It's not like the man has to start something new. His own news site, Breitbart.com, does huge traffic because it's where all of Drudge's wire report items link to. He also has a video site, and he worked on the launch of the now-successful Huffington Post (though he's since divested—he's a true conservative believer).

Breitbart works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report. The two have remarkably seamless editorial styles, though some feel Breitbart has a lighter touch. More importantly, while Matt Drudge himself rarely speaks to the press or flits about in public settings, Breitbart is actually popular, and even a bit of a real-life schmoozer:

Before we left [a party at the Republican convention], the pundit Jonah Goldberg accused him of being the most popular guy in the room.

At the National Journal party, publisher David Bradley was delighted to finally put a face to the name. “That’s Andrew Breitbart?” he exclaimed. Walking into the Weekly Standard party, a friend from L.A. greeted him. “Have you had a chance to take a shower yet?” joked Steve McEveety, who is Mel Gibson’s producing partner.

Okay big shot! Breitbart is truly Dr. Jekyll to Drudge's Mr. Hyde. And a good man to know. We plan to get a good deal of comedy value out of his new venture.

[NYO]

Lindsay ran squealing to gossip show Access Hollywood, calling her father "out of control" and just sorta, you know, defeating the purpose of telling someone else to rein it in. But later on, Lindsay decided to close the barn door herself and write a "sensible" and thorough blog post, perhaps not realizing that a whole Assateague Island's worth of horses had already escaped. Samantha demurely (as far as "demurely" goes in this festering hellhole of a world) circumvented all the conventional channels and went right to the people first. Via her MySpace blog of course! Lindsay and Sam are not the first people of note to do this, but they are embroiled in some pretty high profile antics, unlike other MySpace celebrity bloggers like the low-profile, dim and withered Courtney Love. Which is to say, right now these girls are pretty famous and wouldn't it be interesting to see someone huge like, say, Katie Holmes, respond to scandal with a humble blog entry?

While it's debatable just how modest and un-self-possessed a blog entry, aimed at the public, about oneself, really is, it's certainly less middlemany and corporate and hungry than going on a television show to air one's delicates. Plus you have control over your own words! (Though, you do run the risk of drunk-blogging.) It may seem suicidal, but it would be fascinating to watch the celebrity-to-civilian relationship develop into a one-on-one internet relationship, completely strangling the gossip industry, which would be forced to just repurpose blog entries that everyone had already read.

I mean cause that's totes not what we do already.

Here are the two interpretations of The Huffington Post that Arianna and company would like you to forget: "left-wing Drudge Report" and "unedited celebrity Livejournal." The increasingly bloated HuffPo still is mostly an unhealthy mixture of those two things, of course, but their ambitions are higher. They have to be, to justify that ridiculous internal valuation. Hence HuffPo Chicago! And, more importantly, HuffPo Living, full of bullshit local-news quality health stories, "how to beat workplace stress" listicles (or often worse: links to those listicles posted elsewhere), alternative medicine quack-bloggers, and other "grab the apolitical old women" content. (To be fair, this shit does fit in well with Arianna's moony guru-filled California lifestyle, just as the media and political sections compliment her strident populism and personal hatred of the establishment press.)

And with entertainment and style sections, HuffPo now calls itself "The Internet Newspaper." Real newspapers across the nation spiral into bankruptcy, but HuffPo's overhead costs are much lower, what with not paying most of their contributors. And also what with not having any original reporting.

The site is still another damn aggregator, curating and linking real work done by traditional newsgatherers. With insane raving commenters, of course. And "blogs" from Nora Ephron. [Three years later and they still call each "post" a "blog." This still drives us insane.] This is the point L.A. Times media writer James Rainey makes in his slightly bitter piece on Arianna and the site. "I confess I'm as charmed and amused by the beguiling Ms. H as anyone," he says, "but also slightly queasy about whether her Huffington Post will ever offer original content and reporting that lives up to the hype and pretty packaging." What, you're not happy with featured content like "One Millenial Speaks Out: Why I'm Enrolling in Culinary School"? [Ed. note: we wuz wrong.]

But, you know, they're still working on that whole original content that will make their site actually worth what they'd like to cash out thing!

Another infusion of capital, $10 million to $20 million, is in the works, Huffington said Tuesday, to hire more reporters and editors and upgrade the site's technology. She would like to beef up political and media coverage and put at least one reporter in each of two dozen cities by the end of 2009.

Yes of course.

Still. How does the "HuffPo, even if it's not worth $200 million, is still a hot commodity that you should buy for a lot of money" story keep afloat? How the hell did that $200 million number get traction in the first place? Ken Lerer, the quiet, New York-based co-founder and Chairman, certainly helps. He's got business acumen and influence, yes, but the guy also founded a PR firm once upon a time. Nina Monk's Fools Rush In, her history of AOL/Time Warner, illustrates Lerer's ability to work "with" the press:

Hah. That's the co-founder of that strident defender of media independence and transparency the Huffington Post reveling in how well he tricked the media into loving a white-collar criminal.

