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geek love
No, she won't go "Facebook Official" with you
"Dating isn't dead, it's just changed names!" So the newspapers reassure us. Don't blame today's "hookup culture" on Web-driven moral decay or the rapid-thumbed narcissism of the Youngs. The Internet has actually saved romance. "They may not call it 'dating,' but they still 'go out,'" a Contra Costa Times reporter explains. "And when it gets serious enough, they announce it online and become 'Facebook official.'" Facebook has saved dating? Fine, one fewer thing to blame Sheryl Sandberg for. But it's still not true. More »
12:40 PM on Tue Aug 19 2008
By Melissa Gira Grant
1,107 views,
4 comments
Latest by raincoaster: It's really quite poignant when you sign on and see "Bobo has switched status from 'in a relationship' to 'single'". more »
crime
Spies, killers, thieves, and coders: 10 engineers gone bad
When former Varian engineer Wayne Cox reached out his driver-side window to push the dying Oralia Puga Ramirez, 75, and Enedina Oliva, 70 off the hood of his car, a 1994 Infiniti, did he have to roll down his window first or was it already open? I wonder, because that's a detail that matters — a detail that delineates between confused and calculated cruelty. You're driving along, you hit someone by accident, your window's already open, you reach out to see if the person is OK, they aren't, so you freak out and drive away — that's callous and wrong, but not calculated. Hit someone you didn't see, see they're dying, press the button to send your power window down, wait the three or four seconds for the window to sink all the way, then reach out and push two dying people from the car's hood? That's callous, wrong and calculated — criminal in a way you'd only expect from an engineer. Or least from an engineer like the nine bad guys we list below: More »
6:00 PM on Mon Aug 18 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,449 views,
8 comments
Latest by Nicholas Carlson: @CaliforniaCajun: Tell us "how the valley uses up people and throws them away when they hit 45-50 years old?" more »
digital music
Pandora throws temper tantrum over music rates
The days of marveling over online music service Pandora's ability to know that you hella heart Oakland's own Digital Underground may soon be over. A court decision adored by the recording industry doubled the royalties Web broadcasters have to pay. Radio stations pay nothing to for rebroadcast rights to recordings, but do pay publishers a royalty. Satellite broadcasters pay nearly half what online music providers are charged. Pandora reports that the charges, payable to royalty collector SoundExchange, will amount to $17.5 million of their $25 million in annual revenue. Which would permanently mangle the company's business model, according to CEO Tim Westergren. The flip, convenient thing to do here is to blog about the evils of the rapacious music industry. Sure, SoundExchange is notorious for its long list of artists it can't find in order to pay, while it naturally collects royalties regardless. But after Muxtape's run in with the RIAA today, one has to think there's blame to spread around. What did these music entrepreneurs expect? More »
jackpot
Millions of reasons why Google's glad to have Ben Ling back
Don't feel too sorry for Ben Ling, the star product marketer who leapt from Google to Facebook back to Google in less than a year. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg — herself a Google alum — has threatened not to let Ling keep the shares he earned to date. It was a petty move that goes against Valley standards of on how to treat departing employees, not to mention Facebook's own practice in such matters. But it's not like the loss will sting Ling. Google SVP Jonathan Rosenberg, who's said to be a big fan of Ling and recruited him heavily to come back to the search engine, is taking care of Ling with a "multimillion-dollar signing bonus," according to one tipster.
avatars
FaceYourManga vs. Yearbook Yourself
The Internet has left us not quite ourselves. Half of San Francisco and Brooklyn, it suddenly seems, wishes they were high school students in the '50s. The other half would rather be in a Japanese manga graphic novel. This urge to be someone slightly different has been capitalized on by two websites: FaceYourManga and Yearbook Yourself. The market need is obvious: For every social network you join, you need a profile pic, lest you be marked as an outcast with an anonymous default image. Drunken party snapshots do the trick for MySpace. But the pressure to find the perfect photo has led some down rather odd roads in an idealized quest for a better, cuter self. These profile pictures say, "This is me, but not really me." More »
mark zuckerberg
Who's in charge at Facebook?
