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What actually happened to Monitor110? Its VCs killed it
Nicholas Carlson · 08/07/08 03:00PMWhy did investor-news aggregator Monitor110 go under, taking $20 million in funding with it? Read early investor Roger Ehrenberg's surprisingly humble and informative blog post about the ordeal, titled "Monitor110: A Post Mortem," and it sounds like the startup fell prey to the usual pratfalls — too much PR, weak leadership, and a confused product vision. Probably all that's true. But what's also true, a source tells us, is that Monitor110's own investors, specifically Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which invested most of that $20 million, ensured Monitor110's failure during its final months.
Harvey Weinstein: New York's Least Charitable Mogul?
cityfile · 08/07/08 01:52PMHarvey Weinstein has had trouble coming up with box office hits as of late (and has had to contend with speculation that his film company may not remain independent for much longer), but he's not exactly in the poor house. He's got a lavish townhouse in the Village and a massive spread in Connecticut. And he's diversified into cable channels, magazines, websites, bars, and fashion companies. Does he give back to the community? Not so much! At least not when it comes to writing checks in honor of his mother and late father, Miriam and Max, for whom his previous film company, Miramax was named (and which he sold to Disney for about $80 million in 1993). Last year, the Max Family Foundation, which is controlled by Harvey and his brother Bob, handed out $96,000. When you subtract the foundation's legal and accounting expenses, though, the Weinsteins' charitable contributions total just $64,000. Documentation after the jump!
Mitch Minskoff Buys From Dad
cityfile · 08/07/08 09:54AMBill Brady Sells His (Other) Downtown Pad
cityfile · 08/06/08 03:03PM- Bill Brady, the co-chair of Credit Suisse's technology investment banking group, has sold his duplex penthouse at 744 Greenwich Street for $8.5 million. He paid $6.95 million for the apartment just last year, a mere three months before picking up a larger $15.5 million unit in Julian Schnabel's Village Palazzo Chupi. (Click through for more photos.) [Cityfile]
BitTorrent Inc. laying off 12 of 55 employees
Owen Thomas · 08/06/08 11:40AMBitTorrent Inc., the file-sharing startup whose underlying technology is responsible for much of the piracy that plagues Hollywood, is laying off its sales and marketing department. The immediate cause of the layoffs: A failure to sell the Torrent Entertainment Network, BitTorrent's attempt at an online media store, to Best Buy for a rumored $15 million. That deal fell apart, a BitTorrent insider believes, because of a recent FCC ruling on file sharing. CEO Doug Walker, who replaced troubled founder Bram Cohen last fall, had hinted at a rethink of the store in March. Walker's also said to be rethinking BitTorrent's "DNA" service, which sought to offer businesses a cut-rate online content-deliver service, using file-sharing technology to undercut Limelight and Akamai's prices. BitTorrent is now thinking about making the service free, which would certainly count as "cut-rate" — but also suggests that it hadn't had much success selling it.
Barry Diller's Consigliere Buys on East 79th
cityfile · 08/06/08 09:34AMTatiana Platt, Polylingual Genius
cityfile · 08/06/08 08:10AMTatiana Platt is a socialite, former AOL executive, and the wife of architect (and man-about-town) Campion Platt. These days, Tatiana is working on a new project, the website called Famegame.com. It's amusing stuff: If, say, you attend eight events a week and you're wondering if you're quite as ubiquitous as Daniel Benedict or Tinsley Mortimer, it's a godsend, spitting out a popularity rating based on how long you lingered on the red carpet and how many photos of you were then uploaded to a site like patrickmcmullan.com. And there are dozens of society-obsessed attention addicts who check their scores daily. Unfortunately, while it's nice that Tatiana took some time to describe the site in detail in this week's Observer, she seems to have a small problem getting the details of her own life straight. After the jump, the tall tales of Tatiana Simone Gau Platt.
Not at Home: Regis and Joy Philbin
cityfile · 08/06/08 06:55AMTucker Max's Movie Script
Hamilton Nolan · 08/05/08 10:09AMYesterday we put out a call for the viciously panned script of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, the upcoming film written by I-totally-fucked-that-chick blogger Tucker Max. We immediately received about a dozen copies of the script, which is apparently being forwarded around Hollywood like a list of bad lawyer jokes. I also could have said "like herpes," and I could also follow up by joking that the script is about as funny as a bad lawyer with herpes, haha. Friends, it opens with Tucker Max fucking a deaf girl and screaming "DON'T TAZE ME, BRO!." It is that bad. After the jump, three of the most terrible moments from the film's first half. Jesus, bro:
Not at Home: Suze Orman
cityfile · 08/05/08 06:10AMNot at Home: Jim Cramer
cityfile · 08/04/08 07:10AMNot at Home: George Whipple
cityfile · 08/01/08 06:58AMRare Photos Of Banksy In Action
Hamilton Nolan · 07/31/08 02:05PMYou thought that the search for new pictures of the mysterious world-famous street artist Banksy had come to an end? It has not! Our earlier shot at digging up photos of the maybe-identified but still unseen artist turned out to (probably) not be him. But! A tipster has sent us a lovely present: three still shots of Banksy in action, taken from a UK documentary filmed in 2000, when he was less obsessive about hiding his identity. We also have two photos of Banksy that were featured in an article in the UK's Squall magazine (now defunct) back in 2000. And for the finale: two art prints that are reportedly drawings of Banksy in profile, dressed as the Queen of England. None are full-on face shots; but this is probably the first time all these rarely-seen images have been collected in one place. Click through to explore. Stills from the 2000 UK documentary Boom or Bust, by filmmaker Si Mitchell:
Not at Home: Tom Colicchio
cityfile · 07/31/08 07:37AMLadies: Neal Boulton Was Not Hitting On You, OK?
Sheila · 07/30/08 09:22AMListen: former Men's Fitness and current editor of gay mag Genre, fameball Neal Boulton, loves both men and women. He can't help it. He'll flirt with anyone, which occasionally lands him on Page Six due to amorous allegations from his former hot French nanny, etc. Now, more problems: "Some angry jealous girl wrote me that she was going to plaster gossip all over the blogs about me being all over a ton of women at one of my local bars," he writes us. So he beat her to the punch, apparently: "Here is an open letter." Memo to all ladies: please stop hitting on Neal, as he is just not that into you (he's married, both to a woman and "[his] work"). No matter what went down at the bar last night: