Smart BLOG

2008-04-07T06:35:00.001-07:00

Christina Applegate Arriving To “The Late Show W/ Conan O’Brien”

2008-04-06T18:25:00.001-07:00

Christina Applegate was all smiles as she arrived to the NBC studios to be on, “The Late Show With Conan O’Brien“. Are there any fans of her new show, “Samantha Who?“? I think the show is pretty funny and rather cute. I especially like the best friend who delivers some of the funniest lines.

WENN
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Price Harry Out With Some Princesses

2008-04-06T06:20:00.001-07:00

I’m sorry. When did Prince Harry become a man? Did I miss something? Like a decade? These pictures are actually confusing me. How old am I? Better yet, how old is HE? And how ODD it is to watch Prince Harry come out of Mahiki nightclub in London alongside Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. In [...]

New Kids On The Block Reunite

2008-04-05T18:15:00.001-07:00

New Kids on the Block! New Kids on the Block! New Kids on the Block! New Kids on the Block! New Kids on the Block!
I’m sorry I just can’t get over it! How exciting was it to watch the New Kids on the Block talk about being back together on the Today show? HOW [...]

IAC’s launch of gaming site InstantAction imminent

2008-04-05T06:15:00.001-07:00

IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, is looking to get into online gaming in a big way. According to Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org, IAC’s is looking to spend $50-100 million to build their new gaming portal, InstantAction into something that carries titles with “deeper” interactivity than the casual fare typically found online.

The site is currently looking for sign-ups for their beta phase, and it promises to deliver games that sit in the spot so far largely unexploited between casual online gaming and full-on console or computer games. From watching the demo video on the front page of the new gaming site, the games do look to be some of the most graphically complex I have seen that promise to run in-browser. It is probably safe to assume that a lot of that money slated to be invested in the new venture is going into resource management development.

IAC’s drive to build InstantAction in a sure hit surely stems from the conglomerate’s purchase last year of GarageGames. It doesn’t appear to want to make a small splash. But the timing seems odd for such a major development, what with all of the recent layoffs at the Ask search portal. It leaves one feeling a bit curious when a company with some outstanding corporate questions is seen throwing this much money at a fairly unproven product category.

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MyKinda heads for the deadpool

2008-04-04T18:05:00.001-07:00

I just got word from MyKinda founder Lee Wilkins that he plans to shutdown the Eastern European blog network later today.

The network launched just last September and was being bootstrapped.

Wilkins says the shutdown is temporary to ensure that money due to writers doesn’t continue to add up. The sites will remain down until, he says, “we redefine a more profitable sustainable business model.” The company had total expenses of about €319,000, with no advertising revenue to offset it. Wilkins capitalized the company with €175,000, leaving €144,000 or so in unpaid debts.

MyKinda joins the DeadPool for now. Hopefully we’ll see them relaunch down the road, and continue to cover tech and other news in Eastern Europe.

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Wedding website buys wedding magazine

2008-04-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

You know the media world has been turned upside down when Websites start buying magazines. Today, the Knot, which operates the wedding site of the same name, acquired The Bump, a group of local magazines and maternity guides in 11 cities. Terms were not disclosed.

In an effort to reduce the natural churn of its audience (who needs to check a wedding site after the big day is over?), the Knot created other bookend lifestyle sites—TheNest for newlyweds, and TheNestBaby for new parents. So what does a Website need magazines for? The Bump is distributed in OB/GYN offices and could help channel readers to TheNestBaby. The Knot can also use it to sell combined print/Web advertising packages.

It’s got to do something to drive traffic. TheNestBaby barely registers on comScore, with only 171,000 unique visitors in the U.S. in January, compared to the TheKnot’s 1.8 million (which itself shot up in January after a few months of decline). Maybe print isn’t dead after all. I wonder if we are going to see more Web-buy-print deals, especially in niche media.

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Amazon offering user Generated Video Hosting

2008-04-03T17:55:00.001-07:00

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Your Video Widget allows any registered Amazon Affiliate to upload a video and then select products that can be displayed as the video progresses (demo above). Video content can be anything from a product review through to a holiday video, but there are some restrictions; users can not include a URL in the video, or feature availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information for any product in the video itself, on top of the usual porn and piracy restrictions. Users can pick any products they would like to be displayed, with Amazon suggesting only that they work better if they have some context to the video, and that no two products can appear within 10 seconds of each other.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

Amazon Video Widgets do not come with a central portal where you are able to view videos YouTube style, so this product wont compete in that space. For those looking at new ways of monetizing their videos, be it either because they are unable to sign up to YouTube’s program, or are not getting good results from YouTube, Amazon Video Widgets provide another path to video monetization.

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The markets didn't react well to Google advertising figures

2008-04-03T05:50:00.001-07:00

Google’s stock took a big hit today—still down 4 percent to $465—on comScore data suggesting that the click-through rate on its paid search ads is decelerating. As the chart above from Bear Stearns shows, the year-over-year growth of paid clicks on Google in the U.S. went from 37 percent in October to 0.3 percent in January. Since these are year-over-year numbers, seasonality is accounted for (there are more clicks in the months leading up to Christmas than after, but this January should not be flat with last January).

One explanation Wall Street analysts are putting out there today is that this could be an indicator that Google is not immune to the general economic slowdown. While a recession may be coming, that explanation is not convincing. Yahoo would have felt it as well, yet comScore reported a 15 percent year-over-year growth in paid clicks for Yahoo in January (to 242 million, compared to Google’s 532 million). Also, as Bill Tancer at Hitwise points out, traffic from Google to shopping sites is still above last year’s levels (evidence that paid clicks may actually be improving).

A more likely explanation is that Google is tightening the reins on clicks to combat click fraud and generate better clicks in general. Also the correlation between comScore’s click-through estimates and Google’s revenues has been highly inconsistent in the past. It definitely isn’t a one-to-one correlation. For instance, in the fourth quarter of 2007, comScore showed a 25 percent year-over-year paid click-through growth rate, yet Google’s actual U.S. revenues grew 46 percent. In the third quarter of last year, comScore showed a 48 percent growth rate for paid clicks, compared to an actual 58 percent growth in revenues. Sequential quarter-over-quarter comparisons are even more all over the map, according to calculations by JPMorgan.

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Yelp raises $15 million fourth round, valuation $200 Million

2008-04-02T17:45:00.001-07:00

Yelp, the popular local review site, has just closed a $15 million dollar round led by DAG Ventures, with a valuation of $200 Million. Yelp says that they will be using the money to expand geographically, add onto their sales team, and establish a second office in New York City. This is Yelp’s fourth round of funding, and has now taken $31 million since their founding in 2004.