A tipster reports spotting Mark Zuckerberg in San Francisco today, outside 21st Amendment in San Francisco. He was "having a conversation (all smiles) with two other guys," our tipster tells us. The restaurant and bar is near San Francisco's South-of-Market startup epicenter, so there's any number of reasons Zuckerberg might have been in town. But I can think of one reason why he'd be all smiles: He's not in Palo Alto, where Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is busily wrecking his company. When Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg as Facebook's COO, he said she would not be in "overall charge" of the company, but would stick to running business operations. As she's repeatedly meddled in technology and product, Facebookers have asked Zuckerberg what's going on — and he's kept repeating his "overall charge" promise, even as Sandberg pulls an Al Haig — "I'm in control here" — down in Palo Alto. Zuckerberg's misdirection is entirely intentional — and very revealing of his management style. More »
Location-Based Disservices
How to lie to your friends with Web 2.0
"We think it's a good thing that users can lie," said Tom Coates, of Fire Eagle, the location-tagging app Yahoo just opened up to all comers-and-goers. It's a topical spin on a problem as old as Dodgeball, the first widely adopted friend-finding cell-phone app. Dodgeball and its kin are ostensibly used for telling your friends where you are. But really? They're even better for avoiding people. Using a "mobile phone to play hide-and-seek is a welcome development for social-mapping services," claims Newsweek.com, based on a few users' own predictably poor personal habits of relying on technology to do their dirty work for them. More »
2:40 PM on Fri Aug 15 2008
By Melissa Gira Grant
933 views,
7 comments
Latest by n/a: Shadowlayer's correct. Either you're doing something incredibly mundane ("I'm buying anti-dandruff shampoo at Walgreens") or something cool but the fact that more »
jackpot
Chris De Wolfe's gain is Fox execs' loss
News Corp.'s online arm, Fox Interactive Media, has struggled to attract online talent while paying them like a startup would. (News Corp. shares just don't cut it.) The solution for the unit, which includes MySpace and a passel of lesser-known websites: a long-term incentive plan, or LTIP, which offers a sort of phantom equity to executives in the division. In the last few weeks, the numbers for the most recent fiscal year which ended June 30 were distributed, and they were "disastrously low," says a tipster. "Most executives were already looking to leave," he says. "They hated FIM and the only reason they were staying was because of promises made about the LTIP." True, FIM hasn't quite made its aggressively optimistic numbers. But executives believe the real reason their bonuses are so low is MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe's fat contract. More »
sheryl sandberg
Mistakes were made
In retrospect, advising Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hire Sheryl Sandberg was not Valleywag's finest moment. All we can say is she had us fooled, too — though not for very long. More »
sheryl sandberg
Liar, liar
It seemed like such a simple proposition. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wanted Ben Ling to lie for her, and get rich doing it. Ling is — was — the director of Facebook's applications platform, which had garnered the social network much of its buzz over the past year. But he'd been supplanted by Elliot Schrage, Sandberg's PR guy, as head of the platform, and had gotten a job offer to return to Google. For the search engine, Ling's return was an invaluable PR victory, after a string of defections — including Sandberg herself. It was likewise a blow to Facebook's image; the company has lost a string of technical leaders since Sandberg started her reign of terror. More »
7:00 AM on Fri Aug 15 2008
By Owen Thomas
6,669 views,
36 comments
Latest by n/a: come on people - try and dig up some better information. checkout has been a disaster for Google and more »
rumormonger
Layoffs coming in AOL's datacenters?
