We hear that Yahoo TechTicker, the online-video show from Yahoo Finance featuring Valley fox Sarah Lacy and red-hot moneymen Henry Blodget and Paul Kedrosky, is delayed, and won’t be airing early episodes next week as rumored. Dammit! Scott Moore, we blame you for this, too.

Source:Valleywag

“The Wall St. buzz is that msft and yhoo are bidding for eBay. My source tells me that Yahoo! has bid 1.76 shares for eBay ($40-41) and is expected to win at that price.” So writes Scot Wingo, the plugged-in CEO of ChannelAdvisor, an auctions-software maker in which eBay owns a minority stake. Let’s dissect that rumor, shall we?

The deal does offer a generous 25 percent premium to eBay shareholders, pricing the company’s shares at the 52-week-high they briefly touched in October. But as proposed, it would be ruinously dilutive to Yahoo shareholders, leaving them with 36 percent of the combined company. Why a Yahoo shareholder would settle for this escapes me, however, unless they have completely written off Yahoo’s management, brand, and assets.

Which is not out of the question. At the levels Yahoo’s trading at, shareholders are essentially paying for its minority stakes in Yahoo Japan, Alibaba in China, and Gmarket in Korea. But if a shareholder would be disillusioned enough to accept this deal, one wonders why they wouldn’t simply sell their Yahoo shares and buy eBay shares on the open market, where they’re considerably cheaper.

I don’t know if this plan is being seriously considered within Yahoo. As many have written, Yahoo and eBay’s assets make a nice strategic fit, in theory; eBay’s PayPal already has a search-ads partnership with Yahoo, and the two companies have other advertising deals. Google is actively pursuing a profitable combination of search and e-commerce through its Checkout initiative, sharpening the threat to both Yahoo and eBay. Not to mention Skype, which eBay has written off but could find a better fit with Yahoo’s mail and IM products.

But in practice? The reality is that both companies are collections of underused assets, with management that has allowed vital talent to flee. Putting them together might provide a needed shakeout of eBay and Yahoo’s overstaffed executive suites, but the transition would be chaotic and painful.

A much simpler course would be selling out to Microsoft or News Corp., which surely remain interested in Yahoo’s online-advertising business, if they can stomach all the troubles that come with it.

That this rumor is circulating, that it’s even being whispered about, suggests that Jerry Yang may have given up on being rescued by a deep-pocketed buyer. Issuing so much undervalued paper for eBay smacks of desperation. It would keep Yahoo independent, but at a very steep price. So steep that, if it’s being seriously considered, can only mean no one wants to buy Yahoo.

Source:Valleywag

Entrepreneurs. Engineers. Bloggers. You keep asking: Why does a writer like me hate people like you? Nick Denton’s new traffic-based pay scale has backfired wonderfully, giving me a few minutes to explain it.

Entrepreneurs You guys think money is everything. That is, you think money is some sort of universal currency into which anything can be converted, and which can be converted to anything else.

• Good writing is one of the things you can’t buy with just cash. Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, has proven that again and again.

• Even when you guys mean to be helpful, you get it all wrong.
  (A) You encourage me to demand more money from my editors. The only thing they’ll pay extra for is being famous, because that sells more copies without buyers having to read the article first.
  (B) You offer to let me “pick up a few extra bucks” by writing your kids’ college entrance essays.

• Here’s an idea: Pay me to mention your company and/or product in one of my articles. Not that I would, but I’m sure someone else will. The astounding thing is in 11 years I’ve been offered money for everything but a covert endorsement. You guys have a blind spot there.

Engineers It’s hard to be smarter than everyone else, isn’t it? You tech people never ask anything about my job. Instead, you explain it to me.

• You just know that my life as a professional writer must be exactly like your life as a professional software developer or sysadmin. Salespeople must come by my desk and demand I change my articles so they can close a big deal, right?

• You’re 100% certain that if you wrote the article instead of me, it would have been better. Lucky for you, your fellow engineers are like string theorists: They’ll praise this assertion for its elegance and daring, instead of asking you to prove it with a real-world test.
• You’ll explain to me that my ideas for articles start from press releases, and must be reviewed prior to publication by the companies I write about. If I praise your competition, it must mean they bought an ad. You got this worldview from your company’s PR lady. You have a crush on her.
• Do me a favor: 34 percent of the Internet is comments from engineers that begin, “It is unsurprising to me that …” Look, we get it. Nothing surprises you. So it’s unsurprising to us that it’s unsurprising to you. So shut up already.

