Gawker
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preferences
Barry Diller Will Cater to Very Specific Sexual Tastes
After pawning off his highbrow cultural shopping newsletter on the New York Observer, what does Barry Diller buy? Sites for people with fetishes for the "Big and Beautiful," Black Baby Boomers and Italians. Diller, after all, knows from picky. (Pic)
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By Ryan TateComment by saintjim: That is one specific fetish. Not just black, but a black baby boomer. "I just can't get off until you... 1 Responses | Other threads
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deals
Who Wants to Work for Nikki Finke?
Nikke Finke has sold her web site, Deadline Hollywood Daily, to Jay Penske's Mail.com, and will be hiring a reporter in New York to expand the site's coverage. So get those résumés ready, kids. More »
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By John CookComment by RonMwangaguhunga: Nikki Finke is a bit of a mystery (black-and-white photo, notwithstanding). For some reason that I cannot divine, she deletes... 2 Responses | Other threads
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jared kushner
Typo, Filler Ad, Mainstream Movie Herald New York Observer's Second Very Short List
How is shopping newsletter Very Short List doing on the second day under the New York Observer's ownership? Poorly enough to motivate mogul wannabe Jared Kushner to hire some dedicated staff, perhaps. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by ninety_nine: Maybe they thought DO was a new section in the 'revamped' Observer. Fun fact that you might have been able... 1 Responses | Other threads
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deals
'The Observer's Very Short List' Proudly Brought to You by the New York Observer
The first edition of email newsletter Very Short List is out for the first time under the control of New York Observer publisher Jared Kushner. What advertiser do you think he lined up? More »
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By Ryan TateComment by The Dominant Glee Club: High-brown? What is going with Gawker lately? 6 Responses | Other threads
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deals
Is There a Coporate Suicide Plot Behind AOL Spinoff?
The surrender of AOL was a humiliating enough denouement for Time Warner, the old-line media conglomerate once imagined invincible. But there's talk it could get worse. What if Time Warner ceased to exist as an independent concern? More »
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By Ryan TateComment by ModestProposal: This is totally wrong. The Networks division of Time Warner, composed of Turner and HBO, has high single digit... more » | Other threads
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spinoffs
The AOL-Time Warner Saga Bookends One Sorry Decade
The 21st century dawned with news that two media megaliths, AOL and Time Warner, were to merge. Critics howled that the vast tentacles of a combined AOL-TW would subsume us all. Today, Time Warner confirmed it's spinning off AOL, ending a business saga that defined whatever you're calling the 2000s. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by persimmon: I'm hoping this means we'll never hear the word "synergy" uttered again. 5 Responses | Other threads
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deals
Why Facebook Insiders Should Cheer New Valuation
Facebook accepted a rumored funding round, taking $200 million from a Russian investment group. The deal values the company at $10 billion, a third less than what the company was supposedly worth a year and a half ago. But it could have been far worse. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Smitros: Any idea what the terms and conditions are? The though of getting a Superpoke from a Russian investment group is a... 1 Responses | Other threads
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san francisco chronicle
Who Would Fund America's Largest Nonprofit Newspaper?
San Francisco Chronicle journalists are trying to talk investors into buying the foundering daily newspaper and restructuring it as a nonprofit, writes the SF Appeal. Who are the ink-stained wretches courting? More »
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By Ryan TateComment by dell123: The Chron is a piece of crap; I mean, its book editor Weigand (white boy and rice queen who's... 3 Responses | Other threads
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deals
Digg's Kevin Rose interviews former Digg suitor Al Gore
It only takes hearing so many jokes about Al Gore inventing Twitter to figure out that the former vice president has signed up for the microblogging service. Wisely, he's not really participating in the site, just using it to market his websites and announce his interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose, which airs tonight on Current, the Gore-backed cable channel. Current and Digg have been teaming up for a series of election-related events, including a party on election night. But Rose and Gore's acquaintance goes back almost two years. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by giania: Well either he's multi-account spamming or he's already got immitators because I was recently friended by [twitter.com] who is pimping... more » | Other threads
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search
The Yahoo-Google deal? Let's just assume that's not happening
Yahoo's deal to outsource some of its search advertising to Google continues to face scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Google CEO Eric Schmidt had said he'd carry out the deal whether or not regulators had finished their review. Regulators called his bluff, and America's CTO has now lost face, not to mention credibility. Why not just bow out and move on? That seems easier.
