join Clearspring’s office there. Clearspring plans to keep the office in Silicon Valley. The combined company will have 85 employees nationwide.

Arriving at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum, in the heart of the tech industry, with the leader of the free world talking jobs and digital, you might expect fantastic wireless access.

You might, but not so much if you are a “local” reporter and can’t jack into the extra-secret-special wireless link the national White House press corps apparently has reserved for itself. (They also get a lovely noshing buffet, whilst we tech reporters have been instructed not to touch the pineapple and scones or else!)

Famished for coffee and carbs, we’re left with glomming onto the museum’s slowish wireless service — there are lotsa geeks here today jamming up the lines — and every now and then getting some juice from Google. The search giant blankets the Mountain View, Calif. area near its HQ with free Wi-Fi, but it fades in and out.

I am now reconsidering the antitrust investigations that the Obama administration is conducting against Google, as long as its signal is good enough to check Twitter.

So this liveblog of President Barack Obama’s LinkedIn Town Hall — which will center on jobs and is titled, “Putting America Back to Work” — could be glacial with not much news, much like what I am expecting from the event itself.

I’d certainly like to work, as long as the wireless does! (Plus, limited power outlets in the room, so it’s every reporter for herself!)

But bygones, while we await the Prez!

10:18 am: One thing that made me flee Washington, D.C., when I worked for the Washington Post, was all the rigmarole that surrounded the appearance of and access to politicians.

I get it, the security and all, and am all for it on a general safety level. But, no matter how you slice it, it hinders any kind of movement or genuine interaction, like being stuck at a really dull opera. All the world’s a stage and we are all merely waiting in traffic.

In contrast, and one of the joys of Silicon Valley, is that anyone can get up right up into the grill of the various billionaire potentates littering the landscape, engage in a debate and get a possibly real answer.

Thus, I am hoping for a lot here from LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who is going to moderate the hour-long session with the President.

By the way, while he is busy running the business-focused social networking site, Weiner is looking good in a fancy suit, almost as if he could be Secretary of the Internet. I’d vote for him.

10:28 am: Some painless but hip music is playing now, as we wait, wait, wait for Obama, who is set to begin in 30 minutes.

I wonder if the President is ever early. Wouldn’t that freak the peeps out?

(Obviously, I am bored, so I shall now go monitor Twitter to catch up on the latest in the new bad-marriage-or-not cat fight between Brad Pitt and his ex, Jennifer Aniston — as if we need him to tell us Angelina Jolie is more interesting. Frankly, Angie’s midday snack is more interesting than Jen.)

There is now what appears to be a Secret Service dude next to me, giving me a hairy eyeball. If I am jailed over my wireless protest, please give generously to my defense fund.

Free the Internet! Free the Internet!

10:35 am: Finally, the production guy is up giving out the rules. Turn off the cellphones, no making noise.

The head Secret Service guy then takes the stage. No getting out of your seat. No sudden movements. And no crossing the blue line in the front row.

“All joking aside,” he says, he will take you down. He also notes that if the President moves toward you to shake your hand, “do not move toward him.”

I love Secret Service agents — especially when played by Clint Eastwood — and wish I had one to give a few people in tech a little smackadoo on my behalf. And not only if they moved toward me!

10:47 am: This little frisson of excitement is followed by more waiting, as the final seats are filled up in the room, which is an unusually (and welcome) multi-racial and gender-balanced crowd for Silicon Valley.

Various White House aides skitter back and forth like nervous ground squirrels — I would imagine their life is one big effort to avoid any gaffe — so the Prez must be near.

I am actually looking forward to seeing him, as I never have in person and am looking forward to seeing the famous Obama charm and techie cred.

Indeed, he is probably the most fast-forward tech president there has ever been. That said, buffeted by more serious issues facing the nation, his administration has delivered on few — by which I mean none — of its promises around the digitization of the U.S.

Our high-speed broadband, for example, is still woefully slow, inordinately expensive and not easily available nationwide.

And I will not even go into the need for increased focus on math and science education or the importance of our broken visa policies.

But the topic today is jobs, which is an arena where Silicon Valley and tech shines in the U.S., even as manufacturing of it has mostly moved overseas. How tech can help improve in the creation of jobs will be issue No. 1 here.

10:55 am: Total silence with five minutes to go. I need the President around to quiet my kids.

Now, LinkedIn Chairman and VC Reid Hoffman comes in, so the event is probably about to begin.

And, indeed, Weiner emerges to cheers, to give a little speech on “changing the way we work … and connecting talent to opportunity.”

11:01 am: Then, the session starts right on time with President Obama.

He begins with a rote speech on jobs, which is nonetheless the most important issue he faces going into next year’s election.

11:14 am: Ah, wireless glitch! Back!

President Obama is inexplicably in the middle of a Medicare question, which gives him an opportunity to talk about the need for the rich to pay more taxes.

And pass his American Jobs Act, of course.

11:17 am: More on proposing legislation for retraining workers, such as the questioner’s mom.

