| November 4, 2009 | Should a CEO Take His Burning Man Pics off Facebook? |
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Today I was drawn in by a headline on BNET "A CEO's Dilemma: Should I Take My Burning Man Pics off Facebook?" As someone who has been to Burning Man eight times over the past eleven years and has posted the photos on my own website, as well as on Flickr, and on Facebook (there was even a photo of me at Burning Man 2005 published in "The Economist"!) I have often grappled with the same question as I entered managerial and then executive roles at tech companies. Is it appropriate/distracting for someone in a leadership position to be seen in photos online frolicking in the desert in a tutu? When I noticed that the BNET article's question was the dilemma of Chip Conley, I read it top to bottom to see what he had decided. I have always admired Chip Conley's style of doing business. For those who aren't acquainted with Conley, at the age of 26 (fresh out of Stanford's MBA program) he purchased a seedy pay-by-the-hour hotel on Eddy Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin and against all odds turned it into a cool mecca for musicians and artists which you may know as the aptly-named Phoenix Hotel. When I started hanging out in San Francisco in 1998-2001, the electronic music scene (particularly jazzy SF house) was huge, and I spent countless days/nights watching DJs spin at pretty much every SF venue imaginable -- from DNA Lounge to Kelly's Mission Rock. By far, some of the most legendary parties were the Phoenix Hotel's Sunday afternoon pool parties. The line of people waiting to get in would stretch down the block to Polk Street. The aggressive SF panhandlers had a captive audience who would wait for hours to get up inside the Phoenix Hotel. Conley grew his success with the Phoenix hotel into California's largest boutique hotel chain called Joie de Vivre. All of the hotels have their own unique personalities. In SoCal's Huntington Beach (Surf City USA), they have the surfer-themed Shorebreak Hotel. When I worked at Yahoo and commuted frequently between NorCal and SoCal, I stayed at many Joie de Vivre hotels including Wild Palms in Sunnyvale, Hotel Avante in Mountain View, and Hotel Rex in San Francisco. In fact, Chris and I got engaged this past July while staying at Joie de Vivre's Ventana Inn in Big Sur. One of the best things about staying at the Joie de Vivre hotels is the fun unique spirit and that the hotel employees are willing to go the distance. For example, while staying at the Ventana Inn, Chris and I accidentally slept through the buffet breakfast one morning, and we called the kitchen frantic and hungry they packed up some of the treats and brought them to our room. Conley is a brilliant businessman who also seems to actually be a cool and authentic person. When Conley published a management/leadership book "Peak: How great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow"a few years back, I snatched it up and read it in 2 sittings. In the book, Conley presented theories of running his business that he gleaned from his reading of psychologist Abraham Maslow's self-actualization pyramid. Conley presented his idea of the customer satisfaction pyramid and the employee satisfaction pyramid, and how they fed into each other to create a business ecosystem that brought both customers and employees toward greater (peak) happiness and satisfaction. I highly recommend "Peak." Conley peppers the chapters with anecdotes from other peak-performing companies with unique corporate cultures, including Google and Southwest Airlines. In the BNET article, Conley concludes that he will keep his Burning Man photos up on Facebook as they are not sexually suggestive and he doesn't deem them to be a violation of his company's social media policy. His company's mission statement is "To celebrate the joy of life" and he says that was exactly what he was doing at Burning Man. So far in my online life, I have come to the same conclusion that Conley did. I am leaving my Burning Man photos up. They are not sexually suggestive and I don't believe they violate corporate social media policies in any way. Not to mention, I am well-acquainted with the idea that once something is on the internet, it doesn't ever really "go away" even if taken down. But I wonder if I will ever change my mind on the Burning Man photos? Conley built his company on being true to himself and his own instincts and personality. He defines himself as a rebel. And I see him as perhaps similar to other successful "rebel" businessmen such as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. As a female leader in business would I feel as comfortable about people seeing me dressed in a tutu at Burning Man? Are there highly successful "rebel" woman leaders in business? Who are they? Tweet to me @p0pvulture (the 0 is a zero) and let me know. I'm almost certain we would never see photos of Carol Bartz, Carly Fiorina, or Meg Whitman in tutus at Burning Man. For female CEOs, dropping F-bombs may be deemed OK (thankfully, we've come that far at least), but having fun and enjoying life may still be off-limits. What do you think? Labels: burningman, california, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 8:14 AM 
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| June 20, 2008 | Yahoo! News' Scores First Online-Only Interview with President Bush |
 It was mentioned on The Daily Show, MSNBC, Huffington Post, AOL, and too many other places to count... Here is the link to Yahoo! News exclusive interview clip with President George W. Bush where he tells us that he hasn't played golf in 5 years and the reason why. It actually made even more news a few days later, when MSNBC's Keith Olbermann found a video of Bush golfing two months after he said he gave up the sport (following the bombing the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003).Since April when I moved into to my new job as director of programming at Yahoo! News, this exclusive Bush interview is one of the things I am most proud of that we have accomplished. The whole team worked so hard on planning it and devising the questions and shooting it. And, in the end, we were actually able to get Bush to talk about (and do) some things that made news. A whole team worked on this Bush interview, but most of the credit goes to my boss Neeraj Khemlani (who came to Yahoo! from CBS News), producers Robert Padavick and Erin Green, and Didrik Johnck who shot the interview. Also, Mike Allen from Politico was the interviewer. Here's the link to the full interview transcript. The ever-talented multimedia designer Chris Strimbu (full disclosure: he's my significant other, though this does not diminish his talents) created the animated Bush photo montage that appears at the beginning of every Bush interview clip. Labels: bush, chris, news, video, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 1:52 PM
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| December 4, 2006 | Who's on Top in 2006? |
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The Yahoo! Top Searches of 2006 are now live, and I wrote a post for the corporate blog, Yodel Anecdotal discussing some of the most interesting top searches. Check it out. I'm going to be on MSNBC's "The Most" with Alison Stewart again on Tuesday, Dec 5 at 12:15 PT / 3:15 ET to discuss the year's top searches. Fun, fun. Do tune in. What do you think? Why has Britney been the #1 most-searched person on Yahoo! for 5 of the past 6 years? Are you the one searching for her? Labels: 2006, britney, msnbc, searches, tv, yahoo, yodelanecdotal posted by Jess Barron @ 10:55 PM
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| December 1, 2006 | Goodbye 'Portal Shortall' |
 These past two weeks have been all over the place. I was up in Toronto to say goodbye to Greg Shortall (a.k.a. "portal Shortall") and to interview new editorial candidates for Yahoo!'s Canadian Broadband team. As Greg told the candidates we were interviewing to fill his vacated position, "Karaoke makes up about 18% of this job." How true! (Especially when I'm around.) The day after I returned to LA we moved into our new house (more on this soon), and my mom flew out to visit us from Boston one day later, and the very next day we drove six hours to Prescott, Arizona to see Chris' family for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun and a lot of craziness. Labels: greg, job, karaoke, mom, prescott, strimbus, toronto, travel, work, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 6:02 AM
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| November 8, 2006 | Elex Success |
Even though I've been awake and working for most of the last 48 hours, I'm definitely excited about the Elections results, AND  I'm excited to point out that SearchEngineWatch just published a post titled "In the Elections Results Race, Yahoo!'s the Winner," saying that Yahoo!'s Election Day 2006 coverage was better than Google's, MSN's, and AOL's. They called out this interactive map that Chris built in the post. Considering this is pretty much one of the only positive pieces of press I've seen about Yahoo! vis a vis Google in the past year (see this Drift post "The Swift-Boating of Yahoo!" for more info), I'd say it was a smashing success.See, just as I pointed out two years ago in my post and flickr photoset describing how the 2004 Presidential Elections as covered at Yahoo! there are benefits to having actual human journalists taking care to gather and present information, rather then computer algorithms choosing and presenting news -- especially about important, controversial, and complicated topics. Labels: chris, elections, google, journalists, map, media, news, reporting, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 2:58 PM
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| November 7, 2006 | Turning Away from Jackson's Breasts for a Moment... |
