Gawker
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comebacks
FuckedCompany Founder to Launch "Kaplan Index" Site
Since the Panic of '08 started nailing Silicon Valley startups, people have been begging Philip Kaplan to restart his FuckedCompany website. But Kaplan doesn't want a second dose of dotcom doom.
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By Owen ThomasComment by ShamWowVince: The fuckedcompany message board was one of the best ever. Nothing will ever come close to the fast paced depravity... 3 Responses | Other threads
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blind items
You're Fired, Er, No You're Not
Sequoia Capital, the backer of Apple, Yahoo, and Google, ordered its startups to slash their payrolls this fall. We hear one CEO fired people so enthusiastically he had to retract some of his pink slips. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Mafalda para Presidente: Well, regardless of how idiotic the gesture, it's still better than being fired. 2 Responses | Other threads
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geek love
FuckedCompany founder to marry outside tech tribe
In the self-involved world of Silicon Valley, finding a suitable mate outside the industry is inconceivable. Dating at work is par for the course. So congratulations are due to Philip Kaplan and his new fiancée for defying local convention.
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By Owen ThomasComment by MagBas: WHO CARES! THAT MORONS 15 MINS OF SEMI-FAME EXPIRED ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO. NO WONDER VALLEYWAG GOT GUTTED IF THIS IS... 7 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
Pud was so much better at this
Eight years ago Philip Kaplan, aka Pud, turned his anonymous rumor site FuckedCompany into a modest advertising business. Today, Kaplan is chief something-or-other at AdBrite, a Sequoia-backed startup whose CEO has dutifully slashed its payroll down to profitability. By contrast, sloppy typist "FS Crew" at FuckedStartups has already thrown in the towel. "We have incredible pipeline of rumors and tips," promises the For Sale post atop the site. "We have other projects and don’t have the time to focused (sic) our 100% attention on this project." What FS Crew really means is: "Fuck, this is hard. Someone please pay me to quit." Sorry, but on Web 2.0, it's the other way around: Your customers quit you, for free.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Shadowlayer: Web 2.0, nothing but a juxtaposition of glossy generic graphics and verdana font. Every friggin site looking like a clone... 2 Responses | Other threads
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layoffs
AdBrite cuts 40 of 100 employees
Cue the schadenfreude brigade: AdBrite, the online-advertising network funded by Sequoia Capital, has laid off 40 of 100 employees. Why will some view this with glee? Because, a decade ago, AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan ran a site called FuckedCompany, which chronicled layoffs and cutbacks in the bursting of the bubble. AdBrite actually grew out of Kaplan's ad-sales efforts on the site. Two vice presidents are leaving, including Paul Levine, the former Yahoo executive AdBrite hired to run marketing last year. Anyone want to bet Levine will land at Zvents, a startup whose board of directors he recently joined?
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By Owen ThomasComment by ForeverIdeating: Iggy Fanlo is a dark and evil man and pud is really just a stooge. Is anyone really surprised?... 2 Responses | Other threads
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breakdowns
AdBrite serving zero ads, according to AdBrite
We knew things were looking grim in the fatally overcrowded online ad-network space. But this is ridiculous. AdBrite's homepage currently states that the network, favored by smaller publishers, is serving "0 impressions a day on 0 sites." A glitch in its stats mechanism, surely — but also a harbinger of the shakeout to come. We hear persistent rumors of high turnover in the site's sales department.
