For those who believe that the content on their Facebook, MySpace profiles and personal blogs will not get them in hot water, they’re in for a shocking realization. The Internet is a public domain, and anything put on the Web can be found, and can be used against you.
London resident James Brennan discovered this the hard way, when he was fired from his job in London. His crime? Writing “F— the Partnership” as his Facebook status. (The Partnership refers to the John Lewis Partnership, the chain of stores where he worked.)
Brennan thought his comments would remain private, but some of his co-workers saw his page and showed it to his boss. Brennan was fired on the spot.
Unhappy with his boss and colleagues, Brennan commented on the situation:
“At the end of the day what I wrote was private. You would never get sacked for saying something like that in the pub. I was sacked from Waitrose for something I said on Facebook in my own time. The bosses only saw it because one of my colleagues grassed me up. They printed out a copy of the Facebook page to use as evidence against me. It is an infringement of my privacy.”
Do you think Brennan should have been fired from his job?
While technology start-ups still point to the general weakness of financial markets as the reasoning behind not going public; new findings by the National Venture Capital Association may indicate a larger trend in where VC’s are allocating their investors’ dollars.
“In the second quarter of this year not a single company backed by venture capitalists has gone public. It is the first time that has happened since 1978, according to a venture capital industry group.”
According to Nancy Pfund, a VC at DBL Investors in San Francisco, the economic slump is playing the biggest role in drying up public offerings:
“Wall Street is being very selective in taking companies public, and blessing only those with particularly high revenue and growth projections. And venture capitalists are wary because they worry that their returns will be limited in a depressed market.”
Today’s Wall Street Journal story by Lynn Cowan echoes the decline in IPO’s and illustrates that industry experts don’t expect the rest of the summer to be any different:
“The Outlook for the rest of the summer is similarly grim. Major stock indexes around the world fell this month, and bankers believe worries about rising energy prices and inflation, as well as banks needing capital, will continue to spook investors, who tend to avoid new stocks during times of uncertainty.”
While the broad overlook for the IPO market may be grim there are signs that investments in “green” start-ups are growing. In fact the money now being allocated towards “GreenTech” or “CleanTech” companies may be one of the key contributing factors in drying up the current IPO market - as Richtel notes in his piece and Katie Fehrenbacher expands upon for her piece on earth2tech:
“The pipeline for public offerings has dried up in part because of the considerable shift in the industry’s interest in the last three years into “green” technologies, which was taking time to bear fruit.”
Wedding budget a little tight? Get corporate sponsorship on eBay!
Kelly Gray and her fiancé Karl Gau were set to be married in April of 2009, but the budget was tight and the couple hoped to have a bit more money to put toward the wedding. The solution to their money woes: creating the “Be My Bridesmaid” eBay auction.
The highest bidder wins a spot in the wedding party, a dress/tuxedo, shoes, and a “plus one” invitation to the reception. The auction created instant buzz, gaining the attention of media people waiting to see how far bidding would go.
When bidding closed on June 25, a member called “drpeppersnapple” had bid $5,700. To Kelly and Karl’s amazement, they had caught the attention of the people at The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group – who later raised their offer to $10,000. (Note: They will also be providing drinks for the wedding… Snapple iced teas all around! Wooo!)
The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group put out a press release yesterday saying “Weddings are about families, and we have a large one … more than 50 different brands from Dr. Pepper to Rose’s Mojitos,” said Greg Artkop, spokesperson for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. “In fact, you can find us behind the bar at most weddings, so we’re looking forward to being up at the altar for once.”
Snapple has had super-creative advertising campaigns in the past… but this one takes the [wedding] cake. Cheap publicity or not, Snapple sure knows how to leverage online buzz to its advantage.
I’m relatively new to Twitter (follow me), and have had my fair share of frustrations with it so far. I think it’s generally pretty slow and doesn’t have a good way for new members to integrate into the network, but it does provide a great way for people to connect, who otherwise never would.