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For this Election Day, I turned my focus away from topics such as purses and Janet Jackson's breasts to something slightly more important -- and political -- for the Yahoo! Top 5 segment on ABC News NOW. In today's special political video segment, I spoke about the Top 5 Political Blogs and the Top 5 Hot-Button Ballot issues. This wasn't my best segment. I was talking way too fast, and also my neck and chest broke out in a rash from the heat. (It was 92 degrees yesterday in Los Angeles when we taped this segment and there's no make-up person on-hand to save me from unsightly redness.) I'll try to look past my disturbing appearance, and take comfort in the fact that we got some more serious info out there. Did YOU vote today? Why or why not? What's the big issue for you this election? Labels: abcnews, elections, politics, video, vote, yahoo, yahootop5 posted by Jess Barron @ 1:23 PM
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| November 6, 2006 | The Politics of Searching... |
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Tomorrow's U.S. midterm elections look like they're gonna be close. Please go out and vote. And if you need to do any online research about the ballot measures in your state, check out the Buzz Log post I wrote about the hottest ballot issues, according to the searches people are doing on Yahoo! What do YOU think is the most important issue this election? Labels: ballot, buzz, elections, politics, voting, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 2:17 PM
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| October 31, 2006 | Birtney and KFed Do Halloween 2006 in L.A. |
Chris and I dressed up as Britney and KFed this year.  Check out this video showing how we decided what to wear. We started Saturday night at the Halloween Vlog Fest party in honor of Amanda Congdon in the lobby of the Yahoo! Center in Santa Monica, and then we were headed to West Hollywood to a fabulous bash at Court's place. My two favorite costumes of the evening were Strawberry Shortcake (a.k.a. Sam of daily online video serial show Sam Has 7 Friends at the vlog party) and a seriously decked-out Marie Antoinette (in WeHo). Check out the photos. Labels: britney, chris, halloween, kfed, la, party, photos, video, vlog, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:40 PM
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| October 27, 2006 | Getting 'Sexy' for Halloween |
 Last Friday, October 20, I went on MSNBC's "The Most" with Alison Stewart to talk about popular Halloween costume searches this year on Yahoo! If you play a drinking game and take a shot of tequila every time I said "sexy" during the 60 second interview, you might get sick. Pirate costumes are popular this year, particularly sexy pirates. I'm not revealing what my costume is this year...yet. But from 1997-2004, I've been Aeon Flux, Cruella Deville, a vampire, a devil, a bumblebee, a bad pilgrim, legally blonde, and most recently, Jackie Kennedy. Labels: costume, halloween, msnbc, photos, sexy, video, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 6:11 AM
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| October 20, 2006 | A Very Pregnant Friend Sings 'Papa Don't Preach' |
 My Yahoo Broadband team members converged on Santa Monica for our Editorial Summit, and we also celebrated Heather's soon-to-be-born little guy. How did we celebrate? With karaoke, of course. You really haven't lived until you've seen a very pregnant friend or co-worker sing Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach." It was perfect. LJ sang a song by Donna Summer. Jim sang No Doubt's "Keep on Dancin.'" Dave O sang "(What's so Funny About) Peace, Love, and Understanding?' Greg sang Weezer's "Sweater Song." Dave C. sang a Creedance Clearwater Revival song. I did my usual Snoop Dogg. (Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Eric's hardcore version of Pat Benatar, because the camera was out in the car at the beginning...) Check out the pictures. Labels: broadband, editorial, karaoke, photos, pregnant, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 5:42 AM
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| October 2, 2006 | Do Not Taunt My Marc Jacobs Bag |
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Over the summer, to celebrate my four-year anniversary of working at Yahoo!, I splurged and bought my first very expensive designer handbag. I was able to justify the purchase because I made sure to choose a large, strong shoulder bag that was capable of carrying my laptop and could also function as a carry-on overnight bag for short trips up to Sunnyvale. (After 4 years of toting a laptop around, my big bulky, standard issue Yahoo! backpack had seen better days...) If you want to ogle this fine item, check out this ABC News video where I talk about the most-searched handbags, and show off my own gorgeous handbag for a fleeting moment. The tag that came in the pocket of my Marc Jacobs handbag amuses me. It says: "This Marc Jacobs Collection bag has been made in Italy. Any incidental marks, tonal changes and/or textural variances on the leather This bag enjoys a cool, dry place, like Los Angeles. Can you believe all of these rules for care? It's like everything that might be messed up with the leather "is NOT an imperfection" -- it's a characteristic, and any problems you might have with this bag are DEFINITELY due to your own poor care of the product, i.e. getting it wet, or not putting it inside its dust cover when not in use. I'm not even going to mention how much such a product costs. Also, do not taunt this Marc Jacobs bag. Labels: losangeles, purse, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 3:10 PM
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| October 1, 2006 | I'm Very Knowledgeable About Purses and Janet Jackson's Breasts... |
People have been asking for a link to see the ABC News Yahoo! Top 5 video segment that Heather, LJ, and I appear on each week.  OK, you can have a peak, but only if you promise not to make fun of me for blushing when I talk about Chanel handbags and Janet Jackson getting all naked on magazine covers. Check out the video. Is this what you all expected when I majored in American Culture at Vassar? That I'd build a career of knowing where to find knock-off Gucci bags online and what the story is behind Janet Jackson's "invisible daughter..." Yeah, I thought so, too. Labels: abcnews, americanculture, gucci, handbag, purse, vassar, video, yahoo, yahootop5 posted by Jess Barron @ 4:37 PM
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| September 14, 2006 | More Maria Sansone Than You Can Click a Mouse at... |
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I do a weekly radio interview about Yahoo! Buzz on KMOX in St. Louis, Missouri with the hosts of the late night Two Johns No Waiting show. One of the Johns (I believe it's John Carney) admitted to me that he has a mild crush on Maria Sansone who hosts Yahoo!s daily video show The 9. Today at the office, my colleague Eric IM'd me the URL for a blog called What Is Maria Wearing. It's pretty funny. Almost every day from July 14 to August 31 the blog's writer posted screenshots of Maria's outfits along with snarky commentary. If that's not enough Maria for you, you can check out her Flickr photos. Labels: buzz, mariasansone, radio, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 9:24 PM
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| August 11, 2006 | I Saw a Grown Woman Cry When Her Water Was Taken Away at LAX... |
I needed to fly up to San Jose from Los Angeles to attend some meetings at Yahoo!s main office up in Sunnyvale, and I had a very tight schedule and was worried about how the airport situation just hours after the announcement of the London terror plot would affect my trip. If I didn't make it through the security lines in time, I would risk missing my flight, and consequently miss all of the fairly important back-to-back meetings I had scheduled.Also, I don't know about you, but it sort of just makes me a tiny bit nervous to get on a plane when I think about bombs going off inside planes filled with people. I tried not to think about that and instead worried about whether or not I would be able to get my toothpaste and deodorant through the security clearance. I only had one bag with me (a beautiful over-sized cream-colored Marc Jacobs purse that I use as my overnight bag which certainly would not have survived being checked through underneath the plane), and I was going on an overnight business trip. I don't know about you, but deodorant and toothpaste rank pretty high on my list of overnight necessities for overnight trips. At LAX haggered travelers were not sure about what they could and could not take onto the airplanes. There was a lot of confusion, because not everyone had had a chance to read the news yet and familiarize themselves with the list of things that were banned. At the security checkpoint, I removed my shoes and put my bag on the x-ray belt and held my breathe as I walked through the metal detector. Luckily, the screeners let my toothpaste and deodorant through. (I had a tiny travel-sized Crest toothpaste, and solid Secret deodorant, so these may have been deemed acceptable. It's hard to say. I didn't ask for clarification, because I didn't want to call attention to these contraband products, lest I risk them being taken away!) Water and drinks were the #1 thing they were taking away from people at LAX. The grown woman in front of me in the security line was brought to tears when her brand new bottle of sparkling Calistoga water was grabbed and pulled out of her bag. "But I just bought this in the airport!" she demanded to the security screener guy. The guy told her that that didn't matter. "You can't take any liquids through to the gates," he said. He told her she had to give it to them. She started to cry, "But can I just have a sip first, please, before you take it away?" People were stressed and it was making everyone thirsty. (It's very dry and warm in Los Angeles, and this adds to the thirsty-factor.) When we landed in San Jose (a much smaller airport in Northern California at the bottom of Silicon Valley), I noticed bins filled with banned items taken away from passengers. I snapped a photo of this one with my cameraphone. At San Jose airport, they were taking away deodorant and toothpaste, in addition to water and beverages. Also, I thought it was interesting that they were taking away chapstick too! I felt so thankful that they didn't take away my lipstick and moisturizer. It's very very dry in California, and it's not recommended to give a presentation with dry skin and chapped lips. Labels: airport, flying, la, plane, purse, security, toiletries, water, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 6:16 AM