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By Owen ThomasComment by apunter: "It is with great pleasure that I am announcing the promotion of Dionne McCray to Director of Engineering Services. ... 1 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
AdBrite fires top sales guy, considers cutting lunches
FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan's ad network, AdBrite, just fired its VP of Sales Jim Benton. In mid-August, a tipster told us it would happen. Now the same source tells us "free lunches are next on the chop." Engineering VP Mike Reaves and HR chief Melissa Vernon left the company earlier this year. Why's AdBrite in so much trouble? Because there are too many ad networks — about 300 — and not enough business to go around. More »
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Comment by nobuggin: The vision dims and all that remains are memories. They take me back - back to the place where the... 1 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Execs flee AdBrite
AdBrite, the online-ad network best known for its quirky founder, FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan, is hiring an in-house lawyer. This is odd only in that last we heard, the online ad network already had one. Current general counsel Rebecca Eisenberg is just one of several vice presidents leaving the company, according to a tipster. Engineering VP Mike Reaves left in February, a month after HR chief Melissa Vernon. We'd also heard that cofounder Gidon Wise is out the door. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by istherelifeonmars: Not so long ago ..... AdBrite rocks with Live Nation by Jim Benton May 9, 2008 at 2:21 pm Today the AdBrite team is... more » | Other threads
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exits
Is AdBrite coming apart?
A classic move by a startup hoping to recruit an executive is to offer him a board seat. So what to make of Zvents naming AdBrite executive Paul Levine to its board? Levine joined AdBrite, a San Francisco-based ad network, less than a year ago from Yahoo, where he ran that company's Yahoo Local properties. Since then, I've heard talk of high-level fights at AdBrite — the CEO and the head of sales yelling at each other behind closed doors, and constant turnover in the sales department. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by dcbdcb: "pud" is the Internet moniker of AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan. You can read more about him here: www.pud.com more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
JuicyCampus gets subpoena, loses advertisers
New Jersey attorney general Anne Milgram served gossip site JuicyCampus and its founder Matt Ivester with a subpoena today. "There's an unbelievable amount of offensive material posted [on the site] and absolutely no enforcement," Milgram told the AP. Worse for JuicyCampus, Milgram served its ad network, Adbrite, too. The contract is already in the shredder. -
online advertising
AdBrite's big numbers gets smaller and smaller
From the beginning, Philip Kaplan has touted AdBrite's ad stats on the ad network's homepage. Today, it proclaims "470 million impressions a day on 54,328 sites." Which sounds impressive enough. Until one consults the Internet Archive and sees that more than two years ago, AdBrite was "serving 321,628,843 daily pageviews on 8,660 sites. AdBrite's pageviews have grown by less than 50 percent, while its customer base has expanded sevenfold. More customers, more costs; even on the Internet, catering to small fry gets expensive. If ad networks are a scale business, AdBrite has been growing the wrong number.
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By Owen ThomasComment by sggrf: add them to the deadpool. their M&A process failed and the coming recession will kill their momemtum and drive their... more » | Other threads
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rock star
Philip Kaplan releases "greatest and best song in the world"
Why did FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan record a profane song, "Fuck," in August under the name "Farty McPoopants"? The pseudonym is easy enough to explain: His current venture is AdBrite, an online-advertising network. And selling ads is a business that's all about keeping up appearances. Given his past, you'd think Kaplan wouldn't be so sensitive. But even Kaplan knew he couldn't blow his cool. His company, an online-advertising network, was in the midst of a tense negotiation with porn-ads partner AVN, and trying to raise a new round of financing. More » -
online advertising
AdBrite makes clean break with porn-ad partner
How eager is AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan to get into the porn-ads business? So eager that he's counting the seconds. On AVNAds.com, the relaunch site for AdBrite's partnership with porn-trade publisher AVN, there's a splash page announcing the move to Black Label Ads, a new website wholly owned and operated by AdBrite, in less than two days. We hear that making a clean break with AVN — without the acrimony of past attempts to split up — was a requirement before Sequoia Capital and other investors put in their latest investment, a $23 million financing round for the online ad network. Not that investors have entirely quelled their concerns about AdBrite being in the porn business. The new site, Black Label Ads, attempts to disguise the AdBrite connection — except in its legal agreements.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Trackback: Some links to kick off your Friday: * Facebook raises more venture cash, according to Kara Swisher. This time it’s... more » | Other threads
