Valleywag

The week that just wasn't funny [Recap]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:05:45 PST

We make fun of everything here, even death. But it's still too soon to laugh over the three SiPort employees gunned down by a coworker, or the misguided teenager who overdosed live on Justin.tv. That said, next week will be open season on the newest little Googler and Barack Obama's Warcraft-addicted policymaker. Life goes on, and we have a job to do. (Photo by acaben)

Sorry, but Caption Contest is no longer with the company [Caption Contest]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:57:09 PST

Layoffs suck. At least we're still alive. But still: Next week, I'll handle Valleywag all by myself while Owen takes an overdue vacation. Week after that, I'll be gone and Owen, my partner in misbehavior since 1996, will go back to early 2007's org chart: Owen Thomas, Owen Thomas, and Owen Thomas. (I have work, don't worry.) No crying allowed, but this is our last caption contest so please, please, make it a good one. We'll take the best comment and turn it into this post's permanent, permanent headline. Yesterday's winner is longtailwagsthevalley, for "I'm born lucky." (Photo by Jason Calacanis)

Microsoft billionaire's low-profile MySpace page [Paul Allen]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:39:22 PST

"Merman" shares a birthday and a favorite musician — Jimi Hendrix — with chubby-but-hardrocking guitarist Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder behind Seattle's Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Hall of Fame. After Seattle-based blogger Todd Bishop posted on TechFlash this morning, Merman took his profile private. Here's what Bishop saw:

First, there's the profile pic, showing a man playing a classic Fender guitar across his midsection. The face is cropped out, but it looks a lot like Allen enjoying one of his favorite pastimes. Even the ring on the right hand looks like one Allen has been known to wear. And the "interests" section lists many of Allen's favorite musicians, starting with Jimi Hendrix.

Continuing down the page, "Merman" identifies himself as as a single, straight Aquarius who wants children "someday" and attended "some college." (Allen dropped out of Washington State University before going on to found Microsoft with Bill Gates, another college dropout.) The background picture is of a man scuba diving. Even behind the mask, it's pretty clear who that is.

Music community Buzznet lays off 10 out of 89 [Rumormonger]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:22:00 PST

"15 people laid off there today," says a tipster via email. "On a FRIDAY... Ouch. Have confirmation it’s across the board (sales, product, development etc.)" Our tipster didn't get it quite right — a company official says it was actually 10 out of 89 employees — just above the fashionable 10-percent cut high-profile VC firm Sequoia Capital established with its doom-and-gloom memo. Dear Buzznet employees: Please email us.

Microsoft now 5th worst ISP for spam [Spamhaus]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:19:04 PST

"Spammers and scam artists are abusing Microsoft's live.com and livefilestore.com properties to redirect visitors to sites that peddle fake pharmacy products, porn and Nigerian 419 scams." That's how WaPo security blogger Brian Krebs explains Microsoft's appearance on the list of Top 10 Worst Spam Service ISPs maintained by the non-profit Spamhaus Project. Krebs got a non-denial denial from Microsoft that overlooks the fact that many of the scams have been high-profile examples for months. As Krebs points out, even the directionless dweebs at Yahoo (I'm paraphrasing) fixed this problem on their own sites.

The death of conversational marketing [Online Advertising]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:00:00 PST

An unproar in the world of tech blogs is uncovering a broader fault line between writers and advertisers. Om Malik's GigaOm and his other blogs have dropped their outside ad-sales firm, Federated Media, a startup run by John Battelle. Federated isn't just another ad network, nor is Battelle just another entrepreneur; he helped start Wired and The Industry Standard and an author of a book about Google, thinks that the future of marketing is conversations. And he launched Federated around that notion. Rather than shouting at readers with ads, marketers will use blogs to engage with their readers — and pay handsomely for the privilege. That's his theory, at any rate, which he is expounding in a forthcoming book.

The reality: Battelle's dream of conversational marketing has turned into something more like the schlocky endorsements radio hosts get paid to do. By falling so short of his rhetoric, Federated's experiments have mostly ended in embarrassment, both for him and the bloggers he represents. Last year, he roped Malik and other writers into a scheme to have them recite a Microsoft slogan. And though Battelle apologized for that advertising campaign, he's conducting a similar campaign for Intel — though he has wisely picked so-called "social media marketers" with less journalistic credibility to lose; most already willingly shill for products on Twitter, Digg, and the like.

That's the insult. But Battelle's company has also delivered an injury, in the form of an abrupt slashing of advertising rates. GigaOm, TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider, and a host of other tech blogs represented by Federated have had their official rates cut 35 percent; deals negotiated with large advertisers are presumably being struck at even steeper discounts.

