Gawker
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private equity
Peter Thiel's Depressing May
Even as Wall Street rallied last month, Peter Thiel's hedge fund lost close to $25 million, according to leaked documents obtained by Valleywag. Maybe this is why the PayPal founder has been grumpily calling people "frauds." More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Peoplefamiliarwith: Clarium Capital is a global macro fund. The S&P 500 isn't the appropriate benchmark to use with a... 3 Responses | Other threads
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exclusive
Another Exec Unfriends Facebook
Facebook is fun to use. But it's not a fun place to work — as confirmed by the defection of Net Jacobsson, a key executive in Facebook's effort to cash in on your life online.
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By Owen ThomasComment by thecowardlylion: Gee working for a 24 year old is no fun? I can't imagine. This is why investors insist we bring... 5 Responses | Other threads
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exits
Is Yahoo done with search?
Among the many windmills Jerry Yang tilted at in his brief career as Yahoo's CEO was his devotion to Web search. It veered on an obsession for him. It played into his decision to resist Microsoft's offers to shower him with cash, first for his whole company, then for just its search business. Is it a coincidence, then, that Yahoo's top search engineer has left a day after Yang stepped down? A tipster tells us Sean Suchter resigned yesterday, and speculates that he may be joining Microsoft. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by CurtisHippomedon: Am I to believe Yahoo doesn't have an iron clad NDA with its employees preventing them for working for the... 1 Responses | Other threads
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sarah palin emails
Sarah Palin's Personal Emails
Did the internet just cause Sarah Palin to destroy evidence? The potential Veep is in a bit of trouble for conducting state business using her personal, unarchived email address (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) instead of her official account (which is, of course, subject to laws requiring the retention of government records). Emails from that Yahoo account are already being sought in connection with the Troopergate investigation. Now comes word that Anonymous, the fun-loving Internet trouble-makers based loosely around the message board 4Chan, gained access to another Palin email account: gov.palin@yahoo.com. It looks legit! The offending posts, screenshots, heretofore unseen family photos, and emails have all been deleted from Imageshack and 4Chan. But we have them. You want to read Sarah Palin's email?
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By PareeneComment by American Dreamer: Newsweek just broke a story that conservatives are now pushing the idea of moving Palin from the Vice Presidency to... 26 Responses | Other threads
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deathwatch
How bringing in the "grownups" killed Heavy.com
The boom in online ad networks, those automated brokers of discount banners patronized by websites desperate for quick cash, is at long last turning to bust. And the shakeout couldn't have started with a more deserving company. Amid lawsuits and layoffs, Heavy.com has seen two-thirds of its once-15-strong salesforce leave, a source familiar with the company tells us. Meanwhile, the company is trying to sell its Heavy.com, a video destination targeted at young men, so far without success. The plan is to focus on its porn-friendly Husky ad network. Who's to blame? Recently hired "grownups," says our source. More » -
exclusive
MySQL founder quits Sun
"Just heard that Monty gave his resignation to Sun today," a tipster we trust writes about Michael Widenius, the Finnish-born main author of open-source database software MySQL. Sun Microsystems had aqcuired Monty's company, also called MySQL, for a cool billion in January. So who's running the show now? Best guess is Brian Aker, another prominent MySQL developer. Aker released a lightweight, Web 2.0-oriented version of MySQL called Drizzle in late July, but he's still at Sun.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Mouser_UK: a lightweight version of mysql which vital features of a relational database did they drop this time 1 Responses | Other threads
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Tucker Max
Tucker Max, Businessman
Tucker Max: blogger of beer and sluts, writer and producer of one of the least funny comedy movie scripts since Illegally Yours, and asshole in a dozen different ways. The most ridiculous of which is as the boss of his own mini-empire of blogs! And since last week, we've heard from several of his former Rudius Media employees, who expound on the gentle pleasures of working for one of America's foremost purveyors of racist poop jokes:
