Gawker: valleywag, valley foxes

Hot dude alert: Keith Coleman of Google

Owen Thomas — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Reader Francis writes:

Apologies for taking up your time but the only thing I found at all interesting in the following TechCrunch story was the picture of Gmail Labs product manager Keith Coleman. The guy is cute as frak.

No apologies necessary, Francis! He's also been at Google since at least 2005, so do the math on his stock options. Any volunteers to take up Coleman's 20 percent time? And any other nominations? (Photo by Mark Hendrickson/TechCrunch)

Rumors of booth babes at Ad:tech only slightly exaggerated

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Ad:tech San Francisco is on and I'm disappointed. AdWeek's Brian Morrissey promised me Ad:tech would be full of "random, sketchy lead gen ad networks who hire booth babes." Instead, I'm stuck in a session with panelists explaining how Google could better sell search advertising for offline brand advertising campaigns, which sounds boringly profitable. And I've encountered precious little sleaziness yet. Except for one guy and his two friends from Blow4Free.com. And the 13 others I met, in photographs below. A warning: The last two pics are probably too hot for your office manager to handle.

Azziza Washington and her friend on the right are from AdShuffle, where they work in "product development."

These two are from Traffic Marketplace. They traded their equity for the uniforms, I heard.

I asked these Reply.com executives for their cards. Fresh out, they handed me Tom Kelly's instead. Interested in business development? Call (925) 983-3493.

I can only assume this is Pete Salcido, EVP for sales at AdShuffle. Since that's whose card I got when I asked.

You'd think Googlers would have more self-respect than to take work as a booth babe — a piece of meat, really.

You'd think Yahoos would have ... never mind.

"She's got legs, she knows how to use them"

Jordan Golson — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:10:00 EDT

BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy, in Israel for a conference, is feeling the heat, and this time not from a conference audience. Tipsters, don't fail us now: pics or it didn't happen!

Chadrick loves Sarah, Amanda, Diana, and Sarah — and thinks you will, too

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:00:43 EST

If only you people would stop clicking on posts about Julia Allison and Meghan Asha, you would make Metaversatility biz-dev guy Chadrick Baker very happy. "Please, please for all that is good and is right in the world," Baker beseeches us in an email, "please stop reporting on nitwits." Below, the "smart, attractive geeky entrepreneurial type girls" Chadrick thinks we should be writing about instead. Who's your favorite? Vote for her in our poll.

(Photos by b_d_solis, mf_cailloux, Lorena & David, and again, b_d_solis)

Attention Gina Valo fans: Did you know Valo,...

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:00:11 EST

Attention Gina Valo fans: Did you know Valo, the Googler who also wears the Miss Michigan beauty crown, plays the fiddle? And can dance the Bombshell Stomp? And that her career goal is to become an "independent strategy consultant and social entrepreneur"? Neither did we. Thanks, Chris311. I'm sure Valo appreciates the conversation fodder you just gave 16,000 lonely Googlers. [Valleywag Comments]

Miss Michigan's Googler mugshot

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:40:59 EST

Here's Gina Valo, Miss Michigan and Google employee. You'll notice she's dropped the bright red lipstick and caked-on foundation she wore in the beauty pageant picture we posted before. And that it's a huge improvement. "Clearly," the tipster who forwarded us this photo tells us, "the most important tip you'll receive today: Gina Valo is hot." Take solace, Valley geeks. Even if you worked at the Googleplex, this is as close as you'd get to Miss Michigan.

Meet Google's Miss Michigan, Gina Valo

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:30:26 EST

No, Googlers aren't talking about Microsoft's Sunnyvale raid. But they're totally thrilled to discuss the new Miss Michigan, Googler Gina Valo, 24. The former state champ, Kirsten Haglund, just won the Miss America contest, elevating one-time runner-up Valo to the top spot locally. We weren't able to Google much on Valo, but the Pageant News Bureau reports that all of this year's Miss Michigan contestants were "sweet, downright yummy." Sounds like a good bunch of U.S. Americans to me.

Ohmigod, shoes — attached to women, even

Owen Thomas — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:09:14 EST

How laden with pulchritude was the floor of Moose's last Friday, when we sent off Natali Del Conte? Check the shoes. What's even sexier? The stock options attached to some of this mod-shod squad. For you shoe fetishists out there, who wore what:

From left to right:

Rachel Lewin, student and girlfriend of Jordan Golson, in cherry red
BusinessWeek columnist, author, and Valley fox Sarah Lacy in reddish brown
Splunk VP Christina Noren in strapless black with engineer-hot hexagonal heels
CNET senior editor Natali Del Conte in black strapped heels
StyleDiary founder Patricia Handschiegel in blue boots

Oh, and the schlumpy guy in black Rockports and jeans behind them? That would be me. Jealous?