Now to a group of email questions. The first is about when small businesses are going to get a break from onerous regulations and taxes.

President Obama says since he has been in office, he has cut taxes 16 times for those who create a business.

But he is not going to apologize for some regulations, such as those for the financial industry over the mortgage crisis.

“There are some regulations that have outlived their usefulness,” he says, but others not so much.

11:24 am: The next question is from a Chicago IT employee. Except she is not employed.

She is asking a question about keeping her skills up and what programs are needed.

“The best thing we can do for you is that the unemployment rate goes down,” said President Obama, but also adds that making it easy to go to school while waiting on a job is also important.

“Just looking at you, I can tell you are going to do great,” he tells her in an awkward effort at reassurance.

Thanks, Barack, but she needs a job!

11:28 am: A veteran is asking a question about transitioning out of the military.

Obama launches into a story of a medical technician who faced all kinds of experiences, but had to start over again with new classes when out of the military. He suggests some level of credentialing based on experience.

11:33 am: Obama gets to pick out someone from the crowd and manages to pick out a dude who is a former Googler — although he only says that he works down the street — and is out of work by choice.

He asks: “Will you please raise my taxes?

A plant? I wish!

President Obama asks the name of the start-up. “A search engine,” says the ex-Googler-in-disguise, who is Doug Edwards, an early marketing exec there who actually wrote a book on being an ex-Googler.

“That worked out well for you,” kids President Obama.

Everyone likes a rich-guy joke!

He is soon onto the idea that we’re all dang lucky and declares he does not want it to turn the debate over taxes into a rich-poor war.

Bottom line, he notes that we have to raise taxes on the very wealthy. Frankly, if we raised taxes on a bunch of folks in this room, it would help a lot.

11:42 am: A teach-training question, especially math and science teachers.

President Obama is all for it.

He is meaning well here, but all he seems to offer is a lot of bromides about the importance of education and errant related anecdotes.

Like one from IBM, where the company hires the kids in the program at the end.

President Obama wants students to see a direct connection between learning and jobs.

Then, he kind of says it again. Gosh, he can talk. How does the well-fed and wirelessly connected White House press corp take it? Lotsa donuts, I would imagine.

President Obama also wants us to turn off the electronics and video games for kids, too, thereby instantly losing the votes of my two sons!

Another laid-off guy is up at the mic. He had 22 years in IT management and is disheartened.

He wants a statement of encouragement from the CEO of America.

President Obama assures him that his track record of success gives him a leg up, but that the problem is the economy and the global meltdown, too.

It’s systemic, apparently.

“The problem is not you, the problem is the economy as a whole,” says President Obama.

That was the last question. Weiner, who has been sitting quietly (I know it was hard, Jeff, but good job), thanks the President and tells him that this is a big issue.

President does his thanks, too, for being able to speak, although not really that much was actually said.

And then a genuine moment, finally, of clarity.

“Look, we’re going through a very tough time, but we have gone through tougher times before,” he says. “But the trajectory we are going on is one that is more open, more linked …”

He talks about the need for being ready to take advantage of that opportunity.

“Things have gotten so ideologically driven, putting party above country,” he adds, that nothing is getting done. That’s why the people, the voters, have to demand leadership from their elected officials.

Or, presumably, fire them and let them try to find another job, too.

It might turn out to be the best idea yet, if these pols don’t agree on something and quick.

Social Chocolate is seed-funded and led by McGonigal (as creative director) as well as former Zynga designer Chelsea Howe, Black Rocket ad agency founder John Yost, brand strategist Adam DeVito and Hot Studio CEO Maria Giudice.

McGonigal’s thesis is that we can harness game play to solve real-world problems. And likewise, Social Chocolate’s mission is “making worldchanging games powered by the science of positive emotion and social connection.”

Says the company’s Web site: “We are in the middle of developing radically new social adventure games based on breakthrough scientific findings from psychology, neuroscience, and sociology.”

Some of the games McGonigal has been working on, as detailed in her book, include Top Secret Dance-Off, which challenges players to videotape themselves completing dance missions modeled on massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and SuperBetter, which she designed to help motivate herself to recover from a serious concussion. She is also creating a game in partnership with the New York Public Library to attract young people with an overnight book-writing session.

I’m about to go onstage to interview McGonigal and will add more details after our discussion.

Update: McGonigal said SuperBetter is to be the San Francisco-based Social Chocolate’s first game, with clinical trials starting in a few months.

The game solicits the participation of close family members and friends to help people who are injured or suffering from a chronic condition. The idea is to return to health by accomplishing goals and connecting with people. In McGonigal’s case of a brain injury, her recovery was being hindered by anxiety and depression about not recovering, and turning her recovery into a game gave her a positive outlook.

If I can get McGonigal away from her swarms of adoring fans at the conference, I’ll shoot a video about her plans.

How could we not, what with Microsoft, Mattel and the Girl Scouts of America holding a joint event last week to talk up their new partnership aimed at halting the expanding gender gap in the tech sector.