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By Owen ThomasComment by macbeach: I was stunned to actually hear and ad for Yahoo on a local niche radio station yesterday. Seems like... 1 Responses | Other threads
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acquisitions
Yahoo, AOL still dating awkwardly
“This is not just unloading AOL for us,” a source close to Time Warner told Kara Swisher. “It is also an important strategic move for our future to get this right.” I love the way anonymous sources lie so convincingly. The truth, Swisher blogs, is both simpler and more boring: Yahoo and AOL don't really like each other. Neither company holds much attraction for the other. Important strategic move means an arranged marriage, forced on both sides by dwindling market value. Which reminds me: We should plot the number of Google engineers whose pending marriages have been "temporarily rescheduled for 2009."
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By Paul BoutinComment by Morphy: AOL and Yahoo are like two people buried up to their necks covered in honey next to an ant hill.... more » | Other threads
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deals
Toshiba in $1 billion manufacturing deal with SanDisk
Japanese electronics conglomerate Toshiba has bought a portion of its flash-memory joint venture with SanDisk back from its partner, in a deal worth $1 billion. Some analysts think this makes SanDisk a more attractive buyout candidate for Samsung, which has twice offered $5.85 billion for the Silicon valley company. [WSJ] -
deals
Newspaper savior Adrian Holovaty's little Google hitch
We would never imply that Adrian Holovaty, the supremely talented journalist-programmer who's now the CEO of local-news startup EveryBlock, is being cagey or dishonest about his talks with Google, which continued as recently as last weekend. Our theory: He's just shy and bashful, and doesn't like talking about what a hot commodity he is! Sources close to Google confirm that they are very interested in bringing Holovaty, the creator of a set of programming tools called Django, into the Googleplex. There are not one but two hitches, though. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by SanjanaDenby: You can see the details of his grant here- http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/grant_detail.dot?id=208022 (it was for 2 years, not one) Note that when the... more » | Other threads
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deals
Facebook adds subpar search from Microsoft
Forget Facebook's controversial redesign. Users of the social network have something new to complain about: third-rate Web search, provided by Microsoft. The two moves are connected; when ad-hating CEO Mark Zuckerberg forced through the revamp of Facebook's profile pages, he bumped Microsoft-sold banners off of them. To make Microsoft whole, Facebook agreed to a search-advertising deal. You know it must burn Facebook's proud engineers — those who haven't left — to partner with an organization that has done nothing but lose market share for years.
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By Owen ThomasComment by WagCurious: It's not that bad. At least your site can actually show up in their index after a couple months. With... 3 Responses | Other threads
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flickr
Is Getty Images Buying Flickr?
We heard a wild rumor that Getty Images agreed to buy photo-sharing website Flickr from Yahoo. At first blush the gossip sounds crazy. Widely-used Flickr is a crown Web 2.0 jewel for Yahoo, which dissolved its own photo site after acquiring the company, and Getty can already license Flickr photos through a partnership announced in July. But upon further reflection there's a logic to the alleged deal. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Heather Champ: As previously announced, we have a partnership with them for a collection of Flickr photos that will launch on Getty... 3 Responses | Other threads
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cbs
Can CNET Possibly Become Cool?
CBS bought CNET, the tech-focused online conglomerate, for $1.8 billion earlier this year. Which prompted the general reaction "Really, that much?" And also, "Isn't this two fundamentally boring brands combining to form a larger, still boring brand?" Well one brave man says no, it's much more promising than that: CBS CEO Les Moonves, who engineered the deal! But is he right? It's hard to see why he would be: More »
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Comment by RonMwangaguhunga: CBS's digital strategy hasn't really been "exciting" -- I know, I know, bear with me -- since Larry Kramer left.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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deals
Gannett lays off 1,000, spends $135 million on CareerBuilder
Gannett, the publisher of USA Today, said earlier this month it plans to cut 1,000 newspaper jobs. Probably not because of all those new potential customers, Gannett today announced its acquired another 10 percent of online jobs site CareerBuilder from Tribune for $135 million, raising its stake to a controlling interest of 50.8 percent. Tribune, which used to be an equal partner with Gannett, now owns 30.8 percent of CareerBuilder. McClatchy, which is also a member of Yahoo's HotJobs newspaper consortium, owns 14.4 percent. Microsoft owns 4 percent. -
geek love
SpeedDate takes $6 million to get geeks laid
For its work in turning millions of singles into camgirls and camboys for the sake of a hookup, dating site SpeedDate took in a $6M series B funding round from Menlo Ventures today. You remember, the folks who got poor Eric Eldon from VentureBeat three minutes in video heaven with deathcaster Sarah Austin? With SpeedDate claiming to setup 100,000 dates per day, you're less likely to run into the blogger early adopters lured in to promote the business as you were in its early days. And if dating a blogger is a dealbreaker for you, then you might want to ask yourself: Why are you looking for dates on the Internet again?
