The End of Second Life
Those who can't do, teach. Second Life, the most overhyped virtual world, has been abandoned even by its most fervent journalistic promoters, like Reuters and Wired. It's now pitching itself as an online schoolhouse.
Twitterati on Parade
Did you hear Twitter is now bigger than Digg? That's because you can't vote on Obamanaugural headlines by text message. More OMG Barack!!!!!!1!1!! tweets from the media elite:
Is Mitch Kapor running for CTO of America?
If Barack Obama is elected president, will he bring Silicon Valley a new bicycle in the form of a federal chief technology officer — our very own nerd in the White House? Bloggers are already nominating their favorite conference blowhards. But Obama seems pretty serious about naming someone to the position, even if…
The man who didn't let AOL kill Firefox
Tomorrow, Netscape is officially dead: AOL is ending support for the venerable browser. But its offspring, Firefox, is thriving. Both Netscape and Firefox had several brushes with death. In 1998, "Microsoft was driving their monster truck after us and they were about to pin us to the wall," former Netscape software…
Three questions for the Google party plane posse
We know TechCrunch's Michael Arrington didn't make it onto the Google jet back from Davos, but who did? Arrington claims that Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and tech publisher Tim O'Reilly made it onto the flight but doesn't serve us up with a passenger manifest.
Self-important blogger fails to catch ride on Google party plane
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington tried and failed to score a ride from Davos back to California on the Google plane. No surprise, since the plane — owned by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt, not the company they run — only seats 25 people.
Game shows and lectures
Go to a game show with your favorite videobloggers, get all scholarly, or spy on Yahoo's new digs, all in tonight's Valleywag Calendar.
Lotus founder Mitch Kapor has some advice for the young guns writing apps for Facebook: "Platform owners have the power." Facebook will take your ideas and crush you; it's just that Mark Zuckerberg will be nicer than Bill Gates as he does it.. Sound familiar? [Compete Blog]
Are conference hags a plague or pleasure?
A reader just can't take it any more, seeing the same faces in the D Conference photo series as they saw in all the other conference shots.
Geek out: Martha Stewart and John Cusak hit the D Conference
Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted.
