Sequoia Grabs Googler to Head New Comms Role Aimed at Helping Entrepreneurs

The move to beef up communications expertise at the prominent Silicon Valley venture firm continues.

Go Daddy: Never Mind That SOPA Thing, Look at Naked Danica Patrick

After losing some 37,000 domains over its support of a controversial piracy bill before Congress, Go Daddy resorts to its tried-and-true marketing weapon.

Here’s the World’s First Steve Jobs Statue

It’s in Budapest, via a company called Graphisoft. Do you care about those details?

OutCast Agency Head Joins Facebook as Tech Communications Lead

Caryn Marooney, the co-founder of one of Silicon Valley’s premier tech communications firms, OutCast Agency, is joining Facebook to lead its tech public relations strategy. Marooney has actually led the Facebook account for OutCast, which she and Margit Wennmachers built and sold to Next Fifteen Communications Group in 2005 for over $10 million.

Is Larry Page the Consummate Anti-Social CEO?

Google’s new CEO isn’t much for the social Web. If he has a presence on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn it was created with deep privacy settings or a fake name. I couldn’t even find a fleshed-out Google profile for Larry Page.

How to Liven Up an EMC Product Launch? Stuff a Mini Cooper, Naturally. (Video)

EMC launched 41 products at an event in New York yesterday, the theme for which was “record breakers.” So the company decided to break a world record onstage while demonstrating “simple and efficient storage.”

Exclusive: Brandee "No Comment" Barker Finally Comments–Longtime PR Honcho Is Leaving Facebook

BoomTown usually does not get all weepy over the departure of public relations folks at Internet companies, in that cynical I’ve-seen-’em-come-and-I’ve-seen-’em-go kind of way. But the leaving of Brandee Barker from Facebook most certainly elicited a small single tear of sadness this morning, when she called into All Things Digital Global HQ to say she would no longer be tossing me her patented–and very endearing–hand-in-the-face “no comment” for the powerful social networking site. After four long and tumultuous years, she leaves Facebook Dec. 10.

News Byte

Google Settles Buzz Suit

In the end Buzz, Google’s ill-starred, privacy-violating social networking service, proved more of a public relations burden than a financial one. The company on Tuesday settled the class action suit brought against it, for its foolish decision to use Buzz to transform our private Gmail address books into public social networks, by agreeing to establish an $8.5 million fund for Internet privacy education and policy.

Exclusive: OutCast's Wennmachers Joins Andreessen Horowitz as Partner

Margit Wennmachers, one of Silicon Valley’s leading public relations and communications execs, is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner. Wennmachers co-founded OutCast Communications. The move will make her one of a handful of women at high-profile venture outfits. At Andreessen Horowitz, she’ll focus on bringing marketing expertise to the firm and its portfolio companies.

Time Warner Loses Its Chief Talker

iPhone Strains O2’s London Network

Verizon Searches for Google