3 posts and columns on Zvi Schreiber

Van Natta Takes Playlist CEO Job, With New Investment by Pittman

in News on November 10, 2008 at 9:00 pm PT

Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta will take the CEO job at a music discovery site called Playlist, a move that had been speculated last week, after he did not end up taking another position as head of MySpace Music. Van Natta’s arrival at Playlist was not the only news for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up–former AOL exec Bob Pittman’s Pilot Investment Group is also investing an undisclosed amount of money in Playlist, and Pittman will join its board. The site, which has been called Project Playlist, had previously raised several million dollars. The new round of funding super-sized that, sources said, hovering at about $18 million. “Discovery around music is exploding on the Internet,” said Van Natta to BoomTown, in an interview this afternoon, giving it as his main reason for joining Playlist.

"No Walls" Trademark Dispute (Maybe Microsoft Should Bring Back Seinfeld)

in News on September 26, 2008 at 8:28 am PT

An unusual Israeli-Palestinian joint venture start-up, which makes a cloud-based Web operating system letting users access their desktops from any computer with an Internet connection, is alleging a trademark violation by Microsoft in its new $300 million advertising campaign. G.ho.st, which stands for “Global Hosted Operating System,” claims it has a pending trademark registration for the tagline “no walls.” Microsoft disputes G.ho.st’s contention.

The Entire D6 Gh.os.t Demo

in News on September 12, 2008 at 1:57 pm PT

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May. Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know). But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column. In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at the D6 conference. Last, but not least: the G.ho.st Web operating system, which lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection. It’s also the name of a one-of-a-kind joint technology venture between Israelis and Palestinians.