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adbrite
AdBrite, the San Francisco-based online ad network, raised $23 million as disclosed in a regulatory filing found by PE Hub. Sequoia Capital, previously a backer, continued to invest in this round, along Artis Capital Management, a hedge fund which is relatively cozy with the Sand Hill Road giant. [PE Hub] -
silicon valley tool
AdBrite CEO wants employees to work 10 hours a day
Philip Kaplan once ran the website InternalMemos.com, a compendium of leaked company missives. Now Valleywag has obtained one from AdBrite, the online-ad network Kaplan founded. AdBrite is now run by CEO Iggy Fanlo, who earns our Silicon Valley Tool award for railing at his employees about their work hours: "I continue to see too few folks here at 9 AM; and too few folks here at 6 PM." Let's leave aside the issue of whether Fanlo is violating California overtime laws; long hours are part of the startup culture. We just want to know if Fanlo has considered that employees might be avoiding the office in order to minimize contact with the company's erratic founder. The full memo, as Kaplan himself would have run it: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Groovy Gnome: Is anyone tracking his hours to check if he's chained to his desk and setting a good example? He should... more » | Other threads
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feuds
AVN, AdBrite part ways over porn
AVN, the porn-industry trade publisher, has at last split with longtime partner AdBrite, which ran an AVN-branded online ad network for adult websites. A new network, run solely by AVN, will launch on December 1. We first noticed the relationship was on the rocks when AVN yanked the AdBrite-run AVNads.com website offline and threw up a hastily built, barely functional site of its own back in August. AdBrite then briefed porn publishers about plans for its own porn-ad network, BlackLabelAds, which was supposed to launch in September, but never did. The two partners patched things up, restoring AdBrite's site. One small problem for AVN, though. More » -
facebook
Ad networks evolve from Facebook's primordial ooze
Ignoring the perfectly good solution we cooked up in Valleywag Labs, AdBrite and Ad Chap went to market with products for Facebook applications yesterday. AdBrite cofounder Philip Kaplan told CNET that the company already powers the ads on popular apps such as iLike and Zombies. The program is supposed to help tailor those ads better for the social environment. Google is working to do the same thing for developers using AdSense on their apps. Ad Chap's service, itself a Facebook application, is entirely new. Why it's unlikely to work? Ad Chap charges advertisers per click, but doesn't offer any targeting. For right now, there's a proliferation of ad networks on Facebook, but we suspect Darwin will soon cull the herd.
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Comment by pepelicious: Ad Age had a pretty good article on FB advertising -and the potential pitfalls. [adage.com] One good example: FB plans on basing... more » | Other threads
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party report
A year after Wired buyout, Reddit founders drink heavily
THE GALLERY LOUNGE, SOMA — Joel Sacks of AdBrite wants to have a word with me. No, nothing to do with his company's adventures in serving up porn ads; he's still pissed off about the time we caught him on video soaking himself with a pint of beer. This time, he's dry. But he's just lucky — this San Francisco bar is packed wall to wall, thanks to social-news site Reddit's open invitation for anyone to come and spill a free beer on their neighbor. The largesse comes from Reddit's owner, Conde Nast, the publisher of Wired, which bought the site a year ago. I got to meet Reddit's founders, most of whom are still, contrary to rumor, at the company. But one was, notably, missing in action: Aaron Swartz, the obstreperous Reddit cofounder who quit shortly after Conde Nast bought the site. More on the founders' status after the jump. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by AaronSw: Sadly, I was demoing my current project at a PR event across town the same night, so appearing would have... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
AdBrite, AVN kiss and make up over porn
Philip Kaplan seems to have patched things up with AVN, the porn-industry trade publisher with which his company, AdBrite, runs an online ad network for adult websites. Earlier this month, AVN had abruptly yanked the AdBrite-run version of AVNAds.com offline and replaced it with its own hastily-built site for selling ads. In response, insiders said, Kaplan was readying to launch BlackLabelAds.com, AdBrite's own porn-ad network. Now, however, the AdBrite-run version of the network is back online. The spat however, came with a heavy financial price. More » -
followup
AdBrite's new porn-ad network to launch next month?
