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valleyspeak
More Yahoo layoffs coming
Yahoo's Aikido and Judo projects, briefly mentioned in a New York Times story, "are, in fact, yet another round of navel-gazing strategy overview efforts," Kara Swisher reports. Translation: more layoffs to come. [BoomTown]
Yahoo's Aikido and Judo projects, briefly mentioned in a New York Times story, "are, in fact, yet another round of navel-gazing strategy overview efforts," Kara Swisher reports. Translation: more layoffs to come. [BoomTown]
valleyspeak
"Nonguaranteed"
When she's not boring shareholders silly, Yahoo president Sue Decker has been trying to beguile advertisers to buy a new form of online advertising: "nonguaranteed" ads. Her campaign started in earnest at an Internet Advertising Bureau conference in February; it continued in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Strip aside the technical mumbo-jumbo, and you learn this: "Guaranteed" ads run at specified times, on specified websites. "Nonguaranteed" ads run wherever, whenever, at Yahoo's discretion. More »
the chart
The 250 shows supercharged viral growth, more than tripling to 806 in four months
Back in March, very special correspondent Paul Boutin revealed that the Olds were derisively referring to the insular San Francisco clique of Web hipsters — the sort of people who Twitter about how they wish FriendFeed had a better Plurk API — as "the 250." After learning that 806 people tuned in to watch Kevin Rose shave his head, live on the Internet, we are now revising that figure upwards by a factor of 3.224. With Rose's market-expanding efforts, we now have three times as many people to mock. Thanks, Kevin!
valleyspeak
Not long ago, an "unpublished" work was one that had never been published. Boing Boing comments moderator Teresa Nielsen Hayden unintentionally popularized a new meaning of the word when she used it to describe posts the Boingers had erased from their site: "We unpublished our own work. There's a big difference between that and censorship." Now, Google's Wikipedia competitor Knol has completely broken the word's meaning. "The requested biographical knol has been unpublished by the author." Doesn't that sound like I wrote and then deleted my bio, rather than that I've yet to write it? Don't go hunting through Google's cache for it — you'll be sadly un-successful.
Unpublished
Not long ago, an "unpublished" work was one that had never been published. Boing Boing comments moderator Teresa Nielsen Hayden unintentionally popularized a new meaning of the word when she used it to describe posts the Boingers had erased from their site: "We unpublished our own work. There's a big difference between that and censorship." Now, Google's Wikipedia competitor Knol has completely broken the word's meaning. "The requested biographical knol has been unpublished by the author." Doesn't that sound like I wrote and then deleted my bio, rather than that I've yet to write it? Don't go hunting through Google's cache for it — you'll be sadly un-successful.
valleyspeak
The unhappy death of the Blogger Appeasement Group
In what seems like another age, my predecessor once wrote about companies' "blogger appeasement groups" — units dedicated to generating buzz, not bucks. With Chad Dickerson leaving Yahoo Brickhouse, the troubled company's troubled incubator for new ideas, I think we can declare the delusion of blogger appeasement groups safely over. The self-appointed punditocracy of the blogosphere never was a real customer — nor even a twisted proxy for a real customer. Playing to the echo chamber only generated noise — a specialty of former Brickhouse head Salim Ismail. More »
3:40 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,171 views,
Comment
valleyspeak
Merriam-Webster's new dictionary words for 2008
Last year, the lexicographers at dictionary maker Merriam-Webster proclaimed w00t its Word of the Year. For 2008, they've added fanboy, webinar, netroots, and pretexting to the lexicon. Who cares? I do, because I find Merriam's online dictionary, more consistent, more focused, and better written than its wikified open dictionary or the Google results for define:pretexting. There'll be 100 or so new words in the Merriam-Webster's 2008 edition, due September 1. Meanwhile, I called the company and got the 25 most populist of the new entries as a teaser: More »
valleyspeak
At long last, Yahoo reorg to put employees out of their misery
Yahoo is about to perform that dreaded big-tech-company maneuver, the "reorg." For you young-uns who don't get why reorg is such a scary word: Think massive layoffs, lost mortgages, and people like your parents with no back-to-school money for brats like you. Multiply by 10,000-plus. I can only wish a soft landing for the folks who designed, built and shipped Yahoo's new search engine interface, and the marketers who dreamed up those radio ads that got me to — I can't believe I'm admitting this on a blog — actually use Yahoo to find stuff. More »
Valleyspeak
