Arrington: I'll go to Demo 'if we're invited'

It looks like Michael Arrington has changed his mind about the value of the Demo conference in the wake of the announcement that VentureBeat CEO and editor-in-chief Matt Marshall will be taking over the tech conference after this year.

And, more notably, he's indicated that his tech conference, TechCrunch 50, won't be held at the same time as DemoFall this year, as it famously was in 2008.

"I'll certainly go to (DemoFall)," Arrington said Thursday. "I think we're on different weeks this year."

DemoFall 09 is scheduled for September 21-23 in San … Read more

Do tech hopefuls still need Demo and its ilk?

When Demo 09 kicks off Monday in Palms Springs, Calif., the high-technology showcase conference that prides itself on putting cutting-edge companies in front of A-list venture capitalists and journalists will do so in perhaps the worst economic environment in modern tech history.

Exhibitors at Demo pay well into five figures for the privilege of giving a six-minute presentation to a room full of influencers--many of whom have paid up to $3,000 to be there. So one could wonder whether the show can maintain its relevancy while companies are shedding record numbers of jobs, when credit is as tight as … Read more

Newsday to begin charging for online news

New York newspaper Newsday plans to begin charging online readers for access to its content, rejecting a trend toward free online newspaper content.

The move, which comes as the newspaper industry is mired in financial turmoil, was announced Thursday during a conference call in which Cablevision, the newspaper's owner, also announced it would write down the value of its $650 million acquisition of the newspaper by $402 million.

"Our goal was, and is, to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed," said Tom Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer, … Read more

Sources: RIAA cuts up to 25 jobs

Update 3:30 p.m. PST: To include updated layoff figures and percentages.

As expected, the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group of the four largest music labels, has laid off between 20 and 25 workers, or about 20 percent of the RIAA's workforce, according to music industry sources.

In addition to the layoffs, the RIAA eliminated some positions through attrition, the sources said. In all, 31 of the company's 104 employees, or just under 30 percent, were either laid off or quit recently and will not be replaced. The RIAA leadership remains unchanged. My sources … Read more

IBM voice ace: Kindle no threat to audio books

Executives at the Authors Guild say the text-to-speech feature in Amazon's Kindle 2 could hurt sales of audio books. Not all of the experts agree, including the guild's.

Andy Aaron, an expert on text-to-speech technology, recently commented in an interview about how much such systems have advanced. In an op-ed piece published Tuesday in the The New York Times titled "The Kindle Swindle?" Roy Blount Jr., president of the Authors Guild, used Aaron's quotes to support his argument that the Kindle's voice feature could threaten the future of audio books.

But when asked to … Read more

Just before reorg, mobile chief departs Yahoo

Marco Boerries, the chief of Yahoo's Connected Life division, is leaving the company, Yahoo said Wednesday.

Boerries joined Yahoo four years ago and led its effort to bring its services to mobile phones and more recently TVs. News of his departure was first reported by Kara Swisher at All Things D on Wednesday, and Yahoo confirmed the departure.

Swisher quoted Boerries' good-bye memo as saying it's been difficult for him to reconcile his personal and professional lives, given that his family lives in Germany.

However, one source close to the situation said Boerries' departure had more to do … Read more

Yelp's CEO: No, we're not the Mafia

NEW YORK--"They have that saying, 'don't shoot the messenger,' but the reason they say that is because the messenger gets shot," Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told me over coffee on Tuesday morning. "So I have to take my shots."

He was talking, of course, about the PR fiasco that ensued when the Emeryville, Calif.-based East Bay Express newspaper published a lengthy expose on the business reviews site, alleging that it strong-armed businesses into paying to remove negative reviews. As a fairly regular Yelp user, I was repulsed by the possibility that its corporate … Read more

HD movie purchases coming to Vudu

Most video-on-demand set-top boxes let users rent or buy downloadable movies. But high-definition movies have been rental-only, thanks to limitations from the movie studios that own the content. But owners of Vudu's on-demand box will now be able to buy a limited selection of HD movies from independent studios Firstlook, Magnolia, and Kino.

The initial roster of 50 high-def movies includes such titles as "Transsiberian" and the Oscar-winning "Man on Wire," and they'll be offered simultaneously with the DVD releases. (Viewers can opt to buy either the "instant HD" or the much … Read more

Yahoo News chief heading to Hearst

Neeraj Khemlani, the former vice president and general manager of Yahoo News, has taken a new post at Hearst to speed its newspapers' transition to a digital world.

Hearst announced the move Monday just before an expected reorganization at Yahoo, which is under the leadership of new Chief Executive Carol Bartz.

"Hearst's major operating groups have all made substantial progress towards our corporate objective of fully participating in the digital transformation The creation of this new position is designed to accelerate the progress through greater cooperation and synergy across divisional lines. Neeraj is uniquely equipped to help me … Read more