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| July 21, 2006 | I Feel the Need, the Need for Speeeeeeed! |
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When I'm not blogging here on poprocks.com -- you can rest assured that I'm busy blogging somewhere else, probably for work reasons. This blogging machine never stops. Other places to find me, when you need your fix: Along with the ever-lovely Ms. Heather Moylan, I'm writing the AT&T Yahoo! Broadband Editors' Blog, asking the users what they think about such topics as skinny celebs, male infidelity, and the Middle East conflict. We also ask the users to shoot and submit their own cell phone videos of  themselves speaking on these topics. Then on Fridays we read the web comments and show the video clips on-air on Seen and Heard, a new interactive video show show on ABC News NOW (ABC's 24/7 online news channel). We're collaborating with the ABC folks on the show, and we get to talk about what Yahoo! users are saying and what they're searching for each week. It's a really interesting interactive media experiment, and I encourage you to check it out. We also use the AT&T Yahoo blog to highlight the users' best Flickr photos. It's been a cool project. It's exciting to me that the technology finally allows us to pull off interactive user content like this much more easily. The fact that all the users are on a fast broadband connection doesn't hurt either!Something else I'm blogging about that goes very fast: motorcycles! Those who have read my site for a long time know that I'm always curious about new things. In that vein, along with the fabulous Chris Strimbu, I'm writing the MotoGP blog from Laguna Seca in Monterey. MotoGP is motorcycle Grand Prix and it's something that's been really huge in Europe for years, but is only in its second year in the U.S. -- so most Americans aren't hugely familiar with it. The motorcylists ride on a curvy track at speeds of more than 200 miles-per-hour. It's pretty incredible. And loud! Right now, we're in the media tent working on the blog. Later today, we'll upload some awesome photos and interview the riders. Since I'm on the topic of fast stuff, I ask you, dear readers, to tell me about the fastest you've ever gone? Labels: blog, chris, motorcycle, speed, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:47 AM
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| June 1, 2006 | Relax. Look into the Camera and Smile. |
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I think I've mentioned the weekly radio interviews I've been doing for the Yahoo! Buzz team to discuss what's popular based on the searches people are conducting on Yahoo!. The interviews are usually pretty fun. Some of my favorite radio shows of the past 2 weeks are The John Carney Show on KMOX-AM in St. Louis and The Morning Buzz on WHEB-FM in Manchester. We talk about everything from Florence Henderson to 3-armed babies. It's a blast, except sometimes waking up at 4 or 5 a.m. is a bit rough. And now we've added video to the repertoire. Heather and I worked with the awesome folks at ABC News NOW to pitch a weekly online video interview about the top Yahoo! searches. It's happening every Friday, and it's cool stuff. You should check it out. As if that wasn't enough, last Monday I ended up on MSNBC's "The Most" being interviewed by Alison Stewart about the summer's hottest concert tours as decided by the searches being condcted on Yahoo!. They had a professional at the station to put on my make-up. "How do you like to have your make-up done?" she asked me. "I don't know. What do people usually ask for?" I said, perplexed. My idea of applying make-up is a tube of bright red lipstick, and I realize that might be a bit too dramatic and high contrast for an on-camera interview about internet searches. "They usally say anything from 'natural' to 'glamorous.'" "Hmmm. Can I stay more to the natural side..." I said. "but maybe slightly glamorous?" I figured I might as well see what magic she could work. I was trying to watch what she was doing so I could learn some make-up tricks. "You look like an actress, but I can't think of her name." "Who?" No one's ever told me I look like anyone. "I'll think of it..... Marcia Cross from 'Desperate Housewives.' She has such great skin." "Hmmm." I said, wondering if this meant I also had great skin, but thinking it was probably just the red hair. Fifteen minutes later she was finished. The faux eyelashes were very glam, but I kept worrying they'd fall off when I blinked. Being interviewed for TV from a remote studio is pretty weird. You have an ear piece in your ear, and a microphone clipped to your shirt, and you usually don't see the host/journalist who is interviewing you. Instead of seeing their face, you hear their voice in your ear and you look into a big TV camera as if you are talking to another person. You smile, but it's hard to know if the other person is smiling back. The camera lens is dark and blank. I sometimes wonder if I'm keeping my shoulders back and my hair out of my eyes or if I have something caught in my teeth. Talking to the radio DJs I can wear my pajamas and sprawl out with my laptop on the couch or the floor. It's nice not to hafta worry about the faux eyelashes or if I look weird when I'm laughing. Labels: buzz, camera, make-up, msnbc, radio, tv, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:15 PM
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| December 20, 2005 | Items I am Bringing into Canada... |
I needed to fly to Toronto this week for work to visit our Canadian Yahoos! and concoct our plans for global domination. Then on Wednesday, it's on to Boston to visit my mom for Christmas.  Since I have one of those skinny velvety sugar glider-type pocket dogs (a.k.a. Bocce the fruit bat), she goes home with me for Christmas (and everywhere else). She was in the Virgin Islands with me earlier this year, as well as New York City, Florida, San Francisco and Los Angeles.Why should Canada be deprived of her bony translucent alien presence and her winning personality? "You better make sure she'll be allowed into Canada," my mom said in a phone message. I was already all over the internets researchin' this exact topic. According to the U.S. Department of State's Tips for Travelers to Canada, "millions of U.S. citizens visit Canada each year" and some of these citizens are dogs. Currently there is no quarantine on the import of pet dogs to Canada, but "if you have several dogs you may be asked to provide certification that they are your personal pets and not for resale." I also needed to be sure to bring her rabies vaccination certificate. I was curious to note the other items that I was allowed to bring into Canada: So, I packed up my suitcase full of cashmere sweaters and long underwear (did I mention that it's 18 degrees in Toronto?) and some fully tanned hides and skins (nutria, of course!) some tea bags and wood carvings. I left all my baked goods and candy containing meat at home, though. The great news is, Bocce made it through customs (though flagged in red letters as a "Dog"), and she's now reclining on the bed at the Four Seasons. Neither of us is certain we can brave the 18 degree (!) temperatures to venture outside. Have you ever had any interesting experiences with Canadian customs or crossing the border between U.S. and Canada? Have you ever been to Canada? Are you Canadian? Declare yourself! posted by Jess Barron @ 6:50 AM
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| November 17, 2005 | Gawking at 'Yahoo! Jocks' |
Last night after our day-long editorial conference at The Viceroy (I presented on the  topic of "What Works and What Doesn't for Yahoo! Broadband Portals"), a bunch of us Yahoo!'s and our entourage went to a cocktail party at Arianna Huffington's house thrown by Yahoo!'s Lloyd Braun and Scott Moore in honor of Gawker's Nick Denton and Mark Lisanti and celebrating the Yahoo!/Gawker syndication deal. (That's right, you can now check out a random assortment of Gawker posts co-branded on Yahoo! News. Yay. I think. Or maybe that's just the party line...)Arianna was an amazing hostess. She greeted us all personally as we arrived. (just as sweetly as she greeted Bill Maher and David Mamet.) And her bartenders certainly poured some stiff freaking drinks. Chris took tons of photos, as always of our posse at the party. I'm not so sure I can run for President anymore. Sarah also took a bunch of pics. Sadly, no Arianna. Our reflexes were obviously dulled by the drinks again. While sipping vodka and sodas, I met Gawker's Lockhart Steele, who it turns out is also class of 1996 and also a former college newspaper geek. Lockhart, alas, did not try to pick me up, though our very own superstar editor John Briggs did and succeeded (and I didn't even spill my drink!) Here's gridskipper's little post about the party. They called us "Yahoo jocks." Dunno what they're talking about. I thought that whole cool vs. uncool, nerds versus jocks thing went outta style in 1987. This means war! You know how I'm so sensitive about these things... I pinged the URLs to Esther today, and she IM'd back: esther: funny that gridskipper calls it a 'melee'/gang war and chris calls it a 'love fest' Chris described the scene more accurately. I witnessed a lot more lips-to-ass contact between the Gawker and Yahoo! crews than any actual threats of personal violence. It was all about the laaaaaaahv. Sweet, sweet laaahv. And I, personally, loved it. You can read more about the party on Defamer, and look at their pics. After Arianna's, I drove Oren, Rick, and Mali (followed in another car by Heather and Allyson) to the In-n-Out burger in Westwood for some late night cheeseburgers (with onions!). We drove with the top down and blasted Spandeau Ballet's "True" (screaming along at the top of our lungs) as we headed back to Santa Monica to the Viceroy. Labels: ariannahuffington, chris, gawker, in-n-outburger, la, party, photos, viceroy, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 2:23 PM