Seesmic launch illustrates how Metcalfe's Law and Dunbar's Number correlate
Some of the most pervasive buzzwords in the Valley are terms to classify product or idea adoption, such as "early adopter," which serves to define a behavior profile of a customer or user who's always trying the newest new thing. As a product's appeal widens, it begins to attract the "early mainstream," or the network of acquaintances inspired by the early adopter to try the not newest but still new thing. Now that Seesmic has launched publicly and gotten a vag-tastic kickoff, the early mainstream has started to participate, as exemplified by the drunk cry for help (or a mockery thereof) above, which is much more typical of YouTube than the community fostered on Seesmic while the site was still only adding users by invitation — this earnest response is more typical of Seesmic's early adopters. Which means we need to update another hoary Valley cliche, Metcalfe's Law. More »
5:00 PM on Wed Jun 18 2008
By Jackson West
552 views,
8 comments
Latest by Shadowlayer: So according to Metcalfe FB is now worth $3600000000000000? Riiiiiight... more »
valleyspeak
"Donutfest"
"Tumblr is totally estrogen-y," blogger Jessica Gold Haralson told Silicon Alley Insider, explaining the heavy female presence at a party for the blogging startup. "If anything, it's a complete donutfest." "Donutfest" is the opposite of the far more common "sausagefest," which describes a heavily male event, such as today's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. (For the record, this editor wonders what's wrong with enjoying sausage.) Do we need to explain the anatomical reference? (Photo by fillyjonk)
valleyspeak
Five words or phrases to short on the slang stock exchange
CollegeHumor cofounder Ricky Van Veen has decided to short the word "douche."After a strong resurgence in 2005 and showing strong staying power through 2007, lately most of the people I've seen use it fit into two categories: 1) people over 40 who have finally had the word passed down the cool chain from their younger friends and coworkers. 2) the "douches" originally being described themselves.We second this call. In fact, our own very special correspondent banned douche not long ago. Below, five more words we'd like to see tank. State your portfolio position and suggest other picks in the comments. More »
valleyspeak
Marketing vs. advertising vs. PR vs. branding explained
The original is ok, but this edit is the best.
valleyspeak
Why don't you just read Valleywag? That seems easier
Commenter Matthew O'Ryan is on to us. He's noticed how a throwaway line has become our new catchphrase: "That seems easier." In an industry full of people who claim to be obsessed with efficiency, why do we have to keep explaining over and over the simple way to do things? Because Valley denizens secretly love doing things the hard way — and they hate it when people point out we're doing it wrong. Neophilia, cast as a love of innovation, is actually an algorithm for generating ever-changing shibboleths that keep outsiders away. They make things complicated because it entertains them; because they love challenges and puzzles; because they can. But the world that pays their bills? Customers like things simple. Why not keep them happy? Ah, but you know how that would seem.
10:20 AM on Fri Mar 28 2008
By Owen Thomas
466 views,
7 comments
Latest by robinwauters: Ha, but at least I got around to registering thatseemseasier.com ! You can have it for as little as $ 300 more »
valleyspeak
Leah Culver tries to coin a catchphrase
From the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami: "Leah Culver is trying to coin the term 'social messaging' as a way to describe Pownce." I suppose that's better than "social massaging."
A tipster writes of the cuts at Yahoo: "Maria Hinge, the VP for emerging European markets, got laid off on Friday. She's credited with rolling out services in Turkey, Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. However, her reports always thought she was more adept at 'rolling' with the European management team." Come on, people. "Rolling?" Does anyone actually say that? Next we're going to hear that Toby Coppel was swinging with the flippity-flop.
Daring Fireball's John Gruber takes on Jerry Yang in his very funny "Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's Company-Wide Memo Regarding the Microsoft Takeover Bid."
valleyspeak
The classics of art, translated into geekspeak
As undergrads, Silicon Valley tycoons didn't have the time to appreciate the finer things a liberal arts education had to offer. They were far too busy coding away in their dorm rooms and plotting to take over the world. Now these poor lads and lasses face a Herculean task whenever they're confronted with, say, Rodin's "The Thinker" at the Legion of Honor — they just don't know what to make of it. More »
"I just threw away 5 months of Wired, unread. There may be some newly-minted jargon for that, but I have no way of knowing." - Adam Lisagor