Yelp is also boasting some impressive stats: 8.3 million uniques in the past 30 days and over 2.3 million reviews (with the 1 million mark being reached on May 2007). Yelp is in a competitive space with Citysearch, InsiderPages, and YellowBot.

With this latest round, DAG joins previous investors Max Levchin ($1 million, Summer 2004), Bessemer Venture Partners ($5 million, Q4 2005), and Benchmark Capital ($10 million, Q4 2006).

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Google heads under the sea with cable investment

2008-04-02T05:40:00.001-07:00

Google has announced that it has joined a consortium to build a new trans-Pacific cable between Japan and California.

The Unity consortium is a joint effort by Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel and will initially increase Trans–Pacific lit cable capacity by about 20 percent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 Terabits per second.

Google’s Manager of Network Acquisitions, Francois Sterin, explains the deal:

“[Google’s] participation in building Unity ultimately helps provide our users with faster and more reliable connectivity.

If you’re wondering whether [Google is] going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we’re delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.”

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Digg clone Yahoo Buzz launches

2008-04-01T17:40:00.001-07:00

Yahoo launches Yahoo Buzz - a Digg-like site that takes stories from pre-approved news publishers (100 to start) and let’s users vote on stories and push them up to the top of the page.

Like Digg, the more users that vote for a story, via the embedded button or on the Buzz site, the higher the story goes on Buzz. But user voting isn’t the only factor in how well stories do. Yahoo is also looking at their search engine logs in real time to determine hot or breaking news. Stories on that topic will get an extra boost in the rankings.

But there’s another part of Buzz that will get publishers excited - every day a few of the most popular stories will also be featured on the Yahoo home page. Yahoo has been experimenting with linking to third party news directly from their home page since last year. In one case, the Buzz team told me, 2 million visitors were sent to Wired for a linked article in the two hours it was on the Yahoo home page. 2-3 stories from Buzz will go on the Yahoo home page daily.

Buzz has categories including entertainment, world news, U.S. news, sports, business, health, and travel. Images and video are also separate categories.

Of course, many publishers won’t be able to handle that kind of traffic flow. But Yahoo is also prepared for that. Smaller sites will only be linked on a fraction of the total home page views - in effect, Yahoo is turning down the firehose for those that can’t handle it.

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Glam raises $85 million

2008-04-01T05:35:00.001-07:00

Brisbane, California based Glam Media reported an $85 million round of financing, their fourth, today. We first reported that Glam was looking to raise as much as $200 million in August 2007.

The round was $65 million in cash and $20 million in debt, on top of almost $30 million they raised in three prior rounds. Investors included Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Accel, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Information Capital. The valuation, as expected, was in the half billion dollar range.

The company, according to their original offering document is not yet profitable. They lost around $3.7 million on $21 million in revenue in 2007. 2008 projected revenues are $150 million and $40 million in profit.

Glam operates a number of small sites geared towards women. Glam.com is the main anchor with the largest reach among these properties, but other owned sites appear to be pure SEO plays like free-beauty-tips.com and celebrity-hairstyles.org. They also sell advertisements for other sites, which make up the vast bulk of its page views.

As an ad network Glam may find its margins squeezed as competition increases. Still, they control a lot of page views. Comscore reports that worldwide uniques across all sites that Glam sells advertising for had nearly 47 million unique visitors and 1.1 billion page views. That’s 4x the unique visitors and 11x the page views from a year ago.

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Bloglines suffers major outage

2008-03-31T17:30:00.001-07:00

RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24.

Threads on the Bloglines forum suggest that the issue is widespread and to date no statement has been issued by Bloglines or IAC/ Ask staff in relation to the issue. A test at 11pm PST shows the most recent stories indexed by Bloglines are over 15 hours old.

Bloglines users are not happy with the outage, with some already signing up for other services, and other comments including such as “Remember when they at least showed the plumber?”

One commenter claims that Bloglines may be about to be shut down:

A buddy who works at ask.com (owners of Bloglines) says that they are discontinuing the service because it makes no money and there will be an announcement tomorrow.

A shutdown is more than unlikely. But users deserve some attention during an outage of this size.

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The Premiere of “Nim’s Island”

2008-03-31T05:25:00.001-07:00

Here’s Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, and Abigail Breslin at the premiere of their new movie, “Nim’s Island” in Hollywood yesterday. I am so excited about this movie and I can’t wait to see it. I love adventurous, smart kids movies and the fact that Gerard Butler is in it doesn’t hurt either. Gerard and [...]

Miley Cyrus And A Smart Car

2008-03-30T17:25:00.001-07:00

Looking for a little press or just a plate of good food? Miley Cyrus decided to hit up They Ivy and BOY were the paparazzi excited! Check out the thumbnails to see the crowd loving every minute. And what’s this smart car about? Bauer Griffin says it might be for her new video Girl’s Night [...]

Can’t Get Enough Of Lila Grace

2008-03-30T05:20:00.001-07:00

I’m sorry, but this little girl is just too cute! I know I posted pictures of Lila Grace earlier in the day - but it is such a rarity to see that princess. Here she is with mom Kate Moss shopping in the uber chic shop ‘Bonpoint’.
Flynet
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Hayden’s Back!

2008-03-29T17:15:00.001-07:00

For a while there Hayden Panettiere was getting really overexposed. There were new sets of pictures of her coming out at least once or twice a day. Then when she and Milo went public she sort of backed out of the spotlight. And I’ve actually missed her! I haven’t put pictures [...]

Madonna Works Out To Britney Spears’ Music

2008-03-29T05:10:00.001-07:00

Want to have a hot bod like Madonna? Maybe part of her secret is working out to Britney’s music. Madonna talked a radio show and admitted that she puts on Blackout to get her sweating.
“I actually love Britney Spears’s new album,” she told New York’s Z100-FM Thursday. “I usually work out to her record. I [...]

Who Needs Ford And Wilhelmina When We Have Tyra Banks?

2008-03-28T17:10:00.001-07:00

Best clip ever!! Because that is EXACTLY how I look during that time of the month. Check out Tyra Banks giving modeling advice (with a twist) to her contestants.
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Sound recording predates Edison's phonograph

2008-03-28T05:05:00.001-07:00

Also: A low-tech 2010 census? Read these stories and more at News.com Extra.

Windows Live teams up with social networks for contact portability

2008-03-27T17:00:00.001-07:00

Robert Scoble couldn't do it, but Windows Live can.

Microsoft's Web-app division announced Tuesday that it has partnered with five social networks--LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo, and yes, Facebook--on a new project to facilitate address book portability. The partner social networks have agreed to use the Windows ...

