Add another speaker to the stellar list for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference, which is taking place in a little more than a month: Aaron Sorkin.

For those who have followed the long and award-filled career of the well-known playwright and Hollywood writer, it’s an astonishing litany of success — from “A Few Good Men” to “The West Wing” to “Moneyball” — filled with more unusually clever lines than anyone has ever penned.

But, most famously for tech, Sorkin also wrote the screenplay (and also won an Academy Award) for “The Social Network,” about the rise of Facebook and its unusual co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The film caused a lot of controversy in Silicon Valley over its depiction of Zuckerberg as an evil genius of sorts, of course, but few can argue that it was not a corker of a movie.

We are excited to talk to Sorkin about that experience, as well as his take on the state of entertainment in the digital age. He’s about to debut a new HBO show in June called “The Newsroom,” set behind the scenes at a cable news show. It deals with the massive changes roiling through the media industry and it begins, natch, with a viral video.

Sorkin is also set to make his Broadway debut as a librettist for the upcoming musical “Houdini.” And he’s also working on another new movie, based on a book about the downfall of Sen. John Edwards, which he’ll adapt, produce and direct.

Sorkin will be joined at D10 — which will be held in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, at the end of May — by a litany of major players in tech and media, including: Apple CEO Tim Cook, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and many more.

And we still have more speakers to come, but until then, here’s the famous line from “The Social Network” — something about a billion dollars:

As many readers know, we have been adding to our staff here at AllThingsD, most recently in our new reviews section, with the addition of Lauren Goode earlier this year.

Now Walt Mossberg and I are proud to announce that Mike Isaac is joining our team to cover the social Web and its biggest players, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

He comes to ATD most recently from a staff writer position at Wired, where, among many other things, he spent much of his time writing about Google’s mobile and social efforts.

From 2010 to 2012, his coverage at Wired included the decline and fall of Hewlett-Packard’s mobile empire, Google’s surprise acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and Facebook’s steady trudge toward IPO-hood.

Prior to that, he wrote about the business of tech for Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, with a particular emphasis on start-ups and social. His work has also appeared in Paste magazine, Performer magazine, DNR magazine and the Washington Examiner.

Isaac holds a degree in English literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a former Georgetown University journalism fellow.

He takes over the social beat from Liz Gannes, who will be stepping up our coverage of the many businesses of Google, innovation, venture investing and the start-up scene — especially its bigger companies, from Pinterest to Quora to Dropbox. Gannes, as everyone who follows her knows well, has become a key observer of Silicon Valley and its players, and her insights into the tech scene have become one of our most invaluable offerings.

We’re excited for both of them, and look forward to their stellar work on our site.

Superior writers, videographers and other content makers want to work with their own kind and for their own kind.

– Nick Denton, in his memo to staff on the Gawker empire in 2012

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

Apple co-founder and Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs lived a life that read like an epic novel, so it should be no surprise that his very last words on this temporal plane would be just as dramatic.

And they were: “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.”

That’s according to his sister, Mona Simpson, whose moving eulogy was published in the New York Times today. It’s well worth a read, given what a gifted writer Simpson is — she is a much-respected novelist — and the amazing subject.

Simpson opens the piece by writing about her desire for her estranged father to return to her life and become the be all and end all. Instead, it turned out to be Jobs.

“Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me,” she wrote. “For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.”

A fitting legacy, among many.

It’s a delightful piece, too, and here is my favorite part:

“For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.”

It’s lovely that his sister would be the one to give everyone that one more thing.

Most of us don’t get to stay goodbye quite so eloquently, if at all, as Simpson surmised about the message of her brother’s life. So, saying hello to life still remains our best option.

Here’s a video of an appearance I made on the Bloomberg West show yesterday about the controversies around TechCrunch founder and Editor Michael Arrington and his new early-stage venture fund called CrunchFund.

(Yes, that’s the genuine Mike puppet I was gifted when Loren Feldman ended his hysterical video spoof series on Arrington and other Silicon Valley luminaries.)

As I said in the interview and also in a testy post I did, TechCrunch owner AOL is a lot to blame here, especially in CEO Tim Armstrong’s impugning the ethically sound writers at the popular tech news site who don’t deserve this mess.

Here is the video:

AllThingsD has undergone a lot of changes in the past year that Walt and I are truly proud of, and today we are posting together about changes to social media on the site.

Social media, especially Twitter, has been a major part of the AllThingsD operation since our earliest days. We have always encouraged our writers to be active on the medium — something we continue to do.

That’s why we are launching 15 new Twitter accounts that break out our coverage into categories, as on our site, and also around specialized topics we know our audience follows closely.

Now, in addition to following the main @AllThingsD Twitter account for up-to-the-second updates, our readers can follow accounts that feature only our stories about Apple, venture capital, personnel changes or mobile, to name a few. We hope readers will customize their experience so that AllThingsD can be as useful a resource as possible.

In addition to the Twitter accounts, we also have newly refreshed Facebook pages, and we’ve enabled LinkedIn sharing of our articles as part of becoming one of its recommended news sources.

You can have a look at all the new social features at our brand-new social subscribe page.

We’re adding all of these features while maintaining respect for the personal privacy and data of our readers. Therefore, all social media implementations on AllThingsD require the reader to take an explicit action to share.

You might think this level of disclosure is overboard, but we think it’s the right thing to do.

We’ve also brought on Drake Martinet to be our social media editor.

As social as Walt and I can be, Drake will be your point of contact for questions, concerns and comments about social media and its use on AllThingsD.

If you want more specifics about what we are up to, I encourage you to read Drake’s post on the social media changes. He covers some of the tools and services we are using, as well as explaining a little more about the thinking that went into our new social strategy.

If you have any questions, we encourage you to tweet Drake (he’s @withDrake on Twitter) or reach him at his email here.

