Gawker: Valleywag

British Secret Agent Chief's Wife Outs Him As Speedo-Wearing Nazi Homie On Facebook

Foster Kamer — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:15:09 EDT

British secret agents are supposed to be exponentially smoother than their American counterparts. We get Ethan Hunt, they get James Bond. Except, not, because the chief of MI-6's wife had her Facebook profile set to public. Very public.

Diplomat Sir John Sawers is supposed to be taking over the Secret Intelligent Service (better known as Her Majesty's Secret Service) in October. What kind of information did Lady Shelley Sawers, his wife, let loose on in her Facebook profile?

For starters: their friends! 'Cause it's Facebook, right? Photos show relationships with other diplomats, British actors (don't worry, nobody cool), and family. Family like Lady Sawers' half-brother Hugo Haig-Thomas, a former British diplomat that John Sawers succeeded on his way to the top. Haig-Thomas is "an associate and researcher" of a historian.

Not just any historian, though: Holocaust Denier David Irving. Winner! From Irving's extensive Wikipedia page:

By the mid-1980s, Irving associated himself with the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review, began giving lectures to groups such as the far-right German Deutsche Volksunion, and publicly denied that the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews in gas chambers during World War II.[103] Irving was a frequent speaker for the DVU in the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the relationship ended in 1993 apparently because of concerns by the DVU that Irving's espousal of Holocaust Denial might lead to the DVU being banned.[95] He also alleged that parts of The Diary of Anne Frank might have been forged by her surviving father.

Awesome. Haig-Thomas has noted that he "doesn't necessarily share (Irving's) views," but he sure as hell doesn't condemn them.

What else is interesting? Well, the family likes Liza Minelli, as there's a picture of his wife and daughter re-enacting Caberet. But that's not nearly as interesting as, say, his codename, which was going to be "C" once he started working for MI-6. Read one awesome wall posting: "Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!"

Theater Geeks, you'll appreciate this tidbit on their daughter, of whom there were also several pictures of on Sawers' Facebook profile:

Corinne, 22, a recent Oxford University graduate who is now an aspiring actress...recently began touring with Jenny Seagrove in the play Pack Of Lies, coincidentally about a middle-class household suddenly at the centre of an espionage drama when an MI5 spy turns up at their house.

Finally, location, location, location:

Despite the security implications, Lady Sawers revealed on Facebook the location of the London flat used by the couple and the whereabouts of their three children and of Sir John's parents.

Wow. The problem here, if you didn't notice, was that this guy's supposed to lead up one of the world's two most powerful secret service organizations. And serious secrets - like where the guy lives, who his friends are, who his family is, and what his wife's favorite Liza Minelli musical is - have been exposed (along with his Speedos, which terrorists and enemies of the British State everywhere will, at the very least, get a laugh out of). But politicians on both sides of the aisle in England don't think it's too cute: both liberals and conservatives are calling for his employment with MI-6 to be in question, which is funny, 'cause don't you think they'd just fire him? Eh, the Foreign Secretary doesn't think so:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today dismissed allegations of recklessness. He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: 'It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks.' He added: ‘He was appointed 10 days ago to be the head of MI6; he's an outstanding professional who will do a really good job in an outstanding organisation that does a huge amount for this country'

At least we get to blame the outing of Valarie Plame on dumbasses like Robert Novak, who can't keep a good Beltway secret to themselves when they hear it. This is just piss-poor form. Also, if Chuck Barris can keep it a secret for twenty years and you can't, you've got problems.

MI6 chief blows his cover as wife's Facebook account reveals family holidays, showbiz friends and links to David Irving [Daily Mail]

Should Police Academy Alumni Direct Microsoft Ads? No.

Hamilton Nolan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:34:05 EDT

Microsoft has heard your pleas: it's pulled its "Worst Tech Commercial Ever," which tried to use a puking theme to sell Internet Explorer. And you'll never guess who the director was! You will never guess.

The spots did not come from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Microsoft's edgy ad agency of record. Instead, they were from an agency called Bradley & Montgomery. And they were directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Who said earlier this month:

I think they were trying to do something that was a little less mainstream, and I think that's (what led to) my involvement. Normally the corporate world is very frightened of hiring the dude from Police Academy to direct their stuff

A fear that was well-founded.
[Media Memo]

Google Voice Is Cool, But Do You Need It?