Richie Sambora Gets A DUI

2008-03-27T04:55:00.001-07:00

AHHHHHHH, Why do celebrities do such stupid things?!?! Get a freaking driver already. Richie Sambora was arrested for a DUI last night in Laguna Beach. UsMagazine wrote,
“The Bon Jovi guitarist was detained by local police around 11 p.m. after he was pulled over for driving a Hummer erratically, TMZ says. He failed [...]

Brooke Burke’s Baby Still Has No Name

2008-03-26T16:50:00.001-07:00

Poor nameless little guy. Brooke Burke gave birth to a son nearly three weeks ago and still doesn’t know what to call him! She is still “in negotiations” with her husband David Charvet.
“We’ve waiting our whole life for a son, and we haven’t named him. He did leave the hospital without the birth [...]

Why Would Anyone Turn Down A Role In High School Musical???

2008-03-26T04:45:00.001-07:00

Another Disney teen star, Selena Gomez, was offered a role in High School Musical 3. And she said no! I can’t believe that. I thought any young girl would be dying to be a part of that cast!!!
Selena said,
“High School Musical 3 is cute, and I think it would be a great opportunity for someone else. [...]

Heidi Klum At The Park

2008-03-25T16:40:00.001-07:00

Is it me? Or are pictures of Heidi Klum not as fun without one of her quirky comments. You can always count on Heidi for a good laugh. Here she is feeding Johan a snack while enjoying a day at the park sans shoes.

Bauer Griffin
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K-Fed Parties And Britney Hangs Out With The Hoff

2008-03-25T04:35:00.001-07:00

Kevin Federline celebrated his 30th birthday this past weekend. He partied it up at Pure and in Las Vegas. While he was there he hung out with his ex, Shar Jackson and got a special performance by the Pussycat Dolls. But, it looks like they partied a little too hard. Kevin drank one too many [...]

Courtney Love Relocating To England

2008-03-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

Celebrities love to relocate to England! Courtney Love is now following in Madonna’s footsteps and considering picking up a $10 million dollar home near the Windsor Castle. Can you imagine being neighbors with royalty?!?
I just always wonder what happens with the kids in cases like these. Will Frances Bean stay in the U.S.? Who will [...]

I’m Not Obsessed With…

2008-03-24T04:25:00.001-07:00

I’m listening. You asked for a little recap on what was available on the other INO sections. Thanks again for taking my quick survey. Here you go:

Fringe is in.
A gold clutch that is on sale fro $235 to $55!
Fashion Finds: Gwyneth Paltrow’s black boots.
Fashion Finds: Ashlee Simpson
6 amazing beach covers.
Chic flats all for under $25.

Kihel’s [...]

Alicia Silverstone Keeping It Real… I Mean Raw

2008-03-23T16:25:00.001-07:00

Alicia Silverstone and a male friend went out to eat in the West Village for some healthy food. In my heart of hearts, I wish I wanted to eat so natural. But I can barely get myself to eat a salad! It’s so funny because my son is still obviously eating jarred baby food and [...]

Famous For What?

2008-03-23T04:20:00.001-07:00

What a GREAT video!! The rise of the “Famous for Nothing” stars! So many of us feel the same way. Showbiz Tonight broke it down. I read your responses to my Tweak INO poll and am now going to put all the videos under the cut. Apparently, certain videos really slow down the load [...]

He Just Wants Her To Be Happy

2008-03-22T16:20:00.001-07:00

I choked up a bit when I read this. Ryan Phillippe was asked by Howard Stern what he thought about Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan answered respectfully. I think think it is such a shame that Ryan and Reese Witherspoon couldn’t work things out - but so is life. In the end, they have kids and [...]

Help Make INO A Better Place

2008-03-22T04:15:00.001-07:00

Click here to take a 10 question survey to help me improve INO. I’ve been noticing a lot of performance issues while on Wordpress and am moving over to a more powerful tool. I just need to know what to change and what to keep the same. 3 minutes max!!
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Celebrities With Their Children

2008-03-21T16:15:00.001-07:00

Don’t Marcia Cross and Naomi Watts look like they would make good friends? Both ladies aren’t addicted to fame, are really secure with who they are, and seem really hands on with their children. Set up a play date!! Marcia was out at a park letting her little girl get some practice walking [...]

Nicole Kidman And Naomi Watts Will Be Neighbors

2008-03-21T04:10:00.001-07:00

Aww, I thought this story was really sweet. UsMagazine is reporting that Nicole Kidman is house hunting and she really wants to find something right near Naomi Watts.
“Nicole had her people call Naomi’s next-door neighbors to ask if they would be interested in selling their house — even though it wasn’t on the market,” a [...]

Madonna At The Gym

2008-03-20T16:10:00.001-07:00

Madonna was spotted heading for the gym yesterday…which is actually just the house next door to where she lives in London. It was converted into a gym just for her. She’s going to work out because you know, she really should exercise more. She’s definitely not ripped enough as it is :P In all honesty [...]

This week in awesomeness: 20 years ago, we all got Rickrolled

2008-03-20T04:05:00.001-07:00

Two decades ago this week--on March 12, 1988--the corny pop song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

What does this have to do with the Internet? Oh, just about everything.

For those of you who actually have lives and

...

2008-03-19T16:04:00.001-07:00

Maybe Impetigo Is Itchy?

2008-03-19T03:55:00.001-07:00

I don’t think so. Those look like perfect cuts to me - like as if Amy Winehouse used something very sharp to make them. Nails wouldn’t be so uniform… uh oh. These pictures were taken yesterday.
WENN
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ONE DAY CONTEST

2008-03-18T15:50:00.001-07:00

Tristan Prettyman has partnerd up with Elwood Clothing to help promote a brand new album! And INO has one of these dresses to give away to do so! How adorable! Tristan is a surfer from San Diego with a laid back acoustic vibe and the clothing fits her style perfectly.
Tristan Prettyman’s album, Hello, will [...]

Angelina Jolie With Her Kids In New Orleans

2008-03-18T03:45:00.001-07:00

images removedAngelina Jolie and the gang popped in to New Orleans for a bit to visit Brad Pitt. He’s currently there start working on his Make It Work project (building affordable homes for Hurricane Katrina victims). Ahhhh, the fact that he’s a humanitarian just makes him that much more attractive Bill [...]

Drew Barrymore In Domino Magazine

2008-03-17T15:45:00.001-07:00

Drew Barrymore is on the cover of Domino this month. She also sat down for an interview with the magazine to talk about her production company, Flower Films.
On moving Flower Films from a bleak bungalow in Warner Bro’s to a Deco-style building:
“Fun is always the first order of business. I feel there are no rules.”
Each [...]

