According to quotes compiled by blogger Dan Lyons, Dodge used to say things like "Microsoft is a great company to work for" is "always putting employees first." But he's changed his tune, now that he works for Google. A new post on his personal blog starts with this dig at his old employer:

Laying off 5,000 people when you have $37B in cash and huge profits isnot cool. But hey, thanks for pushing me on to the Next Big Thing.

And suddenly, Dodge has a new viewpoint about Gmail. Before:

Even Microsoft's online version of Outlook called Outlook Web Access is far better than Gmail... Gmail... doesn't compare to Microsoft Outlook.

Now:

Outlook... was getting kind of tired. Gmail is new, fast, web based, and has all the features I need. I especially like the way it threads conversations making it easy to keep everything in context... One other subtle thing: no spam. I never realized how much corporate spam invaded my Microsoft inbox.

But he "realizes" now!

Thanks for all the "thanks," Don, but the "fuck you" is still implied. Not that we're complaining.

(Pic: Dodge, by Jay Goldman)

Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are dropping suits against eBay, to whom they sold Skype in 2005, and against a consortium of private finance companies trying to buy Skype from eBay. The founders had accused both groups of intellectual property theft. They're dropping those lawsuits in exchange for 14 percent of Skype.

But former Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher reported last night on Dow Jones' All Things D website that the founders would get not 14 percent but up to 13 percent of the company — 10 percent outright and an option to buy another 3 percent. Sacrebleu! Rob Wauters of rival TechCrunch was quick to rub Swisher's face in the minor error, writing that the founders "are getting 14 percent of Skype back for rights to the... technology their company... controls... and not 10% like previously reported by other media" (emphasis from original). Meow!

The press release issued by Skype actually confirmed Swisher's reporting that the founders had to put in money to get some of their shares. Swisher later acknowledged that the figure was 14 percent, just one percent higher than she had written. But she also engaged in a lengthy Twitter fight with Wauters and his colleague Erick Schonfeld (see below) over their public nitpicking and fact-bending. Maybe everyone involved in this fracas needs to take the next couple of days off. Oh, look at the calendar!

(Top pic via)

A redesign of MSN.com to contain "significantly less blue." Arrington, who loathes embargoed tech "news" (so do we), used to make an exception for Microsoft, and sat on this one until midnight last night. But a dastardly marketing blogger spoiled his exclusive by running the story an hour early, due to some kind of WordPress error. The startup information chieftan tells us:

They came in and briefed me, took an hour. Then I rearranged my evening to write the post, took more time. the embargo broke by at least 45 minutes and they [Waggener] didn't bother to let me know.

So now Google is the last big name in tech allowed to supply Arrington with embargoed news. Until one of their orchestrated PR news releases blows up in his face, too. And so Arrington's worthwhile, if ignoble, war on Valley flacks continues.

(Pic: Arrington, by Randy Stewart)

Skeet blogged last month about how his new-ish employer Google advised him not to accept his seventh consecutive "MVP" award from competitor Microsoft. Online outrage ensued, and Skeet now reports that he's reached an understanding with Google: Skeet won't sign the Microsoft nondisclosure agreement associated with the program — this just covers pre-release software MVPs get access to, another MVP told us — or accept any of the fringe benefits, like (we presume) the special tech support.

In return, Skeet can accept the award. In other words, you can look, but don't touch. And to think this is the same company accused of digital "promiscuity."

(Pic: Skeet, by Ade Oshineye)

The threat from Microsoft's Bing search engine has even lit a fire under Google's icy, hypercompetitive search chief Marissa Mayer, according to the Wall Street Journal:

In recent months, Ms. Mayer has repeatedly pushed her team to better understand and compete with Bing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mayer is hardly alone in her obsession. In June, the New York Post reported that Google co-founder Sergey Brin was "rattled" by Bing and personally led a "team of search-engine specialists... to determine how Bing's... search algorithm differs from" Google's. The bloated and insular company should focus that fanatically on its users and customers; Bing's market share is stalled at 9 percent, and Google's biggest threat will probably end up being a startup no one has yet heard of.

(Pic: Adam Tinworth)

In an interview with Wired's Steven Levy, Williams lashed back at two traditional media fogeys who pooh-poohed his company's potential at the Sun Valley schmoozefest in July. Barry Diller, of IAC, and John Malone, the satellite TV mogul, said the microblogging service would never make much cash.

