As far as I know — Jason Calacanis hasn’t actually confirmed anything with anyone about his supposed departure. He’s not denying it, sure, but all he’s saying is “no comment”.
And, I’m not sure — but that still doesn’t translate into a definite “yes, he’s leaving AOL/ Netscape”.
In fact, on his own blog, Calacanis.com, there is nothing definitive there either — even though on Valleywag Mr. Calacanis has gone on record to say that his blog is where any official announcements are going to be made.
So it was with some surprise that I saw that the bastion of reporting, The New York Times, reporting this all as a definite fact.
Jason Calacanis, the outspoken blogger and entrepreneur who ran AOL’s Netscape division, resigned on Thursday in the wake of the firing of AOL’s chief executive, Jonathan Miller.
Hard to say where this is coming from; perhaps that the gray old lady is feeling a little pressure in being outscooped yet again by TechCrunch?
(burn!)
UPDATE! A little birdie has told me to expect a public announcement friday during the day; no official memos as of yet, but it seems like the status quo will not change in the short term at least.
UPDATE 2: it seems like the NYT did get it right; J-cal is in fact leaving — if you would like to see me eat crow — go to this post
2 Comments
One possibility you seem to discount is that when a reporter from the New York Times calls you up, you talk to him. Not everyone lives in our echo chamber, and in the “real world” where people with power and money make decisions of import, the NYT is not chopped liver. Despite its feet-of-clay, the NYT may be preferred over a brezzy IM chat with one of your buddies (which buddy? whose my best IM buddy? will the second-IM-receiving buddy feel slighted?) to be relayed to a narrowly focused techblog (which techblog? will the scooped techblog be miffed?) as way to reveal information to the journal of record for a considerable number of movers and shakers.
In fact, I learned from an IM chat that Saul and Jason calacanis, are in fact, buddies (IM buddies I don’t know), and through that existing relationship, were able to scoop other “news” organizations / formats / websites