So Malik has taken his business elsewhere, to IDG, the publisher of PC World and several other large technology trades. As with Federated, IDG will sell ads, keep a large portion, and share the rest with Malik's company; 30 to 40 percent is a typical commission in the business. IDG has a vast army of salespeople to serve its print publications; as the print business vanishes, it makes sense to busy them with selling online advertising. Federated, meanwhile, has had to assemble its sales team from scratch.

Federated's slogan is that it is "author-driven." What does it say that an author has been driven from its ranks? Malik and Battelle are both savvy businessmen who know each other well. (I have known both for a long time, too, and edited their columns at the late Business 2.0 magazine.) IDG simply cut Malik a better deal, I believe — and no amount of rhetoric about "serving authors" from Federated could make up for the financial shortfall. In every negotiation, the time arrives to wrap up the conversation and strike a deal.

(Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

Guy Kawasaki writes his own blog -- well, except that one really popular post [Blogging For Dollars]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:40:00 PST

This is why people love Apple executive turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, whether or not he knows what he's talking about. At a Commonwealth Club event, Kawasaki was asked about his insanely popular "Ten Ways to use LinkedIn." Watch him squirm for a minute before 'fessing up: LinkedIn flack Kay Luo provided Guy with his talking points for the post. "I really needed a post — it was four days!" Guy, next time feel free to raid our inbox. We get more helpfully-already-written posts than we'd ever imagined possible.

Sponsor Shout-out [Thanks Sponsors]

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:20:00 PST

Thanks to this week's sponsors: Chevy Fuel Solutions, Cingular, Energizer, Gyration Air Mouse, HP MediaSmart Server, Livescribe, The Mercury Group, MSN, The New York Times Magazine, Nokia, Pernod, Register.com, Rovio, Sharp, Toshiba, Zune. To become an advertiser, click here.

Is the great Facebook stock sale over? [Jackpot]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:40:00 PST

Through the golden heart of every world-changing startup pulses an avaricious get-rich-quick scheme. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the billionaire-boy cofounders of Google, established this doing-well-by-doing-good myth. But Mark Zuckerberg hasn't been able to make the same magic happen for his employees. In his efforts to make good by them, he may end up quashing a nascent market in Facebook shares.

It's not for lack of trying. Silicon Valley's stock-options millionaire make money by getting the right to buy shares at a low price and selling them for a higher one. Facebook's soaring valuation — Microsoft invested $240 million for a tiny stake, in a deal which valued all of Facebook at $15 billion — threatened to undo that equation. How is Facebook supposed to soar past $15 billion in value? So Zuckerberg & Co. turned to issuing restricted stock units, or RSUs, instead. (Restricted stock units are common at large companies like Google and Microsoft, but unusual for a company Facebook's size and age.)

The restricted-stock plan has created a new complication: Once it has more than 500 RSU holders, SEC regulations may require Facebook to start publishing its financials, even if it doesn't conduct an initial public offering. Facebook's revenues still aren't pretty enough for public exposure.

Facebook's lawyers have sought, and obtained, an exemption. Part of the argument they made is that issuing RSUs won't create a market in Facebook shares.

Facebook, unusually for most of Silicon Valley's private companies, has not had many restrictions on what employees and other shareholders could do with the shares they own. Most have rules that force shareholders to offer shares to the company first — a right of first refusal — or outright prohibitions on unauthorized sales.

But the letter Facebook sent to the SEC says that even when the stock units convert to common shares, they have limits on their sale: "... the Plan has been structured to preclude any trading of RSUs or any interest therein from developing." Even if Facebook permits an employee convert their stock units to shares and sell them, the company can then prevent the buyer from selling.

Employees at Facebook — especially the early ones, whose holdings are now substantial — have been agitating for some time to sell their shares, and there are still, even with the public markets taking a beating, interested buyers. Zuckerberg finally bowed to this pressure and set up a program, now underway, to let employees cash out up to $900,000 in shares. (Note the symbolism of the figure: No one will become a millionaire.)

But that may be it. If Facebook extends its stock-sale restrictions to common shares, not just the restricted-stock units, both employees and the investors so eager to snap up their shares will be stuck, until Facebook sells out or goes public. Zuckerberg has made it clear he thinks both of those events are far off — and the 24-year-old CEO still owns 27 percent of the company and more or less controls the board.

It's a dicey gamble. The prospect of selling Facebook shares privately must surely have attracted some employees who counted on a relatively quick cash-out. But shutting down the prospect of further stock sales will make sure the Facebookers who remain will be more committed to the company for the long haul.