Kevin Purdy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EDT

You've read about the features, you saw the invites going out, but you might be wondering what, exactly, Google Voice could do for you. Here's our guide for the curious and uninvited on whether your phones need some Google juice.

We're not going to explain every feature, quirk, and option in the Google Voice service, which is slowly giving out invites to those who request them. We've already taken a first look at Google Voice, and Google Voice's own Getting Started guide does a nice job explaining the service's ins and outs. We're looking to answer the question we seem to hear most often from commenters, friends, tech pundits, and just about everyone: What would I get out of it?

The wild card: number portability

If the rumors prove true, Google will, at some point this year, allow you to "port," or at least integrate, your existing cell phone number with its service, requiring none of the millions of phone numbers the search giant is supposedly securing. That would eliminate three of the service's biggest barriers to entry:

Having to call Google Voice, and then dial a number, to place a call "with" your Google number, so it shows up on caller ID as such
Having to store and reply to a separate SMS number for each of your contacts so that, again, your Google number shows up
The time and hassle of getting your contacts to call you at your new Google Voice number, despite the fact that your old numbers still "work"

If number portability/integration became a fact, we'd likely have to adjust this list of might likes/might nots, but for the time being, we're hoping to answer a few questions based on tests of the service in its invite-only phase.

You might like Google Voice if you:

Regularly use two or more phones: If you've heard about one feature of Google Voice, or its GrandCentral predecessor, this is it—and for good reason. Google excels at giving you one phone number for others to have, then letting you fine-tune which phones that number rings to an OCD level. If you want your wife to ring through to your work line between 9am and 5pm, but not your chatty, unemployed friend, you can do that. If you want your home landline to ring along with your cell during the hours your carrier charges for minutes, you can do that, too.
Loathe standard voicemail: "Please enter your passcode, followed by the pound sign!" "You have ... two ... new messages. To hear your"—You know what we're talking about. Using cell minutes and precious time just to hear your friend say "Try you again later" is almost as annoying as trying to wipe the voicemail icon off your phone screen. Google Voice makes it easy to play voicemail audio and read semi-correct transcriptions from a single web page, and it's a good bet it'll be integrated into Gmail for even easier access. When you're away from your browser, Google Voice sends voicemail notifications through email or text message, making it easy to know that you really don't need to step outside and call your sister back just to confirm you prefer Diet Dr. Pepper to Diet Coke.
Enjoy text messaging, but not phone keyboards (and fees): For anyone whose friends chide them about short or nonexistent text message replies, this is a game-changing feature. When sent to your Google Voice number, text messages are organized on the Google Voice site like chat conversations, with back-and-forth dialogue and options to reply or mark as read and archive. Writing a new message is also easy—hit "M" or click the SMS button, start typing a name or phone number, then choose the contact and type away. You'll still be charged for texts you receive on your phone, but it can be a real money saver when you're near your plan's limit for the month. Those with iPhones, Android handsets, or other smartphones can also make use of Google Voice messaging on the go with apps like the previously mentioned GV (Android) and GV Mobile (iPhone).
Want better filters on who reaches you, and when: Google Voice has four levels of annoyance resistance available to weary phone hostages. You can activate "Call Presentation" to have every unknown caller say their name to Google's servers, which then call you and ask if you want to take the call. If the annoyance is someone you know, you move them into a particular group (like "Annoyances") and make that group always go to voicemail. If they sometimes call about something important, Google Voice's ListenIn features lets you send them to voicemail, but hear what they're saying and pick up, if necessary. If you absolutely can't get a telemarketer or semi-stalker to take the hint, the video at left explains how you can simply have them hear something that sounds like an old-school disconnect notice.
Are down with Skype-like VOIP calling: Want to make calls over a computer-connected headset and not pay a dime for them? Google Voice allows you to add a phone number from the Gizmo Project and control when it rings through. Make a call through Google Voice's web interface, set it to ring your Gizmo number when it's connected, and the other party just sees your standard Google Voice number—you're effectively making an outbound call for free that Skype and the like would charge you for.
Make a lot of international calls: We haven't done a price comparison, but Google Voice's rates to international landlines and mobile numbers are said to be competitive, and you can call from your own phones without having to hunt down the right calling card.
Record calls regularly (and legally): Just hit the number 4 during a call and Google's robotic queen announces "Call recording on." Right now, it only works with incoming calls, but the finished recording is ready for playing, downloading, or embedding in your Google Voice inbox in a matter of minutes. It's how I recorded my Jonathan Coulton phone interview for later transcribing and audio clip pulling.
Have or want an Android phone: iPhones, BlackBerries, Symbian-based models, and Windows Mobile devices will likely get Google-built apps for integrating Google Voice into their dialing, voicemail, and SMS interfaces. But Android phones already have an impressive third-party app for doing so, Evan Charlton's GV, and would be a pretty good bet on being the first, or at least among the first, platforms to get the Google Voice team's attention. Fully integrated Google Voice means free, conversation-threaded SMS, fewer hassles with your one-and-a-half phone numbers, voicemails that don't require talk time, and much more.

