If you hadn’t noticed, I got married and went on a honeymoon. Did you miss me? Apparently so. Gizmodo gets banned from CES. Golson asks Calacanis for a job. Our very special correspondent pickets against the new pay system. Where’s was Denton with the “too insidery” warnings? Oh that’s right, blogging for Gawker. Here’s what really happened during the first two weeks of 2008, according to a speed-read of my feeds. On my next honeymoon, I’m bringing a laptop.

• Facebook is slower than a bunch of social networks you’ve never heard of, according to Watchmouse. Yes, Zuck’s baby is slower than RateItAll, Infield Parking, Buzznet and most especially, Consumating. Which is of course everyone’s favorite. MySpace is not on the list.

• The Pew Internet & American Life project discovered that Web video was more popular in 2007 than in 2006.
• Robert Scoble appeared on television. Twice.
• Iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman told an audience of 450 that, despite what you’ve heard, he’s not actually an asshole.
• Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler posted seven times. 6-word version: Things are great. Ignore stock price.
• Jason Calacanis has 11,900 friends on Twitter, LinkedIn, Mahalo and Facebook. And 495 on Mahalo. By the way, he wants to have dinner with all of you.
• Yahoo’s CEO unveiled a new mobile Web platform at CES that will save the company. Just like it did last year.
• And, most notably, the Flight of the Conchords performed at CES:

(Photo by ThrasherDave)

Record label EMI will lay off 2,000 and shift its focus toward digital music, private equity investor and company topper Guy Hands told the Financial Times. Hands said the music industry operates on fallacies with origins in “the phenomenon of the 1990s and the CD” and as a result, companies like EMI are hemorrhaging cash. EMI, for instance, spends $50 million a year destroying unsold CDs. Guess whose model Hands said the industry should follow to turn itself around?

Hands said to look to Radiohead, a band which spurned EMI when it allowed fans to download a low-fidelity copy of a new record and pay whatever price they chose. (Photo by wwhyte1968)

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”Zuckerburg_Awkward_60_minutes.flv”, 475, 376,”");“You seem to be replacing Larry and Sergey as the people out here who everyone is talking about,” 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his interview last night. In response, Zuckerberg sniffs. Then there’s a beat. He blinks. Then Zuckerberg asks: “Is that a question?” He looks off camera and chuckles. Here’s to another 100 years of puff pieces turned sour by petulance.

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”Campbell_Leaves_Wallstrip.flv”, 475, 376,”");
Wallstrip host and sometimes actress Lindsay Campbell will soon leave the CBS Interactive online stock-talk podcast. This after CBS acquired the show in May 2007. But don’t worry, fans, Campbell is headed for another CBS Web-video production straightaway. Something called Moblogic.tv.

We wonder why the Eye doesn’t just speed things up and put Campbell in front of a real camera, as CNET has wisely done with new on-air editor Natali Del Conte. But take heart, Lindsay, at least you’re not Veronica Belmont, stuck hamming it up for the likes of Jason Calacanis.

		Perhaps you know the feeling. Around you is a breathtaking mountain panorama, above there is nothing but deep blue sky, beneath you is a carpet of sparkling fresh snow. No place on earth offers a better prospect of this intoxicating combination than Switzerland.

Ads by Pheedo

What a week! On my first trip to Vegas and the Consumer Electronics Show, I survived harassment by bulldog aficionado Jason Calacanis, discovered that HP adman Jay-Z uses a Mac, and laughed at Richard Blakeley’s TV-B-Gone prank. Now we hear that he’s been banned from the show. It could be worse. He could be behind bars…

… like this pair of adorably cute bulldogs!(WORLD EXCLUSIVE bulldog photo courtesy of Jason Calacanis)

Valleywag, this time, has gone too far. Or so some people believe. Yesterday, we posted Robert Scoble’s cell phone number, which is 425 205 1921, in a picture. One reader was so outraged that he woke one of my reporters from a sound sleep to express his ire. This top-secret information has been been posted on every page of Scoble’s own blog for three years — not to mention his Facebook profile. If you wish to think ill of Valleywag for posting the number, our only request: That you direct the same vitriol to Scoble himself. He awaits your calls. At 425 205 1921.