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Comment by Puns-n-Roses: @LadlySack: Actually, in a lot of mythology, the devil does have two penises. more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Yahoo's New York star relocating to Sunnyvale
Former Right Media CEO and current Yahoo SVP Mike Walrath is moving offices from New York to Sunnyvale in October. He told Valleywag it's "a quality of life decision." If the move means a big promotion — a tipster tells us that's the rumor around Yahoo's New York office — Walrath wouldn't say. He's already in charge of Yahoo's advertising marketplaces group, requiring plenty of facetime at headquarters. But we think a promotion is likely, and deserved. So does a fellow Yahoo executive who told us Walrath is a particular favorite of Yahoo president Sue Decker and her closest lieutenant, Hilary Schneider, to whom Walrath currently reports. More »
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Comment by sggrf: must kill walrath, after what they accomplished, to report to hacks like Schneider and Decker. more » | Other threads
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venture capital
What actually happened to Monitor110? Its VCs killed it
Why did investor-news aggregator Monitor110 go under, taking $20 million in funding with it? Read early investor Roger Ehrenberg's surprisingly humble and informative blog post about the ordeal, titled "Monitor110: A Post Mortem," and it sounds like the startup fell prey to the usual pratfalls — too much PR, weak leadership, and a confused product vision. Probably all that's true. But what's also true, a source tells us, is that Monitor110's own investors, specifically Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which invested most of that $20 million, ensured Monitor110's failure during its final months. More » -
exclusive
BitTorrent Inc. laying off 12 of 55 employees
BitTorrent Inc., the file-sharing startup whose underlying technology is responsible for much of the piracy that plagues Hollywood, is laying off its sales and marketing department. The immediate cause of the layoffs: A failure to sell the Torrent Entertainment Network, BitTorrent's attempt at an online media store, to Best Buy for a rumored $15 million. That deal fell apart, a BitTorrent insider believes, because of a recent FCC ruling on file sharing. CEO Doug Walker, who replaced troubled founder Bram Cohen last fall, had hinted at a rethink of the store in March. Walker's also said to be rethinking BitTorrent's "DNA" service, which sought to offer businesses a cut-rate online content-deliver service, using file-sharing technology to undercut Limelight and Akamai's prices. BitTorrent is now thinking about making the service free, which would certainly count as "cut-rate" — but also suggests that it hadn't had much success selling it.
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By Owen ThomasComment by fakemichaelarrington: @Passerby - W3rd. This is so damn obvious. Make a CDN and go sign up some cloud companies. more » | Other threads
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Tucker Max
Tucker Max's Movie Script
Yesterday we put out a call for the viciously panned script of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, the upcoming film written by I-totally-fucked-that-chick blogger Tucker Max. We immediately received about a dozen copies of the script, which is apparently being forwarded around Hollywood like a list of bad lawyer jokes. I also could have said "like herpes," and I could also follow up by joking that the script is about as funny as a bad lawyer with herpes, haha. Friends, it opens with Tucker Max fucking a deaf girl and screaming "DON'T TAZE ME, BRO!." It is that bad. After the jump, three of the most terrible moments from the film's first half. Jesus, bro:
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Comment by BunnyLebowski: She tries not to vomit in her mouth while reading this, but can't help herself. 1 Responses | Other threads
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exclusive
Alex Albrecht's top secret new project has a name: Project Lore
Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht has been working on a new project behind the scenes for months now, and it could soon be coming to a browser near you — a tipster pointed us to projectlore.com, which is currently behind password protection, and an unused Twitter account by the same name. What could it be? Your guess is as good as mine. But it's my understanding that it's going to be a Hollywood-sized production.