But when Twitter is working, users can now connect with politicians to share their thoughts and concerns with their representatives. While Barack Obama is on Twitter, I’ve only seen him (or someone else on his staff) update where he is or what he’s doing. However, Texas Congressman John Culberson has become an active on Twitter, engaging in back-and-forth conversation with his followers, and is actually following 732 people. This type of interaction is great, and is an example of how Twitter can help connect people.
Will more politicians turn to social networks like Twitter to help engage the public? The YouTube debates that were held last year seemed to be a big step forward in acknowledging what the elections really are about, and hats off Congressman Culberson for going a step further when he really didn’t have to.
Please Note: This post has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting Congressman Culberson. It’s simply a pat on the back for engaging citizens and listening to what they have to say.
Portfolio:
oScott Paltrow, investigative writer at The Journal, now a contributing editor
oPeter Waldman, investigative writer, now a senior writer
oDan Golden, Pulitzer-winning reporter, now a senior editor
oHilary Stout, editor of Personal Journal, now a senior editor
oDoug Frantz, senior writer, agreed to join the L.A. Times but left for Portfolio
The New York Times:
o Tara Parker-Pope, health writer
o Brooks Barnes, reporter at The Journal, now a movie business reporter
o Ron Lieber, left The Journal for Dow-Jones-IAC joint venture, now a columnist
Financial Times:
o Henny Sender, senior special writer for Money & Investing, now an international financial correspondent
Orlando Sentinel:
o Robert Block, Homeland Security reporter, now space editor
IAC:
o Ed Felsenthal, deputy managing editor, now working with Tina Brown on her new project for Barry Diller (he originally left for Portfolio)
The Economist:
o Greg Ip, senior special writer and Federal Reserve reporter, now U.S. economics editor
Fortune:
o James Bandler, Pulitzer-winning reporter, will be U.S. economics editor
Forbes:
o Anita Raghavan, London-based reporter, now European bureau chief
o Rebecca Buckman, special writer at San Francisco bureau, now a staffer
BusinessWeek:
o Paul Barrett, editor (only at The Journal briefly)
Reuters:
o Robert MacMillan, reporter (also at The Journal briefly)
Bloomberg:
o Laurie Hays, deputy managing editor, now executive editor for company news
Prospective Jobs:
o Marcus Brauchli, former managing editor, top candidate for Washington Post executive editorship and currently a consultant for NewsCorp.
Academia:
o Bill Grueskin, former deputy managing editor, becoming a dean at Columbia’s journalism school
Public relations gigs:
o Sally Beatty, philanthropy reporter, joined Pfizer’s PR department
o Kathryn Kranhold, GE reporter, joined Sard Verbinnen & Co.
Investment jobs:
o Jonathan Clements, former personal finance columnist, now at Citigroup
o Laurie Cohen, former senior special writer, going to a hedge fund.
The Associated Press has been in the news a lot over the last couple of weeks and unfortunately it wasn’t because it was breaking stories.
Its dispute and eventual resolution with the Drudge Retort over the use and re-purposing of AP content caught national attention. While media columnists and bloggers have blown the AP / Drudge Retort story out of proportion, there may be an interesting AP story for them to follow next month. At that time, the AP will begin to completely reorganize its business news desk.
The AP remains the largest and oldest news organization in the world, serving more then 1,700 U.S. daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers. In a time of rampant newsroom cutbacks and journalist buyouts, the AP has managed to keep 243 bureaus open in 97 countries across the world. It employs more then 3,000 journalists worldwide.
As one of its first steps in reorganizing the business news desk, the AP named Brian Bergstein national technology editor last week. Brian was kind enough to take some time with me this week to discuss the reorganization the AP will go under next month along with his thoughts on his new role, the East coast versus West coast technology scenes and the need for widely understood principles on content in the blogophere.
