from the mailbag

Flickr Founder Calls Nuked User 'A Dick'

An update on Shepherd Johnson, who lost 1,200 Flickr images over comments on White House photos: Yahoo said the activist's pictures are gone forever, offered him $25 and blocked his messages. And Flickr's founder called him "a dick." More »

06/12/09

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60

By Ryan Tate

Comment by Pragmatic: Butterfield sounds like the dick in this case. Would it have been so hard for him to say I don't... 8 Responses | Other threads

flackery

Amazon.com Says 'Embarrassing' Error, Not Hacker, Censored 57,310 Gay Books

After gay-themed titles disappeared from Amazon.com's search results this weekend, everyone looked for someone to blame. One hacker took credit. Some faulted an Amazon engineer in France. One source thinks it was the Conficker worm. More »

04/13/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by cdmunch: I think it's adorable that all you butt pirates and twitterers still read books. 14 Responses | Other threads

flackery

Tesla Praises Leaked Car Photos It Wants Erased from the Internet

Is Tesla Motors mad that Digg founder Kevin Rose spoiled the launch of its Model S sedan by leaking photos on Flickr? Yes and no, depending on who you ask at the ailing electric-car startup. More »

03/26/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by leavethegun-takethecannoli: At the risk of being gullible, did he really say that? That's unbelievably rude. I wouldn't cover any of his press... 5 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

Tesla Flack Bitches About 'Silicon Valley Gossip Blog'

Tesla Motors, once Silicon Valley's hottest electric-car startup, has a host of real problems, like a shortage of cash and a paranoid CEO. How is its top flack spending her time? Taking "umbrage" with bloggers! More »

03/25/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Pope John Peeps II: Hi, Lee. I'm not sure how much you know about the various publications that you link to, but I really... 4 Responses | Other threads

facebook

Facebook Haters Reach a Million Strong

More than a million Facebook users have voted against Facebook's latest redesign, which displays an unreadable spew of friends' status updates on the homepage. A flack says the company is "listening carefully." Yeah, right! More »

03/23/09

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104

By Owen Thomas

Comment by metoometoo: My boyfriend and I, and a number of our friends, all joined Twitter within the past week. 8 Responses | Other threads

Cupcake Princess

Lesley Stahl Investigates Marissa Mayer's Matchless Fashion Sense

After having her image frosted by the New York Times and Charlie Rose, Google VP Marissa Mayer, the cupcake princess of search, is hungry for more press. Luckily, Lesley Stahl arrived to spread more on! More »

03/18/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Jennifer Savage: I don't see anything wrong with her fashion. Her sense of style is pretty consistent, and it seems to fit... 8 Responses | Other threads

flackery

CNET: Apple Lied About Layoffs We Reported

After Valleywag reported that Apple had laid off 50 salespeople last week, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling issued a blanket denial: "Not true." Turns out the layoffs happened, and Dowling lied, CNET News reports. More »

03/09/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by kempmullaney: Define Layoff - a reduction is staff to reduce costs? Define Restructuring - reduction of staff in one area of the... 2 Responses | Other threads

rumormonger

More Job Cuts at Apple?

Something's going on at Apple. Normally a leak-proof ship, the S.S. Steve Jobs has been taking on rumors of layoffs. The latest: Cuts in Mac hardware and software units, says a tipster: More »

03/06/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Jim Topoleski: Jesus give me a break already. Even if there are layoffs (of which you are the ONLY blog on the... 5 Responses | Other threads

celebritards

Real Housewives Star Loses Her Blog

Kim Zolciak, the homewrecking, fake-cancer-surviving star of The Real Housewives of Atlanta has lost control of her blog to a surly "webmaster" demanding payment — according to someone at her (former?) PR firm. More »

02/22/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Private Hangnail: What's odd is that I'm wearing that very hair right now. 1 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

How Mark Zuckerberg TOSsed Facebook Under the Bus

Only lawyers and nerds get excited about debating a website's terms of service. And yet Facebook managed to turn a change in its legalese into a PR nightmare. Here's an anatomy of the debacle. More »

02/18/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by FunNaturalFun: Dear World,Anything you post to the internet, in any public forum, on any webpage, is pretty much accessible to anyone,... 7 Responses | Other threads

discrimination

Yahoo Flack Quit After Lawsuit Leak

One of the messes Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz must clean up is a three-year-old investigation into claims of discrimination by a black female lawyer. After a leak of confidential documents, it's now even messier. More »

02/17/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by ludwigk: That shot of Eulonda with her shoulder raised, and presumably outstretched arm, makes it look like she took that shot... 2 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

