Just in time for the Labor Day weekend, we bring you the second installment of our web TV series BBQ&A . In this episode, oDesk CEO Gary Swart turned up the heat with a homemade feast fit for a Silicon Valley king, featuring a super-easy cedar plank salmon, teriyaki tri-tip, corn salad, Caprese salad, and grilled asparagus. (We ran out of time before he could grill up his nectarines to put on the homemade marscapone ice cream). (Video editor’s... 

Rupert Murdoch, the legendary founder of News Corp., has always had a love-hate relationship with the digital world. Sometimes (read: during the bubbles) he loves it. Sometimes (read: during advertising recessions) he hates it. His recent moves – whether it be getting rid of some of News Corp’s digital holdings or shuffling the chairs at MySpace — are a continuation of that …  Read More →

It goes without saying that Google has gigantic ambitions. We hear a lot about its various products but i’s hard to contextualize those efforts. A new video from Australian weekly news show, Hungry Beast , is a graphical representation of Google’s grand ambitions. It’s also a lot of fun. Especially when you see former Intel CEO Andy Grove call Google  Read More →

On the text web, arbitrage has become the word of the day as whole ecosystems have sprung up to optimize and monetize the link economy.  But when it comes to online video, the arbitrage model is failing badly. Whether it’s buying a keyword for a buck, and making $1.02 on each visit, or buying a shopping link for a quarter and making a product sale for a few pennies more of profit, whole online ecosystems have sprung up to optimize and... 

At Apple’s iPad launch event last week , I spoke with uber venture capitalist John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), The New York Times media critic David Carr and my former boss, Josh Quittner (who is now helping Time Inc. figure out its devices strategy.) I wanted to know if they believed the device would have a far-reaching impact.  Read More →

At Apple’s iPad release event, I met Dan Lyons, technology writer for Newsweek. He is also know as the man who writes as Fake Steve Jobs . We were discussing the iPad with me being obviously impressed and him not so much. I caught his comments on video. Here, watch this video captured on my Flip. Apologies in advance for marginal sound quality.  Read More →

Like an old sports injury, the rumor of Amazon buying Netflix seems to flare up once every few months. It happened again this week when a Reuters reporter tweeted about its impact on stock-options trading, and the meme gained traction when other blogs ran with it . The recurring rumors have always proven false. Because if anyone isn’t taking them seriously, it’s Amazon. The online retailer’s chronic allergy to sales taxes has kept it from... 

The rise of video streaming is dramatically affecting the Internet, according to a two-year study of Internet traffic trends that Arbor Networks recently presented to the North American Network Operators Group. Two years ago, Internet traffic was distributed evenly among a dozen Tier-1 network providers, but today the majority of traffic flows through direct peering agreements among large content providers, content delivery networks and ISPs.... 

While the Googlebot’s YouTube is a web video behemoth, Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook nation have become an online video sleeping giant, and it may have just woken up. Facebook jumped to No. 3 behind established video powerhouses YouTube and Hulu in terms of total streams, according to Nielsen’s VideoCensus numbers for October. That’s up from No. 10 just last month. Facebook generated more than 217 million streams in October...