Specifically, city manager Joseph Tanner added one widely-read local blog as well as the city paper to the list of sites inaccessible from city servers. Both of which like to write about how the stupid city manager has bankrupted the town, coincidentally:

"We blocked these because they are political in nature," Tanner said. "We blocked them because one is an anti-bankruptcy site and the other is a rag of a newspaper."

Now access to the paper has been restored, but city employees can't read the paper's message boards. That'll teach em. The two "join a list of pornography, social networking, gambling and hate sites that are already banned."

[via Romenesko]

Who is he?

Tucker Max is, essentially, a born asshole who managed to parlay that asshole-ness into fame. The wonders of the internet. He went to the University of Chicago and Duke Law School, and has spent his life since graduation relating stories about himself being drunk and hooking up with girls. Throw in some poop jokes and random destruction of property, and you have Tucker's entire oeuvre.


His stories got extremely popular online in the early '00s, thus his ensuing internet fame, book deal, and movie deal. A 20-year-old reading his stories would reasonably consider him a passable writer with a good sense of humor and some awesome adventures. A 30-year-old reading him would reasonably consider him a juvenile prick who did all the same stuff that everybody else did when they were young and crazy, but never got enough sense beaten into him by life to stop being an idiot.

Tucker is 32.

What's wrong with that?

"My mom told me when I grew up I could be anything I wanted. So I became an asshole," Tucker writes. His life goal is "To be a celebrity that gets paid to get drunk, act like an asshole, and get drunk some more." Okay, fine. But his self-esteem is predicated on the idea that being an asshole is cool, and anyone who objects is not gonzo enough to worry about.

No. Hunter Thompson was gonzo. Tucker Max is just...an asshole. We're just pointing out exactly how much of an asshole he is, so we assume he's not upset about it.

He's kind of racist, he's probably scared to death of women who aren't self-loathing, he thinks he's a far better writer than he actually is, he talks tough to little guys while hiding behind a friend to make himself feel powerful, and just about everyone who's dealt with him in person—from employees to coworkers to shock jocks—thinks he's a prick. None of which would be that important if he hadn't positioned himself as some sort of heroic rebel. There's a time when being an asshole goes from being funny to being repulsive; that time was many, many years ago for Tucker Max. But he forgot to change.

His stories aren't really that crazy, either. Ninety-eight percent of frat guys in America have all the same pastimes. Do some different shit, bro.

Why does anybody care?

It's a mystery! We would have stopped writing about Tucker Max long ago were it not for the massive outpouring of public interest. Our theory is that everyone has met a Tucker Max or two in their lives; that loud ass guy at the bar hitting on the dumbest, drunkest girl and annoying everybody else in the place, and telling exaggerated stories about it for the next six years, bro. Nobody likes that guy.

But please notify us if you detect his awesomeness.





[All previous Tucker Max coverage]

The actors at work (Tucker character in white t-shirt):

Tucker and a rapt crowd:

Drew Curtis' experience:

I spent three days on set, here's my take on things.

Tucker is completely out of control. As he explained it to me, he's
spent so much of his life not having to report to anyone that it's
killing him having to work with other people. Judging from the
agitation I'm seeing, that's an understatement. The first day I was
there, Tucker and Nils (the other screenwriter guy, who's really the
brains behind the operation) were in a heated argument in the corner. I
asked Nils what it was about, he tried to downplay it. But from what I
saw personally, this is a normal occurrence for Tucker.

Nils tells me that the actor playing Tucker, Matt, who really seems to
have his shit together, is the complete opposite of Tucker (super nice
guy, etc etc). I've spoken with Matt a few times and he really couldn't
be nicer to a guy who's only got about 3 lines. Bob Gosse, the director,
is the brains behind it and seems to butt heads with Tucker pretty much
constantly.

Tucker apparently thinks that the actor playing him has to actually be
him in real life. Or something. I have no idea what the deal is. To
me it looks like Matt's doing a fantastic job. I think Tucker's just a
control freak. He interferes constantly with the acting, the directing,
even sometimes the lighting. He doesn't know shit about any of this
stuff.

The sad thing is apart from him this is a really good group, who all
seem to have their shit together. My previous experience with filming
is limited to a few episodes of FarkTV that I was in. That was pretty
much 6 guys and a handicam. There's a full film crew out here, easily
100 folks working just on logistics. I was kinda surprised, I figured I
was gonna see 6 guys and a handicam. It's a full blown production.