Their weapon of choice? Barbie.

Bear with us here.

According to Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, the percentage of women receiving computer science degrees are at about 20 percent, down from almost 40 percent in 1985.

The decline is even sharper when compared to gains made by women in almost every other academic arena in the same time period.

Recognition of the problem has sparked numerous summits, associations and research grants in tech in recent years.

Enter Microsoft and, um, Barbie.

As part of its larger DigiGirlz program, Microsoft announced a $5,000 grant supporting technology education in Girl Scouting, along with a mentorship program that will match women working in tech with girls interested in science and engineering.

The summit, held at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus, also featured Mattel’s signature doll donning hipster glasses, a Bluetooth wireless headset and some techie duds to start her umpteenth career, this time as a computer engineer.

Thus, a video, where highlights include a quick chat with Sid Espinosa–Microsoft’s director of citizenship–a backstage chat with California’s acting Chief Information Officer Christy Quinlan, a sneak peek at the geeky Barbie and a chitchat with a troop of Brownies about their computer-use habits.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101123/silicon-valleys-latest-geek-barbie-gets-a-cs-degree/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100809/this-is-your-brain-picking-magazine-covers/ http://allthingsd.com/20100809/this-is-your-brain-picking-magazine-covers/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:52:00 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=22374 Sure, porting your ink-and-paper magazine to an iPad sounds like a high-tech operation, but if you want to see what cutting-edge technology can really do for a magazine, check out the cover of this week’s New Scientist. Because the magazine’s editors picked that cover after reading your mind.

More specifically, the minds of 19 right-handed men.

The British magazine chose its newest cover design after testing it and two other options with the help of NeuroFocus, a “neuromarketing” company that’s supposed to figure out how the brain responds to different pitches.

NeuroFocus strapped the 19 test subjects to an electroencephalograph machine and recorded their reactions. The design below scored highest, because it supposedly made testers most receptive to the concepts “eye-catching,” “intriguing” and “must-buy”:

Why right-handed men? Sample size, says the New York Times, which has the short version of the story. For the longer version, consult New Scientist itself, which explains that this sort of testing is increasingly common–not for magazines but for most consumer products. Next up, perhaps–your congressman:

Giants such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and the Campbell Soup Company (CPB), are increasingly adding neuromarketing to their market-research armoury. According to Darren Bridger, NeuroFocus Europe’s director of lab operations, just about every conceivable item is now being road-tested on human brains: adverts, movie trailers, snacks, gadgets, packaging, drinks, car designs and early-stage concepts for new products. Berns even suggests that it won’t be long before neuromarketing is applied to the ultimate sales pitch: political candidates.

Any relevant clip I’d run here–”Clockwork Orange,” “Parallax View,” “Manchurian Candidate,” etc.–is too creepy for a Monday morning. So we’re going with this all-purpose one:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100809/this-is-your-brain-picking-magazine-covers/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100226/chinese-scientists-recalibrate-googles-evil-scale/ http://allthingsd.com/20100226/chinese-scientists-recalibrate-googles-evil-scale/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:01:25 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=35670 Evidently, Baidu isn’t nearly as effective an academic research tool as Google, because the latter’s threatened withdrawal from China has got the country’s scientists pretty worried. A survey of 784 Chinese scientists by science journal Nature found that many feel the search engine is indispensable to their work, particularly if it requires English-language searches for material outside China.

Of those surveyed, 80 percent said they regularly use Google (GOOG) to find academic papers and nearly 60 percent said they use it to keep abreast of new research. Why Google and not Baidu, which is used as a primary search engine by only 17 percent of respondents? Because Google casts a wider net, indexing information that its Chinese rival does not. “Research without Google would be like life without electricity,” ecologist Xiong Zhenqin told Nature.

An interesting perspective on Google’s China debacle, eh? Certainly, it lends credence to the company’s claims back in 2006 that offering a censored version of services in the country was better–and more importantly–“less evil” than not offering them at all. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at the time, “We concluded that although we weren’t wild about the restrictions, it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all. We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

But the question of serving/not serving is more binary in these days of highly sophisticated and targeted attacks on the corporate infrastructure of American companies. Which is too bad–particularly for Chinese scholars whose work may end up as collateral damage in Google’s battle with China.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Chinese Schools Tied to Attacks on Google? Where’d You Read That, Mad Magazine?
• World War WAN: Google Hack Traced to Schools in China
• Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
• Google CEO: Ask Not What Google Can Do for China–Ask What China Can Do for Google
• China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100226/chinese-scientists-recalibrate-googles-evil-scale/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091006/google-decides-to-find-its-creative-side/ http://allthingsd.com/20091006/google-decides-to-find-its-creative-side/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:10 +0000 Jessica Vascellaro http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=16258 Google Inc., a champion of the belief that advertising should be less about art and more about science, is embracing its inner creative side.

As it searches for new growth, the company in recent months has focused more on creating custom ad campaigns spanning multiple Google (GOOG) services for big spenders including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Ford Motor Co. (F).

