sean parker

So much for the honeymoon.

Sean Parker -- Napster co-founder, first Facebook president, portrayed on the big screen by Justin Timberlake -- had expected to spend early June relaxing with his longtime girlfriend and new bride, Alexandra Lenas.

Instead, the newlyweds and their newborn are holed up at an undisclosed location in Menlo Park, Calif., while Parker works the phones to get out his side of a story he describes as "simultaneously the silliest and the most damaging PR crisis that I've had to deal with."

If you've missed the uproar, just Google "Sean Parker … Read more

You may not have slept lately for worrying what Sean Parker has done for our environment.

Yes, in being one of the originals at Facebook, he helped create a world in which our noses permanently point downward, our friends are permanently virtual and our eyes must watch carefully over every word written by the company in small letters.

But I wasn't thinking about that.

I was thinking about the mounds of kerfuffle created after details were revealed about his wedding.

It was bad enough that he was said to be spending vast numbers on his nuptials. But then the Atlantic suggested … Read more

It appears that former Facebook president Sean Parker has inadvertently become an environmentalist to save his wedding.

He has agreed to dole out $2.5 million in a settlement with the California Coastal Commission over the construction of an immense wedding venue in an ecologically sensitive area of state. That comes on top of the $10 million he spent on his lavish wedding this past weekend to singer-songwriter Alexandra Lenas.

In a little nook of the redwood forest in Big Sur, Calif., Parker commissioned the custom-made construction of what seems like a small village for his wedding day. In addition … Read more

It may not come as a big surprise, but Sean Parker's Airtime isn't doing so well.

The amply funded video chat startup has faced a series of setbacks since its debut in June, including executive departures and weak uptake among users. So far, the site only has about 10,000 monthly active users. And the launch event itself, held in NYC, was a star-studded event hampered by glitches.

But Parker tells AllThingsD in an interview that the problems are all part of running a new company and Airtime will have new features that show big things are ahead … Read more

When Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning launched their latest startup this morning -- a social video chat service called Airtime -- you can bet that one person hoping for its success was Parker's longtime pal and onetime business partner, Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg wasn't on hand at the celeb-filled launch in New York City -- though Zuck was spotted on Airtime later in the day -- and this wasn't a Facebook event by any means. But the pitch by Parker, who was Facebook's founding president and still owns a chunk of the newly public company, at times … Read more

Years from now, when our children are grown, we'll tell them we were all online when a single Web site changed the way we use the Internet. Unfortunately, Chatroulette stumbled after racking up more than a million users thanks to a certain part of the male anatomy, but Napster co-founders Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning have teamed up again for a video-chat pivot called Airtime.

Though it's not ready for deployment yet, Airtime is already getting support from celebrities like Jim Carrey, Alicia Keys, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus who can't wait to start a random conversation with a Facebook user online. The service is different from Chatroulette in that it actually protects the eyeballs of its users from "vulgar behavior, sexually suggestive behavior, violence, and animal cruelty". In other words, nobody associated with The 404 will receive an beta invite.… Read more

I have to admit, the new Airtime video chat service looks and feels cool. Certainly, that can be traced to its founders, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning of Napster fame, among other things. Parker wasn't just the cool guy who lured Mark Zuckerberg to the West Coast in "The Social Network." His playlists on Spotify have also become one of my favorite places to find new music, and his spectacles are... well, I'm sure some people like them.

Given this duo's trend-setting credentials, it is with much trepidation that I express my utter bewilderment at how Sean/Shawn could think that anyone actually wants another video chat app trying to force random people to stare at each other and discuss the latest episode of "Mad Men." … Read more

NEW YORK--To launch his new start-up, Sean Parker should have spent less of his billions on celebrity guests and more of it on fixing his technology.

Parker and Shawn Fanning, his ol' partner from the Napster days, today unveiled Airtime, a Web video chat service designed to take up where Chatroulette left off. The launch event was a glitch-filled disaster -- or a marketing coup by Parker.

As he addressed a crowd of journalists and celebrities, Parker's attempt to demonstrate the service was foiled at every turn. Numerous attempts to connect with celebrities via the Web service failed. Not … Read more

NEW YORK -- After months of hype, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning's latest venture, a video chat service called Airtime, launched today.

Airtime has been described as an evolved version of Chatroulette, a video service that randomly matched up people for chatting. The new venture matches people with common interests and social connections in video chat sessions.

It is the latest undertaking from the co-founders of Napster, which helped revolutionize how music was obtained over the Internet. While Napster ultimately faded away, it fundamentally changed how the music industry operated and viewed online content. Parker and Fanning are hoping … Read more