The actors are doing a great job with the material. And speaking of
which, I read the previous articles about the movie on Gawker. The
script does read pretty lame, but the main actors are delivering it
extremely well. It all sounds very natural. I think also that this
pretty much isn't a movie the Gawker demo is going to like anyhow.
NASCAR-loving fart-joking middle America will eat this stuff up. If
this succeeds it will be in spite of Tucker and not because of him.

[Previous Tucker Max coverage. Please note the relative balance of this post.]

everything in me says not to engage this question, but sheila [ed. note: not our Sheila] you should know that i haven’t slept more than 5 hours in recent memory. and please try to imagine how it would be if every aspect, every second, every thought, every moment of your life felt like it was conceivably part of your ‘work’. you speak of clubbing? dining? hamptons? my god the hamptons? the truth is that even my weekend in bedford wasn’t entirely restful because i still felt ‘on duty’ because i knew i’d be writing about it. and nothing i do when i’m off right now will be entirely ‘vacation’ either. my laptop is with me wherever i go, and i’m always in ‘blog’ mode. and that’s okay. i love this and i want to do it. this is what i’ve chosen to do with my life.

Fuckin A right. We can only imagine.

this misfit thing? my weight was a physical manifestation of being a misfit but i’ve been a misfit my entire life. the only thing i can do–the only thing i know how to do–is write about people, places, things, experiences. past, present, future. Be the ultimate narrator.

God forgive me for covering this.

[Emily Brill]

PRWeek (my old employer) is having a tournament of PR blogs, and the PR blogosphere hasn't been this excited since some shit happened with Apple's PR department about some gadget one time, probably! Thanks to his campaign of vote-trolling spam, Kerr's spitballed blog about license plates and delis defeated PR tech nerd/ Edelman blogger god Steve Rubel's Micropersuasion, and Kerr is taking the opportunity to tell Edelman—the Wal-Mart-flacking superfirm that surely makes Kerr's annual income in about an hour—that they suck the big one:

Hi everybody:

I just wanted to give you all a very sincere thank you for taking the time and clicking through to vote for my blog at PR Week's blog competition last week.

Amazingly enough, my PR Rock and Roll blog beat Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion blog by a vote of 65% to his 35%. Just to put this in perspective — Rubel is Edelman Worldwide's Internet guru with 2,200 Twitter followers, a long running blog, a periodic column in Ad Age and an invitee to many conferences.

I have to PAY to get into my conferences, 30 people follow me on Twitter, my blog has been around for two months and the only column I have is the one holding up the side of my house! :)

Believe when I tell you that I was waiting for an avalanche of votes to come in for Rubel and turn the tables on me, but it shockingly never came. I think the fact that Edelman's other competing blog got crushed may be an indication of what people think about that company?

So I thank all of you so much for taking to the time to vote.

I am on to Round Two beginning Wednesday, and we're up against something called Communication Overtones. I'll be asking for your vote again (or votes, if you have access to more than one computer), as we stumble on to victory through the social media underworld!

THANKS.

Drew

Ha, you just gonna sit back and take that, Edelman? Let's hope this starts all sorts of undercover sniping to us that we can write about.

[In fairness, Drew Kerr's blog is probably more entertaining than Steve Rubel's for the average reader.]

The scene: Tucker is sitting next to an FBI agent on a plane, swapping stories:

Yeah…this guy is fucking cool. THIS is the type of person that deserves to sit next to me. I decide to tell him Embassu Suites part of The Austin Road Trip Story, and he loves it. He comes back with this one about his exploits with the US Border Patrol:

Agent Jones “I thought I was bad ass until I hung out with those guys. They are unbelievable. One time I was out with them right at to the border. There is a big fence with concertina wire and what not all along this stretch, but the Coyotes had cut a hole in it—”

I interrupted him.

Tucker “What is a Coyote?”
Agent Jones “They are the guys who smuggle illegals back and forth over the border. Anyway, the Coyote was smuggling about a hundred Tonks through the hole, and—”

I interrupted him again.

Tucker “What is a Tonk?”
Agent Jones “Oh—that’s what Border Patrol calls illegal immigrants who have made it into the US. They can’t call them ‘wetbacks’ or ‘spicks’ because obviously those are racially charged names, and ‘Mexican’ isn’t accurate since a lot of illegals are not from Mexico, so they say ‘Tonk.’ They call them that because it’s the sound made when you hit them on the head with a Mag-Lite.”
Tucker “HOE-LEE-SHIT.”
Agent Jones “I told you those guys were nuts. Anyway, so there we are, four trucks on this hill like 200 yards from the hole in the fence. We are totally blacked out, wearing night vision goggles and we can clearly see the Coyote hustling about a hundred Tonks through the fence. The Border Patrol guys wait until all of them are through the hole and about 50 yards into our side, when all four trucks simultaneously turn on all their spot lights and sirens. Of course, the illegals shit themselves and bust ass back to the border…and in the darkness, they all run right into the concertina wire. It was a fucking mess. Some of them did not make it.”
Tucker “You have to be kidding me.”
Agent Jones “Nope. You think our force continuum is loose? These guys shoot anything they want. You should see their situation reports for deaths. They’ll take out guys with rifles at 100 yards and write in the report, ‘Subject was threatening agent with a rock.’ It’s a joke.”