Bloggers There is, in fact, a special circle of hell reserved for you. You’re keeping it real! Real long, and real dull.

• The only other fields where people spend all their time bragging about themselves and insulting their rivals are talk radio and gangster rap. There’s your level of intellectual discourse.

• Jack Kerouac? He had an editor. Allen Ginsberg? Spent months rewriting “Howl.” Andrew Sullivan? Face time with the world’s best editors, and he still puts me to sleep when he writes solo.
• Free advice: Every time you type the words “not so much,” or “the internets,” or “Techmeme,” reach for that key that says DELETE and press it a few times fast. You’re a better writer already!

(Did you notice? I don’t hate PR people. Sure, I filter all messages with “for immediate release” or “embargo.” But you guys are OK. It helps that you pick up the tab — not the free drinks, but the principle of the thing.)

Nick Denton’s new pay scale — more to the point, the reactions to it — prompted me to write all this down. The thing that ties entrepreneurs, engineers and bloggers together is they all think they know everything. If you can suffer through 150 know-it-all posts, you’ll find that no one got it right, on two counts.

• I hardly know who Nick Denton is. He emails us all “please log out of nexis” once a week, and has posted one comment to my work: “This post breaks the first rule of internet argument.” Since there’s only one rule of Internet argument and it’s “Don’t be boring,” I ignore him. I’m logged out of Nexis already.

• Denton’s new pay scale works like this: Instead of autobilling him twelve bucks a post, I’m now paid a flat fee in exchange for a minimum number of posts. There’s some traffic bonus, but whatever. The important thing is that my extra posts don’t cost Denton anything. So I can now post anything I want without feeling guilty. Here you go.

Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen is “sobbing with excitement” over the news that a newly discovered drug, orexin A, eliminates the effects of sleep deprivation. “SIGN ME UP!” [blog.pmarca.com]

Source:Valleywag

Hitler raus, Google has declared. A mention of the joys of learning about the late German dictator at work, spotted by Valleywag on Wednesday, has disappeared from Google India’s job-recruiting page. After the jump, a screenshot of the formerly offending passage.

Source:Valleywag

Save for one very special correspondent’s valiant efforts, all was quiet on the Internet at the beginning of this week. The Christians were busy celebrating the birth of Jesus, and the rest of you, your new JesusPhones. It’s not grown much louder since. And some, including professional echo chamberist Jeremiah Owyang, are having trouble dealing with the change in pace.

“I’m used to being online 12+ hours a day, just to keep up with the news in the rapid fire tech industry,” Owyang writes on his blog. “This really reinforces why I love the tech industry, as this is a good reminder what it’s like in many other industries.” Yes, it’s dreadful, isn’t it? (Photo by refractedmoments)

A San Francisco woman reported her Honda Civic stolen to the San Francisco police. A few weeks later, she got a parking citation in the mail for her stolen car. Then she got another. And another. In total, her car got ticketed 29 times while being listed as stolen. She called the police and the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic, but didn’t get any solid answers about the whereabouts of her car, nor why it was being ticketed after being reported stolen. Eventually, she and a friend decided to drive around locations where the car had been ticketed to try to find it.

After driving for three hours, they located the car and waited for an hour before the police showed up. San Francisco’s finest were not interested in catching the thieves and didn’t search the car before releasing it. The thieves had put 1,000 miles on the car, but otherwise kept it clean. The city claims “parking control officers,” who don’t work for the police department, aren’t expected to figure out which cars are stolen. “Their handheld ticket devices store auto theft information only from San Francisco’s database — not the entire state.” Ah, well that’s good to know. (Photo by salimfadhley)

newVideoPlayer(”MC_Hammer.flv”, 475,376);
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stanley Kirk Burrell, who sometimes goes by another name and often wears very large pants, as the video above, has teamed with Flock founders Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young to launch DanceJam, a new online video site. Burrell is perhaps best known for pairing with videoblogger Justine Ezarik of iJustine to endorse Y Combinator’s MySpace profile tool.

Burrell told the Financial Times he spoke with angel investor Ron Conway prior to teaming with Arone and Young on DanceJam. In an interesting side note, business partners might be surprised to learn that prior to his tech career, Burrell also dabbled in music. He’s perhaps best know for his 2006 album titled Look Look Look. And here’s a picture of Burrell with fellow entrepreneur Jay Adelson, the CEO of Digg.