Since the summer, Google has helped J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) and PepsiCo Inc.’s (PEP) Quaker Oats unit launch ad campaigns on YouTube and on some of the hundreds of thousands of sites across which Google sells display ads, along with search ads.

As part of the shift, Google is thinking up and tailoring more ad campaigns in close consultation with ad agencies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091006/google-decides-to-find-its-creative-side/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090918/kara-visits-the-oxford-social-media-convention-i-say-twitt-er-you-say-twitt-ah/ http://allthingsd.com/20090918/kara-visits-the-oxford-social-media-convention-i-say-twitt-er-you-say-twitt-ah/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:40:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18594

Today, BoomTown has traveled to England to see the Queen, but mostly to attend and speak at a conference at the University of Oxford, titled “Oxford Social Media Convention: Assessing the Evolution, Impact and Potential of Social Media.”

In other words: What is up with this Twitter thing, but in a British accent.

(By the way, the Twitter stream on the conference can be found at #oxsmc09.)

Well, I can report here that some folks are perplexed by the growing size and valuation of the San Francisco microblogging service, some adore it and some don’t use it at all, thank you veddy much.

Of course, there is a whole lot more going on, including: Discussions of the changing relationship between blogs and mainstream media, making science more social, the growth of the corporate blog and the political impact of social media.

I am on the panel about the ways companies need to use social networking, as well as a wrap-up on the overall impact of this key Internet trend.

So far today, it seems people here are still chewing over the changes wrought by Facebook, Twitter and the blogs and the way the audience has taken over the conversation from the so-called professionals.

In other words, as in the U.S., the social trend is still seen as an experiment rather than the real thing.

In the media session, for example, mainstream journalists here seemed to still be stuck in their whiny woe-is-me mode rather than leaning forward and trying to come up with ways to ride the latest wave of change.

When many kept harping on the issue of accuracy in the blogosphere, I could not resist and asked: “Can you give me the exact date when the old media will stop whining about new media?”

I did not get an answer, but I can tell you it better be quick, especially as these innovative social sites grow larger and larger, evidence that consumers like what’s happening.

So does the guy from Facebook, of course, the social networking service that announced it had reached an astonishing 300-million users mark last week.

“It’s very exciting,” said Richard Allan, Facebook’s European policy director, discussing how social media are evolving in ways that everyone still cannot imagine.

I’d agree.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090918/kara-visits-the-oxford-social-media-convention-i-say-twitt-er-you-say-twitt-ah/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090408/trueslant-tests-another-model-of-web-journalism/ http://allthingsd.com/20090408/trueslant-tests-another-model-of-web-journalism/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:08:03 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090408/trueslant-tests-another-model-of-web-journalism/ As newspapers, magazines and TV stations face dire economic challenges, and journalism moves increasingly online, debates are raging about how best to preserve quality news and commentary while still making money.

There’s lots of experimentation with different approaches. Many journalists, old and new, are operating as stand-alone bloggers, but finding it hard to make a living. Web advertising has weakened with the economy, and often can’t cover the costs of expensive reporting. A couple of respected traditional publications have successfully attracted large numbers of paid subscribers online, but many others who have tried have failed.

Meanwhile, advertisers also are scrambling to figure out the best way to sell their products online, in a manner that both attracts potential customers and blends in well with the content and style of news sites. And publishers are trying to capture the conversation and sense of community that permeate services like Facebook and Twitter.

This week, a new Web news site is entering the fray, with a novel approach to journalistic entrepreneurship, new forms of advertising, and an effort to blend journalism and social networking.

The site, called True/Slant, at trueslant.com, is opening its doors via an odd preliminary status it calls an “open alpha.” This means it’s rough around the edges, and not yet taking in revenue, but hopes to attract enough participation to hone its design and operation.

True/Slant is run by a former news executive at America Online who worked at a variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal. It covers a wide range of topics, such as politics, culture, sports, business, health, science and food.

It is launching with 65 journalists, or “knowledge experts,” assigned to specific topics. Each of these contributors gets a page to house their journalism and, it is hoped, an active social network of followers who will regularly discuss the articles they read there. Each page also will feature headlines of stories elsewhere on the Web selected by the contributors. These “headline grabs” link back to the originating outside site.

The initial group of contributors includes current or former writers for publications such as the Financial Times, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Time magazine and the Boston Globe.

Readers can go directly to the page of their favorite contributor, but the site’s home page will knit together popular content and contributors, and each reader will be able to track multiple topics and contributors through a streaming feed called “I’m following.”

True/Slant will run regular Web ads throughout. But, in a highly unusual move, the site plans to offer advertisers their own entire pages where they can run blogs and try to attract a network of followers. These will have the same design and features of the journalists’ pages, but will be labeled as ad content.

The journalists are paid a small amount, but the plan is to turn them into minipublishers under the True/Slant umbrella. They will be offered a share of the advertising and sponsorship revenues their individual pages generate and, in some cases, equity in True/Slant, which is backed by venture capital.