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Comment by QADude: OMFG... Just pathetic. Desperate geeks looking to get laid. I'll play doctor with Natali, though. I loved that guy talking with... 3 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Microsoft aims to dump Avenue A/Razorfish on WPP
After Google bought ad-serving firm DoubleClick in March 2007, Microsoft rushed onto the market in May 2007 and paid — most say overpaid — $5.9 billion for aQuantive and its three businesses: Atlas, DrivePM and digital agency Avenue A/Razorfish. Microsoft never wanted Avenue A, which investment bankers calculate to be worth about $800 million, buying it only because it came with the aQuantive package. Now AdWeek reports that Microsoft ha found a way to dump Avenue A/Razorfish on media-holding company WPP: More »
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Comment by Hello_Newman: Yes Sparky, they should have negotiated it out of the deal from the start. I can't even believe that a... more » | Other threads
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deals
DailyCandy deal sweet for Pittman, bitter for employees
Selling DailyCandy to Comcast for $125 million, Bob Pittman earned a 36x return on his 2003 $3.5 million acquisition of the company. Pretty sweet. But investors who bought into the company during its last funding round in 2006, and any employees who joined the the email newsletter for women since then, didn't do nearly so well. As VentureBeat reminds us, that round set DailyCandy's value as high as $140 million. Any shareholders who bought in then are going to lose money on the deal, unless they had a liquidation preference which allowed them to get their money back. That money, in turn, would have come out of the hide of employees, whose common shares would be diluted by shares issued to make the investors whole. So while DailyCandy's sale will renew respect for the one-time, one-eyed AOL boss Bob Pittman's dealmaking abilities — we heard Comcast wanted to pay just $75 million — working for him seems to be a suckers' bet. -
deals
Luxury sex toy maker JimmyJane gets $6.3 million from Valley VCs to get you off
Among the newest investors in JimmyJane, designers of some of the world's most expensive and silent vibrators, who just closed their Series D? A fund managed by venture capitalist Tim Draper, most known to readers for his love of rousing songs about startups. Rather than make him a Songs To Get Off With 24K Gold Vibrators By mixtape, we offer the following inspirational lyric for you to run your batteries off with: "JimmyJane says, I need some VC dough / I'm gonna come tomorrow ..."
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Comment by dwbl: For the record, VW sexplorer Grant, Chroma is made of aluminum. Steel is reserved for the premium vibes Gold,... more » | Other threads
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facebook
Live Search deal is Facebook's price for dropping Microsoft ads
Microsoft is inking a deal to run its search results and keyword-linked ads on Facebook, CNBC reports. Make no mistake: Facebook employees share every bit as much disdain for Microsoft's lame Web efforts as the rest of Silicon Valley, despite the company's $240 million investment. So this news is unwelcome, and painful. But inevitable. What caused it? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by rafer: Owen, Put down the bong and go back to work. The MS display deal gave MS rights to IAB standard ads,... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
NBC's iVillage mommying BlogHer with $5 million
BlogHer, the world's largest network of mommybloggers and women who are not mommies, has a new deal with NBC Universal: $5 million from their Peacock Equity fund, and a partnership with iVillage, the leading pastel content provider for ladies. More baby stuff and diet ads will follow at BlogHer, yes, but "we've been able to syndicate ads that make our bloggers happy," says BlogHer cofounder, Lisa Stone. Ads are just the acrylic tip of it. More » -
deals
Microsoft looking for a third to get in on the Yahoo action
Microsoft's latest plan: acquire Yahoo's search business and convince either Time Warner or News Corp to snatch up the rest. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo board chairman Roy Bostock had a meeting scheduled Monday to discuss the plans, but Ballmer called it off at the last minute, reports the Wall Street Journal. Yahoo sources took the cancellation to mean Ballmer couldn't persuade News Corp's chairman Rupert Murdoch or Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to do the deal. They're probably right about Bewkes. Word has it he's hoping Yahoo will buy Time Warner's AOL, not the other way around. As for Murdoch, he's been willing to hand over MySpace for Yahoo stock since at least last year, but perhaps like us, he's wondering why anyone would make a move for Yahoo shares right now, when they don't seem to be going anywhere but down. (Photo by xamad) -
deals
Microsoft's insulting offer for Yahoo search
Microsoft offered $1 billion to take Yahoo's search business off its hands, along with a buyback and other details. Henry Blodget has a detailed financial analysis of why Yahoo walked. But why spend all that effort? Rumor had had Microsoft offering $21 billion for Yahoo's search business a few weeks ago; it had already offered to pay $44.6 billion for the whole company. The $1 billion figure was a nice, round deliberate insult — a way for Microsoft executives, so desperate to get their hands on Yahoo's search business a few months ago, to say that they thought it was virtually worthless now. Microsoft's offensive intent was transparent; Yahoo walked, and took Google's less-complicated, less troubling deal instead. Is further analysis needed?
