This Weekend Update is particularly exciting because of all the things happening here at All Things Digital. There is, of course, the upcoming D7 Conference, which promises to be more tech-extravaganza fun than a tweet from @sockington (if only half as cute), but this past week has also seen the launch of our very own iPhone app, meaning that ATD has gone mobile–smart news for your smartphone (we’re still working out potential taglines).
The long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft’s search engine will soon make its debut. Sources with knowledge of the situation said the company is expected to demonstrate it at our D: All Things Digital conference next week.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event, a three-day event that hosts top players from the tech and media industries in interviews by All Things Digital Co-executive Editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Code-named “Kumo,” the search engine is Microsoft’s effort to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google.
A look back at the week during which approximately 40 percent of the posts were about Twitter. Or at least it seemed that way.
BoomTown got the ball rolling by making a visit to Twitter HQ bearing pies. During a video tour of the premises, Biz Stone discussed rock stars and booze, and spilled the secret of the strange green deer.
Welcome back to Weekend Update, where we showcase some of the highlights from this site over the past week. In the umpteenth round of the old versus new media match, the Associated Press in its annual meeting this week played into the stereotype of the grizzled no-nonsense editor who shakes his fist at the new interweb thing (or was it intertube?) and its feisty friend, Google News, who are running amok on his lawn.
Another week into challenging times, and the theme for Weekend Update is undoubtedly cost-saving, with a healthy dose of revenue-seeking.
On the revenue-seeking side, BoomTown’s Twitter Business Plan Count-Up hasn’t yielded any real keepers yet. There is a real contender, though–since Jennifer Aniston so publicly broke up with her boyfriend John Mayer on account of his Twitter “addiction,” BoomTown suggests offering “Twitter rehab” for those not willing to lose their relationships just yet.
In Silicon Valley, it’s hard to believe that not everyone follows each shiny new thing on the Web, tracks OS versions as intently as the storyline for “Battlestar Galactica” and remains jacked-in pretty much 24/7. But it’s been known to happen.
For instance, BoomTown was in Rome earlier this week attending a conference on business, brand and innovation that happens only once every seven years–and one of the biggest takeaways? Hardly any Italians have heard of Twitter, and those who have don’t really use it.
The Web never stops publishing, but a tech blog definitely slows down on a market holiday. To wit: A (Long) Weekend Update, and best wishes on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.
As part of AllThingsD’s ongoing efforts to make your world more laden with information about All Things Digital, we’ve decided to introduce a new “Weekend Update” feature. This is our first installment:
This year’s D conference had its share of great lines–tired ones, too (we’re all clear on the subject of Facebook and information sharing, right?). Here’s a selection of the former…
I will probably never be a CEO again.”
–Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang states the obvious
It’s a company that creates technology.
– Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers the question, “What is a technology company?”
A tough act to follow, last year’s D: All Things Digital 5. How do you best, or even match, a 75-minute joint interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs–a history-making history lesson taught by two principal protagonists of tech’s narrative? Summon Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse from the dead to reminisce about the “War of Currents”?
Microsoft’s unsolicited acquisition bid for Yahoo is apparently looking more attractive to the now-minor Internet major, now that Carl Icahn has mounted a full-fledged fight for the nine seats now on Yahoo’s board.
Good thing so rarely a correlation exists between a company’s public announcements and its corporate actions. Otherwise, it might be tough to parse Microsoft’s recent comments about future acquisitions in light of some rumors floating around Silicon Valley today.
So after months of negotiations and posturing, Microsoft has given up its efforts to buy Yahoo. And according to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, that’s good news.
Indeed, people close to Yahoo said that Yang and Co. greeted the withdrawal of Microsoft’s bid as a victory, with a celebratory exchange of high-fives.
Now that Microsoft has abandoned its bid for Yahoo, the tech media is sifting the entrails of the companies’ ill-starred merger talks for portents of things to come. Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed says Yahoo has bought itself some more time–and litigation–while Mini-Microsoft says Microsoft’s decision to walk restores his faith in the company.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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