I get off the plane and part ways with Agent Jones, who is officially in my Awesome Guy Hall of Fame. Riding a great buzz, basking in genius slick maneuver that got me into first class, and having just heard some hilarious stories, I head to the gate for my Newark to Nantucket connection in a great fucking mood.

[Previously. Tucker would like you to know that he has several fans, thank you. ]

If you can write three concise, timely and relevant posts each week in your topic of choice, then we want to hear from you. Just picture it now: your name in lights all over your city. Your mom will be so proud.

Oh, and we'll pay you for it. A little at first, but as your page views grow over time, so will your ability to make more.

Sound good? Then click the Apply Now button below. We'll ask you some questions and get some information we need to process your application, including the city in which you'd like to contribute and the category you think is most relevant. Not sure? Pick one and we can work with you later on getting it right. For example, if you want to be the Yoga Examiner in Des Moines, you will choose your edition: Des Moines and your category: Fitness. Your topic may have appeal in more than one category, but choose the one you think it fits into best.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future of media: today the Yoga Examiner in Des Moines is spamming you with Digg requests, tomorrow... oh, wait, this is the present of media, right here in New York.

(Also, they are not bloggers. "They are not bloggers, but Examiners, which means they look closely at topics and examine every aspect of them." Ok then.)

The promotional campaign kicks in next week so get excited! Get particularly excited if you're a traditionally paid staffer at an Anschutz paper (all six of you guys!), 'cause this seems like a dangerous experiment.

He's a cheapskate.

Last week we noted how Tucker scoffed at a former blogger who wondered why he only made $82 for six months of work. Other employees tell us the standard pay for Rudius bloggers is somewhere in the $80/ quarter range, with one noting "I got just a tiny bit more than that when my site was doing really well." Sweet. So Rudius must be making a lot of money.

You work hard for the money.

One Rudius employee was ordered by Tucker to move to a different, more expensive city because Tucker thought that they could better do their job elsewhere. Once the employee had gone to the trouble of packing up and moving and finding a new, more costly apartment, we hear, their pay was reduced to almost nothing. Which seems like the standard Rudius pay rate, now that we think of it.

He's not popular with publishers.

We hear that at least one book agent quit working with Tucker because he flaked out on book proposal deadlines. (Not true? Email us!)

He's not popular with the bloggers that work for him at Rudius.

The emails we've received from disgruntled bloggers alone are ample evidence of this. He attracts bloggers he's interested in with the promise of writing for a wider audience—though, as you can tell by their pay, not necessarily more money. But when bloggers tire of Rudius and leave the fold, we hear, they are bizarrely wiped from existence in Tucker Max's world:

If an author leaves the site, the circumstances are never discussed. Not even on the message boards. It's reminiscent of some 1984 thought-crime type thing. The author is simply never mentioned again, the site stays up and repeated questions about "what happened" are ignored.

He's vindictive.

Those who have worked with Tucker say he's very protective of his "image," such as it is. We hear that his failed appearance on Opie and Anthony is a very sore point. This sensitivity manifests itself in both the disappearing of his fallen disciples as mentioned above, and in an atmosphere in which Tucker Max sycophants feel that harassment of detractors is a way to win approval. One blogger, Violent Acres, wrote a Tucker Max parody a couple of years ago. This resulted in 70 harassing phone calls from a crazed Tucker fan in a single weekend—and we hear the harassment is still ongoing, though the blogger has filed a police report.

Is it Tucker's fault that he has a crazy fan? Not necessarily. But it is Tucker's fault that he expressed his discontent with a cast member on his movie by taking a big crap in the toilet in the guy's trailer, taking a photo of it (do not click that link), and then blogging about it.

Can't wait till the movie comes out!

[Read all previous Tucker Max coverage here. Anybody else with Tucker stories, email us.]

Deceiver, July 31:

Who is this guy?

I think we might be able to find out. If you go to the Google cache of MargaretSweet.com, which is the site for an astrologer named, aptly enough, Margaret Sweet (who’s also a friend of Hunter’s), there’s a page called “Helpful Dudes.” But despite the plural, apparently there’s only one dude who Margaret Sweet considers helpful:

Robert (Bob) McGovern - Healer

Bob McGovern is an intuitive who has worked as a healer since 1988. He works with energy in the area of the emotional fields. He uses philosophy, psychology and the intuitive to find resolutions that move people back into alignment with the universe and into a place of peace, harmony and joy.