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By Owen ThomasComment by dodgit: Yahoo Japan is a separate company from Yahoo (worldwide-except-for-Japan). Yahoo does own a significant stake of the company, but not... more » | Other threads
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deals
Yahoo, Google confirm search-ads deal
Yahoo has admitted defeat, under the guise of openness. The company will start letting Google sell ads on Yahoo search results, generating as much as $800 million a year for Yahoo; the increase comes from Google's superior efficiency at matching ads to search queries and milking money from advertisers. Intriguingly, the reason Yahoo gave for ending talks with Microsoft was that Web search was integral to its business. Search may be, but not the ads that run alongside search? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by dodgit: $800 million a year in pure profit (pare down the search ad team to the top engineers, and that could... more » | Other threads
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deals
HP-EDS merger to reunite Marc Andreessen's LoudCloud
Hewlett-Packard has software to automate datacenters; EDS has datacenters which need automating. That's part of the logic behind HP's $13.9 billion acquisition of the tech-services business. The deal proves that Marc Andreessen is prescient. After he sold Netscape to AOL, Andreessen launched LoudCloud, a website-hosting business powered by advanced software. In the wake of the bust, Andreessen sold the hosting part of the business to EDS, and relaunched the company as Opsware, the name of its automation software. HP bought Opsware last year. While reuniting LoudCloud's constituent parts isn't the reason why Mark Hurd is doing the deal, he is proving that Andreessen's early vision of combining software and services was on the money. Timing is everything.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Dweezil: EDS is despised by military personnel universally, and they always fail in regards to the government contracts they constantly get.... more » | Other threads
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deals
Google moves to quash Wall Street's hopes for Microsoft-Yahoo deal — and with it, Yahoo's stock price
Yahoo shares are hovering around $25 because investors hope major Yahoo shareholders can still force a deal with Microsoft at $33 per share or more. But at Google's annual shareholder meeting yesterday, cofounder Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt tried their best to destroy those hopes, amping up talk of a deal that would outsource Yahoo's search advertising to Google and make Yahoo unattractive to Microsoft. Brin said the deal is designed to keep Microsoft at bay. "[Yahoo was] under a hostile attack and we wanted to make sure they had as many options as possible," Brin said. More »
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Comment by jamar0303: I'm not sticking with Yahoo if they join Microsoft. Yahoo is fine as it is; Microsoft will only crap over... more » | Other threads
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deals
Chernin and Murdoch protest talks with Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL too much
How badly does News Corp. want to move MySpace out the door? During yesterday's quarterly earnings call with analysts, News Corp. president and COO Pete Chernin and chairman Rupert Murdoch said they haven't discussed a merging properties with Microsoft, AOL or Yahoo in quite some time. Like maybe 14 days. Chernin: "I have not had a conversation with Microsoft or AOL in a couple of weeks." Rupert Murdoch "Nor have I." Silicon Alley Insider doesn't believe the disclaimers, reminding us that at the end of the last quarter, Murdoch denied interest in Yahoo even as he'd ordered a team to make the deal happen. -
xobni
Email startup tries to hurry Microsoft-Yahoo merger
Former Yahoo executive Jeff Bonforte, now CEO of Xobni, has come up with possibly the most cynical yet useful product ever launched by a startup. Xobni, whose software tracks and analyzes email usage in Outlook, is rumored to be in acquisition talks with Microsoft. Microsoft is, to its dismay, not in acquisition talks with Yahoo. But Xobni's latest product, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld reports, bridges Microsoft Outlook, desktop email software widely used in corporations, with Yahoo's Web-based email. "That's the kind of demo that gets deals done," Schonfeld observes. Indeed, it may make Microsoft wonder whether they need to buy Yahoo at all.