Zuckerberg doesn't have much choice. As long as Facebook employees can find buyers for their shares, they'll be tempted to leave rather than stay at a company going through a tumultous adolescence.

Already, the company has had far more turnover, from bottom to top, than Google did. Not a single high-ranking exec left Google for the first six years of its existence. Facebook has lost three of its four cofounders, and numerous people underneath them, from former COO Owen Van Natta on down. No wonder Zuckerberg wants to slam the exit door closed.

[Sponsored]

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:40:00 PST

Mysterious billionaires seek editor who doesn't exist [Job Descriptions From The Future]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:00:00 PST

Into the jaws of an advertising recession comes the launch of the most hubristic media venture we've heard of: a "super-stealth new online company backed and funded by some legendary billionaires." The requirements for the top job go from laugh line to laugh line.

The startup seeks a candidate who is an editor-in-chief at a top business magazine like Forbes, BusinessWeek, or Portfolio. All, mind you, based in New York. And yet he or she must live in San Francisco. Oh, and having worked at Yahoo, Google, or eBay is a "big plus." All of this to run a website targeted at "SMB" — advertiser jargon for "small and medium businesses." Most small-business publications fail to draw an audience, precisely because they think of their readers' businesses, contemptuously, as "small."

Too bad. In every other way, these guys are dreaming impossibly big. This job description is curiously similar to one posted in October with the same Gmail address as a contact. The main difference? The newer listing plays up the billionaire backers, and no longer mentions that it is "bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company." A 50-year-old company? Sounds way too old media.

Here's the job listing:

Editor in Chief (San Francisco)

Date: 2008-11-18, 9:15AM PST

Calling all Business Editors

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Please read the following requirements before replying to this ad:

Looking for a super smart, and bursting with energy senior business editor to head up content for a super-stealth new online company backed and funded by some legendary billionaires. We aren’t raising money, we don’t need VCs, and we are hiring!

IDEAL CANDIDATE

EIC or very senior level editor at a top tier online business site/publication. (Think BusinessWeek, Forbes, Portfolio, etc.) Someone who can build and manage a team, and above all— someone who knows how to create a unique voice and product by combining original content, RSS and other 3rd party feeds, bloggers and user generated submissions into something smart and fast-paced and directed to the owners and managers of SMBs. (If you don’t understand that term, this is not for you.)

NOT INTERESTED IN

People who do not live in San Francisco, Regional newspaper reporters, tech writers, marketing specialists, freelancers who have never managed a team or worked each day in an office. This is nothing against you in any way, but all about the specific focus and needs of this role. We need someone who knows SMB/SME readers and can fashion an innovative new online property for them, and who can work in our downtown SF office building a team.

Sound like you? Good, please read the official description. We are hiring immediately.

To apply, just send your resume and salary requirements to mavensource@gmail.com.

Editor in Chief

Confidential, San Francisco, CA

Well funded early-stage startup is seeking an Editor in Chief to join its senior management team and help launch and grow an exciting new online network for business professionals. This new company, bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company and some very famous board members, will leverage the assets of the parent company, while creating a ground-breaking new online service specifically for business leaders. This is a ground floor of an exciting concept and major new product launch.

The venture is seeking cutting edge start-up veterans to make the vision into a marketable and scalable product quickly and effectively. Team members chosen for this opportunity will be entrepreneurial in nature, visionary, well versed in online trends and technology, and ready to take a concept to product in record time using the many assets of the parent company for content and market advantage. Leadership experience at top online companies like Yahoo!, Google, eBay etc. will also be a big plus.

Editor in Chief

Description:

The Editor in Chief is responsible for managing development, production, voice, and presentation of all online editorial content. The Editor in Chief will create and execute a new vision for presenting relevant business information and advice to readers in a rapidly evolving online environment, making the site a trusted and valued source for the SME business community.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive content vision, voice, and style
• Develop and maintain the editorial calendar, working with contributors to maintain freshness of content aligned with long-term vision
• Recruit and manage a team of freelance writers, staff editors, and respected contributors
• Edit all submissions to meet publishing standards
• Generate original content
• Continuously work with production staff on presentation and quality control
• Ensure all responsible parties – design, freelance and others – meet necessary deadline requirements
• Pursue deeper understanding of the information needs of readers and tailor content to fit these needs and interests
• Pursue reader submissions, as appropriate, to complement internally-generated content
• Occasionally attend business networking events as editorial representative of the company

Education, Experience, and Skills Required:

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in journalism
• Strong background in business publishing and business-focused content highly preferred
• Experience managing a team of writers and freelancers in an online media environment
• 5-7 years relevant work experience, including writing for respected print and online publications, reviewing and editing the work of other writers, and managing an editorial staff and budget.
• Candidate must demonstrate a creative mindset, enthusiasm for online media, and an understanding of business leaders’ issues and information needs

Location: San Francisco
Compensation: DOE
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 924129721

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook stuck with each other [Politics]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:40:00 PST

President-elect Barack Obama has picked Tim Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than former Harvard University president Larry Summers, as Treasury secretary. That makes it unlikely that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who worked for Summers when he ran the Treasury for Bill Clinton, will return to Washington.

