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Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag
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PlanetOut

Bill Gates goes gay again

The world's second-richest man just spent $26.2 million on The Gays. PlanetOut, the struggling owners of Gay.com, got an investment from Cascade Investment LLC. As Seattlest notes, that firm is owned by Microsoft's Bill Gates. But it's not the first time Bill has been the backer behind PlanetOut. more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 4:19 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
26 views

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San Francisco

Tech geeks have two long-shots for mayor

One of San Francisco's most famous living residents (not too far behind schizophrenic sign-carrier Frank Chu) is mayor Gavin Newsom, loved enough that he's likely to get re-elected to another four-year term this fall. He'll have to defeat a few city supervisors and possibly other city officials. But two odder San Francisco figures could enter the race. One's an activist who would wear a camera on his head; the other's an artist who's organized events like "Porneokie" and the "Ask Dr. Hal Show." more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 3:09 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
124 views

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Bill Gates Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim surpasses Bill Gates as world's wealthiest man. [Herald Sun] Chinese women forced to reconsider whose sperm they desire. [China Daily]

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fake steve jobs CNET lands an actual interview with Fake Steve Jobs, but questions about his identity are off-limits. "No me gusta, as they say in French." [CNET]

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Advertisement
Review

Gimme Some Candy

Since I've just criticized other bloggers for shilling, it's the perfect time to shill for something that I profit from.* Erik Gavriluk, who created the "gimme some candy" patronage system for videoblogger Ze Frank, has deployed the system for six other sites, including the popular Ask a Ninja show and musician Jonathan Coulton. more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 2:03 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
147 views

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federated media

User trust is built by shilling

Am I the only one who still thinks "conversation" should mean "How's the family," "How 'bout them Yankees," and "Let's talk about our feelings" and not "I'm in bed with this company because..."? Federated Media (a competitor of Valleywag's parent company) started another "conversation" sponsored by one of the blog network's advertisers. In the last "conversation," bloggers wrote blurbs pushing Microsoft's slogan, "People Ready." The new blurbfest centers on how search services can win users' trust. The answer, according to "conversation" sponsor Hakia, seems to be "give them a poll to fill out and let them comment a bit." Bloggers including Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington and GigaOM manager Om Malik (who was supposedly sorry for his involvement in such a project) gave little quotes tailored to Hakia's message. None of this is evil, or even dishonest. It's just crap. The same kind of crap that supposedly led people to leave corporate-owned newspapers and TV for blogs that wouldn't spew it. more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 1:35 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
158 views

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SAP The SAP and Oracle rivalry gets a bit more interesting, involves episodes of corporate espionage and use of the domain testyomamma.com. [AP]

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Podtech

"We ran out of Vloggies"

I've found out that PodTech, the Internet's worst video network, screwed over videoblogging hero Ze Frank. In the middle of defending one of his company's screw-ups, PodTech employee Robert Scoble started complaining about how his company "lost a TON of money on Vloggies," referring to the award show PodTech organized last year to recognize good videobloggers (and drum up some attention for PodTech). The show was one of the few good things PodTech ever pulled off -- but according to this story, they didn't actually give a crap about one of the favorite vloggers. more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 12:57 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
291 views

2 comments

Latest by JayDawg: Dear Mr. Furrier: Did you send Ze Frank his bloggies? A simple yes or no will suffice. more

Review

Getthemlaid.com

I have this college friend named Kevin. Kevin's a nice guy. Well, actually he's kind of a jerk. But in a witty, charming way, ya know? So to test this dating site I just found -- Getthemlaid.com -- I made a listing for Kevin. Here's how it went. more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 3:10 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
873 views

2 comments

Apple iPhones are now sold out of Apple stores in San Francisco (and everywhere else in Silicon Valley); meanwhile, the official site says Los Angeles now has some in stock. The Nintendo Wii, for those keeping score, still vanishes from shelves every time Best Buy gets a new shipment.