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| November 10, 2005 | Why Are All These Famous People Stalking Us? |
Neil from the Yahoo! News team invited bunch of us to attend the  International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) Courage in Journalism Awards at the Regent Beverly Wilshire last Wednesday evening after work, and Laura and I met Maria Shriver and CNN's Judy Woodruff.Then yesterday Allyson met Bono at (of all places) the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale. She risked being fired to capture this photo, all for our enjoyment. And, don't let me forget -- Bethany met David Lynch this week at his talk on transcendental meditation. Honestly, this one makes me truly jealous. We all know how obsessed I am and have been with David Lynch. Labels: celebrities, davidlynch, famous, photos, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 1:26 PM
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| October 31, 2005 | Can You Distinguish Substance from Fluff? |
Dear fans of math and logic puzzles,  I have some questions for you to ponder. If Jess Barron was in New York City for 4 nights and slept no more than 3 hours-per-night (for a grand total of 12 hours of sleep in 3 days):1. How many fellow journalists did she exchange business cards with during the ONA conference? 2. How many cocktails did she consume? 3. How many hours did she spend in the post-midnight pre-dawn hours running around the city with co-workers and friends? 4. How many seconds was her face in lights on the enormous Reuters billboard in Times Square? I've been pondering these questions for several hours myself on the plane ride back to the West Coast, and the only answer I can determine is A LOT. If you can provide more specific or accurate answers, perhaps you should consider applying to Mensa. Or perhaps you should stop stalking me. Contrary to the popular belief of my co-workers (Dave Carpenter, for example), I do usually like to get 6-8 hours of sleep per night under normal circumstances. My body wants that much sleep, and on some greedy nights my brain would probably be happiest with 9-10 hours of sleep. But the problem I run into again and again is that there is generally so much I want to do and sleep merely gets in the way of my ability to get it all done. There are so many people love spending time with, there is so much work I want to accomplish, and there are also numerous personal projects. As a certain boy famously told me back in February 2002 "You have -- as we say in the office -- 'a tendency to overcommit.'" It's become ever-increasingly true, and it seems like I'll never stop trying to stretch the space-time continuum. My professional work-type duties while in New York included:
My dad's advice when I told him on the phone about the podcasting panel, "Just don't drink too much the night before." In addition to these professional obligations, I had planned to see my longtime friends Jeff and Lee and also possibly meet Jeremy Abbate who wrote a song called "I Wanna Be as Cool as Jessica Barron" after reading my blog without having ever met me. Of course, there were other friends and people I wanted to meet (including Brooklynite Ted Gesing who created the infamous and much-loved Nutria documentary), but I figured it might be prudent if I focused only on these three. Even though neither one of them has yet to compose a single song in my honor, I gave my scheduling priority to Jeff and Lee since they've been my dear friends for 16 and 10 years, respectively. (I met Jeff when we ran against each other for a student government position in 1989. I met Lee while traveling in Turkey in 1995.) After they've put up with me for so long, it's the least I can do. I arrived at JFK at 5p.m. on Wednesday, and called Jeff and Lee during my cabride to the hotel (the Hilton on 6th Ave). Jeff took the subway to my hotel and we hungout in my room and raided my mini bar, concocting what seemed to be some really strong gin and tonics. Though you will actually be charged on your bill for the snacks and liquor you take out of your hotel room mini fridge, breaking the plastic seal on the door still feels more like "raiding" to me. It brings me back to hotel stays during barely-chaperoned junior high and high school class trips when we would physically break the cheap locks on the mini bars and spend the evenings getting drunk on the little nip-bottles we didn't quite understand how to combine and mix. Jeff suggested the idea of eating at The Odeon in the East Village which he (and Citysearch) described as a place that had "a decadent heyday during the hard-partying '80s." Since I can hardly resist anything that's decadent, hard-partying, or from the 1980s, I announced that I was game. Lee called to say that he and his girlfriend Brett would meet us there for dinner. The food was decent. I had an heirloom tomato and goat cheese salad (my two absolute favorites) followed by an entree of broiled scallops. Jeff had a steak. We debated and discussed San Francisco versus New York City versus Los Angeles. After dinner Jeff and I went to the Stone Rose Lounge, a big airy bar inside the Time Warner Center with high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. We drank $17 martinis until about 2 in the morning. When arrived back to my hotel room, I couldn't sleep. Throughout the evening I kept calling the West-Coast-to-East-Coast time difference the "West Coast Advantage" to my friends, because it enabled me to easily party until dawn, but as I sat propped up on pillows in bed checking email on my laptop until 4 in the morning, it was clear that it wasn't quite an advantage. Especially since I needed to be at the Associated Press office by 8:45 a.m. for an all-day Flash class to learn how to build automated slideshows with audio soundtracks. Wednesday night (umm, that'd be Thursday morning) I slept from 4:30 a.m. - 7:30 a.m., and I was still 10 minutes late for the class. Though I generally have a strong aptitude for picking up computer applications, it was quickly apparent that I was the worst student in the Flash class. I had to ask the teacher to explain everything and show me everything personally one more time. I was pathetic. And, sadly I can't honestly blame my remedial status on the lack of sleep and amount of drinking. Between timeliness, layers, keyframes and tweening, Flash is a complicated program, and it can easily explode your head. Or, at least it can easily explode my head. I wasn't familiar with being the slowest student in the class, and consequently it was a very difficult day. When I got back to my hotel room a little after 6 p.m., Lee called and told me he made 8:30 reservations at Bread Tribeca. "I made reservations for 4 of us," he said, "So you can bring one of your friends." I was starving, and I wanted to make the phone calls to see if Sam or Dave had arrived in New York yet and extend an invitation to dinner, but first I needed to close my eyes and attempt to extend myself an invitation to an hour-long nap. I set the alarm on my cell phone, took off my clothes, put on a t-shirt and curled up under the covers. As exhausted and drained as I was from a day spent inserting keyframes and creating tweens in Flash class, I closed my eyes but could not sleep. Still, I was determined to keep my head on the pillow. At 6:45 p.m. my phone rang, and I jumped out of bed to answer the call. It was my friend Sam who works on content programming for yahoo.com. He had arrived at the hotel and asked if I wanted to go grab some food. I invited him to dinner and quickly got back into bed to try to catch that elusive nap before it was too late. Twenty minutes later my phone rang again. It was Dave from the Toronto office. He had already arrived and headed out to dinner by himself, but suggested that we meet up later for drinks. I tried for a third time to nap, but quickly gave up and turned on the TV and started changing back into my clothes. Sam, Lee, Brett, and I had dinner at Bread Tribeca. The food was decent. I had cauliflower puree soup as a starter followed by linguine with clams. We also shared a few bottles of red wine. After dinner Dave called and said, "I'm at a really fun karaoke bar in the East Village called Second on Second, you should come over here." It was approaching midnight, and as much as I love karaoke -- I wanted to head back closer to the hotel. I honestly every intention of getting to bed at a sober and decent hour. With that in mind, I asked Dave to meet Sam and me at the W hotel bar because it was the only thing I could think of. During our cab ride to the W, Bill and Chris called. Bill was out with colleagues and asked me if I had talked to JB yet. I told him I hadn't but that I had left a message. I also told him that Sam and I were heading over to the W. Chris and the Yahoo! News team had just finished dinner and were wandering around Times Square near our hotel. I told them we were in a cab headed for the W. They said they might meet us there. Dave found Sam and I at the W, but by y 1:30 or 2, we hadn't seen Bill nor the Yahoo! News folks. We were wondering what to do when Bill phoned to say that he and JB were at a bar called Faces and Names near the Rihga hotel. We left the W to walk over to Faces and Names and phoned Chris and Ron on Yahoo! News to let them know. By 2:30 we were all hanging out together at Faces and Names. By 3a.m. there was talk of heading back to the hotel. JB, Chris, Sam, Dave and I started the walk back, but were immediately seduced by the bright white lights of a neighborhood pizza place. JB ordered us a pie to go, then he and Dave went into the bodega nextdoor to pick up some beer while we waited for the pizza to be ready. We carried brown bags of pizza and beer