Palm, smartphone maker, in worldwide layoffs [Meltdowns]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:00:00 PST

A tipster tells us that Palm, the troubled smartphone maker, is laying off 10 percent of its staff. I called a spokeswoman at the company, who confirmed the layoffs but not the number of employees affected; Palm, at last count, had about 1,050 employees. She also said the company would make "program cuts" — Valleyspeak for dropping some future products. Palm has been hammered by competition from Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry; it is in the midst of a turnaround led by its chairman, Jonathan Rubinstein, a former Apple executive and Steve Jobs confidant. Rubinstein, left, has hired many former Apple employees at Palm — so much so that, rumor has it, Jobs called Rubinstein up to scream about it. But the layoffs and program cuts suggest he may not be able to complete his ambitions for a complete revamp of Palm's product line.

Google now lets TechCrunch pretend we don't exist [Toogle Many Googlers]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:40:00 PST

With a name like SearchWiki, you know it's going to be clever, yet stupid. Google has spent ten years and I don't know how many hundred million dollars refining a rocket-science algorithm for ranking Internet search results. Now, a few Google coders have whipped up a feature that lets you boost or cut the scores of individual websites from your own future searches. For example, grudge-o-matic TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington can click his own posts to the top of any Google search he performs. With one more click, he can remove Valleywag entirely from his life. That frees us to post as many photos of Big Mike's girlfriends as we want. Everybody wins! Personal note to Google engineer Amay: Next time you make a video, try to go longer than seven seconds without saying "cool."

How Ashton Kutcher killed a startup guy's Hollywood dream [Ooma]

Owen Thomas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:20:00 PST

It was a fantasy left over from the last boom: Hire a movie star to pitch your startup, and the dusting of tinsel will turbocharge sales. Those William Shatner ads sold plane tickets for Priceline, right? But the career of hard-partying entrepreneur Andrew Frame did not follow that script. We hear he was just fired as CEO of the Internet-phone startup he cofounded, Ooma. His most notable decision, hiring actor Ashton Kutcher as "creative director," did not pan out; Kutcher made a few incomprehensible videos, and then faded from the scene.

Frame, a high-school dropout who'd nevertheless managed to get a job at Cisco, the networking-equipment maker, could have been at least a TV star himself; he looks eerily like Will Arnett's G.O.B. character on Arrested Development. And Ooma's products, the Hub and the Scout, are pleasant enough to look at, too. As if there wasn't enough of a Hollywood connection, Frame lied about the Palo Alto-based startup's age.

But a pretty face is not enough. Ooma's problem, minus the technical analysis, amounted to this: It was never as simple as a Hollywood pitch. Try as he might, Kutcher could never turn it into a movie trailer. (Perhaps if he'd hired the late voiceover artist Don LaFontaine to intone "In a world without phone bills ...", it might have had a chance.)

Cell-phone carriers long ago figured out that making phones cheap and charging more for monthly service helped win subscribers. Ooma tried to flip that around, charging $399.99 for a Hub device and offering phone service for free. It has since slashed the price to $249.99 — but enrolled all new customers in a $99.99/year service plan for extra voicemail features. (You have to cancel the service to after a 60-day free trial to avoid being charged for it.)

Frame tried to compensate for these flaws in his business plan with a crush of PR. Servile tech blogs like TechCrunch, eager to talk up the Kutcher connection, played along without asking hard questions about Ooma's product. Ultimately, that's what undid him. Our tipster tells us the board "is done with Frame's lack of integrity and moneywasting PR trips and took him out." Other executives have been reshuffled, and a former president of Vonage — a more conventional Internet-phone service that's also losing money — is trying to help the company raise money.

If this were a movie script, it would be time for the third act and a happy ending. But I don't think Ooma will go Hollywood in that way, either.

Update: Tim Weingarten, an Ooma board member and investor, has sent the following response:

I read your article today about Andrew Frame, and as an investor and ooma board member from when I first seed-funded ooma, I feel compelled to correct several inaccuracies. I think it's important you hear this directly from someone who is both a board member and also the largest investor in the company.