Celebrities Going Shopping

2008-03-17T03:40:00.001-07:00

Forever 21, Intermix and Fred Segal - sounds like a typical day for me too. Britney Spears waited on line like the rest of us common folk as she did some damage at Forever 21. She really likes that store doesn’t she?

Rebecca Gayheart went shopping at Fred Segal in West Hollywood with a [...]

Nicole Richie For DCMA

2008-03-16T15:40:00.001-07:00

I could totally see Nicole Richie having a successful clothing store. She definitely loves clothes. But I wonder how involved she really will be after the first batch of clothes are chosen. If I lived in LA, I would go check this one out for sure. Here she is with Paris Hilton and the Madden [...]

Do You Have 4 Minutes To Save The World?

2008-03-16T03:35:00.001-07:00

This just in! Sneak peek of Justin Timberlake and Madonna’s new song HERE. They won’t let me embed - so take a listen and tell me what you think.
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Afternoon Links

2008-03-15T15:35:00.001-07:00

Pamela Anderson arrived to the airport yesterday and tried to hide from the paparazzi.
Tom Cruise celebrates his birthday with a Scientology cruise.
Lori Loughlin can still work it!
Avril Lavigne is like a ninja on stage!
Who is beating up Courteney Cox? She has a huge bruise on her arm.
The cast of How I Met Your Mother are [...]

Jamie Lynn Spears Getting Mexican Food

2008-03-15T03:30:00.001-07:00

Jamie Lynn Spears was spotted leaving a Mexican restaurant with a few t-shirts that she showed off to the paparazzi. I guess the food was so good she wanted to bring home a little souvenir! I’m glad to see her out looking happy and well. I can only imagine the mental stress that a young [...]

Alexis Bledel & America Ferrera At ShoWest

2008-03-14T15:30:00.001-07:00

Alexis Bledel and America Ferrera posed for photographs at the Warner Bros. Presents. “The Big Picture ‘08” during ShoWest in Las Vegas, Nevada. I love both these ladies and they looked lovely at the Warner Bros. event. Alexis and America will be starring in, “The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants” which comes out August [...]

Morning Links

2008-03-14T03:25:00.001-07:00

We haven’t seen much of Vanessa Minnillo lately. Here she is at a hotel in Miami.
Tori Spelling just continues giving us way too much information! Some things should stay personal, Tori!
Is she or isn’t she? Will Rachael Ray get the ax? This debate is on fire!
Selma Blair in an itsy bitsy polka dot bikini. [...]

2008-03-13T15:24:00.001-07:00

Lauren Conrad Before Her Fashion Show

2008-03-13T03:15:00.001-07:00

Yikes! I wonder if Lauren Conrad was nervous to present her line for L.A. Fashion Week! Her smile looks kind of unsure in some of these pictures. But that’s to be expected…I’m sure she knows that if it stinks it will be all over the blogs the next day. If you want to see some of [...]

Madonna Admits To Stage Anxiety

2008-03-12T15:10:00.001-07:00

What?!! You mean Madonna is human after all? :) I think this was a very brave thing to do as we would have never guessed she suffered from anxiety while on stage.
“I have moments where I feel incredibly invincible and know that I have the audience in my hand - I know that everything is [...]

Justin Timberlake Dropped His Pants For Madonna

2008-03-12T03:05:00.001-07:00

This story had me rolling!!!!!!!! When Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night Justin Timberlake thought it would be funny to give a little anecdote about what a control freak she really is. He said one time he wasn’t feeling well and Madonna asked him if he [...]

Janet Jackson Hospitalized For The Flu

2008-03-11T15:00:00.001-07:00

Shortness of breath caused Janet Jackson’s people to take her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles late last night. Boy that bug is going around!! Hitting the press circuit hard isn’t helping her get better either. Janet’s rep says she is doing better today.
“Janet is fine. She’s just battling this flu like everyone [...]

Bloglines suffers major outage

2008-03-11T14:56:00.001-07:00

RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24.

Bloglines users are not happy with the outage, with some already signing up for other services, and other comments including such as “Remember when they at least showed the plumber?”

One commenter claims that Bloglines may be about to be shut down:

A buddy who works at ask.com (owners of Bloglines) says that they are discontinuing the service because it makes no money and there will be an announcement tomorrow.

A shutdown is more than unlikely. But users deserve some attention during an outage of this size.

If you enjoyed this post please use the logos below to add it to StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg or Reddit.

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Jessica Simpson Leaves For Kuwait

2008-03-11T02:50:00.001-07:00

A while back we heard that Jessica Simpson and the Pussycat Dolls were going to head overseas to entertain the troops…looks like the trip has become a reality. Here are a few pictures of Jessica at the airport heading out to Kuwait. Did anyone else notice the buttons on her shirt? They say, “Peace, stop [...]

Sanjaya Performs At Long Island Bat Mitzvah

2008-03-10T14:45:00.001-07:00

I HAD to write this story for three reasons.
A) Newsday is covering it and I just did an interview with them!!! It should release on the 19th. So excited!!
B) Sanjaya is taking everything he’s learned on American Idol and is now performing at Bat Mitzvahs.
C) I needed a hair update on the boy.
So here he [...]

Kelly Clarkson And Avril Lavigne On Tour

2008-03-10T02:40:00.001-07:00

Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne are both out on tour right now. I believe Avril is just starting while Kelly is already wrapping things up. Both ladies look pretty into things up on stage…seeing singers put on their performance faces cracks me up!

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Dita Von Teese At Crazy Horse

2008-03-09T14:35:00.001-07:00

Dita Von Teese stopped at MGM’s Crazy Horse Paris in Las Vegas yesterday. As usual she looks gorgeous and glam. I think I love seeing her so much just because it’s nice to look at someone who doesn’t fit in the Hollywood cookie-cutter stereotype of beauty.

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Catching Up With The Hills

2008-03-09T01:30:00.001-08:00

Well, since I found pictures and news on all three ladies of The Hills I thought we’d do a mega post and catch up on what Lauren Conrad, Audrina Patridge and Heidi Montag have been up to these days. L.C. was seen out shopping at Rock and Republic and then grabbing a bite to eat [...]

Britney Spears To Pay Her Father $2,500 Per Week

2008-03-08T13:25:00.001-08:00

The court has ordered Britney Spears to pay her father, Jamie, $2,500 per week in compensation. They’ve also authorized him to lease a car. That makes no sense since Jamie already has a car! Britney has been ordered to pay her court appointed lawyer $58,800, and her psychiatrist was given court approval to hire two more doctors for a fee [...]

Blind Item

2008-03-08T01:20:00.001-08:00

Which mournful solo artist is obsessed with his own level of fame? After convincing himself on a recent flight to Australia that he would be mobbed in the streets, the scrawny singer was nonplussed that most Aussies didn’t recognize him.
Mournful? James Blunt? Doesn’t he have that Goodbye Lover song that was a hit at funerals [...]