Bob uses the intuitive to help people with a variety of life issues, including relationships, career and health. His knowledge of the past and the future helps people find balance in the present. He is able to separate out surrounding negative energy, which allows people to have a clearer perception of their own options and choices. He works to empower people so that they can respond to the challenges of daily life with greater discernment and fuller understanding.

That really does sound intuitive, doesn’t it?

The “Helpful Dudes” page also lists McGovern’s Santa Barbara phone number and mailing address, which are current as of June 12, but I don’t think it’s good netiquette to give out that sort of info in blog posts.

NYT, August 10:

But little is known about Mr. McGovern, who is 64, according to records, and lives with his wife in a modest ranch-style home a few miles from downtown Santa Barbara. The Web site Margaretsweet.com, which promotes spirituality and New Age practices, recently carried a brief biography of Mr. McGovern, describing him as “an intuitive” and “a healer since 1988” who had worked “with energy in the area of the emotional fields.” The biography is no longer on the site.

“He uses philosophy, psychology and the intuitive to find resolutions that move people back into alignment with the universe and into a place of peace, harmony and joy,” the site said. “Bob uses the intuitive to help people with a variety of life issues, including relationships, career and health.”

The description of Mr. McGovern, posted in a section called “Helpful Dudes,” also said he tried to empower people so they could deal with the challenges of everyday life with greater understanding.

“His knowledge of the past and the future helps people find balance in the present,” it said. “He is able to separate out surrounding negative energy, which allows people to have a clearer perception of their own options and choices.”

Deceiver was steadily working this story long before the Times printed one word. All it takes is a one-sentence credit to avoid these things. Play fair.

[Deceiver]

A year ago, the boa-sporting Touby sold Mediabistro.com for $23 million. But lots of other people had smaller stakes in that company, so Touby walked off with a significantly smaller amount of cash than the total purchase price. She can't even afford to move out of her sixth-floor walkup! Meanwhile, Levy can now afford to buy as many Daily Candy-endorsed trinkets as she wants, forever until the end of time and beyond.

Still, Touby and Levy are the two most cash-rich media-centric internet entrepreneurs NYC has thus far produced. And they're both women! Is that notable? Not yet, but if Arianna Huffington decides to sell the HuffingtonPost for an ungodly sum and turn Republican again, it will make three, and an official trend. Until that time it means nothing.

[More about Levy's privileged family background at CityFile]

Excuse me? Did you write the email below, or am I seeing things? Is this a joke?

Have you let the very small amount of fame—that I am almost entirely
responsible for—really go that much to your fucking head that you
think you can talk to me that way?

If you don't like our arrangement, if you don't like that fact that I
found you as a complete nobody doing nothing and have given you the
opportunity to reach the world, then you can go back to where you were
when I found you.

In fact, thats a good idea. You go ahead and go your own way. Let's
see how you do when you don't have anyone to blame but yourself.

Tucker's advice to Woods on how to make more money? An "offer to 'let' me drop out of college and become a prison guard so I could make another $100 writing for a different Rudius site."

• Google: WebsiteOutlook value: $1.2 billion. Market cap: $153 billion.
• Daily Candy: WebsiteOutlook value: $112,000. Just sold for $125 million.
• Amazon.com: WebsiteOutlook value: $75 million. Market cap: $33 billion.
• Ebay: WebsiteOutlook value: $134 million. Market cap: $33 billion.
• Mediabistro: WebsiteOutlook value: $459,000. Sold for $23 million. Then again, [joke].

[via Mental Floss]

"At the seminar 'How to Take Names and Be Taken Seriously as a Political Blogger,' many women said that their male colleagues and major media groups tended to ignore them, and to link to them less often (unless they are Arianna Huffington). They pointed to the Netroots Nation gathering (formerly known as Yearly Kos) for politically progressive bloggers, occurring that same weekend in Austin, Tex.

"[Lisa] Stone, one of the BlogHer founders and a former journalist who has produced blog networks for HBO and E! television, said that like other women at the conference, she was disappointed at the scheduling conflict [...]

"Other prominent female bloggers who did not attend the BlogHer conference agreed that there are unique challenges that women in the blogosphere face.

“'Women get dismissed in ways that men don’t,' said Megan McArdle, an associate editor at The Atlantic Monthly who writes a blog about economic issues. She added that women are taught not to be aggressive and analytical in the way that the political blogosphere demands, and are more likely to receive blog comments on how they look, rather than what they say.

"A few months before last year’s conference, Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger, received death threats from commenters on a variety of blogs. It prompted a flurry of discussion at BlogHer about whether women were the targets of particularly vituperative online attacks." [NYT]

So it's official. The world of blogs is garbage. But, at least it's gonna die.

From: "Pierce, Tony"
Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT
To: [XXX]
Subject: john edwards

Hey bloggers,

There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.