1. Andrew has not been fired from the company. The company has made substantial progress with Andrew as CEO. It has been Andrew's vision, leadership and guidance that made it clear to me and the other ooma investors to invest the $45m of capital that has gone into the company over the last 4 years. Andrew's involvement and vision for the future product direction is a critical aspect of the board's intent to invest more in ooma in the future.

2. Andrew's success and contribution at Cisco was the foundation for the original bet we placed on ooma. He joined Cisco at a very young age and excelled quickly to be a top respected technical expert and contributor throughout the organization. We place our bets on people and we performed significant due diligence on Andrew's accomplishments at Cisco and elsewhere and were very impressed with his references and contributions in companies small and large before ooma.

3. The company is growing revenue rapidly and we are pleased as a board with their progress.

[Sponsored]

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:20:00 PST

Live from the Herbst Pavilion, it's ... YouTube? [Valleywag Calendar]

Adriana Nunez — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:00:00 PST

What, someone's hiring? Fixya, which is doling out the free food at Lunch 2.0 today, is hiring. Grab a bite and a job. Tomorrow indulge your YouTube habit. Your favorite timesuck is streaming live from the Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Watch the new product launch/party featuring your favorite Internet stars at home or in person starting at 5 p.m. After you kill some brain cells, try learning something. The Mishap Science Fair is bringing science to Mighty. Drink, dance, and relive the best part about 3rd grade — baking soda eruptions. (Photo by Mike G. Ottawa)

Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.

Cisco kills Christmas [Meltdowns]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:40:00 PST

"There should be no Business Group, Technology Group or Business Unit-funded holiday parties." That's the extra bullet through the heart in an email being sent around Cisco. I've screencapped only part of it, because I promised not to provide any pointers to my leaker. Here's the ASCII text version:

CDO-Wide Expense Management Policies

1. Year-End PTO: As announced on CEC, Cisco U.S./Canada offices will shut down from December 29 - January 2 as part of the company’s expense management initiative.
· This mandate applies to the vast majority of CDO employees. Management will notify specific CDO teams that have customer-related exceptions during the year-end shutdown period including support for Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and Customer Assurance Program (CAP) teams.
· We also strongly encourage all employees to take additional time off from December 22nd through December 24th or by the end of Q2. Taking additional PTO beyond the four mandated days can significantly contribute to your business unit cost savings and provides a well-deserved break for you.

2. Holiday Activities: All CDO teams are encouraged to celebrate the holidays, but try to find creative ways that result in no cost to the company. There should be no Business Group, Technology Group or Business Unit-funded holiday parties.

3. Hiring: A number of new Cisco-wide hiring policies were announced this week. These policies are intended to ensure that movement of talent continues to take place in strategic areas to the company.
* On Monday, November 17th all open requisitions were cancelled; CDO requisitions can be reopened with Development Council member approval. [REDACTED NAME OF AN EMPLOYEE HERE]
* Replacement or backfill positions will be approved at the discretion of the Development Council Business Group lead based on revised budget affordability.
* College recruiting programs in the US, India and China are not subject to the above requirements. They will continue to maintain CDO's strategic relationships with designated universities and to provide access to candidates.

4. Travel: Travel is an area where CDO spends a significant amount each year and where all employees can make a significant impact. You should expect reductions in the following areas based on revised budget affordability:
* Support for tradeshows in accordance with revised Marketing requirements
* Travel required for participation in standards forums

5. Project-Related Costs: Outside services, equipment expense, capital purchases and prototypes are another large area of expense management focus in CDO. Specific spend allocation on each of these areas will be managed by the Business Group to fit within revised budgets.

6. Training: As a Development Council, we remain committed to the development of our employees, even during challenging economic times. To do so, in adherence with Cisco policy, we are requiring that all training take place locally. We also ask that all CDO-employees look for ways to maximize training budgets in the following ways:
* Revisit and reprioritize development plans with your manager before you sign up for training with an associated cost. This will save on potential cancellation fees later. Refer to the CDO website for more training guidelines and ways you can continue your development and save money.

