Overheard

deathwatch
Barry Diller's finance site: "Completely pointless"
FiLife, a personal-finance site backed by IAC and the Wall Street Journal, is struggling, according to one ex-employee we eavesdropped on at the City Bakery, a coffeehouse in Manhattan's Flatiron neighborhood, as she interviewed for a new job. "The business model completely changed," she said. "It used to be personal finance for people in their 20s and 30s. Now it's just completely pointless." An embittered writer? Perhaps. FiLife hired a batch of journalists, only to switch gears shortly before launch and realize that the Web didn't need another content site. But their replacement — a set of automated tools to evaluate one's place in the financial pecking order — do seem pointless. The site only attracts 31,500 users a month. In this regard, FiLife is utterly typical — of both its backer and its genre. More »

8:20 AM on Mon Sep 22 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,887 views, 1 comment

Latest by sggrf: must make one proud to work at IAC:) more »
rumormonger
eBay, the "lost cause," is trying to shed StumbleUpon
eBay has hired Deutsche Bank to help it sell procrastination tool StumbleUpon after buying it only a little more than a year ago in May 2007. The news follows an analyst's report earlier this week that the company needs to lay off 10 percent of its employees as well as an update from employee-written company reviews site Glassdoor.com that says eBay CEO John Donahoe carries only a 28 precent approval rating. Eavesdropping on a neighboring train rider yesterday, U.K. blogger Dan Wilson picked up some anecdotal evidence of eBay's internal rot as well. More »

7:20 AM on Fri Sep 19 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
8,182 views, 8 comments

Latest by HermanKahn: 13 interviews. Why did he join???? more »
We Read Tumblr So You Don't Have To
A Series A relationship

It’s refreshing, really. He’s the first guy I’ve dated who doesn’t have funding.
More »

1:00 PM on Tue Sep 16 2008
By Paul Boutin
1,315 views, 5 comments

Latest by TMonster: Paul, you have a great sense of humor. Thank you. more »
overheard
Apple employee: iPhone 3G launch failure is "shitty"
NEW YORK — Apple's iTunes store, required for activating the new iPhone 3G is failing, causing massive chaos from coast to coast. Even Apple employees are — when they don't realize a reporter is in earshot — acknowledging this. "I can't believe there's just so much stuff going wrong," says one employee at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store as he takes his lunch break sitting next to me. "It's not very Apple-like. It's shitty. It just shouldn't happen." His friend agrees: "I called my dad and his phone still doesn't work."

2:20 PM on Fri Jul 11 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,137 views, 8 comments

Latest by colonelpanic: @CaliforniaCajun: The bigger question is why does Woz even have to go to a store to get an iPhone? .. or more »
SF police riot gear mix of 20th, 21st centuries "My BlackBerry just died and we need more Polaroid film at the protest." — a San Francisco police officer, overheard by photographer Steve Rhodes.

4 comments
Millennial wisdom from a scion of the hegemonic class "I'd never work for a company that didn't offer options over and above salary." — Redheaded twentysomething to friends on a 45-Union Muni bus from the Marina to North Beach.

8 comments

sxsw
Facebook spends $50,000 of Microsoft's money on investor's nightclub
Microsoft's $200 million is not all going to buy servers, as Mark Zuckerberg would like you to think. He splashed out $50,000 to rent Pangaea, an Austin nightclub, for the week, or so a doorman said as he turned away a local the other night. Pangaea is part-owned by Ken Howery of the Founders Fund, a Facebook investor. The payoff of this cozy arrangement: When Zuckerberg needed to do damage control a day after his tragicomic keynote interview, he had a stage at the ready. (Photo by Yelp/Kevin N.)

5:42 PM on Mon Mar 10 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,693 views, 4 comments

Latest by fewie: this is why zuck must go [abclocal.go.com] more »
"[Facebook] must be looking to acquire someone. I've thrown together dozens of parties for them over the past few months. Its staff is something like 400 people. A few weeks ago they ordered [a party] for 1,400; the next one will be for 2,000." — overheard on Chairlift No. 4 at Kirkwood.

6 comments
ces 2008
Overheard at CES: There's no more food!

In the CES 2008 Press Lounge:

Me: The lunch line is out of food. They're going to revolt.
Peter Shankman: Yeah, right. Let's see all these fat, out of shape, wannabe reporters start a revolt. That would be great.

1:28 PM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By Jordan Golson
677 views, 1 comment
ces 2008
Overheard at the Flick.im party

Some guy: So, you gonna hit the tables while you're here?
VC: Gambling is my job. When I come to Vegas, I hit the spa.

12:43 PM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By Jordan Golson
815 views, 1 comment

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