Facebook's Ben Ling shakes highly portable thing

Owen Thomas — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:20:49 EST

By day, Ben Ling is a red-hot property in Silicon Valley for his brains. But in San Francisco's nightclubs, he's a red-hot property for his killer bod. Check out the engineer as he dances at Club Asia in this June 2006 video. His fans are shoving dollars down his briefs, almost as eagerly as Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg.

"Bling," as he's known, famously defected from Google to Facebook last year. More recently, he joined the Data Portability Workgroup. Was this video the kind of personal data he wants to make it easier to spread around?

Not quite refusing to pander with pictures of Yahoo hottie

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:20:50 EST

We're getting requests for another Snacky or Flacky contest. You know, the one where we objectified some of Silicon Valley's brightest public relations stars. You people are sick. Can't you tell that we at Valleywag have moved beyond such exploitation? This space is for honoring the hard work of PR professionals, like Heather Meeker of Yahoo, pictured here not wearing a shirt.

Valley geeks vote on their own unfulfilled libidos

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:05:44 EDT

New voting site Dig a Silicon Valley Girl has reached the pinnacle of loser-generated content. It makes the implicit explicit — the sex-starved id of the male-dominated Valley made tangible in a thoroughly useless, if entertainingly revealing site. DSVG recycles the social voting of Digg, mixes it with rating site HotorNot, and, we're sad to say, mixes in a thorough helping of Valleywag's archives, minus the social critique. Now lonely geeks can vote for their juvenile obsessions in public, rather than leaving juvenile comments across the Web, tittering in whispers at the next Web 2.0 event, or entertaining themselves singlehandedly to tech-news podcasts. There's only one higher purpose this site can serve: Becoming the destination for all the frustrated prepubescents who clog up the comments of sites trying to cover significant, breaking news ... like the wardrobes of videobloggers, for example.

In your face! BusinessWeek columnist throws drink at TechCrunch editor

Owen Thomas — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:20:17 EDT

The Lobby, David Hornik's Hawaii funconference, may have no agenda — but a lot is happening all the same. One delicious incident recounted to us: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who'd previously wooed BusinessWeek columnist and Valley fox Sarah Lacy onto his TechCrunch40 judges panel, apparently said something that made her throw a drink in his face. That's the first thing I've heard about The Lobby so far that actually made me wish I was there. Update: We hear the glass was empty. Okay, so make that two wishes: That we were there, and that Lacy wasn't so quick to sling back her booze.

Lucy Hood, Jamba CEO and president of Fox...

Jordan Golson — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:35:02 EDT

Lucy Hood, Jamba CEO and president of Fox Mobile Entertainment, has quit. Though no future plans have been announced, we suspect she'd fit right in at the Fox Business Network, alongside Hewlett-Packard alum Carly Fiorina. Heck, she could make it an intracompany transfer. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Carly Fiorina goes from foxy CEO to Fox newsreader

Jordan Golson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:24:43 EDT

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has signed on to be a Fox Business Network contributor. According to the press release, Fiorina achieved the highest rate of innovation in company history. How they measure that metric is a mystery to us; after all, shortly after Fiorina left, the company engaged in some highly innovative leak-detection practices, leading to the resignation of several board members. But never mind that. The only stat that will likely matter to Fox's Joe-Sixpack audience, sadly, is how short her skirt is.

Party at the New York City Googleplex!

Owen Thomas — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:51:46 EDT

We're getting live reports on who's making it past the velvet rope at Google's New York party. The bash, held in Google's West Chelsea offices at 76 Ninth Avenue, has already kicked up a fuss. Google's controlling-but-not-that-bright PR people have tried to limit the guest list to consumer and fashion reporters, figuring they'd be more likely to critique the buffet and less likely to ask pesky questions about the search engine's business practices. So far, they've had mixed results. Here's who we've heard has showed up so far — and who's been barred at the door.

Notorious nobody and Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison has swanned her way in, as has Erik Sofge of ... Popular Mechanics? So much for the event's glam factor. Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer is ~~being held at the door~~ in, after receiving a self-righteous lecture at the hands of a very nice if overly empowered Google staffer. Also in: Sam Gustin of Portfolio.com, and vlog-hot Caroline McCarthy of News.com, who'd rate as one of the Valley foxes if she weren't based out of Gotham. Apparently, though, the business reporters who get past the gate are being told not to take pictures. Got more reports on who's in and who's out? Let us know.