If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask

Keep rockin,

Tony

Sigh. It's maybe not as bad as it seems, but yes, asking people not to mention it because of poor sourcing even seems to prohibit mentioning, like, that you think the sourcing is bad. Though, uh, they already have blogged about it. And, yes, newspaper-affiliated blogs are held to the standards of the publication they represent, generally, so if the Times itself doesn't want to sully itself with this story, it's understandable that they'd ask their bloggers not to mention it (further).

Of course maybe—maybe!—the papers are working on reporting their own followup stories? They do that all the time when the tabs scoop them. Like with Lara Logan! And until they finish their own pieces, they tend not to acknowledge the stories at all.

Or maybe everyone loves Elizabeth Edwards so much that they've convinced themselves this isn't newsworthy, even if true. Sigh. We'd all love the media to learn lessons from its misbehavior during, like, the Lewinsky thing, but what we meant by that was reporting with more nuance and respect for our intelligence not not reporting it at all.

• "And lastly, business (and life) isn’t an “academic exercise”. It’s real – not theory or concept… not a fictitious name posted on a blog, but instead something very real and measured. Real business – real life – real dollars and cents. There are many who can criticize and nitpick which is easy… but working hard every day and building is a hell of a lot harder."

  (Is that an apology for this? Probably not.)

• "What is it that a brand can do to create enough mystique that there are pre-orders? Clearly Steve Jobs seems to have figured this out… I had the question myself this past Saturday during my 7 AM morning jog, when I saw tens of people lined up outside my local UWS movie theatre waiting for Batman."
• "Clients who need global reach can and should indeed get it, but not as a cooker cutter, but instead on a case by case basis."
• "The cure-all for the inflation problem in the ‘70s was that women went to work to supplement family income.

  [A client] said that, today, with 80-90 percent of women working, we no longer have a solution as simple as the one 30 years ago. So now, how can the economy get better; by sending our children to work? Surely not!
  Hence, the crisis facing today’s families as the economy struggles"

• "Every day of the week, I tell employees go out, create and do. It’s ok to occasionally make mistakes. Be passionate, care and try. Don’t over think. Do."

And our bonus tip for success: Learn how to write.

[Counterpoint, from Ronn's blog: "With very, very few exceptions, to say that I vastly disagree would be an understatement."]

1. "Magical Binder"

If you ever tried to write on a three-ring binder in your lap, you know how annoying it is when it keeps folding up, and possibly falling between your legs. Chuck's idea: "I don't have all the plans drawn up, you will have to spend the half hour figuring out the best way to make this a reality, but someone should produce a three ring binder that locks open, creating a rigid plane of productivity."

2. "Sex Sells Stuff"

The energy drink market is crowded with competitors, and the big players like Coke seem to have it on lock. How to even the playing field for smaller energy drink companies? Chuck's idea: "Product placement in pornographic films."

3. "Deep Fried Gold."

Fried foods offer restaurants a healthy profit margin, because a lot of their bulk is just made up of grease and fry material. Chuck's idea: "A restaurant that only sells deep fried nuggets/bite sized morsels of food. The nuggets are sold by the pound, and everything is the same price per pound. The customer wants a pound of deep fried okra or a pound of deep fried chicken nuggets, it costs the same."

If anyone does invent any of these, give us a cut too, for directing you to his site.

[Ideas By Chuck, first spotted at Adrants]

The blog, TellZell.com, got a sympathy writeup in the NYT this weekend. And while it has some fire in it, it's ultimately a sad relic of the once-mighty newspaper industry. A recent post, for example, contains a bunch of farewell letters from Tribune staffers:

Perhaps I hid behind the smallness of my cog's place in the big machine here, or the fact that I worked in what is perhaps the best photo journalism department in the nation kept me from feeling too worried, but with the loss of talent over the last year or two and the seeming lack of any vision in regard to the future of true journalism (other then to hold to the cliff's edge for as long as possible), I feel that I need to say something, however insignificant it may be.

I'll add to the chorus of goodbyes with an adios y un dicho de mi abuelita: "No hay un mal que por un bien no viene."

The Times literally changed my life. I came here as a musician who occasionally wrote and I'm leaving as a guy looking for work as a writer (not that I, the son of a composer, could ever stop being a musician). I'm proud of having contributed to this paper.

SAD. It really is a quality blog, if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately its only chance of impacting Sam Zell is... well, there's no chance.

[TellZell.com]

Excerpted from a triumphant email from Krucoff to Gessen:

Now, to be honest, my original plan for the book was to burn it upon pick-up at Gawker HQ (preferably right there in the office using Denton's evil eye laser), then stuff the ashes in an urn, mark it with "pussy" and mail it to you.

Dramatic, huh?