You won't like Google Voice if you:

Rarely use your cellphone and/or text messages: Unless you're that rare breed of VOIP headset lover who doesn't ever talk on a cellphone, there's not a lot to recommend Google Voice to landline-focused folks. Your office's phone system offers (hopefully) most of Voice's features, and residential internet phone providers can fill in the other gaps. It could be a help to those who absolutely won't type out a text on a phone—but, then again, so can email.
Think Google knows too much about you: There's something to be said for breaking Google's personal data monopoly, and the tinfoil hat crowd have a whole new set of worries with Google Voice—your voicemails, calling history, and text messages are, after all, right on Google's servers, for who knows how long. It's not all that different from Gmail—Google breaking one user's trust could collapse the whole system—but it is something to think about.
Dislike Google's Contacts handling: Google Voice uses the same contacts database, so if its auto-inclusion of names you've emailed a few times drives you batty, well, you'll get the same results from Voice's Click2Call auto-completion. Only the names you've stored phone numbers for show up on Voice's dial feature, but we'd like to see a way to set a "primary" number that's the default when you're typing out a name.
Get annoyed at voice delays: Early Google Voice users (myself included) are noticing an audio delay on certain calls. Sometimes it's ever so slight, like a wonky cell phone connection. Sometimes you and the other party are toppling over the ends of each other's sentences. Google is certainly aware of it, but since it's a service that inserts a server as the middleman between parties, there might be an inevitable bit of latency on Google Voice calls, as there is with most international calls. If you've ever switched carriers because of voice quality or connection problems, you might find a new antagonist in Google Voice.
Really don't want to write another "New number" email: As noted above, Google's rumored to be working on offering number portability/integration for Voice. In the meantime, Voice users have to ask their friends, acquaintances, and business contacts to save a new number, figure out how to deal with the stragglers, and, in all honesty, hope the service isn't abandoned by Google anytime soon. If you live and die by your availability and can't stand the idea of being late to return even one call, switching numbers just won't fly. Everyone else has to make the call.

What's the reason you've really dug Google Voice so far, or really want to get in? What features does it still lack, and where does it fall down on convenience? We want to hear your take on this still young service in the comments.

Let's Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:09:26 EDT

The hot new idea among people who think about "journalism," and the sanctity thereof: let's ban linking, on the internet! Let's also ban wheels, in order to save the horse industry. Let's also ban talking about things!

This whole argument is premised on the assumption that we must save newspapers. At the cost of making the internet into an inefficient mess! So Richard Posner, professional smart man and US Appeals Court judge who writes 23,000 words per day, floated the idea of banning links (and more!), so internet cannibals don't keep stealing newspaper content for nothing:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

Periods, Richard Posner. Try them. To break up text. What you may notice here is that Posner proposes banning linking or paraphrasing copyrighted materials. The problem: this is America dude, we say what we fucking want, amirite?

You can copyright a news story, but you can't copyright the news. "The news" just means "things that happen in the world." What would it mean, in practice, to make it illegal to paraphrase a copyrighted news story? Summing up, for example, political events, or a sports controversy, or even a fashion trend, could be interpreted as paraphrasing copyrighted material. So let's ban talking about anything. And banning links will help us make our references even more obscure, by making it impossible for anyone to refer to source materials! Good idea, Posner. This gross oversimplification makes you look none too freedom-loving!