Facebook Gets the Fortune Cover Curse

A breathless Fortune story — "How Facebook Is Taking Over Our Lives" — reports that more people use Facebook than watched this year's Super Bowl. Facebook's board of directors must be thrilled, right? More »

02/17/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Widget Economist: Regarding Fortune: Don't RTFA. This is even more evidence web 2.0 shits don't measure success in dollars. You people fail to recognize... 9 Responses | Other threads

nerdfight

Facebook Founders Settle Their Feud

After years of freezing out cofounder Eduardo Saverin over a dispute about money, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has deigned to recognize his former Harvard buddy. Why now? Perhaps to derail a forthcoming Facebook tell-all? More »

01/30/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by siliconvalleydropout: what does it mean by co-founded? did he write code too? 7 Responses | Other threads

journalismism

A Puffed-Up Reporter's Puffed-Up Sources

CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman blew the biggest story on his beat by insisting his "sources inside the company" said Apple's Steve Jobs was in tip-top shape. Do these sources even exist? More »

01/19/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by cassandra: Owen, stick to financial stuff like this. You are so much better at it. There are a couple of CNBC reporters... 3 Responses | Other threads

apple

Steve Jobs Confesses: Too Sick to Work

If you just look at how thin he is, you'd know it. But now Steve Jobs himself has admitted that his declining health is keeping him from taking the Macworld stage tomorrow.

01/05/09

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by dogcat: Isn't it funny that Jobs and Wozniak both have weight problems, albeit in opposite directions... 7 Responses | Other threads

michael arrington

A tech blogger's quixotic war on PR

The comic spectacle of Michael Arrington, the tech industry's most overbearing, self-important blogger, taking on Silicon Valley's PR apparatus, is playing out live on the Internet. Bring your popcorn.

12/18/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by pepelicious: Good god, the top stories bar now shows a skeletal Steve Jobs, portly Dan Nye, bloaty Arrington, that security guy... 5 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

Control freak Steve Jobs's chaotic Macworld no-show news

Steve Jobs is a famed perfectionist. The way word leaked out he wouldn't keynote at Macworld was anything but controlled, raising concerns that his health had taken an unexpected turn.

12/16/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by websterphreaky: Other adjectives before Freak comes to my mind, like: Arrogant Narcissistic Over-bearing Asshole Greedy Lair ("Oh yes, OS X will run on all G3's" - got... 8 Responses | Other threads

apple

Stock market's fear: Steve Jobs is dying

Since a scary-skinny Steve Jobs showed up last summer to launch a new iPhone, rumors about the Apple CEO's health have circulated. Now, the cancellation of his annual Macworld speech has spooked Wall Street.

12/16/08

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By Owen Thomas

nerdfight

Wall Street Journal "confused" by Google's evil behavior

It's a classic geek insult: A Google executive has called the Wall Street Journal "confused" about its stance on whether companies should be able to buy themselves a fast lane on the Internet. More »

12/15/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Moonshine Mike: At first I was not shocked, but if they claim this is no different than Akamai, then why should it... 3 Responses | Other threads

blogging for dollars

Guy Kawasaki writes his own blog — well, except that one really popular post

This is why people love Apple executive turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, whether or not he knows what he's talking about. At a Commonwealth Club event, Kawasaki was asked about his insanely popular "Ten Ways to use LinkedIn." Watch him squirm for a minute before 'fessing up: LinkedIn flack Kay Luo provided Guy with his talking points for the post. "I really needed a post — it was four days!" Guy, next time feel free to raid our inbox. We get more helpfully-already-written posts than we'd ever imagined possible.

11/21/08

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By Paul Boutin

Comment by shiwsup: A simple "Thanks to Kay Luo at LinkedIn for her assistance with this post" would have covered it. more » | Other threads

nerdfight

11/05/08

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By Paul Boutin

hires

Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett really joining Yahoo after all

Mountaineer, philanthropist, and longtime Microsoftie Jeff Dossett has a new claim to fame: He's brave enough to join Yahoo — but it took a while to convince him. Two months ago, Dossett, who joined Microsoft in 1991, went through a curious back-and-forth: BoomTown's Kara Swisher reported he was leaving Microsoft to join Yahoo. A Microsoft rep promptly denied the report, claiming Dossett was leaving a job at the software giant's MSN Web business, but looking at other opportunities within Microsoft. We could speculate about how Microsoft and Yahoo were bidding for Dossett's services, but the real lesson here is: Never, ever believe a Microsoft flack. Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who's leaving Yahoo as reported.

