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SarahLacy.com

Journalist and author Sarah Lacy reveals the inside story of business in Silicon Valley.

I went on Flickr to find a picture of me giving a keynote for the speaker tab I'm about to add to the blog. (Yes, having conquered all that keynote angst, I am for hire!) Apparently, I've never searched my name on Flickr and was stunned to see so many pictures from the book tour that I'd never seen. It was actually a nice walk down memory lane. We're so nostalgic, Olivia is going to pull a few for a post later today.

I also came across this one by Thomas Hawk and suddenly, viscerally remembered how much MORE I worked and stressed out when I was on staff at BusinessWeek. This was right after my Digg cover that sucked up six grueling months of my life--including weekends and evenings-- and almost didn't even run. When it did run, it was my first big controversy, and I had no idea how to handle it. All I wanted to do was hide under a bed. It was just before the book deal that changed my life. It was a period when I wasn't eating (clearly!) or sleeping and actually started running to stay sane. I was barely in my 30s, depressed about the state of magazines and trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of my career. I honestly didn't know if I could even be a reporter still and be happy or if all those jobs were just gone.

It reminded me of Jason's now much written about (and somewhat mocked) Startup Depre

Yes, the Rumors Are True...UGBT Is Hitting LondonOctober 7

Ok, it's not officially part of the User Generated Book Tour, but Olivia and I are indeed coming to London for a big, big Robert Loch-style party. [Update: Apparently also hosted by Paul Walsh who will hopefully not steal my Blackberry and write Twitters about how hot he is. Hrmph.] Why are we throwing a party? To launch my new book. (Ok, ok it's just the UK edition of the same book only with a far more commercially appealing title...)

We fly out just after we vote for Mr. Obama (holla!!) and hopefully land on Nov. 5 to UK papers trumpeting his victory. (If not, we may just stay in London.)

Now, several of you keep *harassing* me to come to London and have a big party so I fully expect you to be there and bring friends.

Stay tuned for party details...

When Tech Reporters Become IrrelevantOctober 2

In some ways, 2008 has been a great year for TechTicker to launch. The biggest tech story was, after all, the continually botched-then-even-more-botched deal between Yahoo and Microsoft. It was a story we surely had some implicit authority on, and one that allowed us to prove we'd cover Yahoo as reporters not employees. (I have the denied access to Yahoo's intranet to prove it.)

But the bad news is that's been pretty much the only big tech story. Mostly it's been a year of financial news. So, especially lately, TechTicker is looking less "tech" everyday. But, hey, people want to kvetch over the economic crisis, and we are here to oblige. If you haven't been watching Henry and Aaron's excellent coverage from the Nasdaq, you should start. Mostly, to see how excited Henry is about all of it. He is quite literally flying out of his chair in some clips. (Judging from these eye-popping numbers, few of you aren't watching TechTicker. I'm glad I wasn't missed during my month on tour. Sniff.)

In a semi-desperate attempt to have a value-add again-- or at least show off my latest DVF splurge-- I did a few segments with Paul Kedrosky around the crisis, trying to hew to tech as much as possible. If you're one of those people who needs an economy fix, clips are on the jump.

Stumble Upon Stumbles Out of ToolbarsOctober 1

The upside of writing a book entirely focused on a few Web 2.0 companies is you get to know them -- and their founders and investors-- extraordinarily well. And if you pick wisely, that can be a mighty good career move for a reporter in a crowded field. But the downside is you miss some other startups that are worth getting to know. One of those neglecterinos for me was StumbleUpon, which my brother, Peter, apparently can't live without.

I've since spent a bit of time with Garrett Camp-- Stumble's founder-- at last year's Lobby Conference, an Outcast dinner and this morning at Outcast's offices. Oh, and this coming Saturday at his sure-to-be-raging 30th birthday party on, um, a Navy tanker?

Saturday, we'll no doubt be talking about how OLD he is. Today, we were talking about StumbleUpon's new plans to allow people to discover sites they may like without downloading the toolbar and its plans to have Stumble-like discovery within partner sites the Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks.com and, soon, RollingStone and National Geographic. Also, the homepage has been dramatically redesigned.

It makes sense and is a big move for the startup eBay bought for $75 million last year. StumbleUpon has pretty much locked up the the six million or so early adopters who want to download a toolbar and now it needs to expand. The strategy reminds me of Yelp's: It doesn't need all its users to be active Yelpers writing reviews, but it does need an increasing base of p

U CAN HAZ FREE!!!October 1

Yes, the "I Can Has Cheezburger?" book is coming out October 7. But you can get one FOR FREE now!

Why? Because we have the same editor.

How? By sending Sarahlacy.com a LOLCats-ed up photo of a Web entrepreneur or Valley personality. Here are two of me to get you inspired. We'll have five winners. Send to Olivia at sarahlacy dot com. NOW!

[Can't seem to embed this one. (FAIL!)]