Please also see our new features here by clicking this button:

See the new features

Thanks,

Kara and Walt

I love the smell of blog wars in the morning!

Acting as Facebook often does to Google, a new site started by former Engadget editor Josh Topolsky just hired away yet another passel of tech journalists from the giant gadget news and reviews organization.

Editorial movement is not uncommon on tech news sites, but this level of it from one site to another is somewhat, um, aggressive.

Engadget, which is owned by AOL, is one of the largest tech-focused sites on the Web. Topolsky left his editor-in-chief job there in March.

By April, he had grabbed eight prominent Engadget staffers who had left the huge tech site amid editorial tensions, in order to start a new competing gadget property for the well-funded sports content start-up SB Nation.

Now, sources said, Topolsky has added Thomas Ricker, an Engadget senior editor, who had run its European coverage; Sean Hollister, a senior associate editor, who ran its West coast team; and Joseph Flatley, an associate editor.

Also hired: Thomas Houston, editor-in-chief of Switched, an AOL tech site that was recently subsumed into its Huffington Post Media unit; and Dieter Bohn, who was editor-in-chief for the Smartphone Experts network of sites, including Crackberry and others.

And other possible new hires soon from Engadget: Another European editor, Vlad Savov, and writer Jacob Schulman.

The Topolsky-helmed site is still unnamed but is now operating as This Is My Next. It already has 16 writers, compared to Engadget’s two dozen, and is set to debut in the fall with a new name.

It will be the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

Before that, SB Nation had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

Another AOL link: SB Nation was founded by former AOLer, CEO Jim Bankoff, who had bought Engadget for AOL many years ago.

Engadget Editorial Director Josh Frulinger said that the impact of the talent drain on Engadget — mostly from This Is My Next raids — has been small, since the site has also been aggressively hiring.

“We’re past the people leaving and into celebrating what we’ve accomplished in six short months, and we welcome any new competition,” he said. “Dana Wollman, Brian Heater, Myriam Joire, Zach Honig, Joe Pollicino, Richard Lawler, Michael Gorman, Sean Buckley, Joseph Volpe, Brad Molen, Terrence O’Brien, Amar Toor and Sharif Skar — all brought on in the past six months — are your Engadget stars of tomorrow.”

To prove it, AOL said unique visitors for Engadget in June were up 1.1 percent from May and will be up again for July. In recent reports, the site had 14 million unique monthly visitors.

Today, after Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations, its execs got on the horn with investors to explain how it plans to beat the Panda.

That would be the beastly name for Google’s rejiggering of its search algorithm, in order to rid search results of poor quality content.

Along with many other sites, Demand has gotten smacked by its raging paw.

Still, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company reported revenue of $79.5 million and six cents a share in adjusted net income.

Wall Street was expecting the company to report about $69.6 million in revenue for the three months, with four cents a share in adjusted profits.

On a GAAP basis, net loss per share was 13 cents compared to 94 cents a year ago.

Here’s the liveblog of the conference call:

2 pm PT: Demand’s investor relations dude came on and I immediately tuned out until CEO Richard Rosenblatt got on the line to talk about the results.

He was as perky as ever, launching right into the meat of the situation–how Demand was going to pretty up its offerings, such as a redesign of its flagship eHow site and its new editorial arrangement with another perky person, food lady Rachael Ray and the also perky fashionista/talk show lady Tyra Banks.

Gone will be user-generated content that Demand used to let people post at will on its eHow site that was, well, less than good.

As in, bad.

Instead, it’s “curation,” “editorial innovation” and feedback cycles.

We old-timers like to call that journalism and copyediting, complete with mean old editors who spiked said copy when it was crappy.

“Let me be clear,” said Rosenblatt, the Google changes did negatively impact Demand’s traffic. But Rosenblatt said the company dug into its content and has been improving it since.

2:17 pm: Now it was CFO Charles Hillard reading the results themselves. I am sorry, Mr. Finance Guy, but I can read it myself, so this is always the time in earnings calls when I check out and spend my time improving my content.

So when I heard words such as “stock-based comp,” I moved on to fixing all the typos that a very nice reader alerted me to, since I was writing too quickly.

Then, I briefly considered writing a high-quality post for eHow on how to write earnings and fix typos at the same time. I am that good.

2:30 pm: The CFO dude finished up and the Q&A with analysts started.

All Panda questions, natch!

Rosenblatt seemed calm, cool and collected.

“We think on this one, they did a very good job,” he said of Google’s search-fixing efforts, trying to soothe the savage beast. “We all continue to evolve.”

Which translated to: Google says jump and we say: “How high?”

Which is then followed by: “Please sir, can I have some more (traffic)?”

More Google algo change questions.

I suspect there is a new tactic afoot by Demand: Bore us into submission about the traffic devastation from Larry Page’s minions with endless questions about algo.

Finally, a question about mobile and international expansion. Apparently, Demand content is going to be translated into five different languages.

Yay! I am readying my version of “How to Boil Water” in French! (“Comment Faire Bouillir L’eau”!)

Mobile is going to be big too for Demand, which it is for everyone.

Then it was onto a question about improving content, including paying its writers more moolah, which would then eat into the Demand cheaper content business model.

I liked that question! I suddenly decided I was going to shift to a lugubrious post on the history of the Maginot Line in 132 parts!

Oops, Rosenblatt said the data has to show that the peeps want those longer pieces.

Back to the boiling water opus!

It’s on to some video questions and then back to search, as in diversifying away from relying on search to get traffic and premium prices for its advertising.

As in, how much are you going to cozy up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg?

“It’s less about where traffic comes from and more about where they land,” said Rosenblatt, except you just know he sent a lovely floral bouquet plus a hefty selection of citrus to Zuckerberg’s new house in Silicon Valley right after Panda roared.

Rosenblatt deflected a lot of questions in this arena. “We still think that search is a fantastic way” to gain traffic, he said, making sure Google’s Page did not chomp off his hand as he courted his social networking nemesis at Facebook.

