Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Superbowl 2014 - New York City lands 2014 Super Bowl; Oakland, wake up.

New Giants and Jets Stadium: home of Super Bowl XLVIII
New York, NY - Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference to announce that New York was open to the tech business. In his speech, he failed to mention the real story: that New York was in line to host the 2014 Super Bowl.

At another press conference held in an adjacent area to the main room at 570 Washington Street, this blogger asked Mayor Bloomberg if he knew of New York's chances. "I don't know. They're supposed to announce today, but I don't know what they're going to do," and the Mayor was talking about the NFL.

At 5 PM EDT, on a sunny Tuesday, and in Times Square while this blogger was at the TechCrunch Conference, they did it. The NFL awarded New York City the 2014 Super Bowl. Immediately, I thought of Oakland's Super Bowl Bid, 9-11, and New York's determination to be great.

What stopped Oakland from landing the 2005 Super Bowl was its lack of community determination and support. Regardless of the specific reasons, Oakland lacked an overall want to. That's even true with Oakland's World Cup bid: no fire in the collective belly.

New York managed to convince the NFL that it could host what would be the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl in history. This is wild because for decades, the National Football League has had a cold weather rule that such Super Bowls were to be played in dome stadiums.

That was eliminated for New York.  And while it's a gift that is due to the trajedy of 9-11, it opens the door for other cities to bid on it.  And why not?  New York beat Miami for the win?

But New York was determined to win.  It has a moxie that Oakland could have, but seems afraid to muster.

Stay tuned.

2014 Super Bowl to be played NJ + dish by Suzannah B. Troy

New Yorkers and New Jersey  football fans are celebrating the breaking news which is 2014 Super Bowl will be played at the New Jersey Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey.   This is good for both NY and NJ who are in dire straits with economic budget problems and that is understating the problems.  Thanks to 1010 Wins for the scoop.




Mark Sanchez, the gorgeous quarterback for the NY Giants is now a regular fixture on  Page 6 of The New York Post and is now rumored to be dating Jamie-Lynn Sigler.   Sanchez looks just too wholesome and sweet to pull an "A-Rod".  A-Rod famous for kissing his own reflection has made it clear he can't settle down and no woman can compete with his own love for himself.  I hear there is a tattoo on his chest that says warning, date at your own risk!  Just joking...


Also if you haven't watched the dark indie "The Fan" it is time to rent the DVD!


I tend to visit TMZ to see what breaking news they have.  Harvey Levin is always found surrounded with a young diverse group of people including one "beautiful" blonde boyish guy I use to think was gorgeous until I heard him speak about women.


Harvey has a law degree which is very important when attempting to understand what is going on in current events and even gossip because celebrities seem to get in trouble with the law.  Harvey is one of the elite group of people in TV land that actually reads books.  Most people refer to movies instead of books but today he talks about Abraham Lincoln and says he has read books on him....just so rare except on a few grown up shows and even than they have "talking heads"  as opposed to well read.


On TMZ, the latest in Suge Knight and it is exactly as I wrote in my piece about him watching The Godfather way too much.
He is now accused of ordering a hit!   This story underscores the theory  Suge Knight thinks he is "The Godfather" and is not the first time Knight has been accused of calling for a hit on someone.  If you haven't watch Nick Broomfield's documentary on Tupac and B.I.G.


TMZ has new news about Jesse James supposedly thinking the Nazi "wear" was funny and let us face it -- it is not.  Again Jesse James is just better when he doesn't talk about anything but motorcycles.  He is not the most hated men.  Most people don't even think of him and have forgotten him if they even knew about him.  Jesse James has a strong following of fans and they don't care about whether he is lying about being related to the historical  Jesse James and if he lied, cheated, robbed Sandra Bullock of her Oscar win joy, etc.  They love him because he is a bad boy.  It is that simple.  Speaking up is not a good idea because he doesn't say anything that will endear him.  You can watch him tonight on Nightline and decide for yourself if you care at all.



AOL Founder Steve Case would re-do AOL / TimeWarner Merger


disrupt on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc., the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) AOL Founder Steve Case visited Tech Crunch Disrupt for a "fireside chat" with TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington on Tuesday.

Case, who's now involved in investing in companies like Zip Car via his holding company Revolution LLC, answered Arrington's question about the future of the web. "I think what we've shifted two is having built and core infrastructure" and now are building on top of it, for example adding apps to existing web platforms like Facebook.

