5 posts and columns on sheep

Viral Graphic: What If Solar Power Grew as Fast as Facebook? (Also Its Places Video!)

in News on August 20, 2010 at 12:15 am PT

In a slight switcheroo from viral video, here is a cool infographic from the One Block Off the Grid solar energy blog. As 1BOG notes: “Facebook recently passed 500 million users. If the growth rate of the world’s largest and fastest growing social network could be applied to solar, it would only take 4.7 years to power the entire world with solar energy.” Hot stuff.

Viral Video: Quayle Hunting for Office

in News on August 12, 2010 at 12:11 am PT

BoomTown loves political dynasties from any party with about as much enthusiasm as I have for tossing sheep on Facebook. Which is to say, none at all. Nonetheless, it was an odd blast from the past to see this offspring spring into the public eye–as in Ben Quayle, former VP Dan Quayle’s son, who is running for Congress in Arizona.

BoomTown's Top 10 List of Fact-Challenged Revelations That Should Be in the Facebook Tell-All Book

in News on June 24, 2009 at 3:34 pm PT

How much is BoomTown and everyone else in Silicon Valley trying to nab a copy of Ben Mezrich’s likely-to-be-entirely-made-up-but-who-cares tale of dirty doings at Facebook? Muchety-much! But, so far I have come up peanuts in grabbing an early copy of the work of “fact”-ion–titled “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal”–which is set to come out July 14, along with a movie later. Facebook is not pleased, of course, and will likely be challenging Mezrich’s work as specious dreck, but here’s my own list of 10 completely made-up, utterly fabricated, just-call-me-Jayson-Blair facts that should be in the book.
accidentalbillionairesjpg

Slide Sidles Up to Old Media in Search of New Revenue (Apparently, Max Cannot Live by SuperPoking Alone!)

in News on October 1, 2008 at 12:04 am PT

You almost have to admire the shape-shifting–if not a wee bit slippery–stylings of Slide CEO Max Levchin. The serial entrepreneur and widget king has signed distribution deals with media giants, such as Time Warner’s Warner Bros. unit, CBS and Comcast’s E! Entertainment channel, to allow users of its FunSpace video service to look at clips from shows. To make money, Slide will get a cut of ads sold by its media partners. Oh my, how incredibly traditional of Levchin. But it should probably come as no surprise that Levchin is now singing a bit of a different tune these days, as the daunting task of actually building a sustainable business model and attracting long-term advertisers has dawned on him and probably many other Web 2.0 wunderkinds.