More on Verizon/Alltel, Virgin/Helio, Philly Wi-Fi
Other stuff I recently wrote or chipped in on:
2007 by the numbers
Google Inc. crossed $700, IAC/InterActiveCorp split itself into five pieces, and Apple sold more than one million iPhones. Here’s a look at some of the numbers behind the year’s tech happenings.
Read Ones and Zeros
Dressing Up Beyoncé
Girls Click-and-Drag to Outfit Celebrities on Doll Sites, and Investors Take Notice
Hannah Reichert, an 11-year-old in North Bergen, N.J., likes dressing up dolls, but the worlds of Barbie and Bratz aren’t so interesting to her. Instead, she visits Cartoon Doll Emporium, a Web site she discovered while searching for dolls.
“It’s just cool,” she said of the site, where she can drag and drop shirts, dresses, shoes and jewelry onto drawings of celebrities and cartoon characters, as well as chat with friends in online forums. She doesn’t play with actual dolls, but CDE, as she and other users call it, is a regular stop between dinner and bedtime. “I go on there every day,” she said.
CDE is one of a handful of virtual doll sites, including Stardoll and The Doll Palace, that have seen traffic surge. The straightforward sites, which evoke traditional paper dolls, have managed to capture an often ignored segment of the online audience: young girls. And investors are taking note: Stardoll, launched by a Finnish doll enthusiast and her son, has received more than $10 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. Meanwhile, the makers of Barbie and Bratz dolls are moving to add new online dress-up offerings.
(Also appeared on AOL News)
Gawker Shuffles Its Editors, Again
Gawker Media is shuffling the management of its flagship Gawker blog for the fifth time in four years, as the site faces increased competition from upstart gossip sites.