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)

At least Swisher had the good taste to go after one of her News Corp. colleagues, too, calling MySpace chief (and former Facebook COO) Owen Van Natta a girly penman. On tour with Facebook PR chief Brandee Barker, Swisher also threw in some self-deprecation that doubled as disclosure: thanks to a spouse who works at Google, Swisher dines freely on the search giants vaunted food, making the All Things D editor especially well-positioned to judge Facebook's cafeteria food against the competition.

It also makes her ideally suited to poke fun at Facebook for trying to stay cool despite its move from downtown Palo Alto to a fuddy-duddy old HP office park in the suburbs.

Facebook ought to invite Swisher back for a proper lunch review, if only to clear the name of its poor chef.

Quick highlights reel above; full eight-minute tour below.

[All Things D via Business Insider]

The headline "Carol Bartz, Live and Uncensored" topped video of the Yahoo CEO's comments on All Things D, the Journal tech website, extending interest in the f-bomb that began when on of its reporters reported the incident on Twitter. The accompanying article referenced Bartz's "much-anticipated f-bomb." Yet the curse had been mysteriously excised from the video.

The paper quickly heard from aggrieved bloggers (including this one, although we weren't too aggrieved — we've seen plenty of Bartz's cursing elsewhere) . All Things D writer Peter Kafka urged patience:

Several hours later, the logistical problem had not been resolved. But the Journal insists it will, and attached a note to its original video to that effect:

But the interest in the "fucking" clip (ahem!) only illustrated the power of Bartz's salty talk, which listeners tend to equate with forthrightness. Her comments, blunt words and all, seem to have gone over well at D and perhaps even turned the Yahoo chief into a full-fledged Valley character ("I'm sorry we're starting late — Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room," Swisher would later joke).

We have to hand it to Bartz: Any executive who can stage-whisper "fuck you" to a WSJ reporter and come out on top is handling herself admirably.

The more spirited non f-bomb moments of the Bartz-Swisher exchange are excerpted in the video above. We'll update if and when f-bomb video becomes available.

Rule:

Don't recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work.

Tech editor Julia Angwin retweets fans of her new book, Stealing MySpace.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Rule:

Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you're acting on behalf of your Dow Jones publication or service.

Gadget columnist Katie Boehret may use her ink-dot portrait, but she goes by the highly suspicious "kabster728" on Twitter.

Rule:

When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a reporter for the Journal, Newswires or MarketWatch and be tonally neutral in your questions.

Let's hope writer Mary Pilon was being rhetorical. If not, she really botched this one!

Rule:

Base all comments posted in your role as a Dow Jones employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.

Amy Schatz reveals a career-killing bias against Uhura on Star Trek.

Rule:

Don't disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage.

Who's going to tell WSJ.com life and style editor Marisa Wong to ease back on spamming Twitter with headlines?

Rule:

Don't engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.

Sharp-tongued AllThingsD mommyblogger Kara Swisher must have carved out an exemption in her contract on this one.

Rule:

Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter.

WSJ.com Europe editor Neil McIntosh reveals entirely too much about his outside interests.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet (at the Journal or otherwise)? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Wired.com editor Dylan Tweney experienced retrotech.

Lazy gadfly Guardian columnist Paul Carr continued to dine his way through the ladybloggers of San Francisco, following Kara Swisher up with Sarah Lacy.

Alt-weekly veteran Mark Athitakis saw the future of journalism.

Blogger-entrepreneur-venture capitalist Om Malik felt the recession funk.

New York Times eclecticist Jennifer 8. Lee crowdsourced penury.

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Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

The editor, Robert Thomson, has been brutal; amplifying the views of his boss Rupert Murdoch, the Journal chief Tuesday called aggregators of newspaper content like blogs and Google "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet" whose "cynicism... about so-called traditional media is only matched by their opportunism in exploiting the quality of traditional media."

The aggregators were making money off content "created by others" and "shamelessly" undermining the brands that originally created that content. Stealing, in short.

Within two days, the so-called parasites were themselves upset: Why was the Journal's AllThingsD technology website excerpting several paragraphs from their blog posts and posting it a Journal website without permission?

Not being the types to attend or obsess over newspaper conferences, they seemed unaware of Thomson's earlier comments. But judging by Andy Baio's roundup of reactions, they were as taken aback as Thomson, if a bit more genteel in responding:

• "What the hell is this," Delicious founder Joshua Schachter wrote after his story was copied onto Journal servers.
  
• "I sure wish they asked me first," wrote Metafilter creator Matt Haughley. "That's a hell of a lot of ads on my 'excerpt.'"
  
• "Deliberately confusing and deceptive," productivity publisher Merlin Mann told Baio.

(Baio has other responses, including two positive ones, at the link above.)

Kara Swisher, a former Journal reporter and coproducer of AllThingsD, responded quickly and sensibly. She trimmed some of the longer excerpts Baio showed her and explained she'd take down any content if asked. She indicated she'd add a disclaimer to make clearer the origin of the content.

Some might say AllThingsD.com still violates copyright law (it still takes several sentences, even several paragraphs); others would point out its practices are identical to what sites like the Huffington Post have been doing for some time; still others would say it's helping other sites by sending traffic.

But it's hard to argue with the observation that Swisher responded reasonably. And her critics, despite their initial shock, seem happy to reason back in all fairness and good faith. If only the Journal would do them the same courtesy when the shoe starts out on the other foot.