On August 20, big layoffs are expected in AOL's technology operations. AOL CEO Randy Falco's vision for the Time Warner-owned Internet company: Get rid of all that messy Internet stuff. Madison Avenue, let's do lunch! Stripping AOL down to an ad-sales operation (and a collection of Web properties on which to place ads) requires shedding some of the things AOL was best known for — like hosting large-scale websites. After AOL bought Weblogs Inc., gadget blog Engadget handled Macworld-keynote traffic like a champ. Alas, the server farms are soon to be put out to pasture, if a tipster is correct. Commenter aoltech1 writes: More »
facebook
Sheryl Sandberg's reign of terror
Facebook's COO is tearing down the temple. That's the only conclusion I can reach after witnessing the Sheryl Sandberg's management of the Palo Alto-based social network. What I hear from inside Facebook: She demands total loyalty, and brooks no dissent — even the healthy, boisterous debate that's common to startups. You're either with Sheryl, or you're against Sheryl. And if you're against Sheryl, you're not long for Facebook. What's really frightening is how she effortlessly cajoles lies from her underlings. Note how Matt Cohler and Ben Ling exited the company singing her praises — despite what the talented executives were telling confidants in private about Sandberg. There's a simple explanation for that: She bought them off, with still-valuable Facebook stock. More »
6:00 PM on Wed Aug 13 2008
By Owen Thomas
8,879 views,
22 comments
Latest by n/a: The problems at Facebook existed prior to her arrival. Whether or not her impact will be beneficial or detrimental remains more »
surly adopter
Four reasons Apple's iPhone 3G fails
In agreeing to sell the iPhone, does Best Buy know what its getting itself into? Steve Jobs is issuing mea culpas about MobileMe, Apple's flaky email-and-synching service. But there are no Jobsian apologies over the iPhone 3G. Sure, sales are fine, $30 million changed hands through iTunes App Store in its first month, and Apple's market cap is now larger than Google's. But InternetNews.com's Andy Patrizio says it's obvious there's something wrong with the device itself. More »
stocks
As predicted, Apple now worth more than Google
During today's trading, Apple hit a market capitalization of $159 billion; Google's worth hung at a mere $157 billion. In November, when we predicted Apple would soon be worth more than Google, thanks to the iPhone, we drew scathing remarks from the commenters. One called it "the dumbest thing you've ever written." But the iPhone is an even bigger hit than the most fervent Macheads might have predicted. And the Googlephone, as we noted back then, is still just a set of developer tools. (You might get to preorder an HTC Dream running Google's wireless operating system in September.) What we got wrong: Apple dropped its innovative revenue-sharing scheme in favor of the more straightforward — and highly profitable — business of selling cell phones with a subsidy from carriers. (Screenshot by Digital Daily)
exits
Who's the next Facebooker to go?
The departure of star Facebook director Ben Ling has been roiling Facebook since word first spread at the social network's Palo Alto headquarters yesterday. One inevitable question some Facebookers are asking: What does this mean for the price of our stock? If Facebook were publicly traded, it's unlikely one employee's exit would cause a blip. But private tech companies like Facebooks are the ultimate growth plays, and momentum matters. If Facebook becomes known as a place top talent flees instead of gathers, it could tank Facebook's perceived value. What will be telling: Who leaves next, and how fast. One likely candidate: Chamath Palihapitiya. More »
online advertising
Spot Runner lays off 50
Nick Grouf once told me he started his online-advertising agency, Spot Runner, in Los Angeles, not Silicon Valley, for one reason: The video-production talent he needed to customize television ads en masse was down south. Now, a laid-off employee tells us Spot Runner has axed 100 employees, and is abandoning its original business of helping small businesses buy locally targeted TV ads. (Update: Rosabel Tao, a Spot Runner spokeswoman, says the actual number is 50, about 10 percent of the company's employees.) The startup, which recently made a high-profile hire in Joanne Bradford, a Microsoft media executive, is now focusing on reselling online ads to small businesses, and competing with established agencies to manage TV buys for large brands. Despite the layoffs, the company is hiring — but mostly for search-engine marketing jobs. That leaves Grouf competing in two crowded fields, from the wrong city, with little to distinguish his company. Save, that is, for the inflated expectations of his investors, who have piled $111 million into a vision which has proven wrong. (When asked to explain why he raised $51 million in May, Grouf specifically denied that his company was running short on cash.) Here's the layoff tip: More »
googlephone
