Britain’s deputy prime minister urged Rupert Murdoch Thursday to face questioning by lawmakers over the phone hacking scandal, as pressure grew on his media empire in Australia and the United States.
Police in Britain made a ninth arrest in the case as the furore which has led to the closure of the News of the World tabloid and forced Murdoch to drop a takeover bid for satellite broadcaster BSkyB raged on.
Murdoch, his son James and Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of Murdoch’s British newspaper arm News International faced a deadline Thursday to reply to an invitation by a parliamentary committee to answer questions on the row.

I am on the edge of replacing paper newspapers with electronic versions for my iPad and phone; of accepting that I hardly ever wait for a conventional news bulletin; and of actually reading full-length books, with pleasure, as downloads.

Tags: churchill, Entrepreneurship, guy kawasaki, startup, VC

churchill, Entrepreneurship, guy kawasaki, startup, VC

Most of the speculation centers around two anticipated products, both dubbed with Apple’s signature “i” prefix: iTV and iPhone.

The iTV is reportedly a digital video recording device and according to industry experts times more likely than the fabled iPhone.

Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, said:

While our analysis continues to indicate (Apple’s) first cell phone is technically complete, its `go-to-market’ strategy continues to be a mystery and likely a gating factor.

That’s my gut feel as well – the iPhone has to wait till later in the year. As a consolation, we could soon be staring at a big screen iPod, better suited for video.

Tags: copyright, google, google video, gootube, iPhones, iTV, music, Steve Jobs, youtube

copyright, google, google video, gootube, iPhones, iTV, music, Steve Jobs, youtube

The most important point he made was that the most important “revolutions in technology were do-it-yourself revolutions, i.e. when you give a non-technical person has the same ability that only a technical person has had historically…”

One funny bit was that Joe said he finds Google a lot more threatening than Microsoft. I wonder if the execs at Google have seen it before signing the check.

Tags: CEO, diy, google, google video, interview, Joe Kraus

CEO, diy, google, google video, interview, Joe Kraus

Seth Godin posted top 10 list regarding the marketing process. I singled out three:

1. Don’t run out of money. It always takes longer and costs more than you expect to spread your idea. You can budget for it or you can fail.
2. Focusing obsessively on one niche, one feature and one market is almost always a better idea than trying to satisfy everyone.
3. Test, measure and optimize. Figure out what’s working and do it more.

The rest are worth reading as well but I like these three in partucular. Especially, since we’re talking about a process. Ordering them like that makes everything seem as easy as 1-2-3 (or A-B-C if you’re a Jackson’s fan!).

Oh, yes, don’t forget to grab Seth’s wonderful Bootstrapping Bible.

Tags: bootstrapping, entrepreneurs, marketing, seth godin, startup

bootstrapping, entrepreneurs, marketing, seth godin, startup

GoDaddy recently started offering video blogging for only a couple of bucks. They’ve always been about getting a great deal and this one is no different. A domain for 8 bucks and video hosting for 5 more (monthly).

Bob has been doing podcasts (and radio shows) before but once video is in, he immediately started vlogging. In this one, he welcomes Danica Patrick, an Indy car racer, as the new GoDaddy girl.

Tags: blog, CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, vcast, vlog

blog, CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, vcast, vlog

He speaks out on a subject that’s close to my heart – the notion that every successful company MUST do an IPO. Now, he’s not saying GoDaddy will never go for an IPO (they got their filing approved by the SEC). He does say if the market conditions aren’t right, he’s in no hurry to take the company public.

With 14 million in cash this quarter alone, he could bide his time. I hope GoDaddy gets the recognition it deserves. I’ve been their customer for the last 5 years and I’m hosting over 50 domains with them. Their bringing down of the price of domains allowed me to buy 10 times more domains that I could buy in 1997.

Another thing I was wondering about GoDaddy is whether all their programmers and service personnel are in US. It’s probably a moot point but I’ll be surprised if they are not outsourcing at least part of their operations. Bob’s previously company allegedly employed over a thousand people, it’s interesting to see if things have changed since then.

Tags: CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, IPO

CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, IPO