We all know journalism happens only at newspapers. Better to protect them at all costs than to invest in the murky "future."

This idea is supported by a newspaper columnist! Connie Schultz, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer (who's married to a senator, btw, nothing to see here), also touts the idea of giving newspapers a 24-hour injunction on news they post, during which time it's all theirs, and can't be aggregated by others online.

Fine. You can have your injunction. But you can't stop anyone from discussing, and writing about, current events. As they happen. Go read all those "Twitter Generation" stories you guys are always writing! The idea that it's worth crippling the entire free flow of information on the internet in order to add to the bottom line of newspaper companies is prima facie idiotic. I guess you could also help save newspapers by passing a law that everyone has to buy one every day, or by making it illegal for TV news to exist. That doesn't make those things good ideas.

If Bill Gates pledged to make it so computers could not be operated properly until the user could prove they had read today's Cleveland Plain-Dealer that might save a reporter and he is a monster for not doing so, QED.
[Pic: Chronicling America]

'Well-Designed' Orgasms, Voice Mail Important to Twitterati

Ryan Tate — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:52:35 EDT

AT&T failed to give Adam Frucci a sense of childlike wonder about his iPhone; Jimmy Jane's mobile device proved more satisfying to Melissa Gira Grant and Ana Marie Cox damned an internet conference with faint praise.

The Twitterati were discerning customers today.

Gizmodo associate editor Adam Frucci's outgoing voice mail message is about to get really interesting.

AFP's Olivier Knox stumbled onto a fascinating interview.

Gakwer contributor Melissa Gira Grant wrote up a gadget review, on spec.

The New Yorker's Susan Orlean doesn't see Mark Sanford shooting the breeze with, say, Eliot Spitzer; the adulterous politician would apparently run with a more southern crowd.

When it comes to conference proliferation, Air America's Ana Marie Cox really does hate freedom.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Exploiting the Blog-to-Book Bubble: A Guide

Alexia Tsotsis — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:49:08 EDT

Two blogs, Texts From Last Night and Look at this Fucking Hipster, scored contracts at Penguin's Gotham Books imprint in the past week, the latest in an endless series of such deals. Shouldn't you get a piece of the action?

It's not like there's any shame in aiming for a book deal right when you start your blog. As the New York Observer puts it:

These days it seems more and more like people start goofy Web sites practically counting on seeing their stuff between two covers.

If someone's going pay $20 for a bound collection of stale weblog posts, they might as well be yours. Here are some tips for living what seems like the new American Dream:

1. Focus on a hot technology like Twitter or iPhone apps - nothing scares the publishing industry more than a platform that basically makes it irrelevant.

2. Intimidate this shit out of people with your sheer Internet randomness. This worked well for "I Can Has Cheeseburger" and "Chuck Norris Facts," two websites old people do not understand at all.

3. Racial commentary. (Well, it worked for that site about white people — Park Slope's Blognigger still seems to be waiting on his book deal.)

4. Be this guy. (You're next, Bonerparty. The world is watching.)

5. Three words: Stalk Patrick Mulligan: The editor who acquired "Texts" for Gotham, Patrick Mulligan, is like the Ari Gold of Tumblr-to-book deals, responsible for more of these deals than almost anyone else out there: Chuck Norris Facts, I Can Haz Cheezburger, Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle and GraphJam.com the novels are all his doing.

Words of Wisdom from Patrick:

"Not all websites make great books," Mr. Mulligan said in an email. "You have to be confident that you can curate the material in such a way that it still hits its audience while also taking advantage of the book medium. For the books that I've worked on… my aim is that the person in the bookstore who picks up a copy will fall in love with the material the same way as someone who stumbles onto the website."

See you in hell Mulligan.

Worst Tech Commercial Ever, Probably

Ryan Tate — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:46:17 EDT

If Harry McCracken, who has been writing about personal computers for 29 years, says this Microsoft spot is the worst technology commercial ever, he's probably right. Warning: It's also gross.

The ad attempts to sell the new Internet Explorer Web browser on a simple premise: Your husband is probably looking at truly disgusting things on the internet, and this product will help him hide those things, from you.

Another ad in the same series makes even less sense, illustrating how IE helps you alienate your friends with annoying links. And there's this one, which just freaks us out.