1 comment

Google

For certain values of democracy

First they were anti-Sicko, now they're anti-democracy. Google's getting caught in a little PR disaster. Last week, an advertising employee blogged about Sicko, saying that Michael Moore's exposé of the health industry "portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare's interest in patient well-being and care." She then encouraged health care clients (this was, granted, the "Google Health Ads" blog) to manage their reputations through ads. Some readers got skeeved out. And then the story got into the New York Times: "Google takes on Michael Moore." more »

TUE JUL 3 2007 AT 10:31 am
BY NICK DOUGLAS
422 views

3 comments

Latest by ScaredOfTheirPower: I wonder about the "relevance score" of a pharmaceutical company to Michael Moore? Though, if their context-free robot doesn't judge more

Feuds

PodTech steals photo, stonewalls photographer

For a "new media" enterprise, PodTech is great at pissing off the new media. The podcasting company still hasn't resolved a dispute with photographer Lan Bui. In March, PodTech used a photo by Lan in a commercial kiosk display. They didn't ask Lan's permission for this use, thus violating his creator rights. Blogger Violet Blue has a tidy summary of the story and a spot-on analysis: PodTech managed to talk about the issue for weeks without actually writing to Lan. According to PodTech employee Robert Scoble in a Yahoo vlogging group, Lan wants $3000 while PodTech is offering $1000. Lan, says Scoble, says that PodTech is not in a position to negotiate. Then again, PodTech is in such a sorry state that this legal scuffle is worth its weight in no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity. more »

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 9:30 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
715 views

8 comments

Latest by PeteSalty: Unfortunatly for PodTech, Lan is most certainly in a position to negotiate. There have been several prominent court cases recently more

where are they now

Stephan Paternot of TheGlobe.com

Before there was Facebook founder and future billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, there was someone much less deserving: Stephan Paternot (pronounced Pat-er-noh, but I like to pretend it rhymes with Hot-or-Not -- on which, incidentally, Stephan would be rated a 6.2) In 1998 the 23-year-old millionerkind took his company (TheGlobe.com, a community site with a few million users per month) public for a record 606% first-day stock price increase. Paternot boozed and partied "the CEO in the plastic pants." Then the world realized that the Globe would never make money, and the stock price dropped from $97 to under a dime. Now he's an actor who's appeared in three movies -- two of which he produced (Good sign? Bad sign). Then there's this breathless montage of news clips that he recently put on his blog. more »

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 9:04 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
769 views

6 comments

Latest by GhostSites: FYI, the clip above was excerpted from a student film made about the Death of Silicon Alley by students at more

Gallery

Top ten tech must-haves of the past

You didn't get the latest must-have on iDay? That's okay, neither did I. And frankly, that's fine. There are still some left in the store, and Apple always does better on the second try anyway. Why not wait til Christmas for iPhone 2? And why not check out ten highly anticipated, highly-sought must-haves of the past? Most of them look pretty stupid now, no? Some of them (like Windows Vista) built buzz beforehand but bombed on launch day. Some are even sexier as retro toys than they were when brand new. They're all reminders that the iPhone isn't the first, or the last, geek toy you'll want on Day 1. more »

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 1:10 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
1,485 views

1 comment

Latest by Doug: To heck with the platforms (Wii / PS3), Super Mario 3 as a game had people eager enough to start more

Allofmp3.com Allofmp3.com, the Rasputin of digital music sites, quietly shuts down, again. [Times Online]

3 comments

iPhone

The iPhone sales estimate guessing game

According to leading financial analysts, Apple's weekend iPhone launch was either pretty good (250,000 units - Shaw Wu, American Technology Research) or really damn good (700,000 units - David Bailey, Goldman Sachs Inc.) or somewhere in between (312,000 units - Bill Shope, J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc; 500,000 units - Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray; 525,000 units - Trip Crowley, Global Equities Research). Demonstrating exactly how helpful analysts and their estimates can be.

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 7:31 pm
BY TIM FAULKNER
289 views

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Advertising Will it sell? How to successfully create a viral internet marketing campaign. [Wall Street Journal]

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Ipo

Hold on to your pocketbooks

The IPO market is unquestionably back. Having tapped the market for financial companies to take public, Wall Street is now turning, yet again, to Silicon Valley for IPO candidates. The latest one: NetSuite, Larry Ellison's pet Web-based software company. NetSuite's premise is simple and appealing: Cheap, Web-based alternatives to software from Oracle and SAP to run small businesses's finances and operations. But NetSuite's S-1 filing, the obligatory prospectus companies must file before they sell shares to the public, is anything but simple and appealing. After the jump, the most disturbing bits, and plain-English translations. more »

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 6:13 pm
BY THE WAG
595 views

6 comments

Latest by ScalaWag: Slow day at ValleyWag more

Fundraising

Imitation is the sincerest form of venture capital

Running with the crowd is standard Sand Hill Road behavior. But DAG Ventures has made such an art form of drafting behind more successful VCs that it's earned the moniker "Coattail Ventures." Copycatting, sadly, appears to be a successful business strategy. DAG has just raised a new $477 millon fund.