RaceTalk: So congratulations on being named national technology editor at the Associated Press. What will your new role entail? Also, who will you report to and can you share who else makes up the rest of the technology unit at the AP?
BB: The entire business news desk of the AP, of which the tech desk is part, is being reorganized. Previously we had some nationally based business and tech reporters, including me, but many more reporters were part of local bureaus and organized their coverage regionally. Now that structure is being blown up, and all AP business writers will be part of the national business desk, as I was, and we will organize coverage around beats rather than region. So previously, for example, we had someone in Atlanta covering Delta Airlines (in addition to other Atlanta companies) and someone in Dallas covering American Airlines (in addition to other Texas companies), but now we have a national airlines team. Similarly, you probably encountered Mark Jewell, the Boston business writer, for some Boston tech or business stories. Now he is going to be writing full-time about personal finance, on a national basis. So think of our tech coverage unfolding that same way. We now will have nine technology reporters around the country, in New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco, reporting to me as their editor. Other AP reporters elsewhere can and will still contribute tech stories, but for these nine, it’s their full-time beat. We’ll organize it along certain beats in tech, such as chips, PCs, wireless, business software, and so on. In time it should be much easier for PR people to figure out whom to pitch on a certain story.
RaceTalk:Obviously, those of us PR folk working in the Cambridge and Boston area have come to turn to you with national technology stories with a local hook. You mentioned to me that you won’t have a technology reporter per se in the Boston area and that a lot of what you have been covering will fall on people who aren’t physically in the area. Before we start an uproar among the local technology folks here, can you further explain the plans for covering technology stories that have a Boston area hook?
BB:Just like I often wrote about companies that weren’t in Boston, now our tech reporters who are in other cities will find themselves writing more often about companies that are here. Since we’re not limited by geography, a cool Boston start-up might get a call from Jordan Robertson in San Francisco or Peter Svensson in New York. So I don’t expect we will ignore Boston-area tech, not by a long shot. Yes, we no longer have a full-time tech reporter based here, but that isn’t necessarily always going to be the case. And in the meantime, some stories will call for an AP tech reporter to travel here. Also, for really intriguing local happenings in tech, we can bring in a generalist from the local bureau who might be interested. And I’m still here, so it’s hard to imagine Boston tech news vanishing from the AP’s radar.
RaceTalk: Are you taking any pitches / embargoed announcements from PR folks in your new role?
BB: I’m OK taking pitches and can send them in the right direction until it’s clearer to the outside world what our new beats look like. But now, more than ever, I’d love to pass on the request to always pitch by e-mail, never phone, and never, ever, call just to check in and follow up on an e-mail. The sheer volume of pitches we get makes phone calls impossible to deal with.
RaceTalk:Do you think the Cambridge / Boston area gets the short end of the stick when people talk about hot beds for technology start-ups? Santa Monica, Austin and even Vancouver seem to be getting more attention then the Cambridge / Boston area as of late. With you in Boston, the Associated Press was one of the few national outlets that had a local writer in this area solely covering technology. There still seems to be that bias at the national level where technology writers dismiss everything outside of Silicon Valley - More specifically dismissing anything outside of Cupertino or Mountain View.
BB: I suppose I’m biased, since I’m here and know how important the Boston technology landscape is, but I disagree with your assessment. Undoubtedly Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of technology, and most things happening there get blown to a higher degree of hype. But all I know is that we write an awful lot about companies and ideas emerging from other places, including states not even considered tech hubs. We do that probably more than any other news organization. And to my mind, Boston is next after Silicon Valley when it comes to important U.S. technology centers. What’s especially interesting to me is that this happens largely because of the area’s intellectual capital rather than because of some ecosystem created by a very large company. I’ve heard the complaints from people here about how there won’t be another EMC-sized tech company in Massachusetts, because all the good local tech companies keep getting bought up by companies elsewhere, but to me that’s a good sign of innovation here, not an ominous harbinger.