"I didn't argue my case," Williams says. "But all the Internet guys there were laughing at those media guys. Are you kidding? Do you understand how money flows to the Internet? When you know that Twitter is a vehicle for directing information and traffic to large audiences, you realize there's obviously a huge business."

And, hey, that's coming from a guy who made four whole million dollars last year, old media people, so you better listen up. These guys have spreadsheets that would blow your minds.

There was chatter in recent months the bi-coastal Dorsey (pictured) might plant his forthcoming venture in his second home base, New York, or even in his childhood home of St. Louis ("St. Louis will play a very large part in its story," he said of the startup last month).

But we hear Dorsey's been hunting for office space in San Francisco, Twitter's stomping grounds. He's hinted at as much on his Twitter stream: "I think we just found awesome office space," he wrote, just a couple of hours before he was "standing outside the... office" of SF-based Zendesk.

Dorsey's new startup is in "stealth mode." Since that's just Valleyspeak for being coy, we still know plenty about the company: it would enable person-to-person electronic payments via iPhone, MG Siegler wrote in TechCrunch this past spring, and the company has been awaiting regulatory approval, according to the St. Louis Business Journal.



It's a good idea; in fact programmer Max Levchin created the same capability for the Palm Pilot, the iPhone's old ancestor, before he and his co-founders expanded the idea into the financially successful internet-wide payment system PayPal.

So why is Dorsey framing his payments company as a new iteration of his old microblogging startup Twitter, of which he remains chairman? Dorsey told a St. Louis audience his company would have "similar ideas" as Twitter but "in a completely different industry," according to Nick Lucchesi of the Riverfront Times alt weekly. Is Dorsey hinting at additional publishing capabilities no one knows about yet?

More likely, the man who has said he would "never leave Twitter" is just extracting some free hype from a brand that clearly remains his baby, as far as Dorsey is concerned. In this regard, the prototype Twitterer thus remains the quintessential Twitterer: always self promoting.

(Pic by Esther Dyson)

In a blog post, Skeet writes that he checked with his Google bosses to make sure it would be OK if Microsoft "renewed" his "Microsoft MVP" award for yet another year, an honor that is far from automatic and akin to a new award. But Skeet wrote he "was advised not to do so."

Which is odd, since Google is fine with Skeet programming, on company time, in a language born from their competitor, and the company is fine with him offering extensive help with the language online. But accepting an award for offering help with said language is apparently akin to sleeping with the enemy. Sounds petty. Perhaps Google would feel more comfortable if Skeet offered to have the plaque and award pin swept for bugs.

(Pic via)

In a $120 million suit filed this week, Thompson claims that the site inflicted emotional distress by not monitoring the nasty comments, like this one: "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600."

Upset by all the virtual hate, Thompson, who once fought to get Howard Stern off the air, tried to reach Facebook — with a fax machine. Since the online company didn't reply, he thinks they did it all intentionally. And he's being extra drama queen about the whole thing: "If I were Charles Manson, that wouldn't warrant the postings."

In case you're wondering why Thompson lost his lawyer powers, there are many, but mostly because he constantly accused people of peddling porn and generally being sinners.

Image via pshab's flickr.

Gore, you see, is a prominent backer of Fisker's Fisker Automotive, which just last week got a $529 million government loan to build a hybrid sports car. Gore also is a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, another Fisker investor. The Department of Energy said the former vice president's involvement did not sway its decision, but his involvement with the company can't hurt the firm's credibility with investors in this down economy. Musk's electric car company Tesla, meanwhile, is backed by rival Valley firm Draper Fisher Jervetson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and is a media and celebrity darling. It got $465 million in government loans back in June.

Fisker once had an $800,000 contract with Tesla to design the Model S, the car central to the company's plan for profitability, and Tesla accused him in a lawsuit of stealing company secrets. Tesla also claimed Fisker did shoddy work, sabotaging their design and setting the company back three to six months, a delay that came during one of the company's darkest periods. Fisker won an arbitration ruling saying he did nothing wrong, but there's no reason to think that settled the grudge.

The government is now subsidizing both sides as they go head to head in the market for affordable electric-powered cars. Sure, one makes a plug-in hybrid and the other a pure electric, but the market for pricey, super-environmentally-friendly sedans is relatively small at this early stage. Not the best time to help the companies potentially undercut one another's profit margins. It would have been better to let Fisker get money from a government closer to where he'll be manufacturing the car, over in Finland.