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By Jackson WestComment by Mr. E.: A glance at the whois info shows that the domain is owned by DECA (the people who produce Boing Boing... more » | Other threads
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wired
Wired Ran Rehashed Article In Its Inaugural Issue
Wired magazine is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, with much reflection and self-congratulation. But one strange thing: in its very first issue in 1993, Wired ran an article that had already run under a different byline in a different magazine. A tipster provides evidence that an article in that issue about Japanese computer hackers by Karl Taro Greenfeld ran almost verbatim a year earlier—under a different byline—in Tokyo Journal. Furthermore, Greenfeld ran another article on the same subject in the LA Times Magazine, in which he describes one computer hacker identically to how he had described a different computer hacker in the Wired piece. Something seriously weird is going on here. [UPDATE: We now have a note from Karl Taro Greenfeld, saying that he is the author of all the pieces in question, and explaining the byline discrepancy, which is posted below. An explanation of what happened here—and key portions of all the stories in question—after the jump].
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Comment by quinticire: If one copies form one source, it's plagiarism; but if they copy from multiple sources, it's research. more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Photos from Randi Zuckerberg's wedding
Darlings, everyone who's anyone is flying to a Caribbean island to get married. Larry Page and Lucy Southworth did the deed on some spit of sand called Necker Island. Randi Zuckerberg? The Facebooker took over something like the entire island of Jamaica to get hitched to venture-capital associate Brent Tworetzky. Or just Runaway Bay — our sources can't get that part entirely straight. But we did get a batch of photos from the wedding. A destination wedding in Jamaica? Expensive. Making your younger brother, who's ostensibly your boss and worth $4 billion on paper, dress in a turquoise vest and an ill-fitting tuxedo shirt? Priceless. The photos: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Fidel on the Roof: Now, how do you get these exclusive FadBook scoops and exclusive pix of Zux's sister? more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan private pics exposed by Yahoo hack
Want to see Paris Hilton's MySpace profile? How about Lindsay Lohan's? Don't worry about those pesky privacy settings. Thanks to "data portability," a faddish technology movement that the Valley has been buzzing about for months, you can see any profile you want on MySpace. Byron Ng, a Canadian computer technician with a knack for finding Web security holes, has discovered that Yahoo's integration with MySpace makes it easy to view photos for any profile. These images, which Ng obtained from Hilton's and Lohan's profiles, speak to the danger Yahoo and MySpace's lax data-sharing habits pose: More » -
exclusive
YouTube star Jill Hanner on hawking Coors Light
Everyone from the New York Times to Silicon Alley Insider, even our older sister Gawker, were in a tizzy last week over a series of ads for Coors Light produced for the world's best platform for delivering booze advertising to minors, YouTube. The publicity even managed to get one of the paid response videos pulled from YouTube by the sponsor. But the companies that commissioned and produced the spot, TubeMogul and For Your Imagination respectively, missed at least one big clue that Jill Hanner might not be on the Coors Light bandwagon. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: @matto: Sorry, mate. I think you are too blasé for your own good. I don't hate anyone here. Care to... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Director Bill Levesque and producer Brett Bonthron on "Weekend King"
Weekend King, the low-budget feature written and directed by Microsoft's Bill Levesque and produced by his colleague Brett Bonthron, has had its run at the Victoria Theater extended for three more weeks, playing tomorrow night at 7 p.m. The film won't win any Oscars, but I can see why audiences have responded well: As a comedy of manners set in the Valley, it captures much of the anxiety amongst the legions of post-boom cube dwellers who toil on the peninsula. In an interview at Valleywag hangout Caffe Roma, Levesque and Bonthron admitted the film needed some work in post-production, but were emphatic that it be seen with an audience — joking that I should insert my own laugh track into the screener DVD they provided to mimic the experience. More » -
exclusive
Tell-All Book: Zuckerberg Set Up Facebook To Get Laid
The author of Bringing Down The House has signed a million-dollar-plus book deal for his memoir about Mark Zuckerberg and the other Facebook founders, according to a tip to Gawker. In the proposal, author Ben Mezrich claims that Zuckerberg and his friend Eduardo Saverin started Facebook to get into a secret society and, of course, to get laid. The book may not be the most rigorously factual account, as Mezrich's Bringing Down The House (the basis for the Kevin Spacey film 21) was debunked by the Boston Globe as "not a work of 'nonfiction' in any meaningful sense of the word." Also, our tipster claims Mezrich's only source was Saverin, whom Zuckerberg is now suing. Here are the juiciest (and previously unreported) details from the proposal.