These contributors are allowed to keep writing elsewhere, either online or in traditional media, and even to promote these outside efforts on True/Slant. But they are expected to post original commentary and analysis to True/Slant. They also are allowed to arrange for their own advertising or sponsorships, in addition to what True/Slant can sell, and even, in some cases, to add other authors to their pages.

In another unusual move, the contributors also are required to actively engage with readers on the site. They must post a minimum number of comments in reader discussions about their articles and curate the comments, giving prominence to the most interesting. They are even expected to comment on each other’s posts.

This required engagement is an attempt to capture some of the excitement of a social network, and it ties in directly with a contributor’s success. On the home page, and elsewhere throughout the site, True/Slant promotes not only the most popular contributors, but also the most active ones. High rankings in these categories can lead to higher traffic on each contributor’s page, and, indirectly, to higher income.

Readers who are active commenters can also gain prominence on the site, especially if those comments are popular or called out for special attention. A front-page panel will highlight the most active commenters, and the most called-out comments.

The layout of the site is clean and handsome, a decent effort to meld a news site and a social network. One layout flaw the company hopes to fix: There’s no easy way to find a list of all topics, only those it considers hot at any moment.

It’s way too early to know if True/Slant will succeed. For one thing, it is still dependent on advertising, not subscriptions. And ethical questions could arise, because the site’s operators don’t edit or preapprove the content, and the model of blended journalism and advertising could prove problematic.

But it’s another example of how the Web is changing traditional media, and might be worth a look.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090408/trueslant-tests-another-model-of-web-journalism/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090325/black-thursday-at-big-blue/ http://allthingsd.com/20090325/black-thursday-at-big-blue/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:45:25 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=15408

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090325/black-thursday-at-big-blue/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux/ http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:45:49 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=15362 Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” is looking more and more like Bloom County’s Bill the Cat these days and Dell’s decision to shutter its plant in the Irish city of Limerick certainly won’t improve matters. According to report by Forfas, the country’s policy advisory body for enterprise and science, the closure will cost the region almost 9,500 jobs–nearly four times the 2,510 that will be lost by the closure itself. Some 6,600 positions are likely to be lost at companies supplying goods and services to Dell (DELL), the report said. “[It] is a realistic figure, unfortunately,” said Labour Deputy Jan O’Sullivan. “That has been the ball-park figure that has been predicted for some time. We are all aware that two to three companies are directly dependent on Dell.”

A devastating blow to Ireland and one that’s expected to take as much as $158 million out of the local economy.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux-2/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:45:49 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=15362 Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” is looking more and more like Bloom County’s Bill the Cat these days and Dell’s decision to shutter its plant in the Irish city of Limerick certainly won’t improve matters. According to report by Forfas, the country’s policy advisory body for enterprise and science, the closure will cost the region almost 9,500 jobs–nearly four times the 2,510 that will be lost by the closure itself. Some 6,600 positions are likely to be lost at companies supplying goods and services to Dell (DELL), the report said. “[It] is a realistic figure, unfortunately,” said Labour Deputy Jan O’Sullivan. “That has been the ball-park figure that has been predicted for some time. We are all aware that two to three companies are directly dependent on Dell.”

A devastating blow to Ireland and one that’s expected to take as much as $158 million out of the local economy.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090325/there-once-was-man-named-dell-who-told-1900-workers-%e2%80%9cgo-to-hell-redux-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090320/att-talks-cybersecurity-with-congress/ http://allthingsd.com/20090320/att-talks-cybersecurity-with-congress/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:35:36 +0000 Andrew LaVallee http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=9680 Congress is a tech-savvier place today than it was when Edward Amoroso, AT&T’s (T) chief security officer, started making trips to Washington more than 20 years ago.

Back then, he says, he would discuss virus threats at length before a lawmaker would raise his hand. “You’re expecting some question that might impress you, and they’d ask, ‘Can you tell me what a virus is?’”

Yesterday, however, when he addressed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, he was surprised to hear senators fluently discussing botnets and the recent cyber-attack against Estonia.

Exchanging glances with colleagues after the hearing, he recalls, “We made that face that you make when you’re kind of impressed.”

The subcommittee handles a wide range of communications, security and technology issues, and it conducted the hearing, titled “Cybersecurity: Assessing Our Vulnerabilities and Developing an Effective Defense,” to identify security threats and changes the government needs to make to fend them off.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090320/att-talks-cybersecurity-with-congress/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090206/microsofts-steve-ballmer-talks-innovation-at-democratic-policy-confab-the-full-speech/ http://allthingsd.com/20090206/microsofts-steve-ballmer-talks-innovation-at-democratic-policy-confab-the-full-speech/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:14:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9469

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an appearance at the three-day U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Retreat today to talk about innovation and, let’s be real, the very bad economy and the impact on businesses like the tech giant.