RaceTalk: I know you spent two years as a technology correspondent in the Silicon Valley bureau of the AP before coming to Boston. How do you personally compare the two technology scenes? As well as, how do you compare your experience in dealing with companies / communications’ executives there versus here?
BB:I get asked this question a lot. I think people expect to hear that the West Coast/East Coast divide is so striking in tech, like how rappers kill each other over it. I think the Silicon Valley scene is more obsessively covered by its local media. And Boston’s overall vibe is more New England reserved. Someone once put it to me that VCs in the Valley are all out to hit home runs, while VCs here do great hitting doubles and triples. I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification, though there is more of a rip-roaring feel in the Valley. But the truth is, I’ve met plenty of start-up founders here and in the Valley, and there’s no difference in their talent or level of motivation.
RaceTalk: As you’ll have a further role in dictating the types of technology stories that the AP is following – what are some of the larger technology trends that you are most interested in? You’ve followed the One Laptop per Child project closely and it is a truly global technology story. Can we expect AP technology correspondents working together on more global tech stories?
BB: I’m mainly interested in stories that capture how technology is changing society, the law, business, ethics or, our concepts of ourselves. So trends we will follow include such topics as user-generated content, privacy, technology and the environment, outsourcing, computer security — all the big-picture stuff you might expect. As far as more global tech stories — sure, why not? We have the foreign bureaus to produce more stuff like that, unlike most news organizations these days. And a previous AP technology editor happens to be a bureau chief for us in South America — he did a thorough early look at OLPC in Peru.
RaceTalk: Be honest, are you going to miss following breaking news on a daily basis? I know many reporters I talk to, speak of that thrill as being akin to a drug.
BB: Well, I still have to follow — and edit — breaking news now that I’m the editor. There’s certainly a thrill in getting out a well-crafted story on deadline, but if it’s a drug it’s a pretty mild one. I get just as much of a thrill out of turning around a thorough, well-crafted feature.
RaceTalk: Is there one interview with a technology industry executive that you sat down with over the last couple years that stands out in your mind?
BB: There are so many, it would be hard to pick one. I don’t have any good examples of finding some mild-mannered tech icon turning out to be a chair-throwing tyrant. I also find tech researchers and developers more interesting than most executives. The people who work in the labs tend to have a beautifully optimistic yet realistic view of how their work fits into the world.
RaceTalk:I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least try to ask you one question on the Associated Press’ highly publicized dispute and resolution with the Drudge Retort. Even your colleague Seth Sutel covered the resolution. Given the abundance of highly trafficked technology blogs it would seem that your former and future content has a high likelihood of at least being cited on blogs and making its way through the blogosphere. Do you have a personal opinion on the matter and have you been getting a lot of flack from technology bloggers that you have relationships with? (I’m guessing you’ve crossed paths with a few over the last several years on the beat.)
BB:Well, I do have an opinion, but it’s just that. I don’t speak for the AP as an organization in any way. And since the business and editorial divisions are separate, I don’t have insight into how the AP went about this. I learned what I know on this the same as you did, from reading Seth Sutel, Saul Hansell in the Times and the main tech blogs. I certainly hope that before long these kinds of issues get worked out, and widely understood principles emerge on how content like ours moves through the online world. I have a lot of respect for many technology bloggers, who often circulate really intriguing ideas.
We talk with many current and potential clients about the battle to get coverage on TechCrunch. With 2.8 million unique visitors and 7.5 million page views a month, you can’t ignore it. It has become the next-gen “New York Times” for the marketing and communications executives that we work with. Not because TechCrunch is liberal (up for debate) and not even because TechCrunch is the first thing they read each morning (in many cases it is). I compare it to the New York Times because the client conversations that used to revolve around “How do we get into the Times or even the Wall Street Journal?” Now revolve around “How do I get on TechCrunch?”