Paris Hilton To Join Nicole Richie On Broadway

2008-03-07T13:15:00.001-08:00

I am just waiting for one of their reps to come out and deny this rumor. PLEASE DENY THIS RUMOR ALREADY!
So, a few days ago we learned that Nicole Richie might join the cast of Chicago on Broadway. NOW the latest is the producers of the Broadway hit are trying to convince Paris Hilton to [...]

Rihanna And Chris Brown Going Strong

2008-03-07T01:10:00.001-08:00

Despite quotes from Rihanna saying she is single and just having fun, it is pretty obvious that she is into Chris Brown. And by the looks of these pictures, Chris is feeling Rihanna as well. So happy for them. For some reason, this couple really makes sense. When she was linked to Shia, I almost [...]

Miley Cyrus Giving The Peace Sign

2008-03-06T13:05:00.001-08:00

Why do I have to keep reminding myself that Miley Cyrus can’t legally drive yet? She looks and acts so much older than a typical mid teenager. Here she is picking up a drink at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Did you drink tea or coffee at 16?

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J-Lo Is Going All Out For The Babies

2008-03-06T01:00:00.001-08:00

More crazy news about J-Lo and her babies just keeps coming in…Jennifer and Marc are doing everything in their power to make sure that little Max and Emme have the most amazing childhood ever.
Here’s just a few things on the list:

She had the nursery painted a beautiful aquamarine and light blue - colors which are supposed to have intelligence [...]

Penelope Cruz Doesn’t Believe In Marriage

2008-03-05T12:55:00.001-08:00

Right now it’s hot in Hollywood to say you don’t believe in marriage. Penelope Cruz was the most recent celebrity to join the club, right after her pal Salma Hayek also spoke out about having no plans to wed her baby daddy. Salma said,
“I don’t have a need for marriage. You want to grow old with someone, you [...]

IAC’s launch of gaming site InstantAction imminent

2008-03-05T00:50:00.001-08:00

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MyKinda heads for the deadpool

2008-03-04T12:45:00.001-08:00

I just got word from MyKinda founder Lee Wilkins that he plans to shutdown the Eastern European blog network later today.

The network launched just last September and was being bootstrapped.

MyKinda joins the DeadPool for now. Hopefully we’ll see them relaunch down the road, and continue to cover tech and other news in Eastern Europe.

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Wedding website buys wedding magazine

2008-03-04T00:40:00.001-08:00

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Amazon offering user Generated Video Hosting

2008-03-03T12:40:00.001-08:00

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

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The markets didn't react well to Google advertising figures

2008-03-03T00:30:00.001-08:00

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Yelp raises $15 million fourth round, valuation $200 Million

2008-03-02T12:25:00.001-08:00

With this latest round, DAG joins previous investors Max Levchin ($1 million, Summer 2004), Bessemer Venture Partners ($5 million, Q4 2005), and Benchmark Capital ($10 million, Q4 2006).

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Google heads under the sea with cable investment

2008-03-02T00:20:00.001-08:00

Google has announced that it has joined a consortium to build a new trans-Pacific cable between Japan and California.

Google’s Manager of Network Acquisitions, Francois Sterin, explains the deal:

“[Google’s] participation in building Unity ultimately helps provide our users with faster and more reliable connectivity.

If you’re wondering whether [Google is] going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we’re delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.”

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Digg clone Yahoo Buzz launches

2008-03-01T12:15:00.001-08:00

Yahoo launches Yahoo Buzz - a Digg-like site that takes stories from pre-approved news publishers (100 to start) and let’s users vote on stories and push them up to the top of the page.

Buzz has categories including entertainment, world news, U.S. news, sports, business, health, and travel. Images and video are also separate categories.

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Glam raises $85 million

2008-03-01T00:10:00.001-08:00

Brisbane, California based Glam Media reported an $85 million round of financing, their fourth, today. We first reported that Glam was looking to raise as much as $200 million in August 2007.

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Bloglines suffers major outage

2008-02-29T12:05:00.001-08:00

RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24.

Bloglines users are not happy with the outage, with some already signing up for other services, and other comments including such as “Remember when they at least showed the plumber?”

One commenter claims that Bloglines may be about to be shut down:

A buddy who works at ask.com (owners of Bloglines) says that they are discontinuing the service because it makes no money and there will be an announcement tomorrow.

A shutdown is more than unlikely. But users deserve some attention during an outage of this size.

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How Google got its logo

2008-02-29T00:00:00.001-08:00

Wired has a very neat interview with Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous Google logo.

Here’s her story (with a neat gallery of prototype logos!):

In just a few short years, Google’s logo has become as recognizable as Nike’s swoosh and NBC’s peacock. Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo, shows the iterations that led to the instantly recognizable primary colors and Catull typeface that define the Google brand. Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor. Page and Brin, who were having trouble coming up with a logo for their soon-to-launch search engine, asked Kedar to come up with some prototypes. "I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude," Kedar says.

Link

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Microsoft-Yahoo battle getting expensive

2008-02-28T12:00:00.001-08:00

Ever since Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $31 a share offer to buy the company, the two sides have been gearing up for a prolonged fight over Yahoo’s fate. Microsoft is preparing to try to unseat Yahoo’s board members in a proxy battle that could cost as much as $30 million (which is still cheaper than raising its bid). Yahoo, for its part, amended its severance plan to cover all employees in case of a change in control of ownership.

It includes accelerated vesting of options, continued severance pay of between four to 24 months of each employee’s base salary, plus $3,000 to $15,000 in outplacement services per laid-off employee. And there are going to be a lot of those after the merger. Henry Blodget estimates this severance plan alone will cost Microsoft an additional $1 and $3 billion, which pretty much wipes out the $1 billion in savings Microsoft thinks it can get from merging the two companies (i.e., by laying off redundant employees).

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Firefox browser downloaded over 500 million times

2008-02-27T23:50:00.001-08:00

The Firefox browser has been downloaded over 500 million times, says their SpreadFirefox website. Parent organization Mozilla is celebrating by raising 500 million grains of rice on FreeRice. That, says Mozilla, is enough to feed 25,000 people for a day.

The browser has around 17% market share worldwide and 150 million active users.

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Pentaho takes $12 million in funding

2008-02-27T11:45:00.001-08:00

Open source Business Intelligence firm Pentaho has taken $12 million Series C in a round led by Benchmark Capital. Previous investors Index Ventures and New Enterprise Associates also participated.