The AOl / Time Warner Merger

AOL merged with Time Warner in 2000. The new company, AOL / Time Warner almost immediately ran into trouble in mating two very disperate corporate cultures. While he stepped down in 2003 and said he wished he could undo the merger in 2005, Case now says he wish he could redo and not undo the merger. The problem for Case was that he had to step down in 2003; he would have focused more on content.

On the current AOL, he thinks AOL's headed in the right direction. "It's still got 100 million users. It's still got two-and-a-half-million annualized revenues, he says." AOL, to Case's view, is a more streamlined company with a more intense focus.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Full Interview at Tech Crunch Disrupt New York



New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc., the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) On Tuesday, TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington's interview was punctuated by Bartz telling the legendary tech blogger to f-off. But from that has been a tremendous demand for the actual full video interview, which is above.

That was and still is the buzz of the conference and of the Internet to a degree, but the actual Bartz / Arrington talk was over 25 minutes and covered a large range of topics.

Bartz said that the Yahoo! web front page has 32,000 front page variations "So you don't even know what I'm seeing," Carol informs. It's part of what Yahoo! called "The web of one" or a more personalized content delivery system. "In fact we serve a million front page modules a day."

The Yahoo! application most widely used is Messenger, so "getting Messenger on the handset companies outside the US is important to us," Bartz said. Moreover, she added that they already have deals active with a number of carriers, but are just working to expand its presence in that area.

The conversation heated up a lot when Michael Arrington turned to Yahoo!'s hiring of former Microsoft exec Blake Irving. Arrington was critical of the decision, trying to "walk this carefully" but then asking pointed questions about Irving's role in the company and mentioning Apple CEO Steve Jobs by comparison. The mention of Jobs caused Bartz to bristle and state she didn't know any VP of product who could be compared to Steve Jobs. Then she explained who reports to Blake in the Yahoo! corporate structure.

The point I think Arrington was trying to make here is that companies like Apple, even if they have huge employment structures, have one person's vision that is reflected in the entire company. While Bartz is certainly combative, it's hard to say that translates into an overall vision that can be evangelized.

After a time the conversation went to an edgy level, with Bartz and Arrington trading barbs on what men look at versus women online. That was valuable, in that we learned women look at the banner on the top right, where's men have what Bartz calls "banner blindness" but do look at text ads.

Why the difference? "Because you're odd," Bartz playfully says to the male Arrington. "Now that you say it, Arrington said, it makes more sense," causing Bartz to respond, "You're so slow."

Bartz continued to talk about "science" and "process" whereas Arrington summed it up with one question: "Where's the soul?" And that's the disconnect which led to the friction between Bartz and Arrington.

From that point on Bartz communication with Arrington was more pointed and (there's that word again) edgy, and then she dropped an s-bomb on the idea of ownership of social content when she said "Oh, I'd like to own it. S---, why not?...I'd like to be queen pooba of the World, but I'm not."

Then it went downhill from there. On the matter of tech blogger Robert Scoble "trolling" Charlie Rose on Monday, Bartz said "Oh. He looks like he's slow."

She was referring to Charlie Rose. Bartz could have been kidding, but it didn't come out that way.

Shortly after that Michael asked Bartz if she was the right person to run Yahoo! I think that's what got under Bartz' skin and not too much later, she got off her glorious f-bomb.

Could Michael's approach have been considered sexist? Frankly, that did cross my mind more than once. I wondered if Michael's questions would have taken a slighly less "put-downish" tone if he were talking to a male Carol Bartz.

Hmmmm..

Stay tuned.

Facebook's new privacy approach on Wednesday; Foursquare at 700,000 check-ins

New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc., the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) TechCrunch Day 2 features a lively Tuesday morning panel moderated by TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington, and with Foursqure CEO Dennis Crowley, Facebook VP Chris Cox, and Google VP Vic Gondotra talking about the next phases in mobile.

FFacing the Facebook privacy issue head on, Chris Cox saying that there will be new privacy tools to simplify user control over their Facebook profiles and it will be rolled out Wednesday May 26th.

On the matter of the growth of Foursquare, Dennis Crowley said the company passed 700,000 check-ins last Friday.

Google's Vic Gondotra said that mobile technology advances every quarter. Now, the phone that's the "new black" as Michael Arrington called it, is the EVO, whereas earlier in 2010, it was the Google Nexus. "You're going to see increasing amounts of technology that will permeate other countries."

Stay tuned.