But as the old Kikuyu proverb goes: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

More likely, as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings: “Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.”

We’ll see which is which for Demand in the quarters ahead.

Until then, here’s Carpenter performing her song, “The Bug”:

Demand Media handily beat Wall Street expectations in its first quarter results today, released after the market closed.

The company reported revenue of $79.5 million and six cents a share in adjusted net income.

Investors were expecting the company to report about $69.6 million in revenue for the three months, with four cents a share in adjusted profits.

On a GAAP basis, the net loss per share was 13 cents compared to 94 cents a year ago.

The decent results could boost Demand’s stock, which has been hit hard since Google launched “Panda,” an overhaul of its search algorithm to improve results and remove poor quality content.

In a conference call at 2 pm PT today, which BoomTown will be liveblogging, most will be paying more mind to what the online content company’s top execs–especially CEO Richard Rosenblatt–have to say about the impact of the updates from Google to Demand’s various Web offerings.

As a first strike, some of Demand’s execs briefed the media earlier today on efforts to improve the quality of its content–you can read the official press releases here on that and also here.

In them, Demand said it will remove some online posts that were substandard and created under a now-suspended writers’ compensation system. It said it is also improving reader feedback tools and adding more substantive stories to its sites.

Those are all good ideas, since Google’s tweaks have been chewing away at a range of Web sites–such as those owned by Demand–which rely heavily on search engine optimization to bring in huge traffic.

One big hit for Demand, due to Panda, has been to its flagship eHow site.

All the mishegas has hurt the Santa Monica, Calif., company’s stock. It’s down just over 30 percent since Demand’s IPO in late January, as bearish investors fret over the implications of Panda.

Still, in its report, Demand said its content and media revenue was up 72 percent to $51.9 million, compared to $30.2 million last year.

Yesterday, AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group got into hot water after the top editor at its Moviefone unit sent a memo to freelancers it was in the midst of firing, offering them an opportunity to “contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system.”

Today, that exec–Moviefone Editor-in-Chief Patricia Chui–was fired by the company, which is in the midst of drastically rejiggering its stable of writers.

Many of those were freelance bloggers under contract to AOL, who are now getting the boot in favor of reallocating staff back to largely paid journalists.

Thus came the controversial email from Chui, which read, in part:

“We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon-–this week, I believe–-many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you/d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.”

Oh dear. Really, oh dear, especially since the Huffington Post has had its own share of controversies over not paying some bloggers (although it never quite ever offered up a doozie that this letter was).

Sources said Chui was terminated by John Montorio, the HuffPo Media Group’s culture, entertainment and lifestyle editor. Arianna Huffiington is head of all content at AOL, which recently paid $315 million to buy the Huffington Post.

Since she took over, Huffington has tried to stress a return to journalism over more algorithmic content creation. The unloading of its freelance writers was part of that effort.

Thus, Chui’s missteps did not help matters.

But it was not the first time recently that she had made an ill-advised editorial judgment.

Sources said the firing is also due to an incident several weeks ago, in which Chui appeared to defend a marketing employee who sent an email to TechCrunch writer Alexia Tsotsis, asking her to soften a review of “Source Code” due to studio relationship considerations.

AOL bought TechCrunch, a well-known tech news site, last fall. At the time, its CEO Tim Armstrong promised editorial independence and no meddling over advertising concerns.

Instead of taking this minion to task, on Moviefone’s own blog Chui said, in part:

“The reality of our situation is that, as a movies site, we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them. Staying on good terms with studios means that we will relay information if asked. It does not mean that we would ever force a writer or an editor to edit their work for the sake of a studio–or anyone else.”

Even with the last line, it is not exactly a profile in courage, because it was clear violation of the traditional separation of church and state in force at most media organizations.

Typically, editors are supposed to come down on any such communication. That has certainly been my experience in journalism over the years at the Washington Post and Dow Jones–including during its News Corp. ownership. In fact, I have often been shielded from such requests to pass such complaints onto me and only found out much later of advertiser discomfort about my reporting.

At the time, TechCrunch quite clearly called for Chui’s firing and that happened today.

Here is Chui’s full memo to freelancers, as well as the one about TechCrunch, neither of which were apparently cleared with higher-ups:

From: Chui, Patricia
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 11:26 AM
To: MoviefoneWriters
Subject: Moviefone/Cinematical–Status of Writers

Dear Moviefone/Cinematical Writers,

I know there’s been a lot of uncertainty regarding the future of freelancers and your status as a writer for the site. I personally apologize for the lack of communication, but I’ll tell you what I can.

We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon–this week, I believe–many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you’d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.

Some of you have indicated interest in applying for full-time writer and editor positions, and the status of those positions are also part of discussions that are ongoing right now. I cannot at this point, however, tell you how many positions there are, or what the exact nature of those positions will be.

Despite the move toward a full-time staff vs. freelancer model, I’m told that there will be room for “exceptions”–for example, in the cases of writers who specialize in certain subjects. Again, what these exceptions are for Moviefone, and what the budget for them would be, is still being discussed.

As for Cinematical, the resignation of Erik Davis is certainly a loss. But I am continuing to have conversations with the editorial leadership here, and I am hopeful that we will still be able to maintain the Cinematical brand and voice going forward. Again, I will share with you any pertinent information as I have it.

In the meantime, those of you who already have assignments, please do continue to work on them unless you hear otherwise. If you’re uncertain of the status of your assignment, check with me. It may take me a while to get back to you, so please be patient–but I will respond.

I am sorry that I don’t have more specific details to give you, but I promise that I’ll keep you as well-informed as I possibly can. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns.