[Waxy.org via Daring Fireball]

New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones displayed a "fondness" for "air" "quotes."

Erstwhile checkout-aisle influence-peddler Bonnie Fuller was disappointed in Sarah Palin.

BusinessWeek's Spencer Ante cozied up to some Beatles.

TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld spatted with sharp-tongued AllThingsD mommyblogger Kara Swisher.

And Swisher responded in kind.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Smith is replacing Google.org's current chief, Larry Brilliant, who's getting put out to pasture with some vague job involving "philanthropy evangelism." (In Hollywood, they give retiring executives producer deals; in Silicon Valley, they make you an "evangelist," a flowery marketing title which really means you get paid to give speeches at conferences and have lunch with people who also don't matter.) She'll now oversee do-gooding investments, like Google's push into renewable energy and disease tracking. That's on top of her day job wrangling deals with Google partners like MySpace (a relative success) and Facebook (an abject failure). She's close to founder Sergey Brin, a source of considerable soft power in the supposedly unhierarchical company.

Meanwhile, her spouse, Swisher, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, gets most of her power in the industry from running D, an annual tech-CEO conference she organizes with Walt Mossberg, the paper's powerful gadget reviewer. Mossberg gave Swisher away at the couple's first, unofficial wedding; the couple later got officially married before the passage of Proposition 8, California's gay-marriage ban.

Swisher has a lengthy disclaimer about the relationship on her AllThingsD tech blog, and the couple have wrapped up Smith's Google holdings in trusts so Swisher can reasonably claim she doesn't control them. People in the industry still look askance at the relationship, questioning how Swisher might have an ulterior motive when she's tough on Google competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft. As Smith's ambit grows, those questions will rise in volume.

But Swisher causes as much trouble at work for Smith as Smith causes for Swisher. The latter's savage reporting on the antitrust implications of Google selling ads on Yahoo helped derail an agreement between the companies, and almost got Google sued by the government. Smith's job makes things difficult for Swisher as a reporter; Swisher's reporting gets Smith's bosses in hot water with the feds. If these two are still together, it must be love.

(Photo by Lane Hartwell)

But here's a clever idea: The RSVP form allows you to suggest a colleague in your place. It would be a pity if jealous colleagues at, say, the New York Times filled out the form for John Markoff and suggested they attend in his place. I just declined on behalf of AllThingsD's Kara Swisher — though she could always crash as the guest of her wife, Google executive Megan Smith. Here's the full invite:

Despite the marriage, Swisher's disclosure statement still claims that Smith's wealth in Google shares is not Swishers' as well:

A substantial amount of her income from Google is in shares and options, some of which she has sold and some of which she still holds. Megan makes all her own decisions related to these shares and options, and I do not own or control any of them.

Swisher explains to me that Smith's Google shares are going solely to their kids through living trusts, an arrangement which predates their marriage.

But really, does it matter? I've always felt that Swisher's claim that she doesn't own or control Megan's shares was a bit of a fudge on the real situation; Swisher and Smith share a house and raise children together, and their lives and fortunes are thereby entwined. And their relationship, whatever its legal status, will continue to raise eyebrows as long as Swisher covers the industry. Marriage won't change that. Nor, as much as Google executives, Smith included, might wish otherwise, will it soften Swisher's savage coverage of the company.

(Photo by Lane Hartwell)

• Steve Jobs, ailing Apple CEO
• Kara Swisher, obnoxious AllThingsD blogger
• Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO
• Michael Arrington, TechCrunch editor
• Jerry Yang, Yahoo's undead CEO

How to wear it: Soccer mom meets Castro lesbian, with a denim shirt and blue jeans. Oh, and a Pure Digital Flip camera.

How to scare them: Find a tech-company executive. Insist on interviewing them. Blurt out the most annoying questions you can think of. If they flinch, threaten to disinvite them from your exclusive Wall Street Journal tech conference.

CrispyGamer Must Be Running Out of Money

- If you’re not paying attention, it may seem as if the cratering economy ...
- CrispyGamer, a newish videogame site, has raised $8.25 million from J.P. Morgan’s Constellation Ventures.
- But CrispyGamer also says it has a staff of 20 people, including five full-time writers (what does everyone else do there?). That’s an awfully big staff to keep afloat on $2 CPMs–and it’s hard to imagine that CripsyGamers’s backers imagined that’s what they were getting into earlier this year.

What we said was that the quarter showed some strength in U.S. search and performance display, but more weakness in branded, especially at the end in the U.S., and more so internationally.

Obviously, no one knows when the market is going to bottom out, and I am certainly not an economist. You can talk yourself into a loop, but no one really knows where it is going yet.

There have been redundancies and geo-consolidation that we had not addressed that we are doing now.

I look at these cuts as both a short-term and long-term effort.

That is the kind of comprehensive look we are doing across the company.

I am not going to comment specifically on AOL.

Carl [Icahn]is fine and he has got a lot on his plate as well. But he has been a very useful person to have on the board and, of course, it is a different role for him than before. For the most part, he is very constructive, but he is still Carl and he doesn’t hesitate to share what’s on his mind.

I don’t have a lot of new things to say. We’re still talking, as I have said, and hope to get things resolved. We have not started it, but no one has walked away.

I don’t have anything new to report there either.

My dream is to transform Yahoo as a platform and product company and I think we are on the way to really doing that.

And, in this uncertain environment, I think I am absolutely the right person.