33 posts and columns on BuzzMachine

Bill Gross's UberMedia Raises $17.5 Million From Accel, Index and Steve Case

in News on February 14, 2011 at 9:04 am PT

UberMedia, which just bought TweetDeck for $30 million in equity last week, has raised $17.5 million in a round led by Accel Partners. The valuation for the Pasadena, Calif., start-up founded by well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross–which was actually struck some month ago–is $40 million.

Welcome to the Schminternet!

in News on August 10, 2010 at 11:59 am PT

Although Google CEO Eric Schmidt took pains in a press conference yesterday with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg about net neutrality policy to distance the search giant from the idea that it could be part of any new “private” Internet, that did not stop a lot of pundits from crying foul. And also making up one of the best monikers ever for the possibility of a new toll-heavy information superhighway. That would be the Schminternet!

Paid Search Inventor Bill Gross Moves to Monetize Tweets With TweetUp–And Without Twitter (Plus Screenshots)

in News on April 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm PT

Just as Twitter finally prepares to announce its plans to make money–after what has seemed an eternity–the man responsible for the invention of paid search is beating the microblogging site to the potentially profitable punch, and without its involvement. Armed with $3.5 million in venture funding from a group of leading investors, well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross is launching a public beta of TweetUp, a bidding marketplace akin to Overture/Goto.com, the first paid search system he created a decade ago.

Jeff Jarvis on Online Video–And a Shout-Out to BoomTown Video

in News on February 11, 2008 at 12:00 am PT

In this interview with Andy Plesser of Beet.TV, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine talks about the changes in the production of online video. At the end, he points to BoomTown’s annoying (and artistic!) work with our little Flip camera as an example of the trend toward the quick and, well, dirty. Here’s the video:

Kara Visits DLD in Germany: The Naomi Campbell Edition

in News on January 23, 2008 at 12:03 am PT

Why was supermodel Naomi Campbell suddenly standing right next to German publisher Hubert Burda at the final lunch for his company’s DLD–Digital, Life, Design–conference in Munich yesterday? I have no idea, nor do I know why Burda broke out into song either–how much do you have to love a media mogul willing to do that? […]

Kara Visits DLD in Germany: EuroSchmoozing!

in News on January 21, 2008 at 10:45 am PT

Here’s a video I did about the first day of DLD–Digital, Life, Design–put on my Hubert Burda Media in Munich this week. The three-day conference focuses on digital innovation, science and culture. It is chaired by publisher Hubert Burda and serial Israeli investor Joseph Vardi and hosted by Stephanie Czerny and Marcel Reichart. I was […]

Memo to Bill Keller: The Kids Love the Web (Also, Saul Hansell!)

in News on December 3, 2007 at 10:44 am PT

Speaking in London last week, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller delivered a speech that sounded suspiciously like the grumpy rants of Hollywood moguls of late, who don’t like this digital thing one little bit. To his credit, Keller spent the start of the speech in honor of the late legendary Guardian columnist Hugo Young expertly dissecting the appalling attitude of the Bush administration toward the free press.

Jeff Jarvis Is Amanda Congdon's Fair Lady

in News on August 28, 2007 at 3:04 am PT

I knew my incessant interviewing of geeky guys would get me somewhere someday. BoomTown got a nice shout-out from ABC News’ video blogger Amanda Congdon a couple of weeks ago (I know, a little late, but we just caught up on our obsessive self-searching on the Web) about an interesting video interview I did with […]