Best,

patricia

By now you may have read the recent post in TechCrunch regarding that site’s SXSW coverage of the film “Source Code.” A representative from Moviefone, who set up the interview with Summit Entertainment, received some feedback from the studio and passed it along to TechCrunch (our sister site here at AOL). That email has now caused something of a Internet kerfuffle.

Here is the email–reprinted in the post–that was sent to the TechCrunch writer.

Hey Alexia,

Hope you’re having a good time at SxSW and that it’s not been too crazy busy for you!

First wanted to thank you for covering Source Code/attending the party, etc. But also wanted to raise a concern that Summit had about the piece that ran. They felt it was a little snarky and wondered if any of the snark can be toned down? I wasn’t able to view the video interviews but I think their issue is just with some of the text. Let me know if you’re able to take another look at it and make any edits. I know of course that TechCrunch has its own voice and editorial standards, so if you have good reasons not to change anything that’s fine, I just need to get back to Summit with some sort of information. Let me know.

Thanks!

TechCrunch’s issue with Moviefone is that by sending this email, we, in their words, “asked us to change our post. It’s not just sad, it’s wrong.”

I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.

1) The person who wrote that email was not acting in an editorial capacity. That person’s job is to act as an intermediary between the studios and editorial–not to dictate content, nor to weigh in on the content of Moviefone or any other AOL site. In fact, the presence of a person with that role is just one means we have of ensuring editorial integrity on Moviefone.

2) This is important: We never told TechCrunch to change the post in any way. A publicist at Summit reached out asking if we could convey the studio’s feedback to TechCrunch. We did so. If the editors had responded that they declined to edit the post–which, naturally, is entirely their call–we simply would have conveyed that information back to Summit.

The reality of our situation is that, as a movies site, we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them. Staying on good terms with studios means that we will relay information if asked. It does not mean that we would ever force a writer or an editor to edit their work for the sake of a studio–or anyone else.

We take editorial integrity seriously at Moviefone, and it’s painful to be depicted as a pawn of the studios when that is emphatically not the case. You may think it unseemly for a studio to request changes in an article; that’s certainly your right. But the accusation of pandering on our part or crossing an editorial line is, to my mind, completely unfair, and I would hope that a reasonable reader would be able to recognize the situation for what it is–overblown and unwarranted.

Patricia Chui
Editor-in-Chief, Moviefone

Yes, it is perverse, but I really want to come in dead last in Time magazine’s “140 Best Twitter Feeds.”

Why? Well, there’s no way I am getting near the top with the likes of Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga in the same list, so I felt the 140th–get it?–slot on a Twitter poll is the next best thing to aim for.

Here’s the deal, according to the magazine’s Web site:

“TIME picks the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the conversation. Take a look and vote on whether you think these top tweeters should be on our list.”

The list is split up into categories, such as authors (Neil Gaiman, who is #1, and Margaret Atwood), celebrities (Gaga and the inevitable Justin Bieber) and companies (Zappos and Whole Foods).

There is also a technology group, with luminaries such as New York VC Fred Wilson, man-about-Web Kevin Rose and, of course, the King of Tweets Robert Scoble.

I am in that group too, with the description: “When this woman reports a rumor, you can pretty much count on it to be true.”

Thanks…I think–although I prefer to call it reporting a fact.

In any case, early on, I was doing badly in the voting–as I had hoped and is entirely correct considering I am unknown to anyone but certain geeks–and was right near the bottom with some suspect deal sites.

But by last night, GigaOm’s Om Malik had dropped below me, along with Wilson. I was at the unacceptable 131 spot.

This will not stand! Thus, so I can shoot the moon, I urge everyone to vote for:

132 Mike Allen
133 Om Malik
134 Amazon Deals
135 Fred Wilson
136 DealDivine
137 Nieman Lab
138 Best Buy Deals
139 Coupons.com
140 Steven Johnson

A well-known writer and entrepreneur, Johnson has 1.4 million followers on Twitter and does not deserve this ignominious loss as much as me.

Tweet that.

The culmination of the deal–which has already been approved by regulators–is set to be announced by the New York-based company this morning, only one month after it was struck.

And–in a clear sign of the shift in its focus toward a more editorially driven direction under the now-official content head Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–sources said the closing will be accompanied by the announcement of the hiring of a half-dozen journalists to AOL’s new Huffington Post Media Group unit.

Among the new reporters are some more high-profile grabs from other media giants, including The Daily’s Jon Ward. He has been the Washington bureau chief for New Corp.’s high-profile online newspaper, which only recently launched.

Also set to join AOL is Yahoo’s senior media writer Michael Calderone.

Interestingly, along with more experienced editorial staff, sources said the announcement will also include new hires via the Huffington Post’s Jefferson Program for Young Journalists.

Sources said the new hires are only the beginning of a series of them, as the impact of the leadership of Huffington becomes clearer.

Along with the news and opinion site, the well-known media personality is now in charge of all of AOL’s varied content properties, including its locally aimed Patch.

Huffington, with obviously strong support from AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, has been talking a lot in a plethora of interviews since the deal was announced a few weeks ago about the importance of creating a new media organization focused on original reporting.

In a way, AOL is now competing with big news sites such as those on Yahoo, as well as smaller niche content and also mainstream entities.

Even before the deal was struck with AOL, the Huffington Post had been heading down that path of pulling in mainstream journalists. Last year, it hired former New York Times economics writer Peter Goodman and former Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman, among others.

The formula? Adding the strong journalism reputation of these reporters to the eclectic mix of socializing, blogging, celebritizing and aggressive aggregating that the site has used to garner huge amounts of traffic in recent years.

As I had previously written, the AOL Way–the same for a strategy document about content on the site–is now the Arianna Way.