Source:Valleywag

Terry Semel is still Yahoo’s chairman, but the company is rapidly erasing his mark on the business — chiefly any push into original content, a business Wall Street views as expensive and unrewarding. He’s clearly not interested in carrying on that argument in the Yahoo boardroom. Instead, PaidContent reports, he’s reviving his old company, Windsor Digital, the investment vehicle which carried him between Warner Bros. and Yahoo.

Unconfirmed, but sensible, is a rumor that Windsor might switch strategies from merely investing in companies to developing original content. If so, Semel seems to be assembling an appropriate team. Drew Buckley, who headed up Yahoo’s original-programming business, and Jeff Karish, former head of strategy for Yahoo’s media group, are joining him. Understandable departures, given the shakeup Scott Moore’s leading in that group. What I wonder: Will it take long for Jeff Weiner, embattled head of Yahoo’s Network division, to rejoin Windsor Digital, which he cofounded with Semel?

Source:Valleywag

Along with having excellent food and guests, the All Things Digital party at the Venetian in Las Vegas had very nice throw pillows. Jason Calacanis may have Twittered about stealing one, but I actually did it. (Admittedly, I did so with the connivance of Kara Swisher.) Score one for the bullycub!

Along with having excellent food and guests, the All Things Digital party at the Venetian in Las Vegas had very nice throw pillows. Jason Calacanis may have twittered about stealing one, but I actually did it. Score one for the bullycub!

Commenter Beng asked the question about CES’ two-tier journalist passes that I wondered, too: “What is the difference between the blogger badge and the press badge, and does that mean that even Engadget and Gizmodo get blogger badges?” Gizmodo editor Brian Lam is toting a Press badge, just like Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis. Our own Jordan Golson has been tagged a “Blogger.” Hey Jordan: Besides a separate lounge with espresso and cookies, what other perks does a Press pass get you that a Blogger badge doesn’t? Just login and let Calacanis answer again, that was hilarious.

Drew Schutte, the longtime publisher of Conde Nast’s Wired, will now run the sales side of The New Yorker and its website. David Carey, publisher of Portfolio, is adding Wired to his responsibilities. [BusinessWeek]

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”jason_vs_valleywag.flv”, 475, 376,”");
After warning me that he was coming to the CES Press Room and to “stay out of his face,” blog blowhard Jason Calacanis stormed over to me to “introduce” himself and slam my boss and brag about how much money he has. Money can’t buy you a snappy comeback, however.

When Calacanis was almost out the door, I yelled across the room, “Google’s better!” — than Mahalo (there’s your link, now quit your bitching), that is, the “human-powered” search engine that’s currently keeping Calacanis off the street. Having no response, he slunk out the door to peels of laughter.

Always the charmer, Jason Calacanis has announced plans to visit the press lounge at CES. His barking continues to amuse. But here’s something that’s no laughing matter: Why is the CEO of a search engine, a legitimate object of news coverage, allowed access to the private press lounge at CES?

Sure, Calacanis has a blog. But so does Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and I don’t think he’d be allowed in the press lounge, where he could overhear reporters’ confidential plans for coverage of his business rivals and partners. I trust my peers in attendance at CES will make their views known when Calacanis shows up — hopefully in Brooklyn language he might understand.

The Gizmodo crew are with me at the CES 2008 Unveiled press event reporting on widgets and gizmos, but what really has the attention of the geeks at CES? Women, food and robotic beer coolers.

• Veronica Belmont of Mahalo Daily is here with a crew of three or four people — and that’s before her Engadget support team shows up. Jason, I thought the point of podcasting was you didn’t need a big support staff.

• There are the usual event staples of fish and pasta, but then there is a lone waitress walking around with delicious lamb chops. Every time she walks by I hear a quiet chorus from the surrounding press flacks: “ooh, are those lamb chops?”
  
• A remote-controlled rolling robot