Peter Kafka is Kara Swisher's latest star hire at AllThingsD. She stole him from Silicon Alley Insider, where he worked with Henry Blodget. At SAI, Kafka always seemed to do fine without invoking the wisdom of the crowd. Why is Kara pushing him to go on and on about nothing? His first post was the standard Web 2.0…
Don't call it a "social network" — the product that will save Yahoo is an "enhanced profile." Which just happens to look exactly like someone's profile page on Facebook or MySpace — friends, updates, and all of that. CNET News editor-in-chief Dan Farber got the PowerPoint deck, as did AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. Is it…
Click to view"You better have a year’s worth of cash and a revenue model or you’re toast." There, now you don't have to sit through Kara Swisher's long, boring lunch with angel-investing mastermind Ron Conway. Swisher is one of tech's best reporters, as she never stops reminding us. She tidily quotes Conway's public…
The Justice Department met with Google and Yahoo's customers and competitors this week as it continues to build an antitrust case for its litigious hired gun Sandy Litvack. On top of that, Canada is now on Google's case too, having hired antitrust lawyer David Kent. Never heard of him, sure he's a hoser, eh. In…
The latest hire in online tech outlets smacks of cannibalism. Silicon Alley Insider, the vanity blog vehicle of former Wall Street stock analyst Henry Blodget, has lost managing editor Peter Kafka to AllThingsD, the vanity blog vehicle of Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Dow Jones makes for a steadier parent than…
BoomTown's Kara Swisher went to Palo Alto’s MacArthur Park restaurant for a luncheon hosted by Germany’s Hubert Burda Media yesterday, the organizers of the DLD conference. A target of her shaky videocam work: Facebook flack Brandee Barker, who hid behind a fern. Asked if Microsoft was buying Facebook, Barker shouted,…
In the war of words being fought between the organizers of the DemoFall and TechCrunch50 startup conferences, AllThingsD reporter Kara Swisher unleashed quite a salvo yesterday: "Being lectured on journalism ethics by Michael Arrington is like getting parenting tips from Britney Spears." Zing! She proceeds to call…
After slapping our beloved sweaterbear Owen Thomas for his description of Sheryl Sandberg's "reign of terror" at Facebook, Kara Swisher has left the lower 48 and hopped on a boat bound for Alaska. While bears may seem cuddly, danger may lurk in their embrace. Since we wouldn't want anything bad to happen to our…
The Imperial Ballroom of the San Jose Fairmont, site of Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting, was nearly empty as the formalistic corporate-governance charade was about to start. The power went in and out, depriving reporters of electricity for their laptops, Kara Swisher reports on BoomTown. No, she did not resist…
AllThingsD's Kara Swisher spends an epic 1,367 words on Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's complete personality makeover — and her pivotal role therein. The key words:
After avoiding the viciously loquacious Kara Swisher for a year — even at her big tech conference — normally mellow Yahoo founder Jerry Yang gave the AllThingsD reporter an earful. Yang says No Fucking Way will he hand the keys over to the comedy team of Carl Icahn and His Lack of a Plan B (I'm paraphrasing), in…
Ruthless reporter Kara Swisher didn't get invited to superbanker Herb Allen's annual VIP gathering in Sun Valley. So she's taking matters into her own hands and ... complaining on her blog? Kara, stop it. I've seen you in action. You're The Bride of tech reporting. When you enter the room, security guards flee. PR…
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…
Citing several unnamed sources, TechCrunch reported yesterday that merger talks between Microsoft and Yahoo were back on. Investors responded, buying Yahoo stock up 10.5 percent from the day's low to $23.71. Now CNBC says the rumors were false. Reporters' reporter Kara Swisher of BoomTown — who did a bit of…
Want to know how seriously venture capitalists take their entrepreneurs-in-residence, those CEO-wannabes they toss a paycheck at to keep them off the streets? Ask James Slavet and David Sze of Greylock Partners. In this clip, they get a good giggle with BoomTown's Kara Swisher over new hire Jeff Weiner's funny name.…
Tech Ticker's Sarah Lacy and BoomTown's Kara Swisher share a particular interviewing style: Badgering their subject into submission through interruptions, personal anecdotes, and swift corrections. The main difference is that Lacy smiles when she does it. The technique is effective with tech titans and media moguls,…
CENTURY SAN FRANCISCO CENTRE 9 — Where are the girls? An event producer and I both nervously paced through the lobby. Where was Marissa Mayer? The Google executive had rented a theater for the 8:50 screening of Sex and the City, but she and 300 of her closest friends were nowhere to be seen. Late, of course — have…
CARLSBAD, CA — In her bid to rob her new boss of all remaining dignity, conference organizer Kara Swisher has arranged to have gene-analysis startup 23andMe map aging media mogul Rupert Murdoch's chromosomes at the D6 conference, AllThingsD's John Paczkowski tells us. Come on. At 77, does he have any left? Leave the…
CARLSBAD, CA — For most of their D conference interviews, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg trade off interview duties. But why was Mossberg the one to do the D6 interview with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and president Sue Decker? Swisher frequently covers Yahoo in her AllThingsD.com blog; I can't think of the last time…
