MySpace chief Own Van Natta is a consummate dealmaker; at Facebook he helped sweet talk Microsoft into a critical ad buy. MySpace is a trickier case: insiders at the social network are spreading word it faces "horrendous" user disengagement.
Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta is the frontrunner to replace Chris DeWolfe as MySpace CEO. Blog lordling Jason Calacanis has been jokingly nominated for the News Corp. gig. Here's who should get it.
Sucking up to the CEO's wife is usually a wise move. But did it doom MySpace chief Chris DeWolfe?
Former AOL CEO Jon Miller hasn't officially joined News Corp. yet, but we hear that Jeremy Philips, the 36-year-old executive vice president in charge of Internet strategy, is panicked at the prospect of his hire.
Rupert Murdoch's media empire continues its turmoil after the announcement of COO Peter Chernin's departure. The newest player: Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who's widely expected to take the top digital job there.
Another day, another hare-brained scheme to buy Yahoo. This time, the player isn't Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, but former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who now runs a venture-capital fund. But the prospect of a deal seems as far off and fanciful as Microsoft, which spent most of the spring and summer trying to buy Yahoo,…
Let us say it, since every other writer seems too kind: As CEO of AOL, Randy Falco is an utter embarrassment. Silicon Alley Insider recounts his perplexing performance in front of a crowd of media executives gathered for Advertising Week in New York. "Radio was supposed to die 50 years ago," Falco said. "The reason…
Velocity Interactive Group, the venture-capital vehicle of former Fox Interactive CEO Ross Levinsohn and ex-AOL chief Jon Miller, has yet to raise a $250 million fund insiders say they've been seeking for six months and counting. Which is curious. Levinsohn and Miller tried to raise money on their own, but decided…
With former AOL CEO Jon Miller out of the running, thanks to Time Warner's last-minute meddling, sources with knowledge of the situation say they expect corporate raider Carl Icahn to name former entertainment executive Frank Biondi and former advertising executive Edward Meyer to Yahoo's board. [BoomTown]
In the banana-republic politics of America's public companies, anything less than a 99 percent "yes" vote is somewhat embarrassing. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang should not congratulate himself on the result that 18.2 percent of shareholder votes were withheld from his reelection to the board. Still, it's good enough that…
Right as former AOL CEO Jon Miller gets a glowing profile in the Los Angeles Times, his former boss strikes back at him in the most callow way possible, by blocking his appointment to the Yahoo board. Was it not enough for Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to ignominiously sack Miller two years ago, replacing him with the…
Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, reportedly Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's favorite to lead the company's new online division, withdrew his name from consideration yesterday because he'll soon be joining Yahoo's board. So if not Miller, who's going to take on the task of saving Microsoft by building its presence on the…
Everyone wants a piece of beloved former AOL CEO Jon MIller, who was oh so unfairly fired, loyalists say, by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. First gossips suggested Miller as a fit to replace ineffectual Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Then, on Monday, Yang himself said Miller would fill one of Carl Icahn's new seats on the…
In an entirely punctuated memo posted to Yahoo's corporate blog and the SEC, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang — or his ghostwriters — declared that yesterday's agreement to give corporate raider Carl Icahn three board seats and avert a proxy fight allows Yahoo "to get back to the business at hand." But while Yahoo will soon…
If corporate raider Carl Icahn ever had any hope of convincing major Yahoo shareholders like Legg Mason's Bill Miller to back his alternative slate against the Yahoo board in a proxy fight, he needed a plan B in case a sale to Microsoft didn't work out. As Kara Swisher puts it, he needed "a solid management team and…
Before creating the world's most comprehensive list of videogame cheats, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis worked at AOL under then-CEO Jon Miller. Calacanis joined AOL only after it bought Weblogs Inc. from him for $25 million and since Miller led that acquisition, eventually invested in Mahalo and now sits on the…
Yahoo shares are almost below $20 in morning trading and as the company approaches its August 1 annual meeting, Yahoo's directors have finally begun to fear for their jobs and their reputations. They're negotiating with Yahoo's major shareholders and, along with agreeing to renew talks with Microsoft and approach…
Jonathan Miller, the man who was ungracefully booted as AOL CEO, and Ross Levinsohn, the former Fox Interactive Media chief who was never quite as in charge of MySpace as he would have liked, will form a new group at VC firm ComVentures, SAI reports. They're callng it Velocity Interactive Group. The pair plan to…