Pentaho offers commercial open source enterprise reporting, analysis, dashboard, data mining, workflow and ETL capabilities for Business Intelligence needs.

Orlando, Florida based Pentaho was founded in 2004 and has had three million lifetime downloads, with more than 20,000 registered community members. Pentaho’s customers include Cox Communications, Delta Dental, Lifetime Networks, Monsanto Corporation, Savvion, Sun Microsystems, Terra Industries, U.S. Naval Air Command, and Wachovia.

The additional funding will be used to continue Pentaho’s growth in the business intelligence market, including R&D and international expansion.

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Google may buy balloon company..

2008-02-26T23:40:00.001-08:00

Google is considering working with, or buying Space Data Corp, a company that provides wireless services via Balloon, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Space Data Corp targets areas without existing internet access, such as rural areas and highways, providing wireless and internet services to truckers and rural folk. The company currently launches 20 balloons a day, and a single balloon can service an area equivalent to 40 cell phone towers.

The balloons cost $50, however the transceivers attached to them cost $1500, but parachute back to the earth once the balloon is no longer in service.

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Openads now OpenX, former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller joins as Chairman

2008-02-26T11:35:00.001-08:00

London-based startup Openads has changed its name to OpenX and former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller has joined as chairman. OpenX is an increasingly popular open-source ad server (we use it here at TechCrunch). Since his departure from AOL, Miller has become quite active in the startup world as an investor and board member.

He is a partner in the Velocity Interactive Group with former Fox Interactive Media chief Ross Levinsohn. Miller also sits on the board of Clickable, another advertising startup in which he has personally invested.

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Skype: 100 Billion free phone calls and counting

2008-02-25T23:30:00.001-08:00

Since launching four and half years ago, Skype users have talked to each other for 100 billion minutes, and that is just counting free Skype-to-Skype phone calls. Of course, many of those calls would never have been made if Skype didn’t exists, so you cannot count the entire 100 billion minutes as a loss for the phone companies. But a significant chunk of that has got to be eating away at phone company profits.

Skype’s owner, eBay, is not necessarily the winner here either. While Skype has been a boon for consumers, it’s eBay that is footing the bill. Even at the reduced $3.1 billion acquisition price after the write-down, eBay still ended up paying roughly 3 cents a minute for all of those calls. I think I pay less with Verizon.

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Startup YouNoodle claims it can predict other startup's fate

2008-02-25T11:25:00.001-08:00

New startup YouNoodle debuted to some first class press coverage - a headline in the NYTimes that reads “A Start-Up Says It Can Predict Others’ Fate.” The really choice quote from the article from CEO/co-founder Bob Goodson is this:

“Give us some information, and we’ll give you some idea of what the company will be worth in five years.”

The best part about the article is that the prediction feature hasn’t launched, so no one can see if it’s for real. For now, the site is a database of startups with very light information. Hardly what I would consider NYTimes material. If not for the investors, which include Founders Fund, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, there’s no way they would be getting any attention.

The NYT did cover themselves somewhat by bringing in some venture capitalist quotes calling bullshit on the whole thing. “If their tool did such a good job, they’d raise a fund themselves and beat the tar out of us,” said Paul Kedrosky, who didn’t bother to write about the company on his blog.

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Bill Gates says theye’re not raising the Yahoo bid

2008-02-21T21:45:00.001-08:00

While everyone is expecting for Microsoft to dig just a little bit deeper into their pockets (speculations said that $35 per share is a possibility) to try and change Yahoo’s mind, Bill Gates is playing it tough, saying they’re not raising the bid.

He made this quite clear in an interview with Reuters: “We can afford to make big investments in the engineering and marketing that needs to get done. We will do that with or without Yahoo.” In other words, if Yahoo doesn’t want the 44.6 bil, they’re gonna spend it elsewhere: at least the $19 billion they have in cash.

Of course, we all know that Microsoft is only acting indifference. In fact, if they don’t buy Yahoo, they’ll have a tough time turning those 19 billion dollars into a web platform that will be a decent competitor to Google; that’s why they went unsolicited on Yahoo in the first place.

Gates, now a part-timer at Microsoft, had this to add: “There is nothing new in terms of the process. We’ve sent our letter and we’ve reinforced that we consider that it’s a very fair offer.” Meaning: it’s the only such offer you’ll get, Yahoo, and you better take it while it’s not too late. He might just be right with this one.

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BuzzShed: Where “Diggers” Go to Earn Cash?

2008-02-21T09:40:00.001-08:00

Some Digg users have managed to find ways to get paid for “digging” stories, and such behavior was always considered to be questionable. Now, we have a new network called BuzzShed that could appeal, on some level, to these diggers. BuzzShed is actually a video-bookmarking service that’s set up like a pyramid scheme, wrapped in the guise of a Digg-clone for videos.

This video-sharing network pays for its market research, giving you three membership options: a full-fledged member, a regular member, and an advertiser. As a full-fledged member, you’ll have the option of earning money from your participation on the site. What BuzzFeed will do in this case is give you a 2-page questionnaire in order to determine your tastes, and then emails you “every so often” with clips that fit your personality. Give BuzzFeed some feedback on this particular clip, and you get 30 cents for your time. In addition, every member that joins the site as a result of your referral earns you $1.00.

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Amazon Web Services goes down....

2008-02-20T21:35:00.001-08:00

Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage this morning, affecting the thousands of Websites that rely on its storage (S3) and cloud computing (EC2) services. Startups including Twitter, SmugMug, 37Signals, and AdaptiveBlue, for instance, use Amazon’s S3 storage service to store all the data for their Websites. Reports started coming in across the Web, email, and Twitter about the outage (Twitter only uses S3 for file hosting, not its main messaging application). The major difficulties seem to have been fixed, but some issues persist. The outage started at around 4:30 AM PT.

This could just be growing pains for Amazon Web Services, as more startups and other companies come to rely on it for their Web-scale computing infrastructure. But even if the outage only lasted a couple hours, it is unacceptable. Nobody is going to trust their business to cloud computing unless it is more reliable than the data-center computing that is the current norm. So many Websites now rely on Amazon’s S3 storage service and, increasingly, on its EC2 compute cloud as well, that an outage takes down a lot of sites, or at least takes down some of their functionality. Cloud computing needs to be 99.999 percent reliable if Amazon and others want it to become more widely adopted.

A response from Amazon PR:

For one of our services, the Amazon Simple Storage Service, one of our three geographic locations was unreachable for approximately two hours and was back to operating at over 99% of normal performance before 7 a.m. pst. We’ve been operating this service for two years and we’re proud of our uptime track record. Any amount of downtime is unacceptable and we won’t be satisfied until it’s perfect. We’ve been communicating with our customers all morning via our support forums and will be providing additional information as soon as we have it.

