Gawker: valleywag, thestreet.com

Jim Cramer chairman at TheStreet.com

Owen Thomas — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Back when Jim Cramer was an active hedge-fund trader, rather than an on-air fit-thrower for CNBC, he kept his distance from TheStreet.com, lest the site be accused of advancing his portfolio. No such distance now: He's replacing Thomas Clarke as chairman. Clarke remains CEO. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Cramer: "Apple is too dangerous until we hear about Jobs"

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:20:00 EDT

After giving a lower forecast for its September quarter than Wall Street expected, Apple saw its shares drop 3 percent today. TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says not to blame the numbers, but the numbskull PR move Apple made in refusing to discuss plans for Jobs's successor. "Look," Cramer says in the clip embedded below, "I thought the forecast was great. This is all about [Apple saying] Jobs's health is a 'personal matter."

The bubble in personal-finance websites

Owen Thomas — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EDT

AOL has launched Walletpop, a personal-finance site; IAC and Dow Jones have FiLife; and TheStreet.com has MainStreet.com. All hope to attract a younger audience to personal-finance news than the conventional stock talk and online portfolios offered by the staid likes of Yahoo Finance and CNNMoney. The bets are wrong both in their timing and their premise. Stockbrokers and mortgage lenders, reliable advertisers during good times, are both ducking for cover and pulling back their budgets. Froth might have sustained these sites a couple of years ago, but not now. No matter when they launched, though, their proponents should have remembered this maxim: Financial advice, like youth itself, is wasted on the young.

Unsurprisingly, there's already signs of trouble. MainStreet has lost its launch editor, Caroline Waxler, amid a change of editorial direction. FiLife has ratcheted back its once-lofty ambitions. And WalletPop? One of a bevy of websites launched by AOL, which is desperate to find readers who are not turned off by that once-magical, now-deadly three-letter brand. With few prospects for attracting an audience or advertisers, will they not soon need financial advice of their own?

Cramer: "Cleveland Valley," not Silicon Valley, will save us

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:00:00 EDT

At a breakfast event to conclude New York's Internet Week this morning, TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer said Valley innovation is all about creating "fancy ways to deliver music and videogames." The obstreperrific stockpicker said videogame makers Take-Two and Activision are tech's two most successful companies, other than Apple and Google — and that's fine, but it's also a sign Silicon Valley won't save us from the economic woes the markets gave a hint of last week. Instead, he predicts the Rust Belt — "Cleveland Valley," Cramer calls it — will. (Cramer joins Miss South Carolina in illustrating the need for better geography education in our schools.) The region, better known as the Cuyahoga River Valley, has had to reposition itself as the home of what Cramer calls "New Tech," building such marvels as "windmills with blades the size of 747 wings." Other highlights from Cramer's characteristically energy-charged talk and photos, below.

Cramer on the economy:

There are two kinds of companies right now. Those that need oil and capital and those that don't. I'm bullish on those that don't and those that produce raw materials.

On media:

My kids don't know what Newsweek is. Newsweek should be Kaplan [the educational-testing business, owned, like Newsweek, by the Washington Post Company)].

Rupert Murdoch is going to be Sam Zell and see what the Wall Street Journal can do on the Internet. With maybe half the journalists.

(Cramer's referring to Zell's ill-time purchase of newspaper publisher Tribune.)

On politics:

There's a movie coming out this summer, Get Smart. In the old show, Control battled against the evil Chaos. Lately, it's felt like Chaos has been running things.

On Microsoft-Yahoo:

Microsoft has to buy Yahoo because Google is going to give away the OS for search queries. Icahn will force the deal. Yang and his allies only own about 9 percent of the company. The Bancroft family owned 60 percent of the Journal and that didn't stop progress.

TheStreet.com's having trouble negotiating with Jim Cramer?

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:40:04 EST

Jim Cramer, the Wall Street blowhard, is having trouble coming to terms on a contract with TheStreet.com, the financial site he cofounded. The last one expired at the end of 2007. For now, Cramer has signed his second two-month extension in a row. After April 15, it's up again. If Cramer's outburst during the last market meltdown is any indication, I'm sure talks are proceeding calmly and reasonably.

As Silicon Alley Insider points out, both parties have much to lose. Cramer still owns 14 percent of the company, a stake worth around $42 million. CNBC, where Cramer yells a lot on air, has less of a Web audience than TheStreet.com. And try this pop quiz: Name someone who writes for TheStreet.com besides Cramer.

Valleywag cub reporter calls TheStreet.com veteran a "jackass" — to his face

Jordan Golson — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:52:14 EST

I'm sitting in the CES press lounge when my editor, Owen Thomas, sends me an email:

Find him and interview? - O.
——- Forwarded message ——-
From: Chaela Volpe
Date: Jan 7, 2008 1:35 PM
Subject: Gary Krakow joins TheStreet.com newsroom as Sr. Tech Correspondent, Reports Live from CES in Las Vegas

I announce to the table, which includes a few colleagues from Gizmodo, and early-rising PR guy Peter Shankman, "I love when my editors tell me to interview people and I have no idea who they are. Like this jackass — Gary Krakow from MSNBC. Who the hell is he? I have no idea." One of the guys across the table, who I don't know, starts staring at me and tosses his press badge on the table.

After a couple moments of silence, Shankman says, "This is the most surreal moment I've ever been witness to." Then, of course, he writes it up. Thanks, buddy.

By the way, Krakow has this to say about his new job:

Valleywag: Why'd you leave MSNBC?
Krakow: MSNBC wanted to go in a different direction. I needed more artistic freedom.
V: Does TheStreet still exist? Have you been paid yet?
K: Don't worry about my paycheck. The new, redesigned site will be up within a few weeks with a focus on video.