A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Jack Dorsey, the chairman and co-founder of the popular microblogging service Twitter, shared far more than his site’s 140-character message limit when he offered himself up to a public psychoanalysis.
As part of an exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, Mr. Dorsey subjected himself to a Jungian analyst.
by Jerry A. Dicolo, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Intel Corp. Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said evidence is beginning to emerge that corporations are returning to technology spending, although such spending is driven more by the savings offered than by any spending increases.
“Our sales guys are picking up more interest at corporations,” Mr. Smith said in an interview Thursday.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Music-download service 7digital faces plenty of skepticism since its U.S. launch two weeks ago.
According to Ben Drury, its co-founder and chief executive, many of the questions–how do you compete with iTunes, how do you stand out amid a sea of music services–are valid ones.
Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers was one of the first tech executives to predict that the recession–then limited to the financial sector–would spread to the rest of the economy. Now he’s among the first to say it’s on the way back.
Hugely popular conservative talker Glenn Beck has sicced his lawyers on a satirical website that’s been up for a week. The site, called glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, toes the line on defamation–and may have stepped across it.
by Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
One thing’s for sure about the employees at Microsoft’s new retail stores: they’re going to need strong backs and biceps.
In the job listings Microsoft posted for its new stores yesterday, the company lists a number of unsurprising requirements for prospective retail workers. They need to be able to provide a “warm welcome” for customers, “execute the sales and service strategies” of Microsoft’s retail group and restock shelves.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Intuit CEO Brad Smith has a pretty stark view on the prospects for a near-term turn in the economy: he doesn’t think a recovery is likely the before the end of the company’s July 2010 fiscal year.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
President Barack Obama took to the online airwaves Wednesday evening, discussing health-care reform with religious leaders on BlogTalkRadio, a Web radio platform.
The talk, called “40 Minutes for Health Reform,” attracted 140,000 live listeners and more than 153,000 downloads as of 12:45 p.m. EST Thursday, a BlogTalkRadio spokesman said. He said the total audience could be as big as 500,000 in the coming days.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. Marines Corps, citing security concerns, has banned Facebook, MySpace and Twitter on its network, and the Pentagon said it is reviewing social-networking sites as it considers setting broader policies on their use. The Marine ban formalizes an existing block on social-networking sites on its government computers, and it does not affect members’ personal use of the sites.
Late last week, a day before the Federal Communications Commission started to investigate the Google Voice App fiasco, I spoke with the new FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski. He managed to carve out a few minutes from what has been a very busy first month on the job.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Add online video to the places where the battle over health care is playing out. The White House posted an online response to a video that’s been viewed hundreds of thousands of times since it was linked from the Drudge Report. The Drudge Report linked to a YouTube video posted by Naked Emperor News. Titled “Shock Uncovered: Obama in His Own Words Saying His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance,” it includes clips of comments President Barack Obama has made, such as “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health-care plan.”
Two years ago, The New York Times posted its first video obituary known as ‘The Last Word.’ The subject, humorist and columnist Art Buchwald, had recorded an interview to be used at the time of his death.
The hard truth about the future of journalism is that nobody knows for sure what will happen; the current system is so brittle, and the alternatives are so speculative, that there’s no hope for a simple and orderly transition from State A to State B. Chaos is our lot; the best we can do is identify the various forces at work shaping various possible futures. Two of the most important are the changing natures of the public, and of subsidy.
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