Two things dissuaded me from that: 1) I was reminded of the ugly history of book burning and how Jew-on-Jew desecration wouldn't serve anyone's cause. 2) More importantly, I remembered that *I* am the pussy. There's no way I would actually go through with that. After studied consultation, I concluded you were right on all points in our previous exchange. If we were Facebook friends, I would send you a "You Win!" sticker if such a thing were available in their virtual marketplace.

Instead, Krucoff's current plan is to offer the priceless ($890) book as a door prize at this soup kitchen benefit next Wednesday. And Gessen agreed to do his part, saying:

Sure, I'd be glad to come. We should consult the Talmud—or, failing that, Jewcy.com—as to whether a book can be offered to charity twice, but otherwise I'll be happy to explain how I replaced the Crimson Sports Grille with the 4th Quarter Bar.

Although I think they should charge a lot more than $10 at the door.

Ha, YES WE DO TOO.

The outcome of our saga: An $890 donation to the New York Homeless Coaliton; The opportunity for even more charity, if Krucoff is able to convince the small, effete sliver of New York society that would actually desire to own this obscure volume to come out to a soup kitchen benefit next week; And, most importantly, an odd and short-lived sense of unity among fake enemies on the fake internet arguing about fake writing and stuff, which is how we sum up the culture war.

Never again say that Keith Gessen hasn't accomplished something good.

[Pictured, Krucoff enjoying his new prize on the Gawker office toilet. The backstory to all this is here. Andrew Krucoff's blog is here. Info on the soup kitchen even is here. The most important Tumblr of our time is here.]

[via Kanye's very own personal blog]

Deleted by 5WPR:

In July 2008, his firm 5WPR was proven to have impersonated critics of a client and to have made phony comments on a blog in other people's names. The firm at first denied the allegations, then blamed the phony comments on an intern it claimed was fired. It was soon proven that the phony comments were in fact made from the offices of 5WPR as well as from the home of a Senior Vice President for the firm named Juda Engelmayer. Engelmayer claimed that the alleged renegade intern operated from his home as well as the office without his knowledge. The coverup soon unraveled and Torossian issued a statement acknowledging his firm's unethical practices. At least one person who was impersonated by 5WPR has stated his intention to sue the firm. It remains to be seen whether any criminal charges can or will be brought against Engelmeyer, Torossian or anyone else at 5WPR. http://www.forward.com/articles/13759/

[via Failed Messiah]

[TVNewser]

Dear Joe,

Hope you are well! How will Brangelina tote around their new twins this August? It certainly won’t be in two separate carriages.

With the widespread use of fertility drugs and an increase in women having children later in life (average age is now 31), twins — and children born in quick succession — are born in greater quantity now more than ever. But how is the market responding to this trend? And what are the tools out there to help parents deal with two tykes … and deal with them in style?

In a recent People Magazine spread of J.Lo and her newborn twins, Jenny from the Block and husband Marc Anthony were photographed outside their NJ mansion, each pushing an old-fashioned pram. Are Jen and Marc really going to each push a huge stroller around town every time they want to take the kids out? Probably not. Several years ago, Phil & Ted’s, the premiere maker of juvenile products, introduced the first in-line stroller; and this year updated it to include a handbrake and sleeker, chicer look, which has become a favorite of Gwyneth Paltrow and Brooke Shields. Sales of in-line strollers have quadrupled in the last few years as parents have become fed up with the struggle to fit cumbersome double strollers through doors and in to elevators. (Look for the J.Lo prams on eBay).

Phil & Ted’s, which is the Apple of juvenile products launching 10 new products a year that ameliorate the quality of life for parents, also produces a Traveller, which is a playpen/sleep solution that sleeps two newborns; and -– in fact -– doctors recommend that newborn twins sleep together in the first few months. Smaller (and less expensive than a crib) the Traveller is lightweight and portable. In fact, Phil & Ted’s is the only fully diversified juvenile products manufacturer and boasts the highest profitability per square foot for retailers; and at just fourteen years old, Phil & Ted’s has an annual growth rate of about 120%, which is expected to treble in the next few years.

Children have become fashion accessories to parents who take them out and show them off not only in the park, but also in restaurants, chic resorts, and places that used to be the bastion of couples; which necessitates chic accoutrements to make them more mobile, like strollers, portable cribs and playpens. As our cultural trends change and evolve, it is interesting to examine how the market responds to the needs of new parents by producing innovative, new products that respond to every touch point in a parent’s day.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Best
Amanda

[Executive Suite]

The WSJ speaks to Costas about his HBO show today, and the entire first half of the article is Costas' obligatory rehash of Bissinger's tirade. I'm sure he will never tire of discussing it! And he has obviously perfected his equivocation on the issue by now:

"The truth," says Mr. Costas, "is that this issue was a powder keg waiting to explode somewhere, and ours just happened to be the match that set it off. I think Buzz realizes he did a disservice to the journalistic standards he was claiming to uphold by jumping on Will that way. At the same time, it's easy for many of those in the blogosphere to dismiss Buzz's outburst as representative of the objections the mainstream sports media has to the excesses of the Internet.