Working out of the East coast with a majority of east coast technology start-ups, it had been a difficult conversation. Let’s make it simple - Michael Arrington and TechCrunch have always had a Silicon Valley bias.
It got slightly easier with addition of Erick Schonfeld (someone that I had built a good relationship with at Business 2.0), who works out of New York, and brought a better national balance to the technology coverage on TechCrunch.
The second hurdle that a lot of our clients had to overcome was TechCrunch’s somewhat singular focus on consumer technology along with news coming out of Mountain View, Redmond and Cupertino. That hurdle got easier to clear on Monday with the launch of TechCrunchIT. The spin-off created by Michael Arrington will be run by Steve Gillmor and Nik Cubrilovic. Arrington described the editorial mission of the new site by making his enterprise technology / muffler analogy:
“If it’s not clear where the line is between TechCrunch and TechCrunchIT, perhaps my muffler analogy will help. A frequent debate on the Gillmor Gang is over the importance, or at least the interestingness, of end user/consumer products (think YouTube) v. the technologies that allow those products to exist (in YouTube’s case, Adobe Flash). I personally think the YouTube’s of the world are more interesting, and I refer to those products as “Ferarris.” All the technology that goes into making those Ferarris I refer to as “mufflers” (the enterprise guys hate that, which is why I keep doing it). Basically, TechCrunchIT is a blog about the mufflers. And Steve and Nik are going to do their best to keep you entertained while reporting every important development in the muffler market.”
No word on if Meineke has signed on as a third sponsor for TechCrunchIT. It is interesting that Arrington has finally decided to break up enterprise and consumer technology right as publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek are launching their own initiatives to cover enterprise technology closer.
I have an issue with the high-technology platforms (which actually makes consumer facing sites monetizable) being refered to as “Mufflers” but I certainly don’t resent that it’s finally getting additional / targeted focus from publications like the old New York Times and the new one (TechCrunch) – Albeit TechCrunchIT.
How many online passwords does the average person have? We have passwords for work email, personal email, Facebook, MySpace, credit cards, banking, shopping sites, fantasy football, other member sites, etc. It’s really amazing how we keep tract and remember all of these (sometimes) unique log-in names and passwords.
Well, some technology leaders are looking to make things a little simpler. According to The New York Times, Microsoft, Google, PayPal, a unit of eBay, are among the founders of an industry organization that hopes to solve the problem of password overload among computer users by using an online ID card.
The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver’s license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people will gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that is overseen by a third party. The user controls the information in a secure place and transmits only the data that is necessary to access a Web site.
The article goes on to say that one of the biggest issues facing this initiative is getting the millions of sites to support the new system, which would take a few years. However, security would likely also be an issue, as many may share the fear of a hacker gaining access to their online ID, therefore allowing them to access any site, including financial information.
Until then, keep trying to remember all of those passwords!
If you’re a communications or PR pro working with companies in the consumer electronics industry you’re undoubtedly familiar with Gizmodo, the leading global blog when it comes to gadgets, gizmos and cutting-edge consumer electronics. According to Technorati’s popularity index it is the third most popular blog on the Web - trailing only Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch and Arianna Huffington’s Huffington Post. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Wilson Rothman, Gizmodo’s features editor, who works closely with Gizmodo editor Brian Lam in outlining the strategic editorial strategy for the blog. Here’s part 1 of a 3 part series that outlines the highlights of our wide-ranging discussion on Gizmodo, the blogosphere, competing blogs and the sensationalist style of most online publications.
RaceTalk: Wilson thanks for taking some time to chat with us. First off, I’m interested in hearing the back story which led to you joining Gawker and Gizmodo. I know you were writing for TIME.com, TIME magazine and the New York Times before that. How did your move to Gizmodo transpire?
WR: I had the “Gadget of the Week” column on Time.com for 4 years between 2002 and 2006. I had also done the Holiday Buyer’s Guide for TIME along with the back of the book tech pages for the magazine for numerous years.