Source:Valleywag

Look where baiting Apple fanboys gets you. Yesterday we noted that the top-selling digital music device on Amazon.com was not the iPod but Microsoft’s Zune. Commenter deathbychichi made quick work of this assertion.

“Um, yeah, currently two Zunes in the top 25 electronics bestsellers on Amazon. Nine iPods.” Deathbychici also points out that while Microsoft’s heavily discounted $89 30GB model is currently outselling each of the various nine iPod models, different colors of the iPod Nano are outselling the regularly-priced Zune. Ouch.

(Photo by S Baker)

Source:Valleywag

Stuck at work? Sorry to hear it. Valleywag’s working a full day, so we’ll keep you entertained. In fact, if you were thinking about leaving early to beat traffic, you might as well just stay at your desk. The Bay Area’s major escape routes, 580-E towards Livermore and 101-N in Marin, are already clogged with Thanksgiving traffic.

The change came quietly. Few noticed, at first. But yesterday morning, Google turned against its long-held motto and became evil. The appearance of the sign? On every stock ticker.

And even better? The ad Google served up alongside its devilish stock price:

We always suspected that Google was evil, and Googlers were all about the money. But even the company’s own search engine and ad-targeting system confirm it now.

Source:Valleywag

You think you have it rough, little cube farmer? Try working at Valleywag. We ragged on egoblogger Robert Scoble when he became a fan of himself so it’s only fair that we do the same to the Valleywag — my boss, Owen Thomas. I hate Facebook spammers, and he’s become one. Next thing you know he’ll be buying some bulldogs and filming himself driving down the highway. *shudder* I quit. I’m going to go work for Boutin at Wired or WSJ or wherever he’s slacking off today.

At least Mr. Valleywag is self-aware enough to know that he’s a shameless Facetard. The worst part? Owen only has one fan.

Options, the parody Steve Jobs novel, has totally surprised those of us who expected a throwaway. It’s 248 mostly hilarious pages, with a tight story line and a protagonist who evolves credibly. You can read my enthusiastic review in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, where it’s the business book of the week. But more important is this teaser email from Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, where author Dan Lyons will appear Thursday evening.

Date: Oct 30, 2007 5:06 PM
Subject: Kepler’s
To: fakestevejobs
I will be hosting you at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park CA. this
Thursday. I just wanted you to know I have someone special from Apple
Computer coming to introduce you, and his name is Steve as well.

Omigosh! Oh wait. This is going to be Steve Wozniak, right? Still. We’ll be there.

Source:Valleywag

That Google Docs in Plain English video made me want to rewrite it. It squanders a whole TV minute mumbling documents nine times before offering an actual plain English term, i.e. a newsletter article. The narrator warns, “The same document will exist in four different places — that’s a problem,” without explaining why it’s not great backup. And it detours into political correctness with a male-looking character named Sam who is abruptly called “she.” Cool if Sam were real, but as a made-up character she disrupts the lesson. So I savor the double parody of New Media Douchebags in Plain English. Of course, I want to edit this one, too.

“CUPERTINO - Apple announced today that it would no longer be accepting purchase requests for the iPhone. ‘We feel the iPhone is too good for regular humans,’ says the Apple spokesperson. ‘To protect our brand image, we have decided to stop selling our product altogether to maintain a level of exclusivity unattainable by any other product currently on the market.’ The spokesperson also announced they would continue advertising in order to maintain the feel of unattainability.” — Commenter paul34, on Apple’s new refusal to accept gift cards for iPhone purchases. [Engadget]

Source:Valleywag

Are Facebookers having a hard time keeping their pervy hands off user profiles? Over the weekend, we learned that Facebook employees take full stalkerish advantage of their ability to peruse member profiles. Now a tipster writes in claiming that a Facebook product manager actually looked up a user’s password, logged into her account, and changed her profile picture to a graphic image. Here’s the back story.

Our tipster tells us “the employee got the password and then met up with his friend who was mad at the girl because she turned down his offer to take her to his prom.”

Now, before you judge, remember that you, too, were once an angsty, hormone-riddled youngster like the kind employed in droves at Facebook. Of course, you didn’t have access to 50 million user profiles. Or $240 million in cash from Microsoft to flush down the toilet. Just tissues and a lot of illegally downloaded emo music.

Truth be told, I’m a little skeptical of our tipster’s tale on one count. Facebook employees are young, but do they still have friends going to proms?