After all, "I'm buying a Fisker!" probably doesn't sound nearly so dirty over in the European market.

The forum was Leo Laporte's influential podcast, This Week in Tech, which has devoted large chunks of not one but two episodes to skewering Pogue over his oddly positive review of Apple's latest operating system, which just might have been influenced by the fact that Pogue has a book coming out on the OS.

The gist: Pogue copped to a conflict of interest, but said he isn't and has never claimed to be a journalist, and besides all his competitors have huge conflicts of their own, including archrival Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal who runs a conference where people pay $4,500 each to hear live interviews with the people whose products Mossberg reviews. How refreshing to hear Pogue finally talk about this very real conflict of Mossberg's, which is normally left unspoken within the genteel club of tech writers.

Beyond that, Pogue said Times editors repeatedly rejected his past entreaties to disclose his conflict of interest in his column. And he cited instances where he's been critical of Apple products.

Also: "I like my interview subjects to like me."

An edited clip of Pogue's comments about being a journalist are above; about his competitors, below. The full interview is here, and a transcript is here. NYTPicker has a longer summary.

We thought Pogue's comments about never calling himself a journalist were odd. First off, the Times' public editor clearly considers him one, as NYTPicker points out. Also, judging from past Pogue writings our own John Cook dug up on Nexis, the columnist sure likes to hang out at places where "journalists" are invited:

"Apple revealed its answer Tuesday to an invited audience of journalists at a half demonstration, half U2 rock concert here..."

"The result of his brainstorm was Demo, an annual two-day conference attended by 800 analysts, executives, reporters and investors, their belts clanking with pagers, cell phones and Palms."

"When I shared my plans with representatives of the Big Three — Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac — they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are terribly misleading."

"APPLE doesn't send out greeting cards very often, especially by FedEx. So when the company mailed cards to reporters last week, too soon for Christmas and too rushed for Halloween, some curiosity was understandable."

And Pogue isn't above adopting the disdainful tone of a top-shelf reporter when he's feeling superior:

Still, I think very little of the bloggers who are keeping Microsoft's bribe laptops.

Clearly, they're exploiting the lawless, Brave New World of the blogsophere, where, since they're Not Quite Journalists, they don't feel constrained by any of those pesky journalistic ethics guidelines. Like the one that says, "You don't keep $2,200 gifts from the subject of your review. You might think you can still write an impartial review, but it's highly unlikely-and either way, nobody will believe it."

Nevermind that Pogue accepted a $2,000 gift of his own; he's now freely admitted that he's Not Quite a Journalist himself.

UPDATE: Non-journalist Pogue recently gave the keynote address at a conference put on by the Columbia Journalism Review, at Columbia University's School of Journalism, entitled "Opportunities and Dangers for Journalism." Now does that sound like something a journalist would do? (Hat tip to Fake Steve Jobs.)

(Pogue pic: Randal Schwartz)

Presumably, Martin Eberhard's acquiescence comes at a price. The ousted electric-car-company founder sued Musk (pictured) for libel, slander and breach of contract barely three months ago following months of building tensions. After Tesla won hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid and started putting its affairs in order, Eberhard dropped his suit, and now the two sides have confirmed a deal, according to the blog Legal Pad.

Among many other allegations, Eberhard's suit had disputed Musk's right to call himself a founder, since he wasn't around for the actual birth of the company, while Musk claimed he could call himself that because he did so much to help the company in its early years, a dubious definition he also used to call himself a "co-founder" of PayPal. Eberhard has surrendered, and not just in a grudging manner: In an official statement, according to Legal Pad, he writes, "As co-founder of the company, Elon's contributions to Tesla have been extraordinary." Yes, Musk has made extraordinary contributions, not just managerially, but linguistically, as well.

(Musk pic: JD Lasica)

Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom (pictured) appeared to have it made before the computer wizardly was allegedly stolen. They had eBay, to whom they sold their internet phone-call service in 2005, on the ropes. The online auction company was trying to sell Skype, but Friis and Zennstrom's barrage of software-licensing and copyright lawsuits against eBay scared off potential buyers like Google. eBay, it seemed, would be forced to accept Friis and Zennstrom's own lowball offer to buy back Skype.