Abraham Biggs's webcam suicide note [Sad]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:20:00 PST

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old young man in Florida killed himself live on the Internet, broadcasting the event by connecting a webcam in his bedroom to Justin.tv, a lifecasting site. Viewers who tuned in and egged Abraham Biggs on, presuming it was a prank, were shocked to see police arrive on the scene a few hours after Biggs stopped moving. What drives a teenager to swallow a bottle of pills on camera? "It's often rage against a loved one, turned inward," one white-smocked expert told me. Biggs's final post suggests rage against several loved ones, turned against himself in an attempt to forgive everyone. Why am I posting this? Because the kid was a good writer. He deserves the pageviews. Look how clearly and concisely he spelled out his worldview in a few sentences:

I want my life to end. I am tired of f@#$ing up everything. I am tired of people always telling me that they do not like me. I am tired of trying to be decent. I hope that someone finds this post and I hope that my parents know that I f@#$ed up not them. It is my fault I screwed up my own life. The hate that rages within me, rages not for those I love so dearly or those who have crossed my path. This hate rages full force towards me and only me.

I have long forgiven those who've hurt me, but I have not and cannot come to terms to forgive myself for the things I have done to myself, and the things I've done to hurt those in my life.

Verizon employees snooped on Obama's cellphone account [Your Privacy Is An Illusion]

Paul Boutin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:00:51 PST

It wasn't his BlackBerry, it was a non-smartphone. But Verizon has confirmed that several employees used their access to view President Change's private records for a cellphone account. Verizon's spin is that the account had been inactive for several months, and the phone didn't have email or data capability, so the damage wasn't that bad. I'm hoping for a statement from Sprint: "At least our employees would have snooped the right phone."

Suicide by webcam [Deathcasting]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:40:00 PST

Lifecasting, a kind of do-it-yourself reality TV broadcast on the Internet, has thousands of practitioners. Until last night, one of them was Abraham Biggs, a 19-year-old Florida resident, who used a webcam to broadcast his death, too.

Wednesday night, after he posted a suicide note on the Web, he overdosed on pills on camera as users of Justin.tv, a lifecasting site, watched. Some posted comments egging Biggs on. When he took the pills and stopped moving, they laughed, expecting his corpse to revive and announce it was all a joke. No one called the police until hours had passed. They kept watching as officers came to the scene and verified his death. Even then, commenters wrote "OMFG" and "LOL."

NewTeeVee, an online-video industry publication, called the incident a "a striking display of the power of live video." The power, but definitely not the glory: It shows how the viewers of lifecasting devalue life. Users of sites like Justin.tv have grown accustomed to watching people mug for the camera. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women on webcams are merely players. But what happens when we're not playing around?

Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel, in a statement, didn't comment on the video, merely noting the site's policy for removing content flagged as "objectionable." The digital record of Biggs's death is just bits on a server. What about the users who cheered Biggs on as he performed a snuff film? Can we flag them, too? There will always be teenagers who try to kill themselves in awful ways. But one would hope the audience would not applaud.

[Sponsored]

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:40:00 PST

Why Disney's funding Chinese pirates [Explainer]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:00:00 PST

If Chinese viewers want to watch Disney's Hannah Montana — no accounting for global tastes — they can do so on 56.com, an online-video site akin to YouTube. The show is pirated. But does Disney really mind? Its startup-investment arm, Steamboat Ventures, put money into 56.com two years ago.

Eric Garland, CEO of an online piracy research firm, told the Wall Street Journal Disney's investment in 56.com is "ironic" and "shocking." John Ball, Steamboat's managing director, says the company invested in part to help 56.com curb pirated videos. But 56.com is just one of six Chinese companies in Steamboat's portfolio, all of which aim to distribute movies and videogames online.

And that's the dirty secret of Disney and other media companies. They don't ultimately care about shows like Hannah Montana. What matters is their channels of distribution, through which such evanescent fare courses — and 56.com promises to be another one. Viacom isn't suing YouTube for $1 billion because it's upset about piracy. It's upset about piracy happening on a channel it doesn't own.

I'm born lucky [Caption Contest]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:00:00 PST

Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Sergey Brin, is exceedingly pregnant — and Brin himself has been spotted at the maternity ward. What will their baby look like? Wojcicki's genetic-testing startup, 23andMe, lets you spit into a vial and get a map to your genetic future. MakeMeBabies is not nearly as scientific, but we thought we'd run the couple's photos through to get a glimpse of their future progeny. Can you suggest a caption for the billionaire baby to be? The best will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: "French blue shirt, khakis shortage hits Valley hard." (Image by MakeMeBabies)

Google heir born? Sergey Brin spotted at maternity ward [Rumormonger]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:20:00 PST

What to expect when you're expecting a billionaire? A tipster reports seeing Google cofounder Sergey Brin running into a hospital, orange Crocs and all. Here's what that means: His wife, Anne Wojcicki, is nine months pregnant with the couple's first child — who will be born into a fortune still worth $10 billion or more, even with Google shares plummeting. The spot where Brin was sighted, El Camino Hospital, has one of the Bay Area's best childbirth practices, and is close to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. When we last saw Wojcicki, she was on Oprah talking about 23andMe, her genetics-testing startup, with the TV host herself begging Wojcicki to give birth already. It's possible that Brin was just there to tour the hospital, a common practice before birth, but his haste suggested otherwise, our tipster claims:

I saw Sergey Brin (in all his blaze red-orange Croc glory) eating outside the Marya Cafe in the Melchor pavilion. After he was done eating he ran across the street towards the Orchard pavilion which is the maternity ward for El Camino hospital in Mountain View.