But here’s the problem for Facebook. After learning that at least some Facebook employees do chart the social graph for their own pleasure, it will be hard for Facebook users to believe any of the company’s assurances. A good place to start restoring trust? A thorough revision of Facebook’s privacy policy, which, as best I can tell, only guarantees against third-party disclosures, not employee misuse.

And then there ought to be some very noisy firings of employees who break the rules. Facebook is hiring another 400 people through the end of next year. It won’t be hard to add a few extra to replace the rulebreakers.

Source:Valleywag

I’m not going to make one of those two people I’ve never heard of were reportedly touching each other in public? I had to look up who Mullenweg is. I think we use his software. Or we did, or we’re going to, or something. Anyway, he’s from Houston. That means he infuriates San Franciscans merely by existing, which makes him cool with me. The lady in question turns out to be the PR genius who emailed me the most ridiculous embargo demand ever. That backfired perfectly, so everybody won. Commenters say we shouldn’t print this rumor ’cause it’s cruel. Worse than that, it’s dull. Call me back when one of them runs Google and films a three-way on the Boeing. (Photo by True Ventures)

Techdirt, the ever-opinionated analysis blog, has weighed in and found Demo’s lineup of startups and new products more compelling than last week’s TechCrunch40. Why? Mike Masnick doesn’t come out and say it, but his implication is clear: Unlike the parade of Web 2.0 one-note-Johnnies drummed up by TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, most of experienced Demo organizer Chris Shipley’s picks were focused on useful improvements to existing technology, not gimmicky new ideas. Arrington and Calacanis launched TechCrunch40 because they felt that it was somehow wrong for conferences to charge startups to present. Nonsense, of course. I think that the fact that Demo charges presenters — reportedly $18,500 apiece — was actually what makes it a stronger event.

Remember when Bill Gross launched the search engine GoTo.com, later Overture, and shocked the industry by ranking listings by how much advertisers were willing to pay? At the time, his pay-per-click model was ripped apart as cynical and sleazy. But paid search ads, it turns out, were the right idea. The willingness of an advertiser to pay, among other factors, was actually a useful criterion for determining whether an ad might be effective, and it’s a practice that’s making billions of dollars for Google.

I think there’s a similar effect here. There was no downside for TechCrunch40’s presenting companies; if they gave a lousy presentation, all they wasted was the audience’s time. One of the best-received startups was MusicShake. Note that MusicShake is based in South Korea, which means that its founders flew across the Pacific to make their debut, at considerable expense. They may not have paid Calacanis and Arrington anything, but unlike most of their peers, they actually had skin in the game.

Contrast that to the sloppy demos given by some Bay Area startuppers who only had to roll out of bed to get there — and looked like they just had.

By contrast, every company at Demo had some money at stake. It might not have been a big risk, but it was enough to make them take the event seriously. Shipley told me earlier this week:

Demo is involved in helping companies launch their products, and there are costs associated with that. That doesn’t remove the hurdle of qualifying and being selected to participate. The fee is a commitment for a small company. It does signal a seriousness of intent — it is a bit of a bar for a company, and if you’re able to clear that hurdle, that means that there’s more at stake and the company is perhaps more viable.

Exactly right, of course. (More’s the pity for the companies that tried to two-time Demo and got kicked out.)

The irony is that when I reported that DemoPit, TechCrunch40’s for-pay sideshow that required startups to buy a ticket to the event, Calacanis blusteringly defended his event along much the same lines as Shipley, citing the costs of putting it on. Of course. But by making startups share those costs, Shipley is putting the invisible hand of capitalism to work as a useful sorting function. You know her companies won’t waste your time. Why? They have money on the line.

Source:Valleywag

Even in the California-nice cubicles of Silicon Valley, the end of the quarter brings shouty bosses, bursting blood vessels, and migraines. And when the end of the quarter falls on a Friday, it’s especially rough: Clients have a way of making themselves scarce right as you’re trying to close a deal. Add to that stress the ennui of the inevitable corporate kumbaya sessions, like Yahoo’s management meeting today. It’s enough to launch anyone into desk rage. So let us know — is your boss looking ready to explode? Or is the office eerily quiet — the calm before a layoff storm? Drop us a line and let us know what we can expect from the next round of quarterly earnings. We don’t want to have to wait for the SEC filings to find out. (Graphic by CNN.com)

Flying in the face of stereotypes, advertising firm JWT found that more women own videogame consoles than men. Of course this is the same “Denizens of Digitivity” study that concluded that the