Held at the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., the confab has already seen an appearance by President Barack Obama yesterday and one by Vice President Joe Biden this morning. Ballmer got the lunch spot.

The annual gathering is more crucial this year, given the pressure to pass the massive economic stimulus package to try to revive the moribund economy.

Ballmer was not reassuring. “The bubble has burst,” said Ballmer. “We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.”

And also: “In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset.”

Microsoft (MSFT) should know all about that. The powerful company recently announced weak earnings, a foggy outlook and layoffs of 5,000 employees.

Here’s Ballmer’s speech to the group:

Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you. It’s a real honor to have a chance to share some thoughts on the economy and on innovation, and hopefully spur some thoughts on how we all participate in restarting long term economic growth.

As Jay was telling my story, so to speak, I thought I’d put in one parenthetic that might be of interest. When I got to Microsoft and we were this tiny little company, we didn’t have the budget to put people up in hotels, so I lived with Bill. And every time I sat down, in every corner, nook and cranny of couches, tables, I’d find these little yellow pieces of paper with Bill’s writing that had a bunch of people’s names and companies’ names and numbers.

So, finally–I think of myself as pretty good pattern matching. Actually I was sitting next to Congressman Frank, and we were both trying to see which of the six states that are going to be still bigger than North Carolina by 2015. So, we’re going through the pattern matching game, and I just couldn’t figure out what these numbers were.

So, finally I said to Bill, what is this? He says, Steve, I’m really always worried about whether we’re going to have enough cash to pay people. So, every night I write down everybody who works for us and how much we pay them, and every contract we have and how much it’s worth. I’ve got to count the pennies tightly and that’s why you’re here now.

In this economic climate, whether you’re talking about businesses or consumers, everybody I think is having the little yellow sheets of paper out, and counting pennies pretty tightly.

I’m going to make one thing clear up-front: I’m not going to claim to be an economist. On the other hand, I think it’s sort of the responsibility of every businessperson to really form a model of what’s going on in the economy, if you’re going to provide proper stewardship to your business; big company, small company, it’s important to have a model of what’s going on, and certainly have been thinking a lot about the economy in the context of how we think about and plan for the future of Microsoft.

For the past 25 years, the world has certainly enjoyed incredible, incredible global growth. Average incomes around the world grew at unprecedented rates, millions of people moved from out of poverty into the middle class for the very first time.

I think that expansion was built on three things: innovation, globalization, and debt, increasing debt.

American technology was certainly at the heart of the innovation that played the central role in the process. The PC, the Internet, fiber optics: Those things were things that continue to keep America at the forefront of technology, and really at the lead of a growing global economy.

But over time, over the last period of time, the balance has really shifted. Instead of innovation and productivity driving growth, it’s really been unsustainable levels, particularly of private debt, that have been a key driver of economic growth.

The hard truth is this, in my opinion: The private sector of our economy has borrowed too much money, businesses and consumers alike, fueled by the a lot of different things, some notion that housing prices would go up forever, that you could borrow money cheaply.

I gave a speech at Stanford Business School a few years back, and I was talking, we’re a company that has been conservative, per the yellow pieces of paper. We like to keep cash. And a very smart Ph.D. in the audience puts his hand up and said, “Why don’t you borrow money?” I said, “I don’t like to borrow money.” He said, “But it’s so cheap; you’re depriving your shareholders.” I think it reminds us that essentially consumers and businesses alike have really borrowed too much money.

The bubble has burst. We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.

At our own place, what we think about PC sales, they are discretionary in most home budgets, the second, the third PC. Consumer electronics has that characteristic. Fifty percent of capital spending in this country is on information technology. Less capital, less spend on information technology. No sector will be immune.

There’s a natural tendency to want to blame somebody for the economic crisis. In reality, I think you have to say we’ve all contributed to a culture of spending and private debt. And I distinguish private debt and government debt, because I think you have to be much more–the private sector has less ability to be thoughtful, and the government sector needs to be quite thoughtful. But there certainly has been too much use of debt.

At Microsoft, we’ve studied these developments. We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime economic event, but it’s not unique frankly in U.S. history. The current situation looks a lot like several–not one but several previous cycles of long-term private sector debt.

In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent. Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent; far more leverage. And you can see it’s been a steady increase basically since almost the end of World War II.

In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset. The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate.

This may not be the thing that people really want to hear, but it’s certainly what we’re planning on, and it’s the truth on which we’re basing sort of our model, if you will, at Microsoft.

In our opinion, in order to reach the reset point, three things need to happen. First, the economy must be deleveraged. Private debt as a percentage of GDP has to be reduced. Restoring health to the nation’s financial system is a fundamental part of this.

Just for historical note, not only during the Depression, but actually in 1837 and in 1873 we had similar style resets in the economy. We actually have at least three historic periods that we can study in which similar phenomenon occurred. I think it was 1873 where even the state of Florida filed for Bankruptcy. So, we need to be thoughtful about being students I think of the history.

