Summit

France Brings in Tout Le Web Before the G8 Summit

Kara Swisher in News on May 23, 2011 at 3:03 pm PT

Bonjour! Tout le Web heads for Paris tomorrow for a big Internet confab ahead of the annual G8 summit. Can its organizer, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, sell Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on his idea that we all need a “civilized Internet”?

Don't Rain on Microsoft's Ad Parade (Except It's Raining in Seattle, Natch!)

Kara Swisher in News on March 30, 2011 at 1:10 pm PT

BoomTown scrambled the All Things Digital jet (aka, United Airlines, Seat 7A) late last night to get up to Microsoft’s big event for its online advertising clients today. Called “Imagine 2011: Marketing Leadership Summit” and held at its Redmond, Wa. HQ, the two-day event is designed to wow peeps by trotting out a spate of strategery concepts those who buy advertising on Microsoft’s various digital offerings from its Bing search service to MSN to Xbox to Windows Phone 7.

Awkward! As Microsoft Marketing Event Opens, Its Longtime Marketing Head Announces Surprise Retirement

Kara Swisher in News on March 30, 2011 at 9:43 am PT

Timing is everything and, sometimes, very awkward. Today at its Redmond, Wash., campus, Microsoft is hosting a splashy online “marketing leadership summit” titled “Imagine 2011″–a gathering of top marketing execs from across the globe, most of whom are advertising clients of its online division. Also today: Its longtime head of global marketing, Mich Mathews, announced her departure–to the surprise of many Microsoft execs here, in fact–via a report in Ad Age.

Exclusive: Microsoft Mulls Legally Poking Facebook Over Ad Talent Raid

Kara Swisher in News on March 2, 2011 at 4:10 pm PT

Microsoft–furious over a recent talent grab of its top advertising exec by Facebook–has been considering a wide range of options, including legal action to block the move, according to sources close to the situation. While it might not come to that, tensions between the two companies, who have partnered closely in the past, are running high over the hiring of Carolyn Everson. She had been head of global ad sales at Microsoft and has been hired to be VP of global sales at Facebook.

Interviewing Jane McGonigal on Gamification for Good

Liz Gannes in Social on January 19, 2011 at 11:05 am PT

Game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal thinks gaming is much more than an idle escapist pursuit–it’s a way to bring out the best in people and society.

Twitter Courts Google's Sundar Pichai for Head of Product

Liz Gannes in Social on January 8, 2011 at 6:49 pm PT

Sundar Pichai, the man in charge of Chrome and Chrome OS at Google, is being aggressively courted by Twitter to be its next head of product, according to sources. But Google is apparently fighting back hard on this latest effort by high-profile Web 2.0 companies, including Twitter and Facebook, to raid its huge talent pool.

Exclusive: Former Yahoo and Microsoft Exec Dossett to Demand Media

Kara Swisher in News on October 16, 2010 at 1:23 am PT

According to sources, Jeff Dossett–who has held top online jobs at both Yahoo and Microsoft–has taken a job at Demand Media as its SVP of Content Partnership Development. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand, which sources said is now prepping its road show for its upcoming IPO, has been picking up big company execs to add to its roster.

Windows Phone 7: It’s Now or Never

John Paczkowski in Mobile on October 11, 2010 at 3:15 am PT

With the launch of Windows Phone 7 today, Microsoft is taking another shot at a market even its CEO, Steve Ballmer, concedes it stumbled in. “We were ahead of this game and now we find ourselves No. 5 in the market,” he said at our D8 conference this past summer. “We missed a whole cycle.” Badly, too.

Viral Chart: The Web 2.0 Summit's "Points of Control"

Kara Swisher in News on August 29, 2010 at 9:00 pm PT

Here is a cool chart from the Web 2.0 Summit–what the O’Reilly Media and UBM TechWeb conference is calling “visual representation” of its theme of “Points of Control: The Battle for the Network Economy.” As it is described on its Web site, the map (which is the brainchild of Web 2.0 impresario John Battelle) chronicles “these shifting points of control–strategic chokepoints on an increasingly crowded board.”