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By Nick DouglasComment by matildalee: I imagine koala would be quite gamey. Not exactly a delicacy I would seek out. Now kangaroo on the other... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Wired's Reddit launches TV show: Your Week
Condé Nast-owned social news aggregator Reddit will today launch a new "interactive public television and internet show," from WETA Washington, D.C. called Your Week. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian tells us the show will feature Reddits usual topics — politics, arts, international, science, tech, social, sports, and pop culture — chosen by through reader and viewer voting. The show's theme song will be chosen through a contest on Jamglue. New Republic senior editor MIchelle Cottle and the National Review's Rich Lowry will host and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is paying the bills. It's a lot like rival social news site Digg's Internet show, Diggnation. Without the beer or the hoodies, we're guessing. Says Ohanian:My only regret is that we didn't have this show back when reddit saved Mister Splashy Pants. I'm working on getting some footage of Jim Lehrer saying "Mister Splashy Pants."
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Comment by raincoaster: Reddit is owned by Wired? Dear god, it's so dull and political nowadays I thought it was owned by the... more » | Other threads
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jonathan teo
What's a Googler doing at Benchmark? Solving the VC talent crisis
Venture capital has a talent problem. (Some wags might say the problem is a complete lack of talent, but not this one.) The difficulty: Potential hires are either too junior, and hence useless as anything but a startup-hunting associate, or too senior to be brought in as anything but a full partner, a process which is difficult and expensive. Benchmark Capital has found a clever solution. It's hired Jonathan Teo, a former Google engineering manager who played a key role in the company's international expansion, as an "investor," according to his LinkedIn profile. (A source close to the firm tells me his exact title may not be settled yet.) Teo's non-partner hire at Benchmark is an indicator of a venture-capital industry in flux — but one that seems willing to experiment. A healthy sign. (Photo via Jonathan Teo's Friendster)
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By Owen ThomasComment by ResearchZilla: caption should read, "oh yeah baby, bring on the clawbacks in 2009, i'm ready..." more » | Other threads
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jackpot
John Battelle takes $22 million in fuck-you money
Anyone telling you that Federated Media, the online ad network which reps Boing Boing, GigaOm, TechCrunch and other blogs, has raised $50 million from investors is dead wrong. It's true, Oak Investment Partners and others paid $50 million for shares of Federated. But only half of that went to the company, we're told; the rest went to founder John Battelle and other employees. According to our source, Battelle's take was roughly 90 percent of the insider shares sold, or about $22 million. More » -
geeks gone wild
Facebook NSFW! Julia Allison and other pics from Randi Zuckerberg's Vegas bachelorette
Can you imagine a photo op that Julia Allison wouldn't attend? What happens in Vegas goes instantly to Valleywag, Allison knows, and so she flew to Las Vegas to attend Randi Zuckerberg's bachelorette party. Zuckerberg, whose wig-and-sunglasses disguise did not deter the Web's paparazzi, is a budding Web video star, Facebook's marketing director, and, unlike younger brother Mark, an actual Harvard graduate. In what's surely a first, Allison, the tech-obsessed TV personality, managed not to hog the camera; she's in only one of the shots. Facebook's Meagan Marks also appears sporting what looks like a freshly acquired head wound. A slip and fall on the dance floor? Our informants are investigating. In the meantime, enjoy the evidence of Zuckerberg's bacchanal. A warning: If plastic sex toys offend your coworkers, one photo may be unsuitable for office computers. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Hopeless: Is it me or does Facebook employ the ugliest women in the Valley? I've also heard that Randi is a dingbat.... more » | Other threads
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dustin moskovitz
Facebook frayed by founders' feud
Dustin Moskovitz, Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate, recently stopped speaking to him. This has made things awkward at Facebook's Palo Alto campus, as Moskovitz is the last reminder walking around that Zuckerberg was not Facebook's sole founder. The two have resumed talking, but Moskovitz, seeking to dissociate himself from his college chum's creation, had dropped the title of vice president and asked for his bio and photograph to be taken off the company's PR website. He's now taken the title of "technical lead," and is working behind the scenes on Facebook's infrastructure. (Moskovitz was not always so publicity-shy: He gladly spoke about Facebook's wireless initiatives at the CTIA conference last fall, and, in a comment left after this post was published, denies a rift and blames Valleywag for his lowered profile.) Why the reported split, after they've worked together so long? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by babyjesus: there are worse things in life than to be the co-founder of a well known company and have valleywag poke... more » | Other threads
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geek love
Is an Italian hottie the reason why Vista sucks?