These spots are, at least, marginally more rational than the absurdist, quickly-abandoned Jerry Seinfeld commercials for Vista. They just need a nice tagline. How about, "Internet Explorer: Why Not Drag Out Your Dysfunctional, Creepy Relationship a Bit Longer?" For the eighth iteration of Microsoft's browser, that's kind of perfect!

YouTube's Changing of the Guard

Ryan Tate — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:25:38 EDT

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has quietly left his baby behind, moving to a different Google division. Fellow co-founder Chad Hurley might leave too, PaidContent writes. Now comes a more Hollywood future for the video-sharing site.

It's no secret that YouTube needs to make money; its annual losses have been estimated at between $175 million and $471 million. Meanwhile, Hulu may have already matched the ad revenue of YouTube, which is twice Hulu's age, thanks to old-media-friendly content.

The more completely Google breaks with YouTube's past, the easier it will be for CEO Eric Schmidt to cozy up to the movie and TV studios from his new house in Southern California. Who knows, the Hollywood honchos might even forget they once sued the guy.

L.A. Weed Dealer Finally Finds a Use for Twitter

Alexia Tsotsis — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:47:45 EDT

California won't let the gays marry but it does let people micro-blog (medical) drug deals. Meet former Northwestern J-school student Dann Halem, who is building an online business selling weed on Twitter. How is this possible you ask?

Halem, who looks like your average middle class white dude (see pic) is adamantly "not bitter" that he can't survive solely as a journalist, states, "If I wanted to destroy my life, I wanted it to be for something I knew I could sell." Yo society, there's something not quite right when, after an education of $100K-plus, one of the few available job opportunities for an aspiring writer (and maybe even for Twitter itself) is selling something called "Blackberry Kush."

The @artistscollctve Twitter account went up last week and, in the vein of a more #420 friendly Kogi BBQ, the medical marijuana delivery service also boasts "On-Time GPS" and the availability of "green crack." Artists for Access is a "creative non-profit" operating under something called a 501 3c non-profit license, "as far as the law is concerned, we're good."

Technically legal in California, Halem's dicey business model is legit from a state standpoint, but not federally. You can't just call up an get a bag, but knowing the multitudes of dodgy loopholes that exist in the CA medical marijuana policy (i.e. insomnia counts) it's probably not that hard to score a prescription. Line up your doctor's notes ASAP! Because this opportunity may not (probably won't) last.

Bing Upholds Microsoft's Tradition of Stealing Whatever Designs Interest It

Ryan Tate — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:37:13 EDT

Think these screenshots of Microsoft's Bing search engine and travel website Kayak look similar? So does Kayak, and an independent software-copyright attorney contacted by GigaOm. Can you tell which is which?

Bing is on the left; Kayak on the right.

Microsoft guards its own intellectual property fiercely, amassing a hoard of patents, threatening free, competing systems and, as the member of the Business Software Alliance, zealously "auditing" businesses that might be pirating software.

But it's been repeatedly accused of not practicing what it preaches:

Apple sued Microsoft for copying the Macintosh's "look and feel" with Windows; it lost repeatedly in court and settled other claims out of court.
Disk compression company Stac sued Microsoft for purportedly stealing its technology; it won at trial and Microsoft dropped its appeal after agreeing to pay $43 million in patent royalties and invest $40 million in the company.
More recently, Microsoft settled a lawsuit over live gaming technology and lost another over XML technology. "Latest Microsoft Patent Describes Method of Losing Patent Infringement Suits" was the All Things D headline on that last one one.

Celebrity Deaths Ruin Chef's Precious Chicken-Making Opportunity

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:04:11 EDT

The deaths of Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett and Ed McMahon were catastropic... to Tyler Florence's publicity efforts. Also apparently tragic: having to ride to a resort town on a private jet, and the incessant printing of the New York Times.

Some of the Twitterati, it seems, were cranky. Others just overheard cranky people. And still others managed to laugh things off.

You know what's a "tragedy?" The way Food Network chef Tyler Florence's publicity tour is shaping up!

You know what sucks about taking a private jet to the resort town of Aspen? If you're motion-sick Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis, everything.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball found someone who actually finds the New York Times too timely.

The Hollywood Reporter's Matt Belloni posted a facetious nightlife review.