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eBay Sellers plan for week-long strike

2008-02-20T09:30:00.001-08:00

Some of eBay’s sellers are angry. They’re angered over the auction giant’s planned changes to its fee structure and feedback system. A portion of sellers are so angered about the no-ifs-ands-or-buts-like method with which the marketplace is enacting the changes that they’ve coalesced and have threatened to strike. And now they’ve set a date, reports Lenora Chu of Fortune Small Business.

The whole five-day week of February 19-25 is planned as a strike.

But it must now be evident to the company’s executives that the very public dispute over the proposed amendments has reached a level of serious concern. It does not help eBay at present for the media to be giving the most vocal of sellers upset over the imminent move. (February 20 marks the date the new rules are to be put in place.)

Will eBay eventually be forced to alter course and perhaps reverse its controversial decision?

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The shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo begin

2008-02-19T21:25:00.001-08:00

The inevitable shareholder lawsuits have started to be filed against Yahoo for not accepting Microsoft’s bid. Yesterday, the Wayne County Employee’s Retirement System of Michigan, was the first to file suit. The retirement fund owns 13,600 shares. You can expect more shareholders to pile on board, especially if this thing drags out.

In fact, that is not the only shareholder suit Yahoo is facing. On February 1, the day Microsoft made its recent offer, another shareholder lawsuit was filed against Yahoo in California for failing to accept Microsoft’s bid from the year before. They might want to amend that lawsuit to include Yahoo’s most recent rejection as well.

The more that Yahoo fights the merger, the more shareholder lawsuits will pop up. The reports in the media typically note how this is increasing the pressure on Yahoo. Nothing against Wayne County, but 13,600 shares is a tiny stake for an institutional investor. If bigger investors started suing, then the pressure would be noticeable. But big investors don’t sue, they vote their shares.

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eBay’s free classifieds site Kijiji is taking off

2008-02-19T09:20:00.001-08:00

eBay’s free classifieds site Kijiji is taking off in the U.S. eBay, of course, is also an investor in Craigslist, but its 25 percent stake doesn’t give it a controlling interest and the other 75 percent is not for sale. So in March, 2005, eBay launched Kijiji as its own competing free classifieds site overseas. Then last summer, it launched a U.S. version of the site.

Since then, the U.S. site alone has grown from 362,000 visitors in July, 2007 to 1.8 million in January, according to comScore. (If you count U.S. visits to Kijiji’s international sites as well, the number is 2.3 million). In comparison, Microsoft’s classified site, Windows Live Expo, attracted only 176,000 visitors in January, Yahoo Classifieds attracted 97,000, and neither Google’s classifieds site nor Google Base even registers on comScore.

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TV listings site Couchville has joined the deadpool

2008-02-18T21:15:00.001-08:00

TV listings site Couchville has joined the deadpool.

The service, provided by PVR software maker Snapstream, offered US TV listings via zip code and cable or satellite provider.

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Seesmic raises $6 million from internationally renowned investors

2008-02-18T09:10:00.001-08:00

Seesmic, the highly anticipated new start-up from Loic Le Meur, today announced that it has raised $6 million from internationally renowned investors.

The investment is lead by Atomico - an investment group founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The complete list of investors is:

* Michael Arrington - Founder, TechCrunch
* Steve Case - Co-Founder and former CEO and Chairman, AOL
* Jeff Clavier - Managing Partner, SoftTech VC
* Ron Conway - Early investor, Google
* Steve Garfield - Pioneering video blogger
* Dan Gillmor - Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship
* Reid Hoffman - Founder, LinkedIn
* Michael Parekh - Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
* Mark Pincus - Co-Founder and former Chairman and CEO, SupportSoft
* Ariel Poler - Founder and former CEO, IPRO and Topica
* Jeff Pulver - Chairman and Founder, Pulver.com
* Martin Varsavsky - Founder, FON

Seesmic brings online conversation to life through video. Straight from their webcams, Seesmic enables users to easily post videos of their thoughts and ideas and participate in video conversations with the world.

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I must say, I'm quite upset

2008-02-17T21:05:00.001-08:00

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Comcast has reportedly paid $175 million in cash for Plaxo

2008-02-17T09:00:00.001-08:00

Comcast has reportedly paid $175 million in cash for Plaxo. According to Valleywag, Comcast is hoping to use its packaged, cross-platform tools to extend the address book service to its customers in a more involved and synchronized fashion.

Having already taken on some of Plaxo’s tools, Comcast would be extending a relationship it already has with Plaxo, but with more integration, you could get notices on your TV and reply to messages via text message. As Comcast is going after the consumer crowd with Internet and television services among other things, such an integrated tool could prove useful for Comcast in this sense.

But the whole deal would seem to leave Plaxo Pulse out in the cold, and Plaxo Pulse is the shining light of the Plaxo camp.

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Yahoo responds to shareholders

2008-02-16T20:55:00.001-08:00

Yahoo has just released the following letter to shareholders outlining its reasoning for rejecting Microsoft’s offer to buy the company. In it, CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang emphasizes Yahoo’s strengths as both an online destination and an advertising network, and argues that Yahoo is better off going it alone than combining with Microsoft.

He states: “The global online advertising market is projected to grow from $45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. And we are moving quickly to take advantage of what we see as a unique window of time in the growth - and evolution - of this market to build market share and to create value for stockholders.”

He says that even though Yahoo is the No. 1 Web destination, his goal is to increase visits by 15 percent annually. Re-emphasizing his strategy of being the key starting point on the Web, he adds, “we are particularly excited about our growth prospects in mobile, the biggest emerging starting point in the world.”

Here is the full text of the letter:

Dear Stockholders,

On February 1, 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited proposal to acquire your company. As much has been reported in the press recently, I wanted to reach out to you personally to let you know why your Board of Directors, after a careful review by Yahoo!’s management along with our financial and legal advisors, believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! and is not in the best interests of our stockholders.

Most importantly, I want you to know that your Board is continuously evaluating all of Yahoo!’s strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment, and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all our stockholders.

We have a unique combination of strengths

– Yahoo! is one of the most recognizable and admired brands in the world. We have over 500 million users (nearly 1 out of every 2 internet users worldwide). In the U.S., we are # 1 in many of the most used online services including personalized home pages, mail, news, music, shopping and travel. Because we have leadership positions in so many indispensable online services, users spend more time on Yahoo! sites than anywhere else online.

– Yahoo! is an attractive partner for marketers. Yahoo! is #1 in online display advertising, which represents 90% of the advertising inventory on the web, and we are also a leader in search marketing and a pioneer in the growing fields of mobile advertising and online video advertising. Through Yahoo!, advertisers can now connect with consumers on our owned sites as well as those of our growing network of partners including eBay, Comcast, AT&T, a consortium of over 600 newspapers, Forbes.com, Cars.com, WebMD and more.