In 2001, Brian Valentine, then a top Microsoft executive, was pumped about Windows XP, as a spoof infomercial shows. By the time Vista was getting ready for release, his enthusiasm had waned. The reason? Some believe he was pining for Gianna Puerini, a sales manager who had left Microsoft for Amazon.com in 2003. In July 2006, Valentine secretly signed an employment contract with Amazon.com. Microsoft did not reveal that he was leaving for Amazon.com until September 5, less than a week before he started his new job. The business rationale for hiding his departure was obvious: Valentine ran the team that was shipping its Windows Vista operating system. Losing their leader would have killed morale. More » -
rumormonger
Jingle's free 411 service aiming for $175 million sale
Free directory assistance has a price after all: $175 million. That's the price we hear Jingle Networks is trying to get for its 1-800-FREE-411 service, which gives free business listings in exchange for playing ads. Google, Microsoft, and AT&T are all preparing bids. But a source who has looked at Jingle's numbers say it will be lucky to get full price: "It's maybe worth $90 million." By late 2006, Jingle had raised $60 million; we hear it's since blown through that, and taken on debt besides. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Tech_info_guru: Actually they raised $73 Million and have little to show for it. Got decent traffic, something like 20 million calls.... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
TechCrunch, VentureBeat in merger talks
We hear Michael Arrington is in advanced talks to acquire VentureBeat, a smaller tech blog which, like Arrington's TechCrunch, is trying to expand from the niche of covering startups. When Arrington issued a rant about the dangers of tech blogs raising venture capital, it was easy to dismiss his talk of a blog rollup as drunken fantasy. Arrington's concern: That his competitors, by raising money one by one, would make it financially impossible to assemble a "dream team" of bloggers. But why on earth would anyone accept a lower valuation just to be part of Arrington's team? Arrington, we're told, has tentatively secured venture backing from Eric Chin of Bay Partners, a longtime business associate. That would give him the capital to buy up at least some of his rivals. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by rumourone: Oh Mike? Mike's a pretty good guy. My friend Lisa had sex with him and she said he was really... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Screenshots of YouTube videos in HD
YouTube began testing HD last fall. Now it's here. Sort of. A tipster nabbed this screenshot of a YouTube video which gives the use the option to "watch this video in higher quality." We tried it out and took screenshots from the same frame in the video. Comparison shots, below. More »
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Comment by webcreation: Watch YouTube HD - higher definition, and download MP4 videos, check this site : [www.ouideo.com] Really good ! more » | Other threads
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exclusive
"Rock Band" music video debut with Scoble and the gang
AUSTIN, TX — Randi Jayne (née Zuckerberg) and Revision3 COO David Prager have done it again. She rewrote "Roxanne" as "Rock Band," an homage to the popular Harmonix videogame; Prager, though he didn't pair up in front of the camera with Jayne as they did in iPhone parody "Doncha," helped produce the video. In the clip below, Robert Scoble, Digg CEO Jay Adelson, Facebook fanboy Dave McClure, and media raconteur David Spark headline. They play undistinguished louts who, by playing the game, transform themselves into real rock stars. The backup singers include Jayne and Rana Sobhany, a marketer who's planning a SXSW party tonight at Six Lounge. The video: More » -
blogging for dollars
Filthy rich Matt Mullenweg calls rival "dirty"
Automattic, Matt Mullenweg's blog-tools startup, is readying an upgrade to its WordPress software this week. Anil Dash of Six Apart took the occasion to let WordPress users know they can upgrade to his company's Movable Type instead. It's a move straight out of Oracle's handbook. But Mullenweg freaked out, calling the post "desperate and dirty." Dash responded by charging Mullenweg with "slander." Some are under the delusion that this nerdfight is about software. It's not. It's about money. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Joe Clark: Meanwhile, something you clearly don't approve of, Owen, is accuracy. more » | Other threads
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surveys
Cisco employees: are you happy?
