Archive for March, 2007

Rumblings of a MySpace Revolt

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Look at these last two photos and you can see where I’m taking my coverage in the Times.
This is a photo of MySpace star Tila Tequila, who blogged a surprising rant against the social network last weekend for blocking a music-selling tool on her MySpace page. On Tuesday, i wrote about the emerging tensions between the Fox owned Internet company and its users over the use of unauthorized widgets.
On Wednesday I wrote about an interesting new policy proposal that could elucidate the muddled numbers around identity theft.
Today we track Motorola’s drastic earnings shortfall.
Busy week.

True Dat

Monday, March 19th, 2007
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You’ve probably seen the salacious ads, plastered across sites like MySpace and Friendster. Dating site True.com has rediscovered the age-old notion that sex sells. However, like a Texas politician, it is also combining those sex drenched ads with a bit of piety, asking state governments to pass laws requiring that dating sites conduct background checks on their members or disclose that they fail to do so.

In today’s paper, I look at True.com, its eccentric founder Herb Vest, and why True and some of its less than honorable business tactics seems to making many of its rivals a little hot under the collar.

cisco acquires tribe.net

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Today Cisco announced it is buying the technology behind eclipsed social network Tribe.net, which I first reported on the paper’s web site on Friday. It’s an odd deal, but puts the Silicon Valley equipment giant on track to help its customers, like telcos and media companies, set up their own social networks. Today, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube seem unique. But clearly a multitude of clones is on the way.

Boar to be Wild

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

For the last five years, we’ve competed in San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, a four-hour-long scamper through the floats, crowds and firecrackers of the annual Chinese New Year parade.

In yesterday’s competition, our Year of the Pig team (”Boar to be Wild”) took second place — out of thousands of entrants. The accomplishment was particularly sweet because in previous years we have finished quickly but made minor mistakes that ruined our chances. We won a cake, champagne and a certificate.