Here are Huffington and Armstrong talking about such issues in in an exclusive video interview BoomTown did with them just before they announced the deal on Super Bowl Sunday about a month ago:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110307/aol-deal-closes-today-as-more-high-profile-huffington-post-journalism-hires-signal-new-direction/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101124/bleacher-reports-brian-grey-talks-about-new-content-biz-as-patrick-keane-joins-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20101124/bleacher-reports-brian-grey-talks-about-new-content-biz-as-patrick-keane-joins-board/#comments Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:30:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37654

Earlier this week, BoomTown went downtown to the San Francisco HQ of Bleacher Report, one of the many interesting efforts trying to change the way content is made and distributed.

Bleacher Report, no surprise, is focused on sports, and competes with sites such as Yardbarker and SB Nation.

All take different approaches, with Bleacher Report delivering a grassroots platform for both professional and hobbyist writers who want give their take on any topic about college and professional sports, from the latest draft to explaining what’s the deal with “Fear the Beard.”

Bleacher Report vets these writers and does not pay most of them. There are 3,000 contributors, with 750 designated as featured, delivering 500 pieces of content a day.

Bleacher Report also has one million newsletter subscribers across 150 teams.

The writers are presumably attracted to the larger audience–8.8 million unique monthly visitors–they can reach via the site, as well as via newspaper syndication deals.

Think Huffington Post–Bleacher Report’s main business model is advertising too–and you have the right idea.

So far, Bleacher Report has raised $8 million from venture firms, such as Hillsven Capital, and angel investors like Gordon Crawford and Jakob Lodwick, founder of College Humor and Vimeo.

And it recently went out and drafted a pro for a CEO–former Yahoo and News Corp. exec Brian Grey, who focused on online sports content at both those companies.

In addition, it also just added Patrick Keane–former Googler and also former CEO of Associated Content, the social content site recently bought by Yahoo–to its board.

Here’s a video interview I did with Grey–who, full disclosure, was my elder son’s Little League coach for one season (so he does know about baseball, for sure!)–about how the media is morphing, as amateur and professional content is mixed and distributed in new ways:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101124/bleacher-reports-brian-grey-talks-about-new-content-biz-as-patrick-keane-joins-board/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101115/yahoo-debuts-contributor-network/ http://allthingsd.com/20101115/yahoo-debuts-contributor-network/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:01:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37245

Yahoo is debuting a new offering for its hundreds of million of users, which takes the Demand Media model and notches up the volume by presumably allowing a thousand flowers to bloom.

Or, more to the point, blab.

The Internet giant is “inviting people to contribute to many of its most popular sites with the launch of the Yahoo Contributor Network, a new platform for people to publish their creative content on Yahoo!.”

This all comes out of its recent acquisition of Associated Content.

It’s an interesting gambit, since everyone is already yammering away like mad on Facebook.

But Yahoo is trying to put a spin on it by using its copious content assets as inspiration for consumers, and which the Silicon Valley social networking giant does not have.

Yet!

(By the way, Mao Tse-Tung’s whole phrase in his famous speech was: “Let a thousand flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend.” After that happened all over the place, a brutal crackdown was then initiated.)

Let’s hope Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz does not do that, but here is the company’s official press release:

Yahoo! Adds the Voice of the People With the Launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network

Yahoo! Invites You to Reach Millions of People by Contributing to Its Popular Content Sites, Including the Yahoo! Homepage

SUNNYVALE, Calif., November 15, 2010– Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today is inviting people to contribute to many of its most popular sites with the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, a new platform for people to publish their creative content on Yahoo!. The Yahoo! Contributor Network is an evolution of the Associated Content platform and will bring contributions from more than 400,000 writers, photographers, and videographers to the Internet’s largest media destinations, including Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, and even the Yahoo! homepage, among many others.

“The launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network is a great example of how Yahoo! is executing against its content strategy. In less than six months since the acquisition of Associated Content, we’ve completely retooled the platform in order to bring the people’s voice to Yahoo!,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo!. “Bringing this authentic perspective to Yahoo!’s most popular sites will deepen our engagement with the millions of people who visit us every day and provide new opportunities for creative contributors who participate in the Yahoo! experience.”

The Yahoo! Contributor Network extends Yahoo!’s position as the leading provider of high-quality, personally relevant content by bringing the diverse perspectives of more than 400,000 contributors to Yahoo!’s existing media portfolio. The new platform invites all Yahoo! users to become a part of the Yahoo! experience by sharing their perspectives and expertise, and also lets Yahoo! editors quickly and efficiently assign and select crowdsourced contributions for all of Yahoo!’s media properties. These contributions–which span topics from niche to mainstream–complement the programming already provided by Yahoo!’s award-winning editorial team and content partners.

“With the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, our contributors now have an unprecedented opportunity for exposure and distribution across Yahoo!’s portfolio,” said Luke Beatty, vice president and general manager, Yahoo!. “Associated Content has been known for maintaining the industry’s largest contributor base, and with the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, we’ve added scale and reach that sets us apart from any other crowdsourced media platform.”

The Yahoo! Contributor Network is the culmination of a months-long effort to merge the strengths of Associated Content and Yahoo!, following the announcement of Yahoo!’s acquisition of Associated Content in May 2010. The Associated Content From Yahoo! library will continue to serve as the official digital library for all content generated by the Yahoo! Contributor Network. It remains one of the world’s largest sources of community-created content, with over two million contributions spanning text, images, video, and audio.

The Yahoo! Contributor Network also sets performance payment guidelines for content featured on Yahoo! sites, and has a dashboard that provides full transparency into how each contributor’s content performs. For more information, visit: http://contributor.yahoo.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101115/yahoo-debuts-contributor-network/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101008/viral-video-the-tempest/ http://allthingsd.com/20101008/viral-video-the-tempest/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:30:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35085

Like a relentless storm, CGI and all kinds of tech doodads keep hitting Hollywood movies.

Now, it even shows up in spades in this upcoming film, “The Tempest,” with a fancy director (Julie Taymor), a fancy cast (Helen Mirren) and a fancy writer (William Shakespeare).

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such geek wizardry in’t!