Brin and Wojcicki drew notice for the way they got married in May 2007 in the Bahamas, swimming to the sandbar. But they also got attention for the way they handled a conflict of interest; Brin lent 23andMe his own money to start up, and then Google repaid the loan and became an investor. The company's board approved the deal, but it has never lost the appearance of self-dealing.

In what quirky way will they celebrate the birth not just of their first child, but the first member of the great Google dynasty? In Japan, the successor to the throne was greeted with shouts of "Banzai!"

But we suspect Brin will be more low-key. Perhaps he will order up a new doodle for Google's homepage. We'll let you know as soon as we know more about this momentous occasion — the advent of the generation which will save us from the mistakes of the Google era.

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Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:20:00 PST

Another Wi-Fi player falls [Aruba Networks]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:00:00 PST

It's the grand irony of Wi-Fi, a remarkably useful way of connecting to the Internet which has nevertheless proved to be a tough business to make money in. Aruba Networks, a maker of Wi-Fi equipment, is rumored to have twice spurned Cisco's advances. Its shareholders will likely regret that; the company, which went public last year, has seen its shares plummet more than 90 percent from their peak. And it is now ~~laying off 10 percent of its staff, we hear~~ cutting costs by 10 percent, including some layoffs. Aruba's equipment was designed to withstand war-zone explosions — but not market implosions. Update: The company has reported earnings and confirmed costs cuts of 10 percent, though not all of that will come through the elimination of jobs.

A villain of the last boom convicted [Alberto Vilar]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:20:00 PST

For most of the rich, the object of charity is to make one's name known. Alberto Vilar, a founder of a once-high-flying tech-stocks fund who stiffed New York's Metropolitan Opera on a $25 million pledge, has succeeded all too well. But his name is in court documents rather than the opera halls and college buildings he had hoped for. A jury found Vilar and his partner, Gary Tanaka, guilty of stealing $20 million from customers of Amerindo Investment Advisors, in a series of frauds dating back to the dotcom bust. He could face 20 years in prison.

Vilar, among other things, was charged with $5 million from heiress Lily Cates, the mother of actress Phoebe Cates, and using some of the proceeds to make a donation to Vilar's alma maters. That was one of the few contributions he actually carried out; he had promised some $200 million to nonprofits over the years, including the Met's $25 million. As he failed to come up with the money, his nameplates came down from the institutions he'd promised to sponsor. Plácido Domingo is among the artists he left shortchanged. (A performing-arts center in the ski-resort town of Beaver Creek, Colo., still carries Vilar's name, though.)

What brought Vilar down ultimately, was the dotcom bust. He rode big bets on Amazon.com, eBay, and Yahoo in the '90s to make billions of dollars, and his net worth peaked at $950 million. After the Nasdaq crashed in 2000, though, investors say Vilar promised to put their money in safe interest-bearing accounts — and instead, kept investing it in hopeless tech stocks. All the while, he kept giving away money to charities that he didn't have.

Which makes me wonder: Who is the Alberto Vilar of today, and how long will it take to uncover his misdeeds? The quest may be fruitless, if only because there are too many to count, let alone prosecute. The craze for mortgage-backed securities has made Vilars of almost every fund manager out there. A promise of safety which turned out to be false; that is the theme of the meltdown that has touched every market on the planet. The main difference: Vilar was clever enough, the jury that convicted him must have believed, to know he was fooling his clients. His successors were merely fooling themselves.

Want to fix the economy? Fire your sysadmin [Tim The IT Guy]

Tim the IT Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:40:00 PST

Sooner or later we need to slam shut the door on technical have-nots. Pew Research found that nearly half of adults surveyed need help setting up computers and cell phones. Ars Technica notes what follows: Kids are always fixing their parents' PCs. But they don't take these insights to the logical conclusion: It's time to fire the IT support team.

Imagine how much progress we could make as a society if we just dropped those who just can't merge onto the Information Superhighway. I will never get back those lost weekends I spent formatting my mom's Filemaker forms or troubleshooting my aunt's wireless router via cell phone. But I can spare my kids from ever having to face the same fate.