back to the hotel and decided to continue the party in JB's room. I headed to my room to get Bocce since she had been cooped up in the hotel all day. We ate pizza and drank beer until around 4 a.m. when we were kidnapped and gagged by guerilla marketers for Yahoo! News' Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. Bocce liked the pizza, but didn't necessarily enjoy her time as a walking Hot Zone advertisement. At 4:30a.m. Sam and Dave headed to bed. JB, Chris, and I took the dog outside for a walk, and Chris snapped action photos of me picking up Bocce's poop. Can you say poop-arazzi? I thought you could. After all that excitement, Bocce and I decided it was time for bed. The next day I attended some panels and prepared for my own. It went fairly well (you can listen to a portion of my talk), though afterward I wished I had talked more about content for podcasts than mostly just focusing on the how-tos. After the ONA-sponsored cocktail hour where I met Mark Fiore, some folks from CBS News, Anj from Yahoo!s Toronto office and many others, we all headed back to our rooms to freshen up and then bundle up and agreed to meet up at 8:30 at South's in Tribeca where we would have some more drinks before our 9:45 dinner reservation at 66. While back in my hotel room, I decided to don my Jackie Kennedy outfit which I had packed in case an inkling of Halloween spirit hit me. Post-cocktail-hour I felt it was a great idea to wear a bright pink suit and pillbox hat even though none of my other compatriots were dressed in costume. This is how I roll. Lee and Brett met Sam, Dave, Anj and I at South's. Then Bill showed up carrying an unopened container of marshmallow Fluff that he said he had brought for me. "I hope you're not implying that our Yahoo! Broadband Portal content is fluff!" I said giggling and grabbing the container of Fluff. After a while, the Yahoo! News crew (Neil, Ron, Oren, Chris, Sarah, and Peter) arrived at South's, and we all walked down the block to 66. Jeff and his boyfriend Daniel were sitting in the lounge drinking cocktails when we arrived. Sam -- who was just meeting Jeff for the first time -- commented: "It was obvious that Jeff had known you for years because when you walked into this chichi restaurant dressed as Jackie Kennedy and carrying a giant container of Fluff, he wasn't the slightest bit surprised." At 10p.m., we found out the hard way that NYC reservations for big groups rarely start on time. At 10:30 p.m. we were drinking ginger margaritas in the lounge area and noshing on appetizers as we waited for our back room to be ready. By 11 p.m. (I think) we were seated for dinner at three tables in our own room. I was seated at the end of a table surrounded by my NYC friends. Daniel and Jeff were on my left, Lee and Brett on my right. Before any of the food started arriving on the tables, Bill instigated the idea that he and I would open the container of Fluff and offer it around to the other tables. "Would you care for some fluff?" I said as I did my best 1960s stewardess impression. Our hard work and dedication paid off. We were triumphant. We managed to get nearly every person to try a spoonful of Fluff -- and several brave souls plunged their fingers right into the container. Others used chopsticks. The barbarous and uncouth "Fluff course" of the meal mortified my black-clad NYC friends. Living in San Francisco for five years (and going to Burning Man five times) definitely enhanced my already overactive capacity for absurdity. If a group of twenty of my co-workers are giggling and sticking their fingers into their mouths -- in my mind it was a great ice-breaker. It was the least I could do. Dinner ended sometime after midnight. Lee, Brett, and Daniel headed home and many of my co-workers decided to call it a night, but Jeff, Anj, Dave, Oren, Sarah, Ron, Chris, Mic, Peter and I ventured to Second on Second. We arrived, got ourselves some drinks and put our name in for karaoke to do Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Unfortunately the stack of song requests on the KJ's podium was enormous and we left to head back to the hotel before our name was called. This time the late night after-party was in Ron and Chris' rooms. We drank beers from the mini bars and chatted as music played from Chris' laptop. He played Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths at my request. The TV was on playing an endless loop of Larry King interviewing commentators about the Libby indictment with the volume turned all the way down. It seemed certain that Chris and I will become fast friends. And Anj and me too. Even though we just met -- she and I were having a great time hanging out together. Sam, Dave and I are already pretty tight after working together for over 2 years. (Dave and I have even partied in London together on a work trip...) On Saturday I attended a bunch more panels. My favorite was Digital Visual Storytelling, though the Saturday afternoon panel "Journalism 2010: Who's leading the way?" (which our own Neil Budde sat as a panelist on) was also quite interesting with its now-seemingly-obligatory and impassioned blogger versus "dinosaur" bashing. Afterward we went to the Reuters-sponsored cocktail party. Then we headed to a bar in the East Village, where we smoked flavoured tobacco out of a giant hookah. For dinner we went to Il Bagatto (on Jeff's excellent suggestion). I ate with Daniel and Jeff while unfortunately my starving co-workers (Sam, Ron, Anj and Chris) and their entourage of young journalism students were kept waiting at the bar for almost an hour (unacceptable!). Luckily, they made lemonaide from lemons and befriended the perky bartender (she gave Jeff and Daniel three olives each in their martinis!) After dinner we wandered around the East Village spotting (and accosting) folks in Halloween costumes. There were even more Ali G's this year than last year (this Yahoo! one was my favorite). Then we went to KGB for some drinks amid Soviet paraphernalia. We got back to the hotel around 2:30 and I took Bocce for a walk and then went to bed. I seriously needed some sleep. On Sunday morning I packed and checked out of the hotel, and took a cab to Park Slope Brooklyn to visit Jeff and Daniel at their apartment and meet their Great Dane puppy Ace. Ace is beautiful. He's sleek and gray. He's also HUGE! He weighs 125-pounds and is still growing. Jeff and Daniel say he will soon be 50 pounds larger. Unfortunately it was difficult-if-not-impossible for 12-pound middle-aged Bocce to play with a teenage dog who was ten times(!) her size. Jeff and Daniel made us brunch of pumpkin pancakes, eggs, bacon, and Daniel's homemade (from scratch!) pumpkin pie. It was awesome. And then I got in a car to head back to JFK to fly home. I'm sorry I didn't meet my personal songwriter Jeremy Abbate, but I'm psyched that I ended up getting my photo displayed in lights on the huge Reuters screen in Times Square (thanks Sarah!) P.S. Almost all photos I'm linking to in this post were taken by Chris Sarah, Ron, and Jeff as I left my camera behind this time... Labels: bocce, chris, costume, dog, jeff, karaoke, lee, nyc, ona, photos, radio, slang, travel, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:20 AM
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| October 11, 2005 | Why Am I Leaving San Francisco for Santa Monica? |
 I'm excited to announce that next week I'm relocating to Yahoo!'s new Santa Monica office. I'll continue to fulfill my current role as Senior Editor for the U.S. broadband portals (SBC, BellSouth, Verizon, and Plus), but I'll be working among the Full Coverage and Yahoo! News teams who have recently moved down south to be part of the new Yahoo! Media Group. "Why the hell are you leaving San Francisco?" at least hundreds of people have asked, yelled, emailed, and pinged me. It sounds like some people think I have a lotta explainin' to do -- so here are the main reasons why I'm so glad to be making this move: 1. It's a great opportunity to work among colleagues in the Yahoo! Media Group where most of the new original content on the Yahoo! Network (including Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone ) is being created. I've worked in online web content creation for the past ten years (can you believe that -- ten years?! That's making me start to feel a bit old.), so now that Yahoo! is making a big commitment to creating original content it makes sense for me to be located where it's all happening. 2a. I love San Francisco, but to be honest I don't see as much of it as I'd like to. For the past five years(!) I've made the arduous commute from San Francisco down to Silicon Valley -- I worked for two years at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View and for the last three years at Yahoo!'s campus in Sunnyvale. I spend ten hours per week driving on the 101 freeway, and that's 10 hours too many at this point. Sure, I still do cool things up in SF, like produce a weekly pirate radio show with Allyson and go to my friend Derek's Walk-In Movies and occasionally to see bands -- but the truth is, I'm in Sunnyvale in the midst of Silicon Valley waaaay more hours per week than I'm up in SF. And since I never want to live down in the suburban sprawl of "The Valley," I'm looking at many more years of commuting ahead of me if I decided to continue living in San Francisco and working a decent tech job. Pretty much all the best tech companies: Apple, Google, Yahoo!, and eBay are each headquartered somewhere down on the Peninsula, an hour's drive from San Francisco. I love it when Bay Area people comment about all the traffic in Los Angeles. My commute in Northern California is far worse than any Southern California commute I've ever had. 2b. In Los Angeles, I can live near the Yahoo! office and still live in a great area with cafes, bars, and shops that I'll enjoy. My friend Laura and I just signed a lease on an amazing house right across the street from the beach in Venice . It's only 4 miles from the office, and it has trees in the living room growing down into the ground! (Have you ever heard of such a thing?!) And I just might *gasp* ride my bike to work along the Venice to Santa Monica beachfront bike path. 3. I've lived in San Francisco for exactly 5 years. I arrived in SF in October 2000 just as closing time was setting in over the drunken magic of the dotcom days -- the music was turned off and the dim lights were turned up and everyone had to go home alone to their cold, lonely beds.) My instincts are saying that five years is long enough to stay in one city at this point in my life. I've experienced two neighborhoods in two different housing experiments: I spent 3 years living in a loft in Lower Potrero/Dogpatch and 2 years living with some guy friends in a dilapidated Mission District Victorian. I've met tons of amazing people and been to great parties and seen some incredible things. I'll certainly miss my incredible SF friends (August, Owen, Bethany, Allyson , Bryan, Andy, Jen, Deneb, Derek, Leanne, John, Shannon, Daniel, Mici, and everyone else I'm not naming) and I'll definitely be back to visit, but it's time for a change. 