It was always hard to get people at TIME excited about the technology stories that I was excited about. Part of it was mainstream news judgment. However, there was also an overwhelming excitement at TIME about technology (right when I was getting there) when Walter Isaacson was managing editor – that faded over time. As the leadership changed, priorities changed and covering technology for technology’s sake wasn’t exciting anymore. It was all I could do to hang on. TIME has been famously bad with online projects. Of course we’re all meant to think that the most valued text is put down on paper and mailed to people’s houses. It never even occurred to me (while I worked there) that a solely online publication was something that I wanted to do. However, at the same time I realized that my readers were disappearing. They were going somewhere and it was up to me to find out where they were going. Right as I was trying to figure out what my relationship with TIME would be moving forward (end of 2006 & early 2007), I got a call from Brian Lam and Noah Robischon at Gawker. Noah was the Gizmodo editor at the time, but he was also involved in a lot of the same publications that I was involved in.
We have similar histories. He left Time.com right when I started there, so it was cool to meet up with him again. It was kind of like looking at where I saw myself in three years. He was as strongly wedded to print as I was at one point; and now he was telling me that he was going purely online to Gizmodo and he wanted me to join him. I was very happy to go from the place where I was banging my hand on the table saying “We have to cover technology people,” to being invited to a team that was already covering it with super enthusiasm.
Gizmodo was conceived in 04’, but its most recent iteration with Brian running operations, really got going about that time - in the middle of 06’. Brian is the one that made it a viable contender.
Gizmodo was founded by Peter Rojas, who left to go to Engadget, and it imploded. John Biggs wrote it for a while and then Joel Johnson wrote it for awhile. Joel is a real esoteric guy and he’s funny and smart - but he didn’t care about mainstream news enough. Brian is sharp and wants to cover everything. Brian knows what he is doing – let’s put it that way. Just because you’re good at covering tech doesn’t mean that you know how to run a publication. Brian knows how to run a publication.
RaceTalk: So I read recently that you have 7.8 million unique visitors a month?
WR: I mean on a daily basis it is something like a million users (not all unique).
RaceTalk: Incrementally how much has that gone up over the last couple years?
WR: We’ve tripled since Brian started and doubled since I started. I mean its crazy the graph just goes up, up and up.
RaceTalk: Now I know you said that Engadget is a competitor of Gizmodo. However, given that you also told me that Nick Denton lets each Gawker blog run as an individual enterprise; do you view Valleywag as a competitor as well?
WR: Valleywag likes to write an Apple story here and there because if you put Apple in a headline you’re going to do better. It’s a known fact that the media in general (and I’m not just talking about technology media, I’m talking about everybody) wants to write an Apple story. They don’t care about anything else going on in technology but when Apple is doing something they want to get on board. Do we resent that? I don’t even know if it is resentment, it is pity in some cases. If you were really interested in technology you would know that this is really part of the larger story. Which is why Gizmodo gives the Zune so much airtime or the other interesting initiatives from Microsoft that are competing products and innovations to Apple – because it’s all part of the struggle to get better technology on the table.
Anyway back to Valleywag. Yes, everyone likes to tell an Apple story, but Valleywag has some reasoning for what they post. Frankly, when you are a gossip rag that is covering Silicon Valley – talking about Steve Jobs’ health and who’s coming and leaving Apple – that’s your beat.
RaceTalk: I’ve obviously read that TechCrunch and Arrington have a hate for Denton and especially Valleywag. Do you see TechCrunch as a direct competitor for Gizmodo as well?
WR: TechCrunch has shown nothing but respect for Gizmodo and vice-versa. I mean honestly we don’t get involved in the politics that happen at that level. I mean we don’t. We’re so damn busy to be political. We put out 60 posts a day. We’re too busy covering things and growing our coverage. We’re not growing in terms of spreading into new areas but we’re trying to get more thoughtful about what we cover. I was brought on in-part to get us up to speed on news. In addition, to add a third dimension of analysis to what we are writing. People now look to us for more then just the blotter. You know what I mean?