Then a consortium of private finance companies swooped in with an offer — ultimately accepted — valued at a cool $2.8 billion. It just so happened that one of the buyers, Index Ventures, employs a guy named Mike Volpi, who used to work for the Skype founders. One of Volpi's tasks for Friis and Zennstrom, according to their suit (embedded below), was to learn how to replace the "Global Index" software code at the heart of their various internet communications software, including Skype. Being able to remove this software would potentially moot many of Friis and Zennstrom's Skype lawsuits, thus making Skype much more valuable to its owner — the company Volpi now works for.

Friis and Zennstrom are alleging that ex-employee Volpi stole secrets from them, and breached his fiduciary duty as chairman of one of their companies, online video company Joost. In so doing, they are not only kicking off an epic, $2 billion nerdfight, they are also cementing their reputations as among the most litigious entrepreneurs in tech. In addition to suing eBay in both U.S. and British courts, and Volpi, they've also filed three separate lawsuits against the investment banker who represented them in their sale of Skype, according to the New York Times.

For a couple of guys whose product is revolutionizing global communication, Friis and Zennstrom have a distinctly old-fashioned way of sending a message.

Joost lawsuit

Coverage elsewhere: VentureBeat, TechCrunch

(Top pic by Steve Jurvetson)

No one is saying precisely what happened. But Calacanis, a Hollywood internet entrepreneur who tools around in a Tesla Roadster and is buddy-buddy with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, has tweeted that TechCrunch 50, which the men co-host, is over after its third iteration. He also "openly talked about a fight" with Arrington to others at the conference, Paul Boutin reports on VentureBeat.com.

Calacanis seemed to confirm all this to, of all people, a puppet controlled by New York humorist Loren Feldman (see left).

And Arrington, who publishes the influential Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch, isn't quite denying it either. Arrington cautioned in a phone interview that he wasn't familiar with all of Calacanis' public statements today. But he added, "I'm not going to say I didn't have words with him because I have words with people all the time." Besides, he added, things are crazy at the end of a long conference.

He wouldn't get into details, but did point us, in response to questions about the incident, to a blog post he recently wrote called Let's Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like Hollywood, in which he argues that the powers-that-be in the Northern California tech scene should avoid becoming as pompous and hierarchical as the folks in Hollywood, i.e. the people Calacanis likes to hang out with. Cryptic. But Arrington wouldn't be much more specific: "I'm not too concerned Jason is telling people he doesnt want to talk to me. I'm sure life will go on without Jason Calacanis and the drama he creates by talking to puppets."

Sure, life will go on, and in the meantime the rest of us have another tech feud to keep us entertained. It's been too long since one of these flared up.

(Speaking of which, we've logged several emails and instant messages to Calacanis and have yet to hear back. If you have any insights into what happened, please email us.)

(Top pic: Calacanis, left, and Arrington in happier days, by Frank Gruber.)

After spotting some stray tweets about the incident, Todd Bishop of TechFlash dug up the tale: At yesterday's annual Microsoft meeting at Safeco Field, Ballmer was making his entrance when a 'Softie tried to snap his picture with an iPhone. Bad idea!

Ballmer grabbed the Apple device from the employee and made some funny remarks as everyone booed. Then he put it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it, before walking away... during his presentation on stage, Ballmer referred to the episode again, teasing the person and making it clear that he hadn't forgotten what happened.

Ballmer, at heart a sales guy, perhaps does not cultivate the degree of self-awareness necessary to see the parallels between his relentless — if, in this case, somewhat lighthearted — demonization of his competitors within Microsoft and the tactics of Big Brother from 1984. He is, in short, acting like the very guy Apple has chosen as its ideal foil. But if his Two Minutes Hate at Safeco Field was a clumsy PR move, it was hardly out of character; in fact, as the viral mash-up above shows, there is something about large company functions that seems accentuate the man's insanity.

His employees, at least, are sympathetic...

...sometimes to a fault!

Demi says he pushes kiddie porn. Perez says she's a bad mother and he's gonna sue her. All the fuss is over some pictures that Perez linked to some pictures on his Twitter account of Tallulah Willis (also daughter of actor, Bruce) partying in a very revealing blouse. If you really need to see it, it's here.

Demi opened with a salvo that failed to explain just what her 15-year-old daughter was doing at a Cobrasnake-documented party in the first place:

Clearly Perez Hilton isn't taking violating child pornography laws very seriously. He might not but there are alot of people who do!...Anyone who advertises follows or supports Perez supports violating child pornography laws!...Let me ask all of you, what is it called when someone is telling people to look and focus on a child's "boobs & ass" while providing photos?