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By Owen ThomasComment by matto: Names like "Jeff Bonafarte" are why I began my career as a blog commenter. more » | Other threads
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deals
Marc Andreessen's hidden hostility to takeovers
Ning founder Marc Andreessen is already on the record about Microsoft's proposed takeover of Yahoo: He thinks it will likely go through, and turn out to be a good deal. It's a remarkably sanguine take for someone who saw Netscape bought and destroyed by AOL. In a thorough analysis for which he dragooned two corporate lawyers, Andreessen elaborates: Yahoo has few defenses, aside from a poison pill, and Microsoft will likely succeed. For all its thoroughness, the analysis is less interesting for what it says about Microsoft-Yahoo than for what it says about Andreessen. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by BobDope: He shoulda been a swimmer, son gotta have no drag w/ that head. more » | Other threads
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deals
Yahoo hopes Google will help it locate missing $1 billion
The industry has long known that Google's search ads are more profitable than Yahoo's. Yahoo put a team of rocket scientists on the problem, only to discover that it's actually harder than rocket science. Now, in extremis, Yahoo is hoping to evade Microsoft by replacing its own ads with Google's. A test has proved successful; analysts say Yahoo could boost its cash flow by $1 billion a year. Now, the problem becomes how to sneak a Yahoo-Google ad deal past antitrust regulators. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by xhooter: fwiw - my understanding is that about 10-15% of searches generate revenue. The bigger point is that if Yahoo can double... more » | Other threads
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deals
Yahoo and Google in talks over search ads
Yahoo and Google are in "advanced discussions" over search advertising. The talks, part of Yahoo's search to find an alternative to Microsoft's takeover bid, revolve around a short-term test that would embed Google ads around a "limited percentage" of Yahoo's search results. If it worked out well, a "broader search-ad outsourcing arrangement" could be made.
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Comment by WagCurious: First they had Google provide the search, now they want Google to do the ads. What is the new Yahoo... more » | Other threads
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deals
Is Slide worth half a billion? Only if Facebook buys them
In January a pair of money managers, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, bought 9.1 percent of Slide for $50 million. Fortune asks, "Are these widgets worth half a billion?" The mag doesn't come up with anything more than "maybe," but I'm willing to go a little further. Slide worth $550 million? No, despite its huge traffic numbers. While it's true that advertisers are desperate to reach the 18-24 market, I hardly think SuperPoke is what they had in mind. More » -
found in translation
Natali Del Conte even hotter when she speaks Spanish
Really, we didn't think it was possible, but CNET editor Natali Del Conte is even more adorable en español. The bilingual TV personality is anchoring a deal between CNET and Univision, the Hispanic TV channel. "My Spanish-speaking family is WAY more impressed with this than anything else I've ever done," Del Conte told me. "Univision is all they've got so it's a big deal. My mom called me all weepy after she saw it and went, 'Oh my baby! She's speaking Spanish on TV!' My sister said, 'You would think we don't have English-speaking parents!' :)" 32 million U.S. residents speak Spanish at home. Somehow, I don't think they're tuning in to Michael Arrington for the latest on technology.
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By Owen ThomasComment by ZukeZuke: Wow, VW wasn't kidding! Very perky! more » | Other threads
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deals
TheStreet.com's having trouble negotiating with Jim Cramer?
Jim Cramer, the Wall Street blowhard, is having trouble coming to terms on a contract with TheStreet.com, the financial site he cofounded. The last one expired at the end of 2007. For now, Cramer has signed his second two-month extension in a row. After April 15, it's up again. If Cramer's outburst during the last market meltdown is any indication, I'm sure talks are proceeding calmly and reasonably. More »
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Comment by saywhaaa: also, thestreet.com is still alive? jesus! sell sell sell jim more » | Other threads
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wireless
Intel is reviving ClearWire andSprint's failed WiMax partnership with a much-needed $2 billion investment. Intel has always been WiMax's biggest proponent, spending a ton of money on development and including the technology in its next laptop chip design. This is on top of the $5 billion that Sprint has promised to invest in WiMax over the next three years. [Gizmodo] -
deals
Microsoft and Netflix may partner to offer movie downloads over Xbox Live. An announcement would likely come tomorrow, at the Game Developer's Conference. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is a member of Microsoft's board of directors. [MSNBC] -
deals
The 7-Eleven deal: Could Yahoo Japan buy Yahoo?
In the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover battle, Yahoo's 40 percent stake in Yahoo Japan is treated as an afterthought: Spare goods to be sold off to boost shareholder returns. But Yahoo Japan, in its home country, is Google, eBay, and Yahoo rolled into one. It's worth $29 billion — more than Yahoo itself was worth before the Microsoft bid. Which raises the question: Why isn't Yahoo Japan the one buying Yahoo? Before you dismiss it, consider the precedents. More »
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Fri Jul 10
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