A tipster sent us this year's Cisco employee survey. It's 55 questions of "strongly disagree / disagree / neither agree nor disagree / agree / strongly agree / don't know" goodness. Strictly speaking, employees aren't "required" to fill out the survey, but they are strongly encouraged to do so. Welcome to the Fortune 500. If my boss sent me this nonsense, I'd circle "don't know" for every question. More »
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Comment by eth0: @dalejo: Yeah, I think it's a bit of a stretch for an HR survey at Cisco to pull that kind... more » | Other threads
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wikpedia
Donor, ex-girlfriend accuse Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia extortion
Jeff Merkey, a former Novell chief scientist, has issued a statement accusing Jimmy Wales of extortion. Merkey says that Wales offered him "special protection" for his Wikipedia entry in exchange for a "substantial" donation to Wales's Wikimedia Foundation. After Merkey withdrew his donation over concerns that the funds were being mismanaged, he was banned from the site for "frivolous and unsubstantiated claims." Merkey's not the only one: Rachel Marsden, Wales's ex-girlfriend, has privately threatened Wales with a lawsuit over what she claims are hostile revisions to her Wikipedia entry which began after they broke up. While they were together, Wales promised Marsden swift action on edits so he could "continue fucking [her] brains out." After the jump, Merkey's statement and Marsden's email. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by mediawhoremeow: It's like David Koresh just resurfaced and discovered the innernets. At least the feds won't be able to burn the... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Ask.com CEO's secret weapon: this Marge Simpson video
Before it suddenly wasn't, CEO Jim Safka's plan to save Ask.com was to turn it into a search engine for midwestern women. According to a pair of tipsters, he explained his idea to employees by using this clip of Marge Simpson Googling herself.
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Comment by SixString: I choo-choo-choo-choose to watch this deliciously condescending campaign collapse. Does Jim really think that midwestern moms, or moms in... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Transcripts of Wikipedia founder's sex chats
In which Wikipedia's chief non-expert Jimmy Wales worries that Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be able to read their instant messages, talks dirty about broadband infrastructure, and says his "Google killer" startup Wikia needs to make him enough money so he can buy a jet where he and Canadian girlfriend Rachel Marsden can have even more sex. Friends claim that Wales, worried Marsden would leak the chats, threatened her with blackmail charges over the transcripts, and talked about jail time and deportation back to Canada for her. That got her so upset she sent copies to one or more friends. They've landed in our inbox. Good job, Jimbo. The best bits: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by CurtisIole: Ok, very late comment, but still. Wales never said anything about Wikipedia being the "google killer"; it's clearly just an... more » | Other threads
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military intelligence
Airman says Air Force Web ban hurts military
Type "dildo" into Wikipedia's search bar and what do you get? If you happen to be on a U.S. Air Force computer, a warning that the link you were about to view has been blocked. No big deal, right? At stateside bases, the Air Force justifies blocking Web pages as a productivity move. Similarly, crossword puzzles, Flash videogame sites, YouTube, and even eBay are now off-limits. Understandably. But blogs — some of the Web's most diverse sources for news and commentary, which we might translate into actionable intelligence? With each passing week, fewer and fewer remain available. More »
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Comment by MasterSergeant: This is bullshit. I can tell you that this young Airman who is whinning about his ability to access "youtube"... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
FCC contemplating do-over Comcast hearing at Stanford
The FCC is considering holding a fresh hearing on net neutrality, with Comcast and Verizon again in attendance — and this time it may be at Stanford. The do-over comes after a mini-scandal erupted over the first hearing, held at Harvard; Comcast flacks confessed they'd paid people off the street to act as seatwarmers. Let this be a lesson to you all: If you're going to meddle in politics, do it skillfully enough not to get caught. More »