Perez responded by taking the moral highground, a dubious tactic for a fellow who made a name for himself by drawing cum on celebrity pictures:

And thanks for drawing MORE attention to your daughter's behavior and your parenting skills (or lack thereof). U r real smart!...Still waiting for you to retract your incorrect, libelous and defamatory statements...I would not let my 15 year old daughter dress like that under ANY context. You are delusional and slightly senile!

Yes, it was in bad taste to post them, Perez, but it's hard to take Demi's sanctimonious claims seriously (her last tweet reads, "This is not a game . Children should not be exploited. They must be protected.") when she allowed her daughter to go to the party in the first place. And Perez just keeps baiting her. Even moral compass Heidi Montag has weighed in! So, why don't you two put down the smart phones, pick up some common sense, and give it a rest. You're making Tallulah look like the sane one here!

Puck, the ultimate hustler of high-end food, sought to do business with the ultimate internet land grabber, an outfit trying to lock up top-level domains like ".wine," ".nyc" and ".basketball." A case filed by the latter group in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleging breach of contract, tortious interference and fraud, makes it clear the relationship quickly soured.

Three parties are suing Puck and his wife: Minds and Machines LLC, of California; Level Domain Holdings Ltd. of the Virgin Islands and entrepreneur Fred Krueger. The plaintiffs reached an agreement with Wolfgang Puck to co-develop the ".food" domain, but subsequently had a falling out over whether Puck and his wife were entitled to compensation for other top-level-domains developed by the parties, and whether Puck subsequently breached the agreement by yanking back rights to his name.

It could take months or years to sort out exactly what went wrong here. But it's easy to see how this case will embarrass Wolfgang and, especially, his wife Gelila.

Here's Puck insisting on giving less to charity:

The suit repeatedly depicts Gelila derailing domain name deals by enticing the plaintiffs into alternate negotiations than never panned out. One involved Vogue publisher Condé Nast:

Gelila had two children with Puck, two decades her senior and already a father, before marrying him two summers ago. A Harper's Bazaar profile depicted Gelila stepping into a J. Mendel dress, Jimmy Choo shoes and Swarovski crystal necklace ahead of a dinner party. She told the magazine she found labels "vulgar."

Odd, then, that she was positively eager to jump into the internet labeling business, judging from the court papers. In fact, she thought internet labels would give make her the next Bill Gates and the next Al Gore:

The suit also accused her of chasing off potential clients:

As we keep repeating, internet geeks and Hollywood glitterati should meet only under tightly-controlled circumstances.

That, at least, is what the Redmond, Washington software company clearly wants everyone to think. Lu, who headed Yahoo's search efforts before snubbing a Facebook job in favor of Microsoft, is described in today's New York Times as "self-effacing" and strict in his propriety. So it's safe to presume the Bing.com overlord is being pushed, not stepping, forward, and that it's all part of a Microsoft PR campaign.

The implicit message: We will iterate until we pass Google in the market, burying the company with the same persistent tactics we used against Netscape, done in by a steadily improved Internet Explorer, and Apple, trounced in market share by a steadily improved Windows. Li is to be the icon of ruthless self-improvement: Born poor in China, Lu couldn't even afford the application fee for Carnegie Mellon, where he ultimately earned a Ph.D.

He ended up at IBM, then "poured his heart and soul" into improving Yahoo search. Now he's president of online services at Microsoft, and the Times makes him sound like Drago in Rocky IV:

He sleeps three to four hours a night. One most weekdays, he wakes up around 4 a.m., goes through his e-mail and runs four miles on a treadmill while listening to classical music or watching the news.



He prefers to be in his office between 5 and 6 a.m. to have uninterrupted time to prepare for his day. He is often sending e-mail to his staff until midnight or later.

Do these work habits trickle down to Lu's staff? We'll answer that question with another nugget from the Times piece: Lu's daily staff meetings are at 9:30. At night.

There is no doubt an big element of caricature in this portrayal of Lu, but that doesn't make it any less clever a gambit by Microsoft's aggressive flacks. For all his superhuman strength, Lu has already lost once to Google, when he worked for Yahoo. That makes him the underdog. Now, thanks to Yahoo's defacto merger with Microsoft, he's in the ring again, building the technology behind Yahoo's search, and behind Microsoft's to boot. It's a grudge match, and a possible comeback story. If Lu wins, he's definitely not Drago any more. He's scrappy Rocky Balboa. At least until everyone remembers who he works for.

(Top pic: Randy Stewart)