Second, confidence must be restored. The stimulus package, in my opinion, is vital. It will provide a cushion as we reach the reset point and it will help restart our economic engine. I certainly want to applaud the steps that the House has taken under the speaker’s leadership to quickly pass a strong stimulus package and to help shore up our financial institutions.

Third, America really has to return to growth that’s built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt. That must happen.

The good news is that the U.S. economy is still the world leader in innovation. Our universities are the envy of the rest of the world. The American workforce is the best on the planet, and U.S. companies continue to drive technological progress in almost every industry.

But the time has come when we need to renew our innovation capacity.

We went back and studied what innovation companies did during the time of the Great Depression. One company that stands out, if you study the Depression, is RCA.

Now, the fact that RCA is not around today, this has nothing to do with their behavior during the Depression. There’s probably good learnings for a lot of technology companies in that.

But during the time of the Depression, RCA was probably the most broad-based R&D-centric company in America. And while it cut costs certainly to survive the Depression, it never retreated from its commitment to core research and development. And as a result, after the Depression had ended, it really led and the U.S. led TV technology developments for the next 25 years.

That was good for RCA; it was good for America.

In my view, American companies aren’t going to be able to weather this economic downturn just by cutting costs either. You may have heard that Microsoft, our company has decided that we need to reduce 5,000 positions. What you may not know is that at the same time we’ve decided we’ll also create two to three thousand new jobs–mostly in the U.S.–as we continue to push into new areas that require investment.

In addition, despite the tough economy–I might even say because of the tough economy–our company will continue to invest more than $9 billion a year in R&D, because we think it’s that R&D spending that will cause us to remain strong.

People ask me, are you upbeat or not, and I say, about technology I’m super upbeat. The industry that we’re in, information technology, stands at the threshold of again a new revolution.

I joined Microsoft essentially for the PC revolution. The Internet revolution, we have the revolution of what I might call pervasive computing. Computers that are as thin and light as this on which you can have access to the world’s information will be kind of expected over the next five and 10 years.

So, being optimistic and positive about what technology can accomplish is very, very important.

If you take a look at it today, there is increasing ubiquity and power in the computing platforms. A laptop today has more computer power than a mainframe did when I came to Microsoft. Mobile phones today are more powerful than the PCs that existed 10 or 12 years ago, at the start of the Internet era.

But over the next few years, we’ll continue to go into uncharted territory as many-core chipsets and devices become common, and we develop new ways to write programs to help us model the world’s climate, the world’s population, the world’s energy needs; all of that will be super possible.

This is going to lead to breakthrough applications, more intelligent, more aware of their environment, and where we can really help anticipate the information you need and the capabilities that you really want to have.

The next few years are going to see dramatic changes in the way you interact with technology: touch, gestures, handwriting, speech recognition. Instead of telling my secretary to get me ready for my trip to the House Democratic Caucus, I’ll just type it in or speak it to my computer. It can look up, it turns out, who you all are, and where you’re all from, and it’s got all–it’s all out there. We just need to automate it in ways that real people can get access to information.

Some of this I’m sure sounds a bit like science fiction, but we’re rapidly nearing a time when interacting with technology really will be like interacting with people, which will make technology more accessible and really unlock the potential of computers to individuals and communities to help solve tough problems.

A third trend, as I talked about, is screens and displays. Literally every wall, every tabletop, you’ll be able to roll up your computer, if you will, and put it in your purse or put it in your pocket. That’s what we have to look forward to.

All of these trends are going to help create a computing platform that extends from PCs and phones and TVs out into the massive storage and connectivity out in the Internet.

All of this will enable us to transcend the barriers that exist between technology today, and seamlessly connect people to the information and applications that you’re interested in, no matter where you are, no matter what kind of screen you have in front of us.

It’s very important. As the computing environment becomes richer and more pervasive, and more universally useful, it will enable citizens to be more active participants in our national economic recovery. If we do our jobs right, the computer revolution will help amplify our ability as individuals and as a nation to tackle the pressing problems of society: education, health care, energy independence; and at the same time, continue to enhance our productivity and economic competitiveness.

They say GDP is consumption plus investment, plus government spending, plus productivity growth and innovation, and I’m very bullish on what will happen in our industry.

Imagine, for example, an intelligent energy system in your home that’s linked to a smart energy grid. With that infrastructure, your dishwasher and washing machine would know to run when electricity is cheapest. That kind of intelligence and control could really have a major impact on residential power consumption, which is a very large piece of energy consumption in this country.

There are similar scenarios in healthcare, where genomic research will open the door to personalized treatment; and in education for sure, where technology will enable all teachers to use the very best teaching methods and connect with students in new ways.

The truth though, we can barely guess what is possible. With the kinds of technologies we envision, other people, many people in many fields, fields of science and social science and many, many others, will come forth with an incredible outpouring of new ideas and innovation that will continue to expand the universe of what’s possible. So, the enablement not only of information technology and the productivity it brings directly, but other new forms of innovation I think will really be important for long term growth and prosperity across many, many fields of endeavor.