Chris Anderson recognized that Free publicity was the silver lining in Condé Nast colleague Malcolm Gladwell's not-so-friendly review of his book.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

First Sighting of Steve Jobs Officially Back at Work

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:44:23 EDT

Apple won't say whether Steve Jobs was at the office today as part of his official return to the company. But a Valleywag spy spotted the CEO on his company's Cupertino campus. Jobs apparently left early:

I had lunch with a friend at Apple today and as I was leaving the campus I saw Jobs getting into a chauffeured black Lincoln Continental. This was right outside 1IL [Infinity Loop] at about two PM today.

A Lincoln is, of course, not Jobs' usual ride, and the notorious micromanager usually likes to be behind the driver's wheel; his Mercedes is known for turning up in Apple's handicapped parking spots. But Jobs just underwent a liver transplant and is only traveling to the Apple campus a "few days" per week, according to an Apple statement heralding his return to the company today. Presumably, the CEO's health is such that he needs to conserve his energy for activities other than driving, like running a company.

Earlier today, Apple declined to tell Bloomberg News whether Jobs was on campus. The company had good reason to avoid such a discussion: Entertaining that line of questioning might have led to a discussion of Jobs' itinerary and unwelcome question about why the CEO had to leave early, and about his health. More practically, it also would open the company up to endless questions from reporters about where Jobs is on campus that day. Of course, there's a good chance Apple is going to be getting those queries anyway, whether it answers them or not.

Anyone else spot the newly-returned honcho today? We'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE: Last week, Reuters spotted Jobs leaving the campus in a "black car."

UPDATE 2: The original version of that Reuters story last week had Jobs being "driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces."

(Pic: Jobs at a MacBook press announcement on Apple's Cupertino campus in October via Getty)

Condé Nast's Grumpy East Coast-West Coast Feud

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:58:42 EDT

Big Ideas Author Malcolm Gladwell, a Manhattanite of the New Yorker, has issued a smackdown review of Free, Big Ideas Author Chris Anderson, a Berkeleyan of San Francisco's Wired. If that's not provocative enough, Gladwell sounds downright grumpy.

Gladwell begins with a recitation from the May U.S. Senate hearing on the newspaper industry, the one where David Simon spouted nonsense, and the one that has apparently become a sort of media Woodstock, dividing generations in the big ongoing publishing upheaval. Gladwell places himself firmly on the side of the oldies, and draws a tenuous parallel between the hearings and Anderson's book. Both apparently illustrate the stupidity of West Coast reefer hippies like Jeff Bezos and Arianna Huffington, who just hate selling content, or something.

In Gladwell's review, Anderson is constantly making imaginary pronouncements, which make him look like an idiot. He wants to turn the New York Times into Meals on Wheels, run entirely by volunteers! What a jerk. He says a free price is like "magic!" What?? And Anderson said nice things about YouTube, noted spectacular failure:

When you let people upload and download as many videos as they want, lots of them will take you up on the offer... Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each video is "close enough to free to round down" [according to Anderson,] ...a recent report by Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube's bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty million dollars.

Of course, Credit Suisse numbers may well be grossly overstated, and Gladwell doesn't mention that YouTube is expected to take in $241 million in revenue this year, twice one estimate of last year's sales.

Which isn't to say he's necessarily wrong about Anderson's book, or about Google's user-generated content being "crap." But it does show that, if you're looking for a long-term investment, a Free poster child like Google is probably a better place to park your cash than the magazine group where the two money-losingest titles have big fights over who has less of a grip on the future.

The Not-So-Triumphant Return of Steve Jobs

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:29:44 EDT

Steve Jobs is BACK! Oh, he's just stone cold striding into the office, high-fiving people, running marathon meetings, screaming his as... err, wait, actually, did we say "back?" More like backish. The official word:

"Steve Jobs is back to work," chief spokesperson Steve Dowling told CNN. "He is at Apple a few days a week and working from home the other days. We're glad to have him back."

A few days a week? Kind of vague, no? And then working from home, because it's not like Steve Jobs likes to micromanage, or just turn up at people's offices unannounced or roam the halls.