11/03/08

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By Owen Thomas

great moments in pr

Kevin Rose runs from the crowd

Why is Kevin Rose on a publicity binge? In the past two months, the founder of headline-voting site Digg has garnered two magazine covers. There he is, with a smoldering leer on local San Francisco magazine 7x7. The look reminds everyone why Diggnation cohost Alex Albrecht once said that Rose, a prolific dater, has "plowed through everyone in town." For Inc., Rose participated in a wacky crowd shoot which echoed the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." It's obvious why Rose is a hot commodity: Write about him, and traffic to your magazine's website will soar. (Will he sell print copies? I doubt Digg users visit newsstands.) More »

10/29/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by D IS FOR DENTATA: Owen, I love how you parse this one back down to earth. :-) more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

At Time Warner, synergy still a sin

I used to work at an arm of Time Warner, the media conglomerate. What employees there learn: Synergy is a joke, and the company's many divisions hate working with each other so much they'd sooner partner with outsiders than give someone in-house a deal. The most famous, if apocryphal, anecdote: When Time Warner Cable asked to license the Road Runner character from Warner Bros., the studio initially wanted to charge $1 billion for the use. Putting AOL in the mix only made things worse. I'd hoped things might have gotten better in recent years — through my retirement plan, I'm still a shareholder. A recent press release made me despair. The headline: "Warner Bros. Digital Distribution Partners with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment." Only inside Time Warner would a collaboration like this be considered newsworthy.

10/27/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by CareyCading: They are all fighting for the same discretionary money and time: when someone is reading Time, they aren't watching a... more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

Seesmic wins at layoff spin

"At Seesmic, a video blogging service, the day of reckoning — when it runs out of the $6 million it raised in May — will come in three years. To make the money last, Loïc Le Meur, the chief executive, recently laid off seven employees, or one-third of his staff, and cut all projects not directly related to the video service." Great messaging, Loic. Now for the bad news: No video blogging service will get its picture in the NYT until Web 3.0.

10/27/08

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By Paul Boutin

Comment by fireproof: Caption competition time? "You in the back, keep forcing that smile, or you're next!". more » | Other threads

yahoo

Jerry Yang's unpurple prose

Right now, a leader needs to do two things: Communicate clearly, act decisively, and project confidence. That's three things, but Jerry Yang can't even do one of them. In a two-part interview with Kara Swisher, Rupert Murdoch's pet eyeball-poker, Yang fails to sell, or even tell, Yahoo's story: More »

10/24/08

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By Paul Boutin

Comment by dorian: two things eh? 1 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

Microsoft's cut-rate PR firm says they just cut rates on Office 2007

It's been a few months since school started, but it's never too late to spam blogs! A Microsoft flack had no shame in trying to sell the Ace Online Schools blog on old versions of Office at bargain-basement prices using a copy-and-paste come-on. What prompted the pitch? The blogger who got the pitch suspects that a post he'd written about free Web apps for students drew the attention of a rep at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's longtime PR firm. Heck, maybe the process is automated — for all the effort Waggener Edstrom flacks put into it, it might as well be.

10/23/08

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By Alaska Miller

Comment by MandaNange: Office 2007 Ultimate is not an old version - that's the current top of the line everything included but the... 1 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

eBay to care about plight of elephants next year

Online auction house eBay is self-banning the sale of ivory and ivory products on its website — prompted after animal welfare groups investigated trading in animal products from endangered species. Elephant ivory were the most common and eBay is saying it will do its best to stop the thousands listings of animal goods but only after January of 2009. Because corporate goodwill still needs to wait after the earnings report. [Los Angeles Times]

10/22/08

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By Alaska Miller

Comment by sample032: Guitar nuts are often ivory, so get that Gibson while it's still on eBay! more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

Which Examiner is which? Newspaper flack can't explain

A PR rep for the San Francisco Examiner's website pitched San Francisco Chronicle Web editor Eve Batey on a story — and then tried to deny that Examiner.com had any connection with the Examiner. If you don't read newspapers, here's some useful background:San Francisco used to be a two-newspaper town. Now we're a one-and-a-half newspaper town, if you're being generous. I'm just not sure if the "one-half" is the San Francisco Chronicle or the freely distributed San Francisco Examiner. The Examiner is the paper I see most people at the gym reading, if only because its tabloid format stays on a treadmill better. Anyway, the Examiner flack finally conceded to Batey that the website and newspaper were owned by the same company, telecom billionaire Philip Anschutz's Clarity Media Group . What she might have brought up: The newspaper has its own website, sfexaminer.com. (She mentioned it, in passing, but got the URL wrong.) No, that doesn't help any of this makes sense. The email exchange: More »

