Valleywag

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jackpot

Did Kevin Rose cash out?

The whispers have started: How much money did Kevin Rose make personally by selling shares in Digg's latest round of VC funding? The talk that Rose has sold shares is driven by equal parts envy and admiration. To understand the reaction, it helps to realize that the notion of an entrepreneur selling his own shares directly to investors before a public offering — getting out of the company just as other investors were getting in — used to be taboo in Silicon Valley. But that was before Wall Street's IPO machine broke down, and before merger activity dried up. Rose is at the vanguard of a seismic shift in how the Valley pays off its entrepreneurs. More »

Feature

8:00 AM on Thu Sep 25 2008
By Owen Thomas
9,046 views, 18 comments

Latest by DarthMac: He created the site, so why would it be a big deal for him to get some money out of more »

free advice

3 ways Facebook could impress Madison Avenue

NEW YORK — Facebook is making a huge push during Advertising Week, an industrywide series of events for media buyers and publishers taking place now. Mark Zuckerberg's marketing minions bought a full-page ad in the program; sponsored sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings; and put Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on a panel. They're throwing a party Thursday night; Bob Marley's kid, Ziggy Marley, will be the entertainment. "We're finally sponsoring something!" I overhead one Facebook employee gush to another on Monday. It's all a big effort to reintroduce Facebook to the New York ad agencies after Zuckerberg botched last year's first try. More »

Feature

3:00 PM on Wed Sep 24 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
912 views, 2 comments

Latest by Lizstless: That was an awesome article, spot on. It could also apply to most of the Valley, too - all these more »

silicon valley users guide

How to keep your IT department happy

The stories of Terry Childs and Roger Duronio — resentful IT workers who wreaked vengeance on their employers — make nontechnical managers wonder what they might do differently than the City of San Francisco's Department of Technology. What does it take to keep your IT resources happy? More »

Feature

2:00 PM on Tue Sep 23 2008
By Tim the IT Guy
1,613 views, 1 comment

Latest by bourgeoisie: Great post Tim! more »

great moments in pr

How the Googlers have changed Mark Zuckerberg

When users revolted against a Facebook redesign in 2006, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post in response titled "Calm down. Breathe. We hear you." In it, Zuck came off defensive and condescending. "We're not oblivious of the Facebook groups popping up about this (by the way, Ruchi is not the devil)," he wrote. Now, Zuckerberg's written another post defending the site's latest redesign, which more users — though a far smaller percentage of them — also don't like. It's titled "Thoughts on the Evolution of Facebook." It reads like the inoffensive pablum you'd read on, say, the Official Google Blog. Why is that? More »

Feature

8:40 AM on Fri Sep 19 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
5,778 views, 10 comments

Latest by spundot: actually, the really shocking thing is he admitted that 10 million people tried the new facebook then went back to more »

careers

What to know before Facebook recruiting comes to your campus

In the next year, Facebook plans to visit 20 universities and 5 business schools as it looks to staff up its already swelling operations. Students graduating from these institutions need to be prepared. In a post to announce the tour, Facebook recruiter Marcia Velencia writes that the company is "looking for people that are passionate," who, like Facebook, "value working hard, smart, and fast, and following that up with some good fun." Velencia and Facebook will almost certainly find these types of candidates and successfully lure them into the company. They will do so by allowing the candidates to believe — not explicitly promising them — that working at Facebook will make them rich, allow them to change the world, and put them on a fast track toward an exciting career in tech. Here's what graduating students entertaining a career at Facebook should actually expect. More »

Feature

7:00 PM on Thu Sep 18 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,790 views, 7 comments

Latest by VadinOgygus: lol i commented on the NYU event wall for this... telling people that it would be worse than getting a job more »