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101008/viral-video-the-tempest/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101001/the-facebook-movie-sorry-mark-but-they-like-it-they-really-like-it-plus-the-taiwanesed-version/ http://allthingsd.com/20101001/the-facebook-movie-sorry-mark-but-they-like-it-they-really-like-it-plus-the-taiwanesed-version/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:15:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34684

The Facebook movie is finally here, the reviews are in and–no surprise–the critics are raving.

After all, it was done by Hollywood pros director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin, who have apparently transformed the appalling badly penned and very fictional book “Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal” by Ben Mezrich into some bit of cinematic art.

But that’s not BoomTown talking, so here is a rundown of five reviews by top critics, as collected by the terrific Rotten Tomaties site (you can click on the links below for the full reviews):

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times:

“Smartly written by Aaron Sorkin, directed to within an inch of its life by David Fincher and anchored by a perfectly pitched performance by Jesse Eisenberg, ‘The Social Network’ is a barn-burner of a tale that unfolds at a splendid clip.”

Owen Glelbermann, Entertainment Weekly:

“‘The Social Network’ has everything you want in a thriller for the brain: Huge doses of ego and duplicity, corporate backstabbing, and some very layered performances.”

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal:

“This account of Facebook’s founder, and of the website’s explosive growth, quickly lifts you to a state of exhilaration, and pretty much keeps you there for two hours.”

Bob Mondello, NPR:

“‘The Social Network’ is terrific entertainment–an unlikely thriller that makes business ethics, class distinctions and intellectual-property arguments sexy.”

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News:

“Weeks after seeing it, moments from it will haunt you.”

Hauntingly sexy is simply not the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that I know or what most think of the powerful social networking site, but it seems to go on and on like that in the reviews, with every critic using the film to wax poetic about life in the digital age.

(Personally, I find all my life lessons in “The Terminator” series, but no one seems to grok my profound insight here.)

On Rotten Tomatoes, which you can see above, the movie got a 97 percent critics rating, although only an 81 percent audience vote. Still, only Ben Affleck’s “The Town” is as close.

In other words, Mark, even if it is trashing you as a person, what you represent seems to have inspired analog ecstasy and movie magic.

And for most film critics, it seems, a very happy ending.

I will be seeing “The Social Network” later today at a special screening in Silicon Valley, sponsored by Eastwick Communications, which will be followed by a panel discussion titled: “Trust, Privacy, and Ethics in the Facebook Age.”

I am the moderator, and the interviewees include M. Ryan Calo, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford Law School; Matt Cohler, one of Facebook’s earliest execs (where he remains a special advisor) and now a VC at Benchmark Capital; FutureWorks’ Brian Solis; and ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik.

Video TK, natch, although I am going more for wobbly, rather than exhilarating.

I certainly could not do much better than another genius version by Next Media Animation from Taiwan. While only in CGI, there is bathroom sex, beatings, peepholes and–say what?–a gay love triangle.

Really and truly–enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101001/the-facebook-movie-sorry-mark-but-they-like-it-they-really-like-it-plus-the-taiwanesed-version/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20100901/aol-and-facebook-get-the-new-yorker-treatment/ http://allthingsd.com/20100901/aol-and-facebook-get-the-new-yorker-treatment/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:16:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33224

Within the next several weeks, the New Yorker magazine will be publishing big pieces about a pair of digital icons located on the East and West coasts–an assessment of the turnaround at AOL by staff writer Ken Auletta and a profile of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Huffington Post senior contributing editor Jose Antonio Vargas.

For the Zuckerberg piece, Vargas was given a lot of access by the Silicon Valley social networking kingpin, including rare interviews with Zuckerberg’s inner circle and also longtime girlfriend and full-time med student Priscilla Chan.

And Auletta–whose big New Yorker takeout on Google (GOOG) turned into a book that is now being turned into a movie–will be assessing the turnaround efforts at AOL (AOL), which is now being led by former Google exec Tim Armstrong.

The Internet icon has seen troubled times in recent years, including a spinoff from Time Warner (TWX), which should make for interesting fodder for Auletta.

Also in the tech-topic kitty at the New Yorker, sources said: A profile of troublemaking Gawker Media impresario Nick Denton by Ben McGrath, which I am hoping will include his terrific tour of Chinese markets near where he lives in Manhattan’s SoHo.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100901/aol-and-facebook-get-the-new-yorker-treatment/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100713/atd-debuts-news-byte-a-tasty-and-nutritious-information-nugget/ http://allthingsd.com/20100713/atd-debuts-news-byte-a-tasty-and-nutritious-information-nugget/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:56:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30525

If you are a regular reader of All Things Digital, you might have noticed over the last week or so that we have been fiddling around with a new news posting we call “News Byte.”

Since we love to let readers know how we operate–check out our ethics disclosures, for example–here’s the deal on what News Byte is:

First, although we like to think of ourselves as mighty, we have a very small staff of writers, all of whom are working their hearts out (really, we’re often out of breath).

And while we get to a lot, along with breaking news and doing analysis of the digital sector, we can’t get to it all.

That said, we want to provide as much accurate and useful information to readers as we can, as fast as we can.

That’s the impetus behind News Byte, which is to get up important and interesting news that our regular reporters cannot do immediately.

While we might do a follow-up, these items, which appear in their entirety on the front page of ATD, stand alone and quickly sum up the news and also link to an original source.

To differentiate them, our Web genius, Adam Tow, has ginned up a special logo and a gray gradient design.

And because we think it important that every word we put up on the site is attributed to someone we endorse, there are bylines.

Right now, the News Bytes are mostly written by our terrific edit staffers, Beth Callaghan and John Murrell.

