SarahLacy.com

Not a Fight eBay Wants to Pick

More has come to light of the weird eBay-Craigslist spat. Cnet has a nice breakdown.  In short, Craigslist felt eBay's classified site Kijiji breached some arrangement about eBay competing with Craigslist, so they diluted their share a few points. eBay now can't have a director on Craigslist's board.

I'm not attorney, but it's unclear to me why eBay would have legal rights here. It's a minority shareholder. Aren't there always provisions to allow companies to dilute shareholders, should they suddenly be perceived as a threat? If any attorneys are reading please let me know.

More to the point-- is this really a fight eBay wants to pick?

Meebo Comes Down with Wall Street Fever Too

No no, they aren't going public. But they have gone the east coast institutional money round along with Ning, Slide, Glam and others, according to TechCrunch. Per my Businessweek column and video on TT, we can now put Meebo in the category of "Not For Sale." Digg is one of the only ones on my list who hasn't yet raised what I'm calling a "recession round."

I've never really gotten where the business is in Meebo, but I know a lot of people love the service and I've always liked the founders a great deal on a personal level. They are savvy entrepreneurs. I hope the cash infusion helps them figure out the business model so bored students on library computers everywhere can continue to IM one another.

Why I Don't Work at a Newspaper, Part One Zillion

great video by henry and aaron yesterday on just how bad it is in print.

Next Step: Ads in Songs

Others are reporting today the news that Thom Yorke of Radiohead is (kinda) backtracking on the free release thing (vaguely). Here's a post on Mashable that says what artists should do. HINT: charge nothing or very little. I agree. I can't think of the last time I paid for music and yet -- magically! -- I have more of it at my fingertips than ever before.

But be forewarned, if we keep going down this free path, ads and product placements are going to increasingly dominate music and videos. Really-- wasn't that what Lip Gloss was all about anyway???

The video--which always makes my day--is here. YouTube won't let me embed. COPYRIGHT RUINS EVERYTHING!

Girls in Tech (Yes, They Exist)

Last night, I was on a really big panel (felt like half the size of the audience!) for a Girls in Tech event. No men were allowed, so you are on your honor to stop reading this now if you have a y-chromosome.

On the Subject of Writing for People You Work for...

Our Yahoo show Tech Ticker launched just as the whole Microsoft takeover drama was unfolding. It was an odd position for everyone. Henry Blodget, one of my New York co-hosts, was the guy who broke the story about all those layoffs and was spotted on the Yahoo campus the next day. I am the only reporter who works at Yahoo HQ, and this isn't my only reporting gig. I was on NPR mouthing off about the deal days before launch. And Yahoo? Well, the company was fighting for its life and had just given a group of journalists their own huge forum to criticism them: Yahoo Finance.

There are some rules and hiccups, and a few tantrums (by me), but mostly Yahoo has been incredibly supportive of our efforts. Apparently, more open than the Wall Street Journal.

Paging Messrs. Yang and Ballmer....

...We're all still waiting! For what it's worth, I think they walk, let the stock tank and come back in in a few months. I just think they'd have raised the price by now otherwise. Even going hostile, they'll likely have to up the price. Oracle always has.

Anyway, speaking of Yahoo...it's time for coffee and the makeup room.

Bit of Housekeeping, er Blogkeeping

I'm wrapping up my first month blogging. It was actually short of a month (I started April 4 I think) and FAR outpaced my expectations! I am really looking forward to building on the momentum with some more regular features to be rolled out in May. Also, with my book coming out, I'd like to start some discussion feeds for people reading it who want more info, have questions or just want to talk about it. I LOVE talking to people about it and have had such a great time doing so with the handful who have read it already. So stay tuned....

In terms of housekeeping, two things:

Valley Fight Clubs?

Ok, this is one geek inner circle I've never been included in! I'm trying to decide what exactly is so disturbing about this. The sheer fighting (this is pretty graphic, so don't watch if you are squeamish), the weird misogynistic element of hitting with purses and Martha Stewart magazines, or the fact that the Valley makes these people feel so "dead" that they need this. Does it flick to a deeper cultural problem in the Valley?

Once Delicious, Now Stale

[Delicious is one of the few Web 2.0 sites I've never been a heavy user of, so when I saw my Twitter friend Paisano complaining about Yahoo's handling of this much beloved property I asked him to write a post for me-- and people like me-- explaining why. As usual, I have no special insight as a part-time Yahoo employee. Hoping this will spark some debate in the comments as this is a fear all entrepreneurs face before selling!]

Yahoo's new delicious 2.0 is the best example of vaporware that exists today, not the Google phone. Ever since August 2007 we've all been teased about the fabled next release of Delicious. The comedy of errors has been well-documented on TechCrunch by Michael Arrington. Here's the exciting sneak peak of Delicious 2.0 that they gave TechCrunch in September 2007. Here's the follow-up piece on Yahoo's vaporeware A.K.A Delicious 2.0 six months later. You will sense the growing skepticism by Arrington which is shared by most of the web 2.0 community these days. Michael appears extra frustrated because like most of us he wants Delicious to succeed. As a matter of fact, he named Delicious one of the Web Apps you can't live without in 2006, but then dumped Delicious in 2007 for BlueDot (Now Faves.com) because they were surpassed when it came to features.