Update: Google executive Marissa Mayer, another overly empowered sort, has shown up wearing what sounds like a hideous outfit: "black pants black shirt with purple and bue polka dots and black shoes that show off red toenails," according to one eyewitness. Anyone daring enough to violate Google PR's photo ban and send in a pic?

Update: Douglas Merrill, Google's VP of engineering, is wearing a "hideous red paisley shirt," our unofficial fashion correspondent reports.

Ziya Tong to break gadgets, geek hearts

Tim Faulkner — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:43:34 EDT

More than four decades after the invention of the plasma display, Wired Science, which is debuting October 3 on your local PBS station, arms vlog hot yet approachable host Ziya Tong with a circular saw to explain how these new-fangled screens work. "This," explains communications major Ziya , "is the shape of the future." Based on the name of Tong's segment — "Exploded View"— she'll continue to senselessly cut up and smash gadgets to teach the masses about the guts of today's technologies. All the while, she'll be pulling on the easily plucked heartstrings of hard-up geeks. It may be gimmicky junk science, but given PBS's reach, she's sure to break more nerd hearts than Soledad O'Brien did in the '90s, when the TV personality, now a CNN anchor, made a name for herself talking tech to the limited audience of MSNBC's "The Site."

Microsoft gets McNaughty down under

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:12:21 EDT

Tech behemoth Microsoft has ~~signed~~, alas, not signed Australian beauty queen Erin McNaught as an IT spokeswoman this week, contrary to prior reports that she was going to promote the "sexy" image of IT professionals. McNaught, known to the Australian press as McNaughty, does have a few tech qualifications — more than many other beauty queens, anyway. She currently hosts the Aussie gaming show "Cyber Shack" and was a student at Queensland Institute of Technology before she left to pursue a modeling career. It turns out, however, that she was just a last-minute replacement speaker at a Microsoft-sponsored conference. Too bad. We were anxiously waiting to see how she would take on Google's right-wing Australian spokesman, Rob Shilkin.

If you're flexible and like to switch teams, Facebook wants you

Owen Thomas — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:37:24 EDT

Says commenter The Default Attorney about Facebook recruiter Meagan Marks, one of the Valley foxes we featured recently:

I'm sorry, who does she work for again? I kind of tuned out when she started saying how flexible her position was and how she switches teams all the time.

T.D.A., you're nasty and, to be honest, we like that around here.

The flaming-red hotties of Facebook

Owen Thomas — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:41:33 EDT

What is it about the women Facebook hires? I'm sure they're all brilliant, but it needs to be said: The hot social network has equally hot personnel. Randi Jayne, sister of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, finally outs herself on video as a Facebook employee in this clip. But the video doesn't do her justice — as you might have noticed in her "Dontcha" iPhone video, she's distressingly cute. Her colleague, Meagan Marks, gives a sales pitch for working at Facebook that's best appreciated with the mute button on. And spokesperson Brandee Barker? Alas, she's not captured in this video, but you can check her out in this AllThingsD.com video. Or just take our word for it: Total babe.

If you're young, straight, male, and in need of a reason other than pre-IPO shares to work at Facebook, consider checking out its fine, fine collection of genuine Valley foxes. And whoever's in charge of recruiting at Facebook? I want to meet you. You fascinate me.

(Video by Sarah Meyers and Enric for Valleywag)

Horny Michael Arrington's new lust object

Owen Thomas — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:14:41 EDT

It appears that Michael Arrington is no longer devastated by the abrupt departure on Tuesday of Julia Allison, the New York-based TV commentator he'd begged to stay in town after she flew in for his TechCrunch9 party. The TechCrunch editor has found a new lust object: Morgan Webb, host of WebbAlert, yet another online tech-news show with a busty host in the vein of Rocketboom. After the jump, the hilarious homina-homina that the horny hetero slipped into his review.

Says Michael Arrington:

As an aside, she's also fairly hot — Webb's pictures have been in FHM and Maxim magazine, and in April she was voted the 51st sexiest woman in the world in a FHM survey.

Well, folks, now you know the real way to get your startup into TechCrunch. You don't have to send flowers, or show up unannounced at Arrington's doorstep. You just have to have long hair and a killer rack. Valley foxes, take note.

"How many of these ghastly tech reports can anyone watch?" asks a friend of Valleywag. One, of course — the one with the hottest chick. WebbAlert is sure to do some damage — to, say, the GigaOm Show. Blogger Om Malik, with his face for radio and voice for magazines, just can't compete with the likes of Morgan Webb, even with comely cohost Joyce Kim.

To save his show, Malik should turn it over completely to Kim. And he'd better do it soon. More competition is on the way: We hear that NakedNews.com is launching NakedTechNews.com. Now that's sure to get an Arrington review.