Velocity Interactive Group

Former AOL Head Jon Miller Heads to News Corp. as "Chief Digital Officer"

Kara Swisher in News on March 27, 2009 at 5:20 pm PT

BoomTown has confirmed a report that former AOL head Jon Miller is set to take over as digital head at News Corp., replacing Peter Levinsohn. But Miller has not actually signed up for the job officially, since he is still under a noncompete agreement with Time Warner from his AOL stint. It runs out in three days, in fact. But sources said News Corp. is likely to announce Miller as its “chief digital officer” by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. Once he does sign, which seems likely, Miller will be reporting directly to the media giant’s head, Rupert Murdoch. Based in New York, he will also be chairman and CEO of the newly created News Digital Media group.

Another Day, Another Questionable Yahoo Story Rocks the Stock

Kara Swisher in News on December 3, 2008 at 1:53 am PT

The stock seesaw for Yahoo–fueled this time by a story in The Wall Street Journal that claimed that former AOL CEO Jon Miller was buttonholing private equity firms for money to buy the Internet giant–continues. Yahoo shares rose seven percent due to the report, to $11.50, up 76 cents. Unfortunately for everyone but stock manipulators, the Journal story had a lot of problems, including the highly pertinent fact that Miller has not been actively working on such a deal with any more effort that he had been over the last six months. “Nothing is different now than it was last week, or even months ago,” said one person close to the situation.

CNET and Jana: The Battle Drags On

Kara Swisher in News on May 14, 2008 at 5:00 am PT

In another micro-move in the fight between activist shareholders and CNET, the Delaware Supreme Court given the thumbs up to a lower court ruling that the Jana Partners group can nominate a slate of directors to the board of San Francisco-based tech news and reviews site. CNET has been fighting these efforts by Jana–along with Sandell Asset Management, Alex Interactive Media, Spark Capital and Velocity Interactive Group–to nominate two director and expand the board and add more of their own nominees–claiming it was contrary to its bylaw. Apparently not!