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 5:10 pm
BY MEGAN MCCARTHY
391 views

1 comment

Techcrunch

You're not the boss of me now

Congrats to Michael Arrington; the TechCrunch editor got a comment on an article from that story's subject. What made commenter Kevin Burton's rant so funny is the line, "I told you via email that there was NO story here but for some reason you decided to post anyway." Yes Kevin, that lack of censorship is what makes blogging fun! (By the way, you really oughta check out Kevin's whole rant, complete with capitalized phrases and exclamation marks hinting at insanity. Then read the one-line comment after it, which made me snort.) Photo of Kevin Burton by Scott Beale

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 2:59 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
889 views

7 comments

Latest by nousername: "You're SO far from the truth hear Michael that this borders on complete journalistic incompetence." "hear"? nice... more

Valleyspeak

Rising tide

A big, highly anticipated launch that inspires many related launches. A rising tide is the opposite of the tactic of burying bad news under someone else's good news. For instance, the launch of the iPhone brought the launch of several applications for the device. The launch of Facebook's developer platform was another rising tide, allowing little-known web app makers to re-launch the same products within Facebook. Know more examples?

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 2:40 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
161 views

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iPhone Forget to secure a date to the fireworks because you spent all your time in line for the iPhone? There's a 22-year-old "Parker Posy" [sic] lookalike who would like to meet you. [Craigslist]

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lazy valleywag

Find the Mountain View Kwik-E-Mart

Nothing to do with tech, but 7-Eleven turned a store in Mountain View into a Kwik-E-Mart. It's presumably a promo for the upcoming Simpsons movie. The chain's official site has an artist's rendition, but we'd love to see photos of the real thing. (Send to tips at valleywag dot com.) The address is 1380 Pear Avenue, between the 101 and the Googleplex. Update: Flickr user Mlaaker took shots, including the one shown here: Kwik-E-Mart Photo Set

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 8:13 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
741 views

7 comments

Underground San Francisco [gridskipper.com]

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wasted genius

Kevin Burton's Tailrank

A little-known web site got a concussion this weekend, as TechCrunch reports. Tailrank, a news aggregator by Rojo co-founder and frequent Valleywag target Kevin Burton, went blank this weekend while its backend was getting updated. Not even a blip on most people's radar, but here's why Tailrank could have mattered (and how Kevin might be turning it into something special). more »

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 1:55 pm
BY NICK DOUGLAS
451 views

2 comments

the morning after

Can I still get an iPhone?

Depends on whom you ask. Although AT&T; and Apple both reported selling out this weekend in most of their stores, the analysts at Piper Jaffray say most Apple stores still have iPhones. (Piper says over half a million iPhones got sold.) To see if you can buy one near home, check AT&T;'s iPhone finder and Apple's availability checker. According to the latter, the only two California Apple stores selling iPhones today are in San Francisco. Maybe you can find someone to buy and FedEx you one in the comments below.

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 11:51 am
BY NICK DOUGLAS
523 views

4 comments

Latest by jg24: enough about the iphone already!!!! more

Scobleizer

Congratulations Robert Scoble on finally getting some press!

Let's hear it for publicity hound (more of a "publicity three-legged puppy") Robert Scoble, the ex-Microsoft blogger who ex-matters. Scoble's complained a lot over the past year about getting no attention. His son may have made it onto the Drudge Report (15 million views daily) but Scoble at least got a photo in the Palo Alto Online News (Fun fact: it exists!) this weekend. As a friend told me, "Only, only get in the news when it's about what you're good at."

MON JUL 2 2007 AT 10:59 am
BY NICK DOUGLAS
725 views

8 comments

Latest by ScaredOfTheirPower: Congratulations and I hope your face shows half as much excitement, when your kid is born, as it did on more

The Danger of Belief [glasshouse.waggeneredstrom.com]

Apple Blew Out iPhone Estimates [paul.kedrosky.com]