4. I actually like Los Angeles. Here's what I wrote about it in my blog back in November 2001. (Four years ago!) I hope that I'll still like LA now that I'm five years older. We'll hafta see. I'll be sure to blog about it as always. 5. My dog and I are fans of warm weather. Bocce, my tiny fruit bat of a dog -- though velvety -- is practically hairless (and fat-less!). San Francisco weather -- though temperate when compared to Boston -- is still not warm enough for this little dog to go running on the beach. I also enjoy wearing flip-flops every day and walking barefoot in the sand. Do you love or hate Los Angeles? How about San Francisco? Do you have any tips for me? Well-wishes or anything to add? Labels: commute, la, moving, sanfrancisco, santamonica, sf, work, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 5:40 PM
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| September 16, 2005 | 3 Days Inside the Houston Astrodome |
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Here's one more rah rah Yahoo! post I've been meaning to make... Through the donation links on the Yahoo! network, we helped raise $53 million toward the Katrina relief effort. Also, there were a bunch of Yahoo! peeps who flew down to Houston to help set up a computer search network and assist people in finding their relatives. This is Hillary Mickell's excellent account of her 3 days spent in the Houston Astrodome. Also, graphic designer Kathleen Watkins spent a lot of time talking to survivors in the Astrodome and recounted the experience in this blog post. Labels: blog, katrina, news, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:59 AM
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| September 15, 2005 | Getting Into The Hot Zone |
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A few weeks back I alluded to some cool upcoming content on Yahoo! that I couldn't tell you about on my blog. One of those supersecret things is about to launch in just over a week -- it's Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. So, Kevin Sites is this hunky war-correspondent-turned-solo-journalist (or "SoJo," if you will) who is working for Yahoo! and spending the next 365 days travelling around the world dropping into all the areas of armed conflict. Kevin will travel without a crew and transmit video content and his thoughts via blog-posts. Here are some of the places he's going over the next year (you may have heard of them): You can read the articles from The New York Times and The LA Times. It's pretty exciting stuff. "What the heck is Yahoo! up to?" Well, I would tell you more, but then they'd hafta fire me. Please note: many of these articles about Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone describe this as Yahoo!'s first foray into the world of original content creation. This is not correct. Yahoo! Finance produced the original video show FinanceVision back in 2000. It was cut in 2002 during the downturn. The Yahoo! Sports team has also been producing original sports reporting and a weekly video show called SportsStream for the past 2 or 3 years. So, the whole "Yahoo is just starting to create original content" angle in the stories isn't painting the whole picture. Labels: content, hot zone, journalism, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:57 PM
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| August 26, 2005 | 22 Hours in Los Angeles, 2 Hours in a Karaoke Booth |
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22 hours in Los Angeles 3 hours in meetings 2 hours in a karaoke booth Allyson, Heather and I flew down to Los Angeles for 22 hours to meet with our Yahoo! co-workers on the entertainment, music, and news teams to discuss all the exciting upcoming content which, of course, I can't tell you about. But I assure you it's cool stuff. Since I always like to begin any excursion or adventure well-rested (ummm, who am I kidding? perhaps well-caffeinated, or maybe well-dressed), I started the day yesterday on 3.5 hours of sleep because I was down in Sunnyvale at 5a.m. to do some East Coast radio interviews for Yahoo! Buzz on my office landline. (My housemates and I don't have a landline phone at our house and it seems ridiculous to sign up for one when I'm moving to LA in just 2 months.) The highlight of our trip down south was definitely the 2 hours we spent with Laura, Richard, and Chris in an Asian-style (private room) karaoke place off of Sawtelle in West Los Angeles. I would pay at least $35 for an mp3 recording of our sextet's (the use of this word makes our behavior sound more debaucherous) awesomely-outrageous rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." It certainly brought a tear to my eye. Similarly, witnessing the tortured magic of Chris and Laura's spontaneous and unplanned performance of Akon's "Lonely" can hardly be described. Thankfully, Heather took some photos of it all, and we can console ourselves that soon she will be posting them to flickr. postscript: Here's Heather's flickr photoset. Labels: allyson, chris, karaoke, la, photos, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 2:53 PM
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| July 11, 2005 | Da Governator Vs. Da Protestors |
 Da California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger came to speak at Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale as the latest of our Yahoo! Influentials speakers (New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Tom Brokaw were previous speakers).On the corner of Mathilda Ave there were about 35-50 people loudly protesting the Governator's policies and presence. They were in the same spot where anti-war groups loudly protested against our corporate neighbor Lockheed-Martin a year or so ago during the beginning of the Iraq War. (Lockheed-Martin builds some serious weapons.) This is what the protest against Arnold looked like. People held signs with statements like "Public Health, NOT Corporate Wealth," "Kids, Not Cuts," and "No on Prop 76." Two motorcycle cops stood watch from the Yahoo parking lot. And here's some video I shot so you can hear it too. The number of people waiting to see Arnold (all Yahoo! employees) was much much longer. People lined up outside the cafeteria an hour before he was scheduled to speak. It was quickly standing room only and some latecomers were locked outside. Arnold spoke for a little less than an hour, and he didn't say anything too fascinating. He didn't talk about the Internet or technology. He didn't directly address the fact that there were protesters outside, though he did sort of try to refute some of their points about his education cuts. Here is some video of his speech, so you too can feel like you were there (or re-experience it, if you were there). One of the most memorable things he said was "California is the best state in the best country in the world." At least he didn't boast, "California is the only state that touches both Canada and Mexico," as my geographically-challenged Vassar-educated (but usually quite intelligent) friend Mindy once said. ;) Arnold also told us how rich he is, and how we should feel good about having a rich governor, because he can't be bought by special interest groups. Yeah right. No one protested our previous Influentials speakers Thomas Friedman or Tom Brokaw. Then again, neither Friedman nor Brokaw attracted as large an audience of Yahoos either. Still, I don't know whether it's just because Friedman and Brokaw are in the field of writing and journalism that I felt like their speeches meant more to me. I felt interested and inspired by what they had to say. The same was not true of Arnold. It felt like he was at Yahoo just to make another campaign speech and plug his many movies. (He managed to slip the titles of almost all of them into his speech.) Check out my flickr photoset of this strange event. Labels: arnold, california, influentials, photos, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 8:36 PM
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| July 7, 2005 | Awakened to London Blasts |
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When you work in online news, today is one of those terrible days when you wake up to 10 or more alerts from the AP coming in on your Blackberry one after the other. Pop. Pop. Pop. The messages say things like "LONDON (AP) Police have reported \'a number of fatalities' at one London subway station" and "LONDON (AP) Hospital officials say 190 people are being treated for injuries from explosions in central London." It is a terrible feeling. My phone rings before the alarm goes off at 7a.m. I wake up and pull the laptop off the floor and up into bed with me. More than 10 Yahoo! Messenger windows are active and highlighted in bright orange at the bottom of my screen as I sit in bed in a similarly bright orange Trainspotting T-shirt (that used to belong to J.P. before he disappeared). The active Messenger windows are all of my Yahoo! news co-producers (in Canada, East Coast, West Coast, and London) who are pinging me to join voice chats to discuss how to handle this news on our front doors and portal pages. Everybody is so on top of it, but still we're scrambling to stay on top of the latest angles: How many dead? How many injured? Is Al-Queda being officially blamed? My friend Clare in the Yahoo! London office is also telling me via Messenger that she narrowly missed getting onto the bus that minutes later exploded. She decided to take a faster bus this morning instead. I'm telling her that I'm glad she's OK, but this is all pretty horrible. If you want to read the latest news on this story, check out the Yahoo! Full Coverage page. The people working on it -- my friends and colleagues on the Full Coverage team -- are updating it with the best articles, info and photos available online. Also, check out the London bomb blast Flickr pool (sent to me by Esther). posted by Jess Barron @ 7:00 AM