AdBrite is rebounding fast from the loss of its porn-ads partnership with AVN, the prominent publisher of news and information about the adult-film industry. While AVN appears to have taken back control of AVNAds.com, a website previously operated by AdBrite to market a network of independent porn sites to advertisers and publishers, AdBrite is moving ahead with plans for its own network, BlackLabelAds.com. According to publishers briefed by AdBrite, the new network, although it currently points to AVNAds.com, is scheduled to launch on September 1. -
online advertising
Philip Kaplan's AdBrite loses porn-ad network
When you talk about "the Valley" in tech, it's taken for granted that you mean Silicon Valley. But in the world of porn, "the Valley" is the San Fernando Valley, where the adult-film industry has established itself. Now, as porn goes online, there's a long, drawn-out war for dominance fought by the two valleys. And a tremendous battle has just been lost — by AdBrite, the online-advertising network based in San Francisco. AdBrite, Valleywag has learned, has lost the partner that gave it an entrée into the business of selling porn ads. More » -
rumormonger
Philip Kaplan undresses for AdBrite's auditors
Why are green-eyeshades types calling AdBrite's customers and asking probing questions about the online-advertising network? The company founded by Philip Kaplan of FuckedCompany fame — pictured here with some friends — might be giving accountants an eyeful for a host of reasons. Let's rule out an IPO: The Sequoia Capital-backed startup, with a rumored $40 million in gross revenues, is still too small to go public. That leaves an acquisition as the most likely scenario. Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft have all bought ad marketplaces recently. But for Barry Diller's IAC, which also owns second-tier search engine Ask.com, AdBrite would be a modest purchase. One other possibility: AdBrite could be making a buy of its own to get more heft. Anyone heard more?
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By Owen ThomasComment by fakesteve: Tastless! [fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com] more » | Other threads
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search
DoubleClick tries to poach AdBrite's customers
It's a sneaky strategy used by savvy Internet marketers everywhere: Buy your competitor's name as a keyword, and serve up pay-per-click ads to poach customers from the search results. But for DoubleClick, the online-ad network that Google's trying to buy, it seems a bit foolish to use Google keyword ads to go after AdBrite, the San Francisco-based competitor. For one thing, it's apparently a violation of Google's own rules about trademarks. And on top of that, it comes across as an admission of weakness — that customers are more likely to be googling "AdBrite" than they are "DoubleClick."
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By Owen ThomasComment by Bob: AdBrite doesn't mind the publicity. The founder of AdBrite found his initial fame and fortune with a website named F**kedCompany.com,... more » | Other threads
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confirmed
Yahoo's Paul Levine goes to AdBrite
I've confirmed yesterday's rumor: Paul Levine is, in fact, leaving Yahoo to join AdBrite. Expect the former general manager of Yahoo Local to boost the online-ad network's efforts in geotargeted advertising, the hot market for placing ads based on a user's physical location. (Photo by James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media)
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By Owen ThomasComment by Figaro: Rats are fleeing Yahoo. Time to buy some puts... more » | Other threads
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hires
AdBrite to snag a Yahoo exec?