RaceTalk: Yes, I’ve certainly picked up that Denton and Huffington have pledged that there needs to be more analysis in addition to just posting the link and writing a quick blurb – More breaking your own news.
WR: Well look at it this way, and know that Noah is far more influential in editorial day-to-day operations then Nick Denton is. He’s now the editorial director of all Gawker sites and as I mentioned he came from Gizmodo - so obviously he has a special place in his heart for the blog. You take him, who’s from a magazine background, Brian who comes from Wired and then you take me. We are not bloggers by nature. We see the blog as a way to tell a bigger, richer story.
Then we also have people that are just ace bloggers. You know Jason Chen is amazing. He posts 12 stories a day. Then you have a guy like Matthew Cannon who can post 12 stories a day and then turns around a feature. I don’t know. I mean youth has something to do with it and not having a wife and baby. I can’t keep up.
Boston is TitleTown. While cleaning out the final cobwebs left in the wake of another local championship run, here is a look back at some interesting media notes that made it into my mailbag last week.
I’ve always thought that the greatest perk of being a sports journalist is the relationships they get to make with athletes. More specifically, the once in a lifetime opportunity where they get to take in (be part of) a locker room championship celebration. Yes, Boston sports journalists are spoiled, but once again I took pleasure in the guys with mic’s in their hands getting a Budweiser bath from the likes of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce last Tuesday night.
That along with reading The Sports Guy’s column last week, which included a back-and-forth text conversation he was having with Matt Damon’s posse courtside at Game 5 got me thinking – do any other journalists have it this good?
Sure, if you’re Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times you get to fly with Barack Obama - on the way to a history changing nomination. But even his behind the scenes access to a transcending individual is guarded by PR folks (not so unlike myself). He’ll likely never get to take in Obama the way a Bob Ryan gets to take in a Kevin Garnett – with overflowing and unguarded emotion – at the peak of his career. Sure Jeff Twiss, VP of media relations for the Celtics (who happens to be the father of one of my college buddies), was there - but it’s not like he’s keeping KG or Paul Pierce on message.
o Fake Steve Jobs (AKA Dan Lyons) will be taking over Steve Levy’s old gig at Newsweek. Levy wrapped up his last column for the magazine last week and is now on Wired’s payroll. Tell me I’m not the only one that thinks Fake Jobs taking over for Levy – a few months after Levy literally trashed the MacAir – is slightly ironic? Fake Steve may finally get to meet Real Steve (RS) as well - as Newsweek is one of the few publications that “RS” will talk to.
o Sam Whitmore (A human media encyclopedia) stopped by Racepoint last week and passed along one interesting tidbit that I’ve been mulling over. His sources tell him that TIME Inc., the parent company of Fortune, asked for 15 Fortune heads (contracts to buy out) within the last month – and they got no volunteers. Sam thinks Fortune is in trouble and believes it will become more of an event brand over the next couple years – which is hard to argue with given the success of the events that David Kirkpatrick leads for them including Brainstorm: Tech.
o Had an interesting conversation with a source close to News Corp. last week that further confirmed for me, Rupert’s borderline obsession with the Wall Street Journal right now. “He’s 100 percent focused on the Wall Street Journal, with little or no attention paid to his British papers.”
o Spent some time with Wilson Rothman of Gizmodo last week. Rothman, who’s written for TIME magazine and the New York Times, is now Features Editor for Gizmodo. Part of Nick Denton’s Gawker blog empire, Gizmodo now averages 7.8 million unique visitors a month. These impressive numbers along with its ranking on Technorati as the #3 blog in the land have communications and public relations executives taking notice. “This week alone, we had two on-site visits to major corporations along with an invite from a major motion picture studio for an exclusive set visit – all proactively arranged by PR folks,” he noted.