And that’s the skinny on News Byte, short and sweet, as they are meant to be.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100713/atd-debuts-news-byte-a-tasty-and-nutritious-information-nugget/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100326/can-newslabs-give-laid-off-journalists-another-chance/ http://allthingsd.com/20100326/can-newslabs-give-laid-off-journalists-another-chance/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:55:01 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=17767 So you used to write stories for a newspaper and now you’re out of work? Odds are, you are going to have to find something else to do.

But some of you may be able to transform yourselves into one-person news factories, says Paul Biggar, who wants to make money while helping you do that.

Biggar is a co-founder of NewsLabs, a start-up that promises to create a business around the work of individual journalists. The idea is that the writer writes and NewsLabs does everything else: Ad sales, “community management,” promoting the work on Google, Facebook, Twitter et al, and so forth. In exchange, the company wants a 20 percent cut of all revenue.

In other words, Biggar and co-founder Nathan Chong want to become publishers with an all-freelance workforce.

NewsLabs just graduated from Y Combinator’s three-month bootcamp and has been working with a starter group of journalists for a couple months. So it’s still mostly theoretical at this point. My concern is that the help NewsLabs says it can offer doesn’t solve the real problem: The economics of Web publishing are brutal, and in most cases they only work on a Google- (GOOG) or Yahoo (YHOO)-size scale.

Biggar tells me that NewsLabs won’t solely be dependent on ad revenue, so that’s good. But all of the ancillary businesses that can support a Web-based journalist–conferences, job boards, and the like–also require either great scale or a very, very specialized niche. So Biggar and co-founder Nathan Chong have their work cut out for them.

Here’s Biggar’s extended pitch, via an interview I taped with him this week at Y Combinator’s Demo Day presentations:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100326/can-newslabs-give-laid-off-journalists-another-chance/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/ http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:40:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24516

Jim Cameron, famed Hollywood director, producer and writer, has agreed to an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

With the bazillion-dollar haul from “Avatar,” the innovative filmmaker is getting a lot of kudos in the entertainment business. But the D8 audience is probably more interested in all the high-tech, mega-geek stuff about movies that Cameron (pictured here) will surely wax on about.

Still, let’s hope none of them go as far as the dudes and dudettes in this video below, who manage to take total nerd much more seriously than you can imagine (and with a pitch-perfect tone that almost makes you think they are actually not kidding–which they might not be):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100217/viral-video-jim-cameron-meet-your-true-blue-geek-audience/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/ http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:40:36 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d8.allthingsd.com/?p=284

Jim Cameron, famed Hollywood director, producer and writer, has agreed to an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

With the bazillion-dollar haul from “Avatar,” the innovative filmmaker is getting a lot of kudos in the entertainment business. But the D8 audience is probably more interested in all the high-tech, mega-geek stuff about movies that Cameron (pictured here) will surely wax on about.

Still, let’s hope none of them go as far as the dudes and dudettes in this video below, who manage to take total nerd much more seriously than you can imagine (and with a pitch-perfect tone that almost makes you think they are actually not kidding–which they might not be):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100217/james-cameron-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100129/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tv-news/ http://allthingsd.com/20100129/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tv-news/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:13:45 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=15669 This excellent deconstruction of TV news, via comedian/writer Charlie Brooker, has been circulating for the past few days, but there’s a good chance you haven’t seen it since it never mentions the word “Apple,” “tablet” or “iPad.” If that’s the case, you should watch it now.

Technically, this may be NSFW, but the limited cursing here is done by British people, so you’re probably going to be okay.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100129/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tv-news/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100111/demand-media-is-mad-as-hell-and-well-pens-a-manifesto-and-here-it-is/ http://allthingsd.com/20100111/demand-media-is-mad-as-hell-and-well-pens-a-manifesto-and-here-it-is/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:05:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22793

Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt said he has had it with some mainstream media depictions of his social media content company, especially one report that called it a “content mill.”

So, what did he do? Well, he wrote a manifesto, of course!

“There has been so much misinformation about our model and what we actually do, that I thought it was a good idea for our company and those who work for us to lay out our principles,” said Rosenblatt in an interview with me last night. “We are so different from traditional journalism, which I have nothing but admiration for, so it was time to make people understand that.”

The role of Demand Media, said Rosenblatt, is to help readers solve problems, laugh and get good advice, while figuring out how to create a profitable media business in the digital age.

The longtime serial entrepreneur has raised an eye-popping $355 million to do so at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand, which seems to be aiming for an initial public offering or merger with another company–AOL (AOL), perhaps?

Demand has also been eyed by Yahoo (YHOO) and others for acquisition in the past.

Rosenblatt is tight-lipped about all this, but not about what he considers twisted reports about Demand.

“What is wrong with coming up with a way for thousands of writers–who have been laid off, by the way, from news organizations–knowing exactly how much they make, selecting their own topics and publishing when they want?” asked Rosenblatt. “We’re trying to find a new and innovative way to make content.”

In fact, I agree with Rosenblatt (and some Demand writers do too), because Demand Media content is simply the basic how-to guide of service journalism that really has nothing to do with the investigative work that media giants are finding it harder to fund.

And Demand’s success has almost nothing to do with creating or fixing that problem. Demand is, of course, an easy target for a snarky takedown, but is entirely beside the point if you want to really talk about where serious journalism is headed.

In fact, Walt Mossberg and I have invited Rosenblatt to share the stage at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June, along with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica, to talk about it all. (You can see Steiger talking about this subject here.)

Until then, here is the manifesto, as well as a video of an interview I did with the smooth-talking Rosenblatt in mid-2008 and a spoof music video Demand made to attract writers:

The Demand Media Manifesto

From the very beginning, we set out to create an entirely different kind of media company. Now that our rapid growth has demonstrated our approach works, people have noticed our success, and they are talking about us. We’ve been listening. And we’ve seen all shapes and sizes of feedback about our business–everything from investigation to imitation, from congratulation to condemnation–all of it essentially trying to figure out what makes Demand Media tick. So let’s get right to the point. Here’s what makes us tick. Here are the principles that have always governed how we run our business, make it grow, and make it great for the Internet.