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| June 17, 2005 | Make way for ducklings on Yahoo! Campus |
When I arrived at work today a lone female duck was roaming in the middle of the well-manicured grassy quad, quacking non-stop and looking confused. I thought it was a little bit strange. What did she want with Yahoo!? Did she have a usability issue?  Was she having a hard time communicating with our customer care department?An hour later someone heard peeping down a drain hole in the middle of the lawn, and saw a bunch of ducklings trapped down there... Check out my flickr photoset of their rescue. Labels: ducks, photos, rescue, work, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 5:26 PM
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| April 6, 2005 | "Mr. Brokaw, what do you think about bloggers?" |
 Yesterday Tom Brokaw spoke at Yahoo! Campus as the latest guest in "the Influentials Yahoo! Speaker Series." At the end of his speech, we were given the opportunity to ask him questions. I went up to the mic and asked, sp "Mr. Brokaw, as someone who was raised by my maternal grandparents (who were first-generation immigrants), I appreciate your comments on 'The Greatest Generation,'" I said. "Secondly, I appreciated your comments about the role of the citizen and the obligation to take personal responsibility. My question is, what do you think the role of the citizen journalist is, and specifically what do you think about bloggers?" He answered that he thinks it is great that the internet has provided the opportunity for various voices to be heard. He also answered that he's an avid reader of Yahoo! News. He did point out that he is wary of the political polarization to far-left and far-right that has been occurring in the blogosphere (no, he did not actually use the term "blogosphere" -- that is just me paraphrasing). I recorded his entire speech and the Q & A via my iPod and iTalk adapter, and I'll be posting the MP3 online to share later tonight as soon as I get home. He basically said that blogging is good in his opinion. These are some very weird times for broadcast journalism. First, Dan Rather announced his retirement. Then Tom Brokaw announced he would be stepping down late this year. Last week Ted Koppel announced he would be leaving "Nightline" after 25 years. Today Peter Jennings announced he has lung cancer, though he will continue to work while undergoing treatment. What is happening with all the great white men of broadcast journalism? It's making me feel old. I think we all (and citizen journalists/bloggers, in particular) have a lot to learn from the successes and failures of Jennings, Brokaw, Rather and their colleagues. It's a mistake for online news people to discount TV news as a dead medium as we move onto this new way ot tell stories. And TV news is not a dead medium. TV news *does* seem to suit and satisfy a segment of the U.S. population very well, particularly in the older side of the demographics. Many folks in my grandparents' (and parents') generations feel comfortable and perfectly fulfilled by getting their news items selected and read to them each evening by someone who they respect and trust. Unlike younger people in our generation, many of these avid TV news viewers do not want to have to sift through the information themselves on the Internet or maybe they don't think they have time to do it, or don't feel comfortable doing it. My dad, for example, is a huge TV news fan, and every single night he watches the evening news, and I don't think he will change this habit. Believe me, after 10 years of me working on the Internet and singing its praises, he's still not interested in getting his news via the Web as a primary source. At least not yet. When I decided to attend Vassar, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. This may seem a bit strange to anyone familiar with the college, because Vassar does not offer a Journalism or Media Studies major. It's a liberal arts college, and they take that really seriously. Still I wanted to attend the school. I talked to several journalists, students, teacher, and professors about this "problem" of Vassar's lack of a journalism major -- and came to the conclusion as a high school senior that I could be an even better journalist if I had a rich and varied liberal arts education. But I didn't stop there. I took every single media-related course that was offered. I wrote for the college newspaper ("The Miscellany News") and by my senior year I became Editor-in-Chief. While taking classes, I also interned at the local city paper ("The Poughkeepsie Journal," or "Po-Jo" as it was called), and in New York City first at ABC News' Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer and second at David Lauren's now-dead "Swing" magazine. One of my favorite things about interning at ABC was to watch "Nightline" with Peter Jennings from up on the catwalk in the live studio. Peter Jennings is my favorite of all these guys. Peter Jennings is a whirlwind. He does not just accept the text written for him -- he makes furious notes in the margins and adds his own thoughts/questions off-the-cuff. He's impressive to watch from behind-the-scenes. For a while around this time, I was convinced I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. My dad's mother would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would say "A journalist." And she would kind of frown for a second considering the lack of glamor and money a newspaper writing career would provide, and then she'd think for a moment and start to smile, saying hopefully, "A broadcast journalist? Those women are so smart." (No doubt she was thinking of Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer.) Hence, I was veered a bit in this direction. But my internship at ABC -- though fulfilling and interesting -- ultimately convinced me that broadcast journalism was not 100% right for me. I realized that the topics highlighted in our weekly newsmagazine show were really limited by which topics appealed to the most mainstream of people. Like almost all newsmagazinw programs, the "investigative reporting" leaned toward hidden cameras catching babysitters and nannies hitting children in their care and exposing local hotel chains that didn't properly clean the rooms. These may be actually be important topics that people do care about, but they weren't the types of issues I personally to which I wanted to devote my career and my life. (Here is the tongue-in-cheek account I wrote about my internship with Diane Sawyer at ABC that was published in the campus newpaper when I was a senior at Vassar. Labels: blog, blogger, influentials, journalism, journalists, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 1:08 PM
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| March 18, 2005 | What goes through my head when I'm doing my job at Yahoo! and I put up the headlines about Terri Schiavo... |
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A few months ago, my mom asked me to sign some official papers saying that I am her health care proxy if she is ever unable to speak for herself in the hospital. She told me she doesn't want "to be kept alive by machines" if something happens and her health is compromised. This document is helpful because it means my mom and I spoke about this topic, and that I "understand her wishes." I agree with her that this is what I would also want for myself in such a circumstance. However, I also think it's easy to say that you believe in this as an idea or a concept; I can't fathom how difficult it must be to make these decisions when something tragic actually happens. For instance, if my mom was ever in a coma and on life support systems from an accident, would I be able to tell the doctors to unplug her from the machines? Further complicating the issue, the younger brother of one of my friends was in a coma after an accident a few months back. Several of the doctors at the time said that his prognosis for recovery was very slim. Months later, he has slowly been making progress -- though he still requires a ton of hospital care and rehabilitation. I feel so terrible for all of these families involved in these rough cases. I also feel terrible for Terri Schiavo who will be remembered by like this rather than by who she was in the photos that were taken of her before the brain damaging incident occurred. Further complicating my feelings on Terri Schiavo, is that in the pre-1990 pretty photos of her -- she had been struggling with an eating disorder that some doctors say caused the very chemical imbalance that gave her this brain damage in the first place. So, was she ever really "OK"? And honestly, are any of us ever? posted by Jess Barron @ 12:41 PM
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| March 11, 2005 | Rules for Employees Traveling Together |