Interesting. Any further "on the one hand, on the other hand" formulaic statements of diplomacy you'd like to make, Bob?

"Put it this way: Though I would have preferred more light and less heat on the subject, I think we did a service by putting the issue out there to be discussed. And it won't be the last time that we'll be discussing it. Next time we'll be better prepared. For now, I'll leave it at this — though Buzz is a friend, those who suggest that he was expressing my views on sports blogs are wrong." His own feelings about the Internet, say Mr. Costas, echoing Alan Ladd's gunfighter in "Shane" on the subject of his weapon, is that "it's just a tool. No better or worse than the person using it."

Then he describes his next show, which sounds incredibly boring in comparison.

[WSJ]

Back when Calacanis' Weblogs Inc was competing for traffic and attention with Gawker Media, Jason basically led to the creation of Gawker Comments. Our publisher, Nick Denton, never cared for comments. Too much noise. Too many amateurs. Spam. But Calacanis' Engadget had comments, and they helped that site's traffic. "A blog is not a blog without comments," Jason used to say. Now, though?

Why should we all build our homes and give residence to the trolls under them? Comments on blogs inevitably implode, and we all accept it under the belief that "open is better!" Open is not better. Running a blog is like letting a virtuoso play for 90 minutes are Carnegie Hall, and then seconds after their performance you run to the back Alley and grab the most inebriated homeless person drag them on stage and ask them what they think of the performance they overheard in the Alley. They then take a piss on the stage and say "F-you" to the people who just had a wonderful experience for 90 or 92 minutes. That's openness for you... my how far we've come! We've put the wisdom of the deranged on the same level as the wisdom of the wise.

Hah. An about-face! Look what YOU ANIMALS did to him! Jason Calacanis is gone off the net, like so many others before him, because commenters are mean. And also homeless and drunk. From the wisdom of crowds to, as Jason later says: "For the record, crowds are really frackin' stupid and to put your stock in crowds is about as bright as putting your faith in a dictator." Harsh! But definitely in tune with the current internet zeitgeist.

Because he's not the only one! Emily Gould shut off comments! Most Tumblrs are comment-free!

But the personal blog comment-retreat comes too late, as most professional outlets, like print magazines and newspapers, now allow comments everywhere. And they're nearly all terrible! Even when they're heavily moderated, as they are at the New York Times, the signal-to-noise ratio seems to get worse every day. What the hell is to be done? Some Gawker Media editors semi-regularly express their barely hidden desire to BAN EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU and go back to the glorious olde days of undemocratic blogging-as-broadcasting, not as conversation. We're sure that sentiment exists at every media outlet that currently hosts the unhinged rantings of conspiracists and cranks.

But the genie's out of the bottle. Commenters are here. And the internet does seem, these days, to belong to them. Treat her kindly. We'll just keep posting funny pictures for you to riff on.

By claiming he had an intern at his Lower East Side apartment at 10 pm on a Tuesday night, apparently. Said JTA:

A person identifying himself as the intern in question called JTA Thursday, but refused to provide a full name. The caller said that he posted the fraudulent comment to the JTA site using a computer at Engelmayer’s apartment during a get-together there Tuesday night, but without Engelmayer’s knowledge.

Now would be a good time to recap the various levels of incompetence in this whole 5WPR scheme:

• After being hired for its internet PR expertise, 5WPR attempts to plant fake comments from both supporters and (most deviously) critics of the kosher slaughterhouse on various websites.
• This scheme unravels because the company doesn't bother to leave its office or mask its IP address when posting.
• This scheme also unravels because the company misspells the name of a rabbi when signing a comment in that rabbi's name.
• CEO Ronn [sic] Torossian claims an "investigation" is under way to find out which of his employees spun a laughably incompetent Web of amoral deception in the service of flackery. This time.
• VP Engelmayer, assigned the slaughterhouse account, blames an unnamed, unpaid "intern" for the fraud. Says this "intern" has been fired.
• This story starts to unravel because, as blog Failed Messiah notes, the first two impersonation posts appeared in February, "well before any summer interns were working at 5W." Ahem.
• The story unravels further when two fraudulent Web comments are traced to Engelmayer's apartment.
• "Intern" calls to say he was hanging with Engelmayer at his apartment Tuesday night and slipped, undetected, onto Engelmayer's computer to do some impromptu character assassination, so don't blame Engelmayer because Engelmayer did not do it.
• Probably next: Caller comes forward as a paid shill. Engelmayer said he hired him on behalf of the intern, who is deathly afraid of the press, because that's the sort of person who takes an unpaid PR internship.

[JTA,