To harness this potential of this transformation, I think it’s going to take a lot more than investment by the private sector. We need investment and we need leadership by government as well. I don’t understand all of the issues and interests that you have to deal with. As I was sitting listening this morning, I understand more that there are hundreds of unwritten things that citizens just don’t really know about what it takes to catalyze these things to happen. But I would at least like to offer a couple suggestions on some things I think are important.

First, we really need the federal government to invest in human capital, in the citizens of our country.

I sit here and talk, talk, talk about innovation, but it’s people who turn ideas into positive and productive innovation. And in today’s knowledge-driven world, innovation will depend on people who are actually technologically sophisticated, have strong critical thinking skills, have expertise in math and science and engineering.

This is true not only for people who live in places like Seattle and work at places like Microsoft, but live in places like Detroit, where I grew up, and work for companies like Ford Motor Company, where my father worked when I was a child. I think this is going to be true for anyone, anywhere in this country, who hopes to earn a wage that can really properly support their family.

This means investment in education is critical, and I’m really encouraged by the very heavy emphasis on education that’s in the stimulus package.

We really need to transform math and science education in America. We need to improve teacher training, teacher quality.

I was talking earlier in the day with some folks about just how many of our math and science teachers don’t have the correct training and accreditation, and that stands in the way of us really breaking through.

For those who are already in the workforce, we need programs that provide ongoing education and training, so they can be successful in this knowledge-based economy. For those who are unemployed, we need new technical skills training to give those people a start back up the economic ladder. And we are going to need lifelong learning programs to keep people fresh, as innovation and technology continues to power the economy.

The second thing we need–and I’ll tell the Speaker this was written even before our meeting this morning–we need greater government investment in our nation’s science and technology infrastructure.

I came in, flew in red eye, was a little groggy this morning when I got here. I sat down with the speaker at 8:00 AM, and she woke me right up. She said there are four things I want you to make sure you understand are a priority: science, science, science, and science. I was awake by the end of the fourth science for sure, and I couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly.

Science and technology is the backbone for productivity and innovation; has been, not always information technology, but science and technology has been a driver of economic success. Government investment in science and engineering as a percentage of GDP is half, in this country, what it was in 1970, and it would be growing rapidly, particularly in countries in Asia, off a small base albeit, but in places like India and China and Korea the trend is the other direction.

We need to pursue breakthroughs over the coming years in green technology, alternative energy, bioengineering, parallel computing, quantum computing. Without greater government investment in the basic research, there is a danger that important advances will happen in other countries. This is truly I think not only an issue of competitiveness, but also in a sense of national security. Companies like ours and others can do our fair share in terms of funding of basic research, but government needs to take the lead.

This is also a moment when government should invest, I think, in information technology to help transform healthcare. We deliver information technology that we think can help create a connected health system that delivers predictive, preventive, and personalized care, a system that I think can improve the health of Americans and reduce the cost of health care in this country.

Government support for innovative development, rapid adoption of information technology in health care is important. I was talking to Congressman McDermott this morning. Government has a big role to play, including the fact that Medicare and Medicaid pay over 50 percent of all health. If Medicare and Medicaid want to take on some issues and use its authority to push health information standards, I’m sure this industry and this area of technology innovation can move even more quickly.

There’s always broadband. My number one encouragement to you is start with government itself. Every school, every hospital, every government building, is it wired, have we funded that infrastructure; very important.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. There is a lot of history around that, and frankly if you stop and think about it, 1837, ’73, ’29, 2008, it’s almost exactly a whole lifetime between each of the major economic difficulties that we face. But I think it’s also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think about our priorities again and make the investments that put us on the right foot.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said we need to assume more responsibility and make the hard decisions that have been postponed for too long.

The president’s remarks actually reminded me of something I heard a lot from my dad when I was growing up. My dad was an immigrant to this country. He came from Switzerland after World War II. He went and was an interpreter with the US military at the war trials in Nuremberg; came to Detroit with some of the soldiers he had met there, who sponsored him in this country; went to work at Ford Motor Company, was there for 30 years. Never finished high school never went to college, but he had a simple model: “If you’re going to do a job, do a job. If you’re not going to do a job, don’t do a job.”

You could say, okay, that’s probably a good thing to tell a 10-year-old, but what it really came to mean to me was that if you want to accomplish anything at all, you’ve got to be committed, you’ve got to be motivated, you’ve got to be tenacious, you’ve got to be smart. And, of course, that’s not really just my dad’s message to me and my sister as we were growing up; it’s really the essence of the American work ethic, and I think it’s been passed down to millions of American children every generation.

This country has what it takes to succeed. We have talent, we have technology, we’ve got the track record. We’ve got to be really honest about where we are. We’ve got to take the kind of bold steps that the vice president so well characterized in his remarks this morning, and we certainly have to roll up our sleeves and put ourselves back on the path of the kind of innovation that will drive the kind of economic success that I know we all want.

I thank you again for the opportunity. It’s been my pleasure.

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