Paul Levine, we hear, is leaving as general manager of Yahoo Local. His destination? Possibly joining AdBrite, the San Francisco-based online ad network founded by Philip "Pud" Kaplan, who's still better known for starting FuckedCompany. Levine's well-known in the industry as an expert on geotargeting, or locally targeted advertising. If Levine is, in fact, going to AdBrite, does that mean the startup plans to make a move on the market for targeting consumers by locale? Or is Levine just looking for directions out of Yahoo? (Photo by James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media)
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By Owen ThomasComment by 10bagger: Being another ex-Y!, I have to say that Devilicious is right on the money here. It is an accurate... more » | Other threads
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breakdowns
365 Main's credibility outage
After killing most of the websites you care about on Tuesday, 365 Main, the troubled datacenter in downtown San Francisco, is back to business. The business of making excuses, that is. Cynthia Harris, the same flack who issued an immaculately timed press release Tuesday morning crowing about how RedEnvelope moved all of its Web operations to 365 Main, only to have them taken down by the outage, is going around telling everyone who will listen that nothing untoward happened. To which any user of Craigslist, Technorati, Six Apart's LiveJournal and TypePad, and AdBrite might respond, rrrrright. Data Center Knowledge has a detailed report. Here's what else I've learned — and why 365 Main's performance remains highly suspicious. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by happypete: Sadly, the stories we are sold about the reliability of uninterruptible power make it sound horribly unlikely that a grid... more » | Other threads
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breakdowns
365 Main outage causes aftershocks in Web world
We've now learned more about the outage at 365 Main's San Francisco datacenter that knocked some of the Web's most popular sites offline. The latest theory:An employee, reportedly drunk, hit the emergency-power-off switch in 365 Main's Colo 4 room.(Update: I no longer know whether to trust the source who sent in the tip about a drunk employee.) Other sites located in other rooms were unaffected. This isn't the first time 365 Main has suffered an EPO-induced outage; a major one still remembered by customers occurred back in April 2005, and another took place last year. After the jump, a gallery of the carnage caused, and a roundup of reactions. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Owen Thomas: @leahculver: Noted, and thanks for the clarification on your stance. It helps to think like a user and not a... more » | Other threads
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pud
Breakin' Pud: Mr. Fucked Company dances in a White Castle
An AdBrite employee who "quit after a few weeks due to so many issues, I can not even write them all" points us to this classic video of Philip Kaplan (yes, yes, the one from AdBrite and Fucked Company) breakdancing. Pretty fly for a white guy. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by 2pointuhoh: That is SWEET! Larry and Sergey could NEVER pull off moves like that. more » | Other threads
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pud
Pud fucks some company: Naked webcam photo fest
Oh, those halcyon years of the Internet! When men were real men, women were real women, and for $5.95 an hour they'd prove it to you! It wasn't so long ago, kids, that Philip "Pud" Kaplan of Fucked Company (yeah, the failed AdBrite CEO) was makin' home webcam videos — sexy threesome videos. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by HuGA_RusH: i waana hott pussy chattin on my cam ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh more » | Other threads
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pud
The Puddy doth protest too much
For those of you who just tuned in, Philip "Pud" Kaplan of anti-evil-dot-com-blog Fucked Company fame gave up his job as AdBrite CEO. But did he ever commit the evils for which he trashed so many dot-coms in the 90s? From the last line of CNET's article: More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by banane: Can we also remember Pud from some pretty low budget and lame porn sites? I mean I always loved me... more » | Other threads
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porn
AdBrite runs on fucking companies
AdBrite, the startup that just replaced CEO and Fucked Company founder Philip Kaplan, is being attacked for profiting from porn ads. Indeed, all pages on adult-oriented ad sales site AVNAds have an AdBrite copyright notice at the bottom. But an anti-AdBrite site, the anonymously registered Really Fucked Company.com, stretches that connection to the limit: More » -
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By Nick DouglasComment by PBH: Fucked Company founder becomes Fucked. Infinite loop commences. more » | Other threads
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pud
Remainders: Fucked CEO
- In a fit of business brilliance, Microsoft launched a paid PC care service, thus profiting from the shittiness of its own products. [Australian IT]
- Who's the "limited audience" for Google's new spreadsheet program? I hope it's John Hodgman. [Associated Press]
- New York Post gossip Lloyd Grove stalks Oracle CEO Larry Ellison by boat. His yacht, the Rising Sun, was last seen in Nice. [NY Daily News]
- Mr. Fucked Company is...fucked. Former dot-com schadenfreuder Philip Kaplan says his exit as Adbrite CEO was a mutual agreement. [CNET]
- Today in "A Million Tiny Google Screw-ups": journalist Jon Udell gets the runaround from the anal-retentive Google PR team. [InfoWorld]
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By Nick DouglasComment by George: "limited audience" for Google spreadsheet program = morons who have inexplicably downloaded and installed Google Toolbar, Google Pack, Google Talk,... more » | Other threads
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pud
Comments of the week: Pud trashes his clippings
Best comment of the week award (winner gets half the Webvan profits) goes to sarahka: More »
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