Start each day listening to the customer.

We believe that consumers tell you exactly what they need–if you’ll just take the time to ask or listen. The Internet is the world’s greatest market research platform; so we immerse ourselves in the billions of signals of consumer demand that it provides each day. While more traditional media companies focus on supplying experiences they believe consumers might like, we’re unapologetically dedicated to delivering the ones they already demand. This core trait guides the content we create, the social applications we develop, and the communities that we nurture. It’s incredibly liberating to operate this way, knowing that everything we do satisfies the real world interests of over a 100 million consumers each month.

Make content that is unequivocally useful.

We love the Internet because it allows us to improve people’s lives in large and small ways–every single day. So we create content that solves problems, answers questions, saves money, saves time and makes people laugh. Consumers become attached to us because we have helped them manage their diabetes, find a rewarding job, plan the perfect family hike, fix a cranky garage door or shave the last five strokes off their golf game. We aren’t here to break news, lay out editorial opinion, or investigate the latest controversy. Our target audience tells us they want incredibly specific information and we deliver exactly that–in a style that the average consumer appreciates and understands. So, while we love to read The Economist, The Washington Post and Wired–we have little in common with their missions or business models.

Build superior web experiences.

While our approach to content creation has captured widespread industry attention, the bigger story is the rabid fan base and rapid growth of our core media properties. Paying careful attention to the consumer has led to the development of category leading sites like eHow, LIVESTRONG.com, Cracked, Trails, GolfLink, and Mania. These are destinations where members return each day to learn, share and interact with compelling programs that include some of the most popular applications for the iPhone and Android. They research. They discover. They make friends. They buy the official t-shirt. They’re getting what they want. Demand Media’s content is very much at home on award-winning websites where engaging social applications and passionate audiences combine into an experience that visitors crave.

Invest heavily in our professional freelancer community.

Most consumers initially encounter Demand Media through the online brands fueled by our large professional freelancer community. We know that a quality experience begins and ends with these qualified professionals, so we expend extraordinary efforts to attract, serve and nurture the right people. Choosing from hundreds of thousands of assignments each day, our freelancers enjoy interesting work on the widest variety of topics and are paid twice a week. We transparently pay a range of rates for various roles and assignments, and we generally target an hourly rate comparable with the average salary of a journalist. We’ve even created a program that enables frequent contributors to gain access to affordable health insurance and a grant program that helps them pursue their creative aspirations. We don’t think these practices are necessary to have a good creator network; we know they’re necessary to have the best and biggest professional creator network. Now operating as a vibrant community of peers, our creators tell us that we’ve put a new kind of freedom into freelancing–freedom from the tyranny of pitching for every assignment, chasing invoices and waiting months to get paid–and all the other frustrations that waste their time, and never earn a penny.

Insist on being profitable.

A business mission is sustainable only when you are profitable. Making money allows us to attract the best employees, content creators and investors–and grow the business to match our vision. But Demand Media is native to the Internet. So we don’t have the crutch of an off-line business to subsidize what we do. We don’t believe our target consumers will pay for Internet content. And advertisers have told the world they are fed up with soft promises and underperforming campaigns. Put simply, to be profitable we must be truly excellent at what we do. On a daily basis we translate this mandate into a repeatable approach that gives users exactly what they want, attracting an audience that advertisers desire and that can be delivered with a sustainable cost structure. Some people act like this is revolutionary, or even heretical. We think it’s just common sense.

Never rest.

We are just getting started. There are nearly limitless opportunities to serve consumers in places we don’t reach well today, including mobile, social networks, and international markets. There are dozens of attractive vertical niches we don’t even attempt to cover. There are thousands of big companies still trying to figure out social media. Our technology and algorithms today are doing a fraction of what we know they can accomplish tomorrow. Our burgeoning content creator network is really just learning to work this way. We believe the opportunity to create life change and business impact through the Internet is bigger than ever. Consequently, we don’t see what we have accomplished; we see what have left to do.

The critics are outnumbered. For every one of them, there are millions of consumers, satisfied and returning to our award-winning sites. For every skeptic, there are hundreds of content creators who go on record saying Demand Media is a hero for them, their families and their careers. Demand Media employees, content creators and end-users are pouring themselves into profoundly and positively changing the shape of online media–in a world that has almost given up on this idea. Unlike many around us, we aren’t worried about the future of the Internet because we are too busy trying to create it.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100111/demand-media-is-mad-as-hell-and-well-pens-a-manifesto-and-here-it-is/feed/ 25 http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/ http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:26:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19313

For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time.

(He also appeared onstage in 2006 at D4 in an interview with Walt Mossberg, which you can see here.)

In fact, the man behind movies like “Men in Black” and TV shows like “Pushing Daisies” (and who likes to sport a Stetson and cowboy boots 24/7) does a gadget review column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”

Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from movie or TV sets.

And, compared to the cinéma vérité style of BoomTown (translation: shaky filming and bad sound), Sonnenfeld’s vlogs are pretty high quality, although they are not too overdone as those from Hollywood types always are, and it’s hard not to admire the editorial use of a martini.

Here’s his intro video vlog below, as well as one about a cross-country trip Sonnenfeld and his “analog” dog, named Lucky, took in a 2010 Ford Taurus SHO (super high output) and another about his experience helping his wife, Sweetie, cook for some film industry friends using the Traeger Professional Wood Pellet Grill.

Next week: A chain saw, although I hope Sonnenfeld will go light on the martinis for that demo.

From Crackle: The Esquire Digital Man Preview:

From Crackle: Ford Taurus SHO:

From Crackle: Traeger Professional Wood Pellet Grill:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091012/geeks-in-black-barry-sonnenfeld-comes-out-from-behind-the-camera-to-vlog/feed/ 0