webbyconnect

The last waltz of new media's giddy youth?

DANA POINT, Calif.--When the economy heads south, anything involving beaches and luxury resorts is a terrific recipe for guaranteed bad press.

That's why there was a fine line to be walked at the WebbyConnect conference, the second annual retreat-slash-ideafest organized by the directors of the annual Webby Awards. In the diverse vegetable patch of media conferences, this one is the organic arugula. The venue was the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel resort, a sprawling beachfront complex and occasional filming spot for MTV's haute-reality soap Laguna Beach, just down the road from the St. Regis hotel where American International Group … Read more

The Huffington Post, beyond the election

DANA POINT, Calif.--When political pundit Arianna Huffington, along with a team of digital-media veterans, launched political news aggregator The Huffington Post in 2005, critics were skeptical of the left-leaning site. But it's turned out to be one of political journalism's great recent success stories, even amid controversy over the charismatic and opinionated Huffington and the site's business model, which utilizes thousands of unpaid bloggers in addition to full-time reporters.

Just over a year ago, The Huffington Post hired Betsy Morgan, head of CBSNews.com, to serve as its CEO, taking over from co-founder and former AOL … Read more

TheWB.com: Big media's beacon of hope?

DANA POINT, Calif.--For an event populated with digital media's self-styled futurists, there is a whole lot of talk at the WebbyConnect conference about a defunct television network.

Marketers, ad gurus, and production types alike showed a notable level of interest in TheWB.com, a video site launched by Warner Bros. this summer as a digital replacement for the youth-oriented television network that it shut down in 2006. Available on the new site are archived Warner Bros. shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek, as well as new just-for-the-Web series like Sorority Forever, which stars Jessica … Read more

NYT's Sulzberger: 'We can't care' if newspapers die

DANA POINT, Calif.--Could the Information Age's fast-paced news overload be a boon to the old-media companies that it was supposedly going to force out of business?

That was one of the suggestions brought forth by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman and publisher of The New York Times Company, at his keynote address at the WebbyConnect conference here Wednesday morning.

"Our 21st-century news cycle, with its trials and tribulations, feels even more immediate because of our access," he said. "It is reasonable to ask: Do we need all this news and information? Do we want all this … Read more

After long, hard trip, Sling.com's almost ready

DANA POINT, Calif.--Jason Hirschhorn said negotiating with Hollywood has been "a soul-killing, ego-destroying experience."

But Hirschhorn, president of Sling Media Entertainment Group, also said it's been worth it. Sling is getting ready to roll out some big new projects that he hopes will make it more than the company that made the Slingbox.

In a panel called "A Hard Reset for Hollywood" at the beachfront WebbyConnect conference, Hirschhorn, the former chief digital officer at MTV Networks, talked about Sling.com, a video hub that's is currently in private beta and promises to deliver … Read more