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Comment by Dweezil: @wordsmithy: I believe the accurate tag would either be Harvard: The Oxford of America, or Harvard: The less wordy University of... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Leaked screenshots of Tumblr's new front page
Tumblr founder David Karp plans to make money off his microblogging platform — the one used by Julia Allison as well as dirtier, more creative types mostly found in San Francisco's Mission District and Brooklyn's Williamsburg — by creating a front page kind of like Digg's. Except on Tumblr Radar, a video, post or image's popularity will be determined by how many times its "reblogged." The idea is to help users discover other Tumblr blogs while serving them brand ads. Karp was overheard talking to former DoubleClick founder Kevin Ryan about the prospect last week. Karp has told us this front page will end up looking like a cross between Apple's iTunes store and Ffffound.com. Thanks to a rule-breaking beta tester, we won't have to wait to find out if that's true. Here's a leaked screenshot of Tumblr Radar: More »
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Comment by sggrf: It's absolutely horrible. I like Fred Wilson's blog MUCH better! No, seriously, it's awful, no joke! more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Gaming Digg costs $300 million, or at least an offer
Acquiring Digg costs $300 million, we hear. Learning how to game the social new site, however, only costs the time to write an offer. At last night's Founders Club party in New York — well-attended by executives from CBS, NBC, Disney, and IAC — one media suit inadvertently confessed as much. "Digg traffic is crucial for us," this exec said. So his team called Digg to ask how it all works. What can they do to get more items on the front page? "And they just started giving us all this really detailed information we never expected," this exec was overhead saying. Like how to avoid triggering the algorithm's ire by not having everyone in the company Digg a story until after a certain amount of Diggs, he said. "Only later we realized — oh yeah — it's cause we're talking about buying them."
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Comment by godospoons: Once rotated 180 degrees, it would be clear that the once-predicted successor--"Digg with a third 'g'"--would be proudly funded by... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
CollegeHumor and MTV make like Jake and Amir
The deal isn't official yet, but CollegeHumor and MTV plan to launch a TV show together. In the finished pilot, the Tumblr-popular Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld host, rolling clips between skits like the one in the clip below. Sam Reich plays College Humor cofounder Ricky Van Veen. Word has it CollegeHumor insisted on getting online distribution rights and that MTV readily complied. More »
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Comment by HelloBrooklyn: Wouldn't MTV be better off just syndicating old episodes of The Office? At least then the characters and jokes will... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Screenshots of Yahoo Buzz, a Digg competitor
The pace of of product launches from Yahoo is breathless — and with a whiff of desperation. On February 26, Yahoo plans to beta launch Yahoo Buzz as a competitor to Digg, and a tipster supplied Valleywag with screenshots. Buzz, built under the direction of VP Tapan Bhat, will begin with a limited number of publishers — about 100 — and will rank stories based on popular search results and user voting. By summer, Buzz will open to the entire Yahoo Publisher Network. In other words, if you let Yahoo sell ads on your site, it will allow your stories to appear on Buzz. Word is Yahoo plans to launch the site on buzz.yahoo.com, which currently tracks popular search results. Pics or it didn't happen? See the screenshots, below. More » -
exclusive
Bill Gates has a secret Facebook profile
The public story is that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has quit Facebook "after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a day, and [spotting] weird fan sites about him." We don't doubt it, but a tipster tells us that BillG has a secret profile only visible from within Facebook's Microsoft network. Surely some Microsoftie Valleywag readers are friends with him. Do tell: Are there frenzied poking wars in Redmond's C-suite? Message us.
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