– Yahoo! has the financial flexibility to execute our plans, thanks to our healthy cash balance, which exceeded $2 billion as of December 31, 2007, and our substantial operating cash flow, which we expect to grow double digits in 2009.

– Yahoo! has made important investments in our core computing infrastructure enabling us to dramatically increase the speed of our search engine updates even while handling vast and growing quantities of data.

– In addition, we have the added value of our substantial, unconsolidated investments in Japan and China. We have substantial positions in Yahoo! Japan, the leader in its market, and Alibaba, which is strongly positioned in China, a market with enormous growth potential.

These assets–our brand and its audience, our relationships with marketers, our financial strength, our technology, and our strategic investments–are the core of our value and our leadership position in the industry.

We have a huge market opportunity - and are uniquely positioned to capitalize on it

The global online advertising market is projected to grow from $45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. And we are moving quickly to take advantage of what we see as a unique window of time in the growth - and evolution - of this market to build market share and to create value for stockholders.

We are executing our strategy - and making headway

We have taken significant but disciplined steps to refocus our business on our objectives to become the starting point for the most consumers and the must buy for the most advertisers and enhance Yahoo!’s long-term performance.

Starting Point Objective: Our goal is to grow visits to key Yahoo! starting points and properties, where users enter the Internet, by 15% per year over the next several years. We are the most visited site in the U.S., and we continue to grow - we experienced double-digit growth in U.S. users in 2007 on our Yahoo.com home page.

In addition to traditional starting points on the PC - including our home pages, mail, My Yahoo! and search, we are particularly excited about our growth prospects in mobile, the biggest emerging starting point in the world. Globally, there are twice as many users of mobile devices as users of personal computers, and mobile advertising is projected to grow substantially in the coming years. We have an important competitive edge as the number one mobile destination in the U.S., and we are building a superior mobile experience for Yahoo! users globally so we can further capitalize on this opportunity.

Must Buy Objective: We are working to make online advertising easier and more effective for marketers, opening up new ways for them to connect with consumers. We’ve successfully completed the global roll-out of our search marketing system, Panama, which improved the search experience for our users, boosted returns for our advertisers, and increased revenue for Yahoo!. Last year, we bought Right Media, an exchange that enables buyers and sellers of online advertising to come together. Another 2007 acquisition, Blue Lithium, brings us best-in-class performance marketing capabilities, complementing Yahoo!’s existing offerings for advertisers. We also integrated our search advertising and display advertising sales forces, creating a one-stop shop for all of advertisers’ online marketing needs. All of these - Panama, Right Media, Blue Lithium, and our combined sales efforts - complement and enhance Yahoo!’s existing capabilities and will make it easier for advertisers and online publishers to buy and sell advertising online.

We are also creating a unique and valuable network of premium websites to serve our advertisers. We are making it easier for our advertisers to provide interesting and relevant offers to our users by combining advertising space on Yahoo!’s owned sites with that from a growing group of premium partners including eBay, Comcast, AT&T, a consortium of over 600 newspapers and many others.

As we reach more users both on our own websites and on the sites of our premium partners, and better monetize the ad space on Yahoo!’s owned and operated sites, we are striving to increase the percentage of total online advertising demand we touch from an estimated 15% in 2007 to 20% over the next several years.

These key strategies will be enhanced by our adoption of new, more open technology platforms that will encourage the development of new applications and the involvement of third-party developers - and help enrich the user experience.

We have accomplished a great deal in a very short time - and we are focused on building this momentum

Today, Yahoo! is a faster-moving, better-organized, more nimble company than it was just a few months ago. We have redeployed our resources to drive Yahoo!’s key strategic priorities - taking important steps to streamline our organization and close down or scale back businesses that don’t support these critical growth initiatives. The fact is that we are well on our way to transforming the experiences of Yahoo!’s users, advertisers, publishers and developers - an important shift that is at the heart of our plan to create stockholder value.

I want you to know that the Yahoo! Board of Directors and management team remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all our Yahoo! stockholders. This is a great company and we are moving quickly to make it even better.

Jerry Yang

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iVillage loses 30% of users over the year and lays off staff

2008-02-16T08:50:00.001-08:00

A source close to the company confirms the layoffs, totaling 13 employees in all (about 4% of the company’s staff). They have also let go of Editor-in-Chief Jennie Baird.

The layoffs are part of a process that began when the women’s portal was sold to NBC Universal, and was simply an elimination of overlapping roles in the company.

Looking at the Compete.com numbers, it appears that iVillage has had a significant drop in numbers over the past year, with uniques falling 35 percent.

iVillage was purchased by NBC Universal for $600 million in 2006.

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The Point $4.8 million series A financing

2008-02-15T20:45:00.001-08:00

After raising $2.5 million from angel investors last year, social activism and campaign-organizing site The Point has closed a ra from New Enterprise Associates.

The idea behind the site is to create campaigns around social action—it could be donating to a political candidate, boycotting a company’s products, or simply organizing a meetup—but nobody is required to actually do anything until the cause reaches a pre-determined tipping point, or critical mass, of supporters.

It is designed to focus activism or community involvement in campaigns that actually have a chance of succeeding. Although, there are some crazy causes, like this one to raise $10 billion to build a winter dome over Chicago.

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Has Bebo been purchased for $1 billion?

2008-02-15T08:40:00.001-08:00

Bebo has been in discussions via their investment bank, Allen & Co., with a number of potential buyers, and says that the company signed a deal on Monday to be acquired. The rumored price is $1 billion.

What’s clear is that Bebo, which is the second largest social network in the UK behind Facebook, either signed a deal, or is sending out false messages that they’ve been or are about to be acquired.

The buyer is unclear, although we are still betting on Google given that Bebo fits well with Orkut. Microsoft has been mentioned as another possible candidate, although they seem to have their hands full right now with Yahoo. Other potential buyers, including News Corp. and Yahoo.

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Google’s ad market share slipped in the Fourth Quarter

2008-02-14T20:35:00.001-08:00

A forthcoming report by IDC estimates that online advertising in the U.S. reached $25.5 billion in 2007, and $7.3 billion in the fourth quarter.

It also puts Google’s market share of Internet advertising in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2007 at 23.7 percent, down half a percentage point from the third quarter. That is Google’s first slip in market share in two years.

While Google’s overall U.S. sales (net of traffic acquisition costs that goes to pay partner sites) still went up 40 percent last quarter, it was not enough to keep its market share position compared to the overall industry.

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