The same goes at work, where the bosses have headcount to trim. They can no longer afford to pretend that it's okay that you don't understand Excel, since they have to pay to have someone on site who can explain it to you. Every dollar spent paying an IT guy is a dollar not spent doing whatever it is that makes the company money. That's why it's time companies everywhere get out of the handholding business.

Oh, sure, that means more people out on the street. But they can — and should — get reemployed making systems that are so solid they don't require tech-support calls.

There's an unpleasant converse: Desk jockeys will have to face the fact that part of their job is to understand the tools they're being paid to use. People will never take responsibility for learning about their computers as long as it's easier to pick up a phone and whine to someone.

The Valley is one giant cocktail party [Valleywag Calendar]

Adriana Nunez — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:00:00 PST

If your office cut its holiday day party budget, don't despair! There's still ample opportunity to make out with that coworker from the 3rd floor — on someone else's dime. iWidgets is launching version 2 of its social syndication platform at Project One from 6-9 p.m. WorkIt.com's annual Silicon Valley Mixer for startup types is at Techmart from 6-9 p.m. Salesforce.com is hosting a technology social networking night with food, games, and swag at the Four Seasons from 6-8 p.m. And for something low-key, Avangate is having casual drinks with software publishers at the Tied House in Mountain View from 6-8 p.m. Drink on! (Photo by Rick)

Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.

Second Life's death knell [Virtual Worlds]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:40:00 PST

Google has shut down Lively, a service where people log on to chat and explore 3D virtual spaces, after a few short months. The MBAs of Silicon Valley have a pat phrase for the arrival of a competitor on the scene: They say it "validates their space." What does it say, then, that Lively is gone? It means that Second Life, the best known of these unreal universes, is doomed, too.

The notion of a metaverse has long fascinated geeks. The idea of "avatars" — three-dimensional representations of the self rendered in pixels, often fantastical or surreal in nature — wandering through a computer-generated environment has been explored in the science-fiction novels of Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, among others. The Matrix trilogy introduced the idea at multiplexes from coast to coast.

And yet unreal worlds have never taken off in actual reality. Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, once showed me screens at the headquarters of his company, Linden Lab, which monitored in real time the number of people logging in. They peaked at 50,000, the maximum simultaneous capacity of its servers. That's not a virtual world; that's a midsized town.

Anecdotally, many of Second Life's users are there for virtual sex. (The company has banned gambling, so there's little other reason to go there.) The PG-rated Lively, censored by Google, did not even have that; its only draw was innocuous chat, with the occasional subversive attempt by users at raciness.

No wonder that news organizations, drawn by the visual appeal of the service's 3D graphics, aren't writing stories about Second Life anymore. Reuters, at the height of the frenzy, opened up a bureau; its Second Life correspondent stopped filing copy since September, having left to write for a blog, and the wire service has not replaced him.

The most recent noise to come out of Second Life has been an uproar over price hikes. Second Life users periodically hold colorful protests in the virtual world — probably the most entertaining thing that ever happens there — over this new rule or that new rule. They are likely to become more frequent, as Linden Lab, to survive, focuses on squeezing more revenue out of its existing customers, who pay the company "taxes" on their virtual real estate and convert real money into the company's imaginary currency, Linden dollars.

Online 3D environments are not a fad; millions inhabit them for hours, sometimes days at a time. But they do so in networked videogames like World of Warcraft, where there's a clear purpose to being there — even if it's just having fun and wasting time. Second Life, Lively, and virtual worlds like them amount to glorified chat rooms, and while chatting is a fundamental human activity, it's hard for anyoen to make money on it.

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Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:40:00 PST

Indian man dies in pie-eating contest [Cubicle Culture]

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:40:00 PST

Desperate to train employees in the way of their customers on the other end of the world, Indian tech outfits teach them American accents, the names of local football and baseball teams, and slang expressions. Nativists wring hands about this crushing local mores in favor of Western culture. But sometimes the importation of Western culture proves outright deadly. In Gurgaon, India, a suburb of New Delhi filled with offshore-tech outfits, police are investigating the death of a 22-year-old employee of Nokia-Siemens at the company's office.

Nokia-Siemens officials held a pie-eating contest for workers in the company cafeteria. Saurab Sabharwal started choking and ran to the bathroom. No one thought to follow him. A coworker found him dead an hour later. His father is now asking why medical personnel weren't on hand; doctors in India question whether such contests should be held at all. The point of such contests is to spur competition between employees, in a culture which fosters cooperation. That one proved deadly is perhaps the best lesson about American culture, if not the one the bosses intended.

(Image via Machias Wild Blueberry Festival)