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In order to contain the potential loss and disruption associated with a catastrophic accident, Yahoo!'s policy is to limit the number and mix of key employees who travel together and are placed at risk. This applies to airline flights, trains, cars and any other mode of transportation. I'm about to jump on a plane to LAX with the entire Yahoo! Full Coverage team (except Molly). You have seen The Full Coverage team's handiwork if you ever view the headlines underneath the "In The News" heading on yahoo.com. Yes, as I have pointed out in the past many times, actual humans choose our news stories. It ensures that the news mix and relevance is better quality than than what can be found on computer-generated headlines found on some other competitor websites. Anyway, please do not tell the folks at Google News that we are all travelling together. We will be spending the weeking at the Loew's in Santa Monica to see the new Yahoo! Media Center and to look for housing. Luckily, there are no rules in the company handbook limiting how many employees may drink together. Labels: drinking, flying, rules, santamonica, travel, work, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 8:42 AM
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| March 10, 2005 | The Fear of Clowns |
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Today the Ask Yahoo! team tackled the question I sent them about my friends' fear of clowns. I think I first realized that this existed back in 4th or 5th grade when I would have slumber parties at my house, and all the girls would be afraid of my clown marionette hanging from the ceiling. Or maybe it was in 8th grade when my friend Kim and I were both reading Stephen King's 'It'. Anyway, pretty much everyone I know is afraid of clowns. According to the gods of Ask Yahoo!:
Labels: clowns, fears, worries, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 12:44 PM
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| March 2, 2005 | Lend Me Some Sugar (Ray). I Am Your Neighbor. |
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After all that smack I talked about Sugar Ray the other day, I hafta admit I had a good time, in spite of myself. The band had a sense of humor about the whole thing, and they put on a fun show. As you can see, Bethany was *thrilled* to be in the front row. Melanie was pulled up onstage. Allyson and Rachana rocked out. We were swooning like tipsy dot-commers from 1999. Eric even rapped onstage with Mark McGrath. I was this close to Mark, but I fell for the bassist. The guitarist gave Melanie his guitar pick, and then we also got the bassist's shoe. (We returned it to him later.) Dear poprocks fans, I'm really sorry if I let you down. I just sometimes can't resist having a really cheesy, silly good time. Your pal, Jess. Labels: band, birthday, photos, sugarray, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 10:42 PM
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| Go Yahoo!. It's Your Birthday. |
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Last night to celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th birthday, we launched an interactive "Netrospective" documenting the 100 most important moments on the web in the last 10 years. Go check it out. Lucky you -- you get free ice cream and I get.. Sugar Ray. ;) Speaking of which, I heard some gossip today at the office, that the entertainment planners were initially trying to book Pearl Jam to play at the birthday party. Now, that would've been interesting. Finally, check out the online content blog Does Online Journalism Have a Future?, and post your comments. Labels: birthday, sugar ray, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 7:41 AM
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| February 28, 2005 | Today is tomorrow. It happened. |
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"In some ways, it feels like we have been doing this for as long as we can remember, but in other ways, it feels like we are still at the beginning." --Yahoo! founder David Filo on Yahoo!'s upcoming 10th birthday This Wednesday the company I work for is turning ten years old, and they are throwing a big party for everyone. You are invited too. Well, sort of. Yahoo! will be giving everyone who visits yahoo.com on Wednesday a special free treat. Hint: it's edible, creamy and deelicious. And also hopefully you are not vegan or lactose intolerant. That is the good part. The less good part is that the band they have hired to play for us is Sugar Ray. You may remember Sugar Ray from mid-1990s songs with ear-wormy choruses such as (for the love of God, now is the time to divert your eyes from this web page before these malicious songs get caught in your head!) as "I just wanna fly" and "Every morning there's a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriend's four-post bed." (And to think that I thought their singer Mark McGrath had retired from the band to become the co-host of "extra". Apparently no such luck!) Before you go thinking that I'm un ungrateful bee-otch, please take note that I am very excited for my company's birthday party. For one thing, there will almost certainly be lots of free beer. For another thing, I am also celebrating my own 10 years of working on the web. While it's true that I don't have very much love stored away for Sugar Ray, perhaps it is just because Yahoo! has set the bar so high with some of their past band choices, such as hiring the flaming lips to play at our holiday party in 2003. This is what yahoo.com looked like in 1995. Even before that (as Esther posted in her blog back in 2002) you might remember visiting Yahoo! circa 1994 before the site was actually located at yahoo.com, back when you got to Yahoo! by typing in "http://www.stanford.edu/~someguysname/html/personal/webdirectory/yahoo or something like that." This is what yahoo.com looked like in 1996. The past 10 years working on the web have kept me experiencing a continuous deja vu. Anyone who has been a web writer, editor or producer since 1995 or 1996 certainly must feel somewhat akin to Bill Murray's character in the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day." For instance, when reading this Christian Science monitor article about Yahoo!'s new media plans in Santa Monica last week, I was struck by the initial thrill about these exciting plans and these exciting times, but a few moments later I had a strong sense of deja vu. Hadn't I already lived in this exciting time? Hadn't I already heard *these* exciting plans? Ah yes, I had. Reading this article brought me back to the spring of 2000, when I worked at Scour.com in Beverly Hills and we had partners like AtomFilms and iFilm and Stephen Spielberg's Dreamworks-backed pop.com was set to launch with an offering of Internet-only programming. This time (five years later) we have seen that the world (well, the U.S. at least) is finally ready for consuming entertainment content on their computers. This time, I am convinced that this stuff can actually be successful. My conviction is so strong that I am leaving San Francisco to move down to Los Angeles again to give it another try. One of my blog posts from March 2000 -- five years ago -- contains links to some of the sites that were virally hot at that time --from JesusDance to Radiskull and Devil Doll and "Superfriends, Whassup." (As an aside, I still say "whassap!" way too much, and my boyfriend has accused my diction of being overly influenced of the internet circa 2000.) Yes, all of your favorites are probably listed, but, be warned, that many of them have *gasp* disappeared from the internet and haven't left a forwarding address. I'm reminded of a sign I saw at Burning Man in 1999. It said "Warning: You are temporary." And you know, if you are an internet website, you are even extra temporary. Before being sued out of existence by the RIAA in late 2000, Scour had planned to morph into a legal for-pay music download service very similar to what Apple is doing quite successfully today with iTunes. JibJab -- whose animated shorts we used to feature on Scour -- now has a promotion deal with Yahoo! and has gotten mentioned on national TV for their "This Land" political short. Speaking of TV, it used to be only short weekly special-interest TV shows (such as CBS-Eyemark's "Wild Wild Web" which Allyson and I worked for in 1998) focused on web-stuff. Now on CNN, and MSNBC, every other word out of many reporters mouths seem to be "blogs" and "the blogsphere." Yeah, the time is right for branded media content on the web. We just really need to get things right this time. I, for one, know that I have learned so much about what works and what doesn't on the web over the past 10 years. And there is a lot that doesn't work. "Convergence" (between the web and TV) was the hot buzz word in 1998 and it's still the hot buzz word. "Blog" was the hot buzz word in 2000 and it's still the hot buzz word. I'm just thankful that no one uses the phrase "Internet Superhighway" anymore. That one was annoying. In February 2002, just before I started working at Yahoo, I wrote to Allyson on our She, Said, She Said blog:
Monthly 'zines? Yeah, done it. In 1996 I was publishing a monthly e-zine, ROAR, for Monster.com in addition to building corporate recruiting sites and hand-coding them in HTML. Community websites? Done that too. In 1997 I was hiring and managing a staff of writers and building CollegeBeat a daily community website for college students (of course, the site's URL is now a porn directory). Luckily, thanks to the Internet Way-Back machine, you can still see the site in all of its former glory and unique web design by moi. For instance, check this out. The design was quite wacky. But alas, that was where I learned all about .ASPs and how to manage writers. Broadband convergence sites? Check. In 1998, as you recall, we were at WildWeb err Getwild.com which looked like this and later like this and they were sending you on tour with John Mellencamp and me to Burning Man 1999 to write articles. Bleeding-edge technology? I was swimming in it. In 1999, I was at Scour (which looked like this minus the broken graphics and then like this) working on peer-to-peer music sharing technology and launching a "technology freedom center" after we got sued by the RIAA and the MPAA. It's like in the past five years, everything's gone so far, so fast that now nothing in the online world even looks remotely interesting to me. What has Poprocks.com looked like over the past 10 years: posted by Jess Barron @ 2:02 PM
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