The latest episode of Geek Entertainment TV has ebullient host Irina Slutsky asking SXSW attendees, "What has the Internet done for you lately?" Ambitious, underage entrepreneur Jessica Mah tells Slutsky that an appearance on Valleywag helped net inquiries from fifteen suitors — purely to discuss investment opportunities, people.
Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV has found a way to carry on her idea of celebrating the best in video podcasting. Under PodTech, where Slutsky brought the awards last year, the event was badly mismanaged. Slutsky left Podtech, but the "Vloggies" name remained with PodTech. Former CEO John Furrier "openly" trademarked "Vloggies" shortly after firing the event's organizer. At the Winnies, in a dig to PodTech, which failed to have a sufficient number of Vloggies awards made last year, attendees will bring their own, old trophies to swap "instead of wasting money on 'made in Hong Kong' trophies." Oh, and it gets better.
San Francisco videographers Irina Slutsky and Eddie Codel have broken ties, we hear, with troubled online-video network PodTech. So what were they doing lunching earlier in the week with PodShow executives Adam Curry, the former MTV video jockey, and John Dvorak, the faux-grouchy tech columnist? The foursome were spotted eating al fresco at a restaurant near AT&T Park. We'd make jokes about the frying pan and the fire, but from the looks of Codel in this photo snapped by a Valleywag informant, he's just happy to be eating a hot meal. Eddie, baby, call us up. Next lunch is on us.
Hate to say it, but Jason Calacanis had it right: NYT gadget reviewer David Pogue's "iPhone: The Musical" was a trite, derivative, and boring piece of Apple propaganda. But a group of San Francisco webheads have come up with a pitch-perfect take on the iPhone phenomenon. Behold the glory that is "Dontcha Wish Your Cell Phone Was Hot Like Me?" — and after the jump, my take on why this spoof gets it right while Pogue's flopped.
Now let's get into the serious stuff of nerdy fap-dreams — the geek girls. Or at least the girls who appear in video blogs on tech-friendly subjects. In this round, choose from Natali Del Conte, Iria Gallardo, Erin McNamara, Kristin Reilly, Irina Slutsky, and Karina Stenquist. Vote after the jump, minions.
If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.
By Megan McCarthy
On Geek Entertainment TV, the fun video blog hosted by faux-clueless Irina Slutsky (a master at cutting through buzzwords and making tech sound dirty), dot-com billionaire Mark Cuban recaps his talk to the Consumer Electronics Association. Topics include MySpace perverts, drunk e-mail checking, advanced TV tech, and how his startup Broadcast.com was different from YouTube (sure it was: YouTube is actually worth something).
Like forest fires in Colorado and tornadoes in Kansas, Silicon Valley is always alert to the national disaster that could shake it to its foundations.
Valleywag's first SloshCon at the House of Shields was so successful that my hangover's having baby hangovers. Remember the live-audience interviews and speeches on the game plan? Scrapped. We didn't want to ruin the vibe (half the crowd had arrived in the first 20 minutes), so we all kept on drinking and bullshitting one-on-one. (Top photo by Jeremiah Owyang)
Thursday night brings the Valleywag Web Infinity Plus One SloshCon — a conference about the Internet, held at the San Francisco bar House of Shields. The bar tab's topping a thousand bucks, thanks to two new sponsors (Sustainable Web Sites with $100 and Supreme Platinum Sponsor Supr.c.ilio.us with ten bucks).
The subjects of yesterday's SF Chron story on video blogging come from all over. Some are nearly mainstream, some known only to hundreds. But everyone in the piece falls into one of two major categories:
Okay, Adaptive Path (yes, yes, the people in the tub of lust, everyone keeps bringing it up) is one of the few unmockable San Francisco Internet startups. It puts out an actual service, has actual offices (with REAL DESKS. Really), and it's been up and running for five years. Now it's selling bits of itself to Google and hooking up hook-up artists at anniversary parties.
Om Malik scoops a rift between the Cohen brothers (not the cool Big Lebowski ones. That's the Coen brothers. The Cohens are the ones who let you steal The Big Lebowski).
Geek Entertainment TV celebrated its 1000th subscriber with a boozefest and gameshow at San Francisco's House of Shields. The snappy online talk show also taped another episode. Host Irina Slutsky interviewed cosmopolitan geek Jake Appelbaum (the photographer, hacker, and motorbiker with his own FBI file). Scott Beale snapped pics:
