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Verizon Buys Yahoo for $4.8 Billion

Jason Tate

Vindu Goel, reporting for The New York Times:

Verizon, seeking to build an array of digital businesses that can compete for users and advertising with Google and Facebook, announced on Monday that it was buying Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.83 billion in cash.

The deal, which was reached over the weekend, unites two titans of the early internet, AOL and Yahoo, under the umbrella of one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies. Verizon bought AOL for $4.4 billion last year. Now it will add Yahoo’s consumer services — search, news, finance, sports, video, email and the Tumblr social network — to a portfolio that includes AOL as well as popular sites like The Huffington Post.

Yahoo and AOL, once giants of the industry, now just another part of Verizon. I wonder what Tumblr’s fate will be?

The Last VCR Will Be Manufactured This Month

Technology
Jason Tate

Ananya Bhattacharya, writing for QZ:

Surprising fact: there’s a company still making video-cassette recorders, or VCRs. But that will change at the end of this month.

Japan’s Funai Electronics, which makes its own electronics, in addition to supplying companies like Sanyo, will produce the last batch of VCR units by July 30, Nikkei reported (link in Japanese). The company cites difficulty in obtaining the necessary parts as one of the reasons for halting production.

Donald Trump’s Nomination Is Terrifying

Jason Tate

Ezra Klein, writing for Vox, on the nomination of Donald Trump for President:

He has had plenty of time to prove me, and everyone else, wrong. But he hasn’t. He has not become more responsible or more sober, more decent or more generous, more considered or more informed, more careful or more kind. He has continued to retweet white supremacists, make racist comments, pick unnecessary fights, contradict himself on the stump, and show an almost gleeful disinterest in building a real campaign or learning about policy.

Here is what we know — truly know — about Trump. Here is why he should not be president.

It is downright terrifying that there’s even a chance this man could be President of the United States.

John Feldmann Discusses Producing Blink-182

Jason Tate

MusicRadar has an interview with John Feldmann about producing Blink-182’s California that contains quite a bit of information I hadn’t heard before:

To me, the essential Blink sounds are the band’s instruments. Travis has a total custom kit that’s been built from scratch using some vintage parts and some modern parts that him and his tech Daniel built from the ground up. Besides being the best drummer that’s ever lived, his passion for the instrument is key to his sound.

“All of Mark’s basses are custom-built Fender’s made to his specifications. Jerry Finn actually suggested re-routing Mark’s pickups to flip them because of the way Mark plays – he has this really interesting downstroke.

Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux

Tesla
Jason Tate

Elon Musk, writing at Tesla, has shared the second part of the company’s “master plan”:

By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.

Here is what we plan to do to make that day come sooner:

Musk aims high and then raises his own bar. Call it crazy, call it a pipe dream, but I still find his ambition nothing short of inspirational.

Breaking Down the (Fake) Team’s Decisions in ‘Draft Day’

The Ringer
Jason Tate

If you’ve listened to more than a handful of episodes of Encore you’ve heard me rant about the movie Draft Day at one point or another. Riley McAtee, at The Ringer, breaks down the trades in that abomination of a movie and there’s just no way I can’t share this:

But the Browns’ owner (a how-did-I-get-here Frank Langella) wants Weaver to make a splash in the draft, and he’s infatuated with Bo Callahan, a quarterback widely expected to go no. 1 overall. And why wouldn’t he want him? A linebacker or a running back can’t SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND. So when Seahawks GM Tom Michaels (Patrick St. Esprit) lays out a deal that would give Cleveland the no. 1 pick, it’s Weaver’s chance to … you guessed it: SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND. By the end of the movie, Weaver’s made three deals and numerous other decisions. But did he SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND? Let’s grade every major draft-related decision in the movie to find out:

This movie is worth watching just to prop up your local liquor store’s monthly take.

Unilever Buys Dollar Shave Club

Stratechery
Jason Tate

Unilever purchased the Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion. Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery, has a really good analysis of the purchase and how it fits with the disruptive power of the internet:

Probably the most important fact when it comes to analyzing Unilever’s purchase of Dollar Shave Club is the $1 billion price: in the world of consumer packaged goods (CPG) it is shockingly low. After all, only eleven years ago Procter & Gamble (P&G) bought Gillette, the market leader in shaving, for a staggering $57 billion.

To be sure Gillette is still dominant — the brand controls 70 percent of the global blades and razors market — but there is little question that Dollar Shave Club is a much better deal, in every sense of the word.

Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Milo Yiannopoulos

Twitter
Jason Tate

Charlie Warzel, at Buzzfeed:

According to Twitter, it was Yiannopoulos who led the harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones that inspired the SNL cast member’s decision to leave Twitter. The tweets, many of which targeted Jones for being black and a woman, were the final straw for Twitter, which is taking steps to try to solve its harassment problem.

About-fucking-time.

Read More “Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Milo Yiannopoulos”

Third Eye Blind Headline Charity Event During RNC

Third Eye Blind
Jason Tate

Third Eye Blind are playing a private charity event at the Republican National Convention:

Third Eye Blind will be the headline performing act at the charity benefit for Musicians On Call (MOC), a nonprofit that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

In 2012 lead singer Stephan Jenkins penned an op-ed for the Huffington Post explaining why they had turned down playing a similar event:

Even the private party my band was asked to play at the RNC is not some innocuous event. Though I am happy to play for Republican fans, like my life-long Republican mom, playing the RNC convention is a tacit endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate and his party platform, and this is not my mom’s Republican Party anymore.

Reading through Jenkins’s Twitter feed makes me think this is the last place he would want to be playing. Now I’m curious what they’re going to say on stage.

Read More “Third Eye Blind Headline Charity Event During RNC”

Taking Back Sunday Threaten Military Campaign to Take Back Rest of Week

Taking Back Sunday
Jason Tate

Steven Kowalski, throwing down the satire at The Hard Times:

Lazzara, sitting on his throne high atop his Sunday Fortress, looked out upon a crippled, unassuming week. “People think I’m going to take back Monday first,” Lazzara said to his legion of fans, “But no! We’re taking back Tuesday from the people that took it from us. Once we take back Tuesday, we can attack the rest of the week from both ends.”

Twitter Opens Up Verification Requests

Twitter
Jason Tate

Nick Statt, writing at The Verge, on Twitter’s new program that will allow anyone to request a verified account:

Starting today, the company will let users request a verified account on its website by filling out a form with a verified phone number and email address, a profile photo, and additional information regarding why verification is required or helpful. In defining who will get approved, Twitter says “an account may be verified if it is determined to be of public interest.”

Until Twitter can get their harassment problem under some kind of control, I see all of their other announcements through that frustrating lens. Even when they’re things I think they should be doing and could be great for the company.