The Pursuit of Paranoia

Just because you use Twitter doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Starring Sarah Lacy, Elizabeth Spiers, and more!

Just because you use Twitter doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Starring Sarah Lacy, Elizabeth Spiers, and more!

Fred Baron, a Texas trial lawyer, died last Thursday of cancer. Fellow litigators remember him for the "toxic tort" lawsuits he filed; politicos know him as the man who relocated former presidential candidate John Edwards's mistress, Rielle Hunter, to Santa Barbara, in the hopes of keeping her away from the public…
Andrew Baron, the founder of videoblog Rocketboom, has reported that his dad, prominent trial lawyer Fred Baron, is dying of cancer. His one chance, an experimental lifesaving drug, was denied by its manufacturer, Biogen Idec. We won't mention how Fred paid to relocate Rielle Hunter, the mistress of former…
Remember the Edwards scandal? It seems like it was so many crises ago. To remind you: attorney Fred Baron is the former Edwards campaign financer who saved the failed Presidential candidate by not being able to remember anything about paying for Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter's rent and legal needs. Baron's…
Click to viewJohn Edwards has admitted to his affair with "filmmaker" Rielle Hunter, even if he hasn't come totally clean about the shenanigans he and his inner circle of advisors went through to keep it a secret. Elizabeth Edwards has also admitted that she knew about the affair before her husband formally announced…
Andrew Baron is the founder of "daily Internet culture" website Rocketboom. He's also the son of lawyer and former John Edwards finance Fred Baron — you know, the guy who saved Edwards by not being able to remember anything about paying for Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter's living quarters and lawyer. And it looks like…
In just a few short months, the value of a Twitter user has gone up over 1,200 percent, according to completely arbitrary and illogical calculations. I initially pegged it at around $1 based on the value buyers were willing to pay for Andrew Baron's Twitter account at auction. When Twitter received $15 million in…
Our featured commenter, Robin Wauters, has one question for you about the latest spat between Mahalo's Jason Calacanis and Rocketboom's Aaron Baron:
In this corner, Andrew Baron, cofounder of hot videoblog mess Rocketboom, challenging Mahalo founder and incumbent blowhard champeen Jason Calacanis. Baron lands the first blow, citing Mahalo's "flat" traffic. Calacanis counters with some trash talk and then a body blow to Baron's privileged upbringing. Baron…
What do Rocketboom's Andrew Baron and John Edwards's fling Rielle Hunter have in common? They're both videobloggers who live off of trial lawyer Fred Baron's largesse. Financing from Fred, Andrew's dad, got Andrew's Rocketboom videoblog off the ground. Add to that his contributions to the Edwards campaign, including …
Here's a story far more interesting than anything you'll watch on YouTube: A prodigal scion of a wealthy family, pitted against his powerful father and an ambitious blonde. It's not a pilot for a new courtroom procedural — it's the tale of Andrew Baron's Rocketboom, an online-video startup held up, inexplicably, as…
Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron, who didn't invent the Internet, video, or Internet video, but did prove back in 2006 that its possible to become Internet famous with quick, quirky edits and a pretty girl's face, has announced a "seven-figure" distribution deal with Sony, TechCrunch reports, confirming a rumor we…
HEARST TOWER, NEW YORK — Far from the sweaty, screaming fans that attended Digg's Brooklyn meetup Wednesday night, the suits of the Alley and Valley gathered last night on the top-most floor of the Hearst Tower for another Founders Club party to celebrate each others' transcendent splendor. All night, giant screens…
Lucky to attend the Founders' Club party, we bumped into Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron last night. Baron told us Rocketboom will sign a "fat" deal with a major content company as early as today. "Is that phat with a ph?" asked a bystander about the boast. "Fat in all meanings of the word," Baron said. "I just…
According to a source at the Creative Artists Agency, host Joanne Colan is leaving Rocketboom, one of the Internet's first prominent news videoblogs. During her tenure, Colan never managed to transform the show (directed by creator Andrew Baron) from a quirky but inscrutable cult favorite into a mainstream online news…
CAMBRIDGE, MA — There's still hope, future. A full half of the people behind ROFLcon, the world's largest concentration of Internet-inspired pop-culture trends in one room, are female. Or, as they might put it, IRL LULZ 50% XX! As it's now officially impossible to host a tech-related conference without asking, …
Twitter has won kudos for being relatively resistant to spam. That may change. Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron, not pleased with the level of interaction his account has generated, has put it up for sale on eBay.
Jason Calacanis's human-powered search engine Mahalo is "fundamentally flawed," says videoblogger Andrew Baron. Well, we could have told you that: It's basically Yahoo's directory, 12 years too late. But Baron, best known for creating Rocketboom, trashed Calacanis's service not for its lack of originality, but for…
Digital media types here in New York are always looking for a reason to celebrate their own achievements. A couple of months ago, a few of them began calling themselves the Founders Club and decided to start holding mixers around town. Last night, NBC hosted the latest in the series on the set of Saturday Night Live…
NICK DOUGLAS — "If you've sent me an email (and you aren't my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again." So says Fred Wilson, venture capitalist, declaring e-mail bankruptcy today on his blog. He's not the first high-profile person to take this measure. Here are three other notables who've given…