Start Wearing Purple

Why Yahoo's purple marketing fails

Yahoo's new marketing push tells us to "Start Wearing Purple." A website created for the campaign features a video of various grungy-looking people, including Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, wearing purple and hollering. We'd show you the video, but it's not very different from a clip a tipster found of Yahoo cofounder David Filo and top exec Ash Patel dancing awkwardly to a Kelly Clarkson cover. The pair flail around like they're in some kind of bizarro-world Apple iPod commercial. That's the problem with Yahoo: It thinks it's an iPod — universally loved and carried around. But it's really a Mac — a fine product nevertheless rejected by many. More »

Feature

10:20 AM on Tue Sep 16 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
6,349 views, 16 comments

Latest by X-Y: Laurie Mann = Elaine Bennis: [www.dailymotion.com] more »

acquisitions

WebMD bulks up as Revolution Health talks sale

Revolution Health, the brainchild of AOL founder Steve Case, is still in talks to sell its health portal to a rival, Everyday Health. The combination would have bested WebMD, the No. 1 health-site operator — until WebMD bought QualityHealth.com today. The Revolution-Everyday deal, meanwhile, could happen within a week — but is currently stuck on financing. Arranging the money to consummate the sale is proving difficult, with Wall Street more concerned with its own survival than the health of Case's startup venture. One way or another, it seems all but certain that Case's Revolution Healthwill end up sold, without much transformation to show for his troubles. More »

Feature

5:00 PM on Mon Sep 15 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,096 views, 1 comment

Latest by LotharioCragus: I wouldn't pay $10 let alone the millions they are asking for RHG. Buzz words do not a profitable business more »

blogging for dollars

The Valley's Wall Street disconnect

Wall Street is melting down. But from sampling the thoughts of tech bloggers on Techmeme, an automated news aggregator, you'd think that the biggest story today was a redesign of WSJ.com. One couldn't ask for a clearer sign of the Valley's superficial obsession with user interfaces and online advertising. With Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, Bank of America negotiating to buy Merrill, and AIG desperately selling off assets, who, exactly, will be having their employer pay so they can read the headlines on WSJ.com, let alone advertising there? Yet the problem goes far deeper than one website's newly glossy surface. More »

Feature

11:20 AM on Mon Sep 15 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,281 views, 6 comments

Latest by madox: Owen, I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic when you stated that "Google's cofounders … [insisted] on an egalitarian more »

deathwatch

How bringing in the "grownups" killed Heavy.com

The boom in online ad networks, those automated brokers of discount banners patronized by websites desperate for quick cash, is at long last turning to bust. And the shakeout couldn't have started with a more deserving company. Amid lawsuits and layoffs, Heavy.com has seen two-thirds of its once-15-strong salesforce leave, a source familiar with the company tells us. Meanwhile, the company is trying to sell its Heavy.com, a video destination targeted at young men, so far without success. The plan is to focus on its porn-friendly Husky ad network. Who's to blame? Recently hired "grownups," says our source. More »

Feature

7:00 AM on Fri Sep 12 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
6,175 views, 12 comments

Latest by SeemaCoppard: thats what happens when sites only buy porn traffic and pretend its safe traffic....perhaps Break will be the next ones more »

search

The cuddly embrace of the Google monster

The latest statistics are alarming: Google, far from peaking, seems to be increasing the rate at which its market share grows. In a year, Google has gone from 64 percent of U.S. search queries to more than 71 percent, Hitwise reports. At that pace, there will hardly be any search business left for anyone else by 2012. From sports to finance to social networks, Google directs an increasing portion of the traffic websites receive Jossip makes light of Google's plan to archive 244 years of newspaper articles, suggesting it will lead to even more snafus like Monday's Google-spawned rumor of a United Airlines bankruptcy. But really, isn't Google's move to archive centuries of newspapers a bit like the architects of a genocide dedicating a museum to the holocaust they committed? More »

Feature

5:00 PM on Tue Sep 9 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,094 views, 6 comments

Latest by alexandroid: Google will eventually stop itself. There is finite number of ads you can show to people and number of goods more »