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Time Warner CEO gets a grilling at 'D'

Updated at 3:47 p.m. PDT to include questions from audience.

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Yahoo's Jerry Yang and Sue Decker may have gotten a tough time from Walt Mossberg, but perhaps they should consider themselves lucky.

Next up at the D6 conference here was Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. A humorous video poked plenty of fun at the executive culminating in a discussion of whether D host Kara Swisher would cut off Bewkes' genitalia.

Clearly prepared, Bewkes came onstage covering his crotch.

Probably a good idea. In the first 30 seconds, Swisher fired off questions on everything from The … Read more

AOL signs on to OpenSocial developer standard

AOL will officially support OpenSocial, the developer standard created by Google for social-networking applications. The announcement was hinted at by Google Director of Engineering David Glazer in a speech at the Google I/O conference Wednesday.

The online service-turned-media brand will join pretty much every big player in online media that isn't Facebook: MySpace and Yahoo, for example, were major partners when Google spun OpenSocial off into its own nonprofit organization.

It's not a surprise: Bebo, the social network acquired by AOL earlier this year, already supports OpenSocial, and is being tightly integrated into other AOL communication properties … Read more

The 404 107: Where Wilson couldn't make it

Randall Bennett subs in for the Tang and we chat about the late Sydney Pollack, the weekend box office, landing on Mars, and the ridiculous Rock Band accessories you can blow your hard-earned cash on. EPISODE 107 Download today's podcast

Dysfunctional executive watch

Here's the first installment of Train Wreck's first recurring post: Dysfunctional Executive Watch. It'll show up whenever there's enough material. Enjoy the lunacy, and let us know if you've got something to report.

You've got fraud On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against eight former executives of AOL Time Warner for fraudulently inflating online advertising revenue by more than $1 billion. Four of the executives agreed to pay millions in fines and return ill-gotten gains. Charges against the other four, including former CFO John Michael Kelly, are still pending.

The company had previously agreed to fork over $500 million to settle civil and criminal charges brought by the SEC and the Justice Department.… Read more

Eight ex-AOL Time Warner execs charged in civil fraud case

Securities and Exchange Commission regulators on Monday filed civil fraud charges against eight former AOL Time Warner executives over allegations they overstated the Internet company's advertising revenue in excess of $1 billion.

The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, allege John Michael Kelly, former CFO of AOL Time Warner; Steven E. Rindner, a former Business Affairs unit senior executive; Joseph A. Ripp, former CFO of the AOL division; and Mark Wovsaniker, former Accounting and Policy head, created a fraudulent scheme where AOL Time Warner funded its own advertising revenue by giving … Read more

Bebo president: We're not just for kids anymore

Bebo's core demographic might be teens and young adults in the U.K., but President Joanna Shields said that now that the social network's acquisition by AOL is complete, it's time to start expanding. Now that she's in charge of AOL's "People Networks" division, which encompasses Bebo as well as the AIM and ICQ instant-messaging services, her goal is to expand the service's reach and bring it up to par with bigger rivals like Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace.

"If you look at Bebo (a year ago) it was much … Read more

AOL closes Bebo deal

AOL has closed its acquisition of Bebo, which it plans to fold into a new People Networks business unit.

The new unit will include Bebo, AIM, ICQ, and AOL's other community platforms, with a reach of about 80 million users worldwide, the company said Monday. Joanna Shields, CEO of Bebo, will serve as executive vice president of AOL and president of People Networks.

AOL in March announced the $850 million acquisition of Bebo, designed to boost the company's international presence. The youth-oriented social network is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand.

The new unit will … Read more

Fake codec found in AOL forum

Visitors to AOL's main portal page may have seen a headline "Disgraced 'Oprah' Author Is Back" circulating, but those who clicked may have infected their computers, says Roger Thompson, Chief Research Officer of AVG Technologies.

Thompson said anyone clicking on the headline link would be taken to a legitimate forum page discussing James Frey's latest book, Morning. However, some of the blog posts on that page contained a link to a video site. In order to view the video associated with that post, the user would have to accept the installation of the video codec.

Upon … Read more

Yahoo-Google tie-up may not be so close

When Microsoft was threatening to go hostile in its Yahoo bid, Google appeared close to a deal. Now that Microsoft has pulled its offer, things appear to have cooled considerably.

While such a deal is apparently still simmering, it appears to be relegated to the back burner and indeed, may or may not ever boil. Although Yahoo had hoped to have a deal ready to announce this week, that now appears unlikely, according to Marketwatch.

Folks I talked to on Monday offered similar sentiment. One of the hurdles in any deal is trying to craft an agreement that offers enough … Read more