10/21/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by sample032: I actually think calling either a whole newspaper is generous. Say a 1.25 newspaper town, just to be safe. 3 Responses | Other threads

commentards

Be careful what you write about Glam

It's a predictable routine: Write about Glam Media, Samir Arora's dangerously bubbly online-advertising startup, and get bombarded by comments from website operators for whom Glam sells ads. The latest victim: Saul Hansell of the New York Times, who dared to point out that most of Glam's traffic comes not from the kind of high-quality, editorially driven websites his salespeople promise to advertisers, but from horoscopes, social networks, and gaming sites. Two Glam publishers promptly weighed in. It almost makes one wonder if, like a political campaign, Arora gins up faux grassroots complaints. (Valleywag has attracted its own reliable Glam commenter, AretinaAegeus.) Like a well-done Astroturfing, as the process is known in politics, the comments seem genuine enough — original wording, no cutting-and-pasting of talking points. But the process may backfire on Arora. Goaded by the commenters, Hansell updated his piece with a more concise — and damning — explanation of why Glam may be scamming its advertisers: More »

10/21/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by It Must Be Take a Worm for a Walk Week: Glam is the Amway of the internets. 1 Responses | Other threads

great moments in pr

Pandora's founder is sad — also, you're fired

Not even the biz reporters we reblog have much to say about Pandora laying off 20 of its 140 employees. Last month, founder Tim Westergren had sent out warning signals that online music royalties could be a problem. Cutting 14.2 percent of staff this week, though, seems more pro forma than panic. Westergren's "A Sad Day" bears no news, but serves as an intriguing template of that new writing genre, the layoff blog post. Spot the patterns: More »

10/17/08

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By Paul Boutin

Comment by Figaro: WTF did they need 140 people to run a music recommendation site?!?!?! more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

YouTube founder Chad Hurley a parody of himself

The dirty secret of YouTube's Chad Hurley: Despite selling an online-video startup whose slogan is "Broadcast Yourself" to Google for $1.65 billion, he's still desperately uncomfortable in front of a camera. Google PR's media training has only turned the millionaire's awkward mannerisms into a hilariously stiff folksiness: "Having the opportunity to sit down with some press, communicate to them the deals we've been working on, meet with partners." Is he consciously imitating our tongue-tied president? Or rather, Will Ferrell's Saturday Night Live version of Dubya? No: I think he's just doing a bad impression of Chad Hurley.

10/16/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Carlos: at least he spent some money on getting rid of the crackhead looking bags under the eyes more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

Neal Stephenson fans now geek-to-geek marketers

Anathem, Neal Stephenson's latest thousand-page nerdapalooza, is a good book. And I'm all for giving readers more ways to connect with authors and their works. Yay Internet! So when an email came in offering "a press release about an online marketing campaign for NY Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson," I did what one of Stephenson's characters would do: Sit and marvel at how many verbal tokens someone strung together to try to get me to write a story. Okay, I'll bite: Here's an article about a press release about an online marketing campaign for NY Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson. Jeez, Neal, I'm glad you only publish once every four years.

10/15/08

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By Paul Boutin

the olds

Mainstream media decides Google no longer makes you stupid

The long, slow process of scientific peer review makes a dull story. It's much snappier to throw out a contrarian question like, "Has Google made us stupid?" After the topic bubbles around a bit, it's appealing to find an exclusive new study that rebuts the media's own conventional wisdom. When that reporter's need arises, PR people are there, exclusive new studies in hand. More »

10/14/08

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By Paul Boutin

Comment by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: since 1981 Is the date-dropping (since first time using the Internet) a new name-dropping? If so, could you officially update the Silicon... more » | Other threads

great moments in pr

eBay PR chief bullshits own staff on layoffs

Alan Marks, eBay's top flack, has a new buzzword for layoffs: "simplification." It's a simplification so simple that Marks had to send a 1,078-word memo explaining it. The bottom line: He cut 15 out of 105 people, or 14 percent of his staff worldwide, but he's hiring another 8 people into new positions. This makes me wonder: Is Marks so immersed in PR-speak that he's lost the ability to compose a blunt and honest communication? Or does Marks, an eBay novice who only joined the company in April from Nike, simply distrust his staff, and thus feel obliged to sanitize all of his internal emails in case they get leaked — as this one has? Read on: More »

10/08/08

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By Owen Thomas

Comment by Consignment Pal Resale Directory: I used to work at IBM in Human Resources Management. Never heard of "simplification." I'm guessing those dear... 1 Responses | Other threads

valleywag

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