Just to recap the official line on Jobs' health, over time:

First he had a "common bug" and no one should be worried;
Then it wasn't that bad and Steve wasn't going anywhere;
Despite his appearance, Jobs' health wasn't keeping him from doing his job;
Fixing the health issue would be "simple and straightforward" and Jobs atill wasn't going anywhere;
Jobs was taking medical leave, partly because all the talk about his health was a "distraction."
Jobs had a liver transplant and his prognosis was uncertain, but Apple wouldn't acknowledge it.

Now Jobs is back at work, sorta. While no one will begrudge the cancer survivor a part-time schedule while he recovers, no Apple investors except a select few have a sense of what is known and not known about Jobs' health; how encouraging his prognosis is or precisely what risks the next six months carry. Some uncertainty is unavoidable when it comes to human health; but Apple's handling of Jobs' health just creates unnecessary uncertainty for both investors and employees who have more productive things to worry about.

Given Apple's track record, the sanest response for anyone who has to make a decision involving the company or its stock is to assume the official talk of Jobs' return is immaterial (read: untrustworthy) and that Tim Cook is in charge.

It's Spy vs. Spy as Microsoft Mounts Whisper Campaign Against Google

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:07:21 EDT

It's one thing for little nonprofit groups like Consumer Watchdog to hound Google for how it handles privacy and competitors. Much trickier for the company: A large corporation like Microsoft, can afford to whisper in reporters' ears, individually.

It's easy to miss this aside in today's New York Times story about Google's lobbying, which has Microsoft flacks collecting intelligence on closed-door Google presentations, so they could disseminate counter-propaganda in real time:

Microsoft declines to comment on its archrival's efforts. But during Mr. Wagner's presentation to journalists in San Francisco this month, Microsoft P.R. handlers, who had learned the gist of the presentation, were e-mailing reporters offering rebuttals of Google's arguments. Mr. Wagner faced a barrage of pointed questions.

See: The Silicon Valley press corps can ask tough question of tech companies; they just need said questions spoon-fed, via iPhone.

(Pic by Hamed Masoumi)

How Censorship Finally Helped Wikipedia's Co-Founder

Ryan Tate — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:43:26 EDT

Jimmy Wales had an image problem. After bending his online encyclopedia's rules for a lover and, allegedly, for a benefactor, the Wikipedia co-founder faced rebuke and embarrassment. Then the New York Times made him a hero.

How did breaking the rules finally net Wales some good press? The Times disclosed Sunday that Wikipedia helped actively suppress news that a Times journalist had been captured in Afghanistan. If the capture was widely publicized, the paper worried, the reporter would be more valuable to his captors.

Wikipedia editors actively froze out edits reporting the capture, and allowed Timesmen to do the same. The reporter eventually escaped. The ethics of the censorship are debatable. The benefits to Wales are not: The Times depicts him leading the suppression effort, even though a woman named Sue Gardner actually runs Wikipedia. Wales thus re-cements his image as the face of Wikipedia and gets another round of lucrative speaking engagements (he has historically pocketed the fees).

Better still for Wales, he can point his critics to the Times situation as an example of how Wikipedia rules should not be absolute. When you're busy saving journalists, who cares if you bend the rules for some nice young ladies while you're at it?

UPDATE: Wales wrote in to dispute an earlier version of this article, which stated he "nearly lost his job," citing a January Valleywag report that his Wikipedia board seat was renewed just three days before it expired. Wales said "I was never 'almost out of a job' last December" and that there was never "a board struggle and a struggle between me and Sue Gardner."

(Pic by Re: Publica)

How You Could Have Saved Michael Jackson

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:40:05 EDT

The Twitterati were obsessed with the less brilliant Michael Jackson: His most brain-dead lyrics, his worst video moments and his awful neglect at the hands of...you!

New York's Jessica Coen knew how Michael Jackson would have wanted to be remembered.

ABC News' Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent, was basically just watching Michael Jackson videos all day Friday.

Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow blamed Americans for killing Michael Jackson by not paying enough attention to him, and thus never learning that they were paying way too much attention to him.

This would be Kurt Andersen's moment, if only he'd pursued his morbid dream.

BlackBook's Tricia Romano made her own fun.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

How MySpace Humiliates Fired Workers

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:51:48 EDT

MySpace's CEO purportedly keeps his body pretty tight. But he should lay off the weight obsession at work. Owen Van Natta said MySpace was "bloated" when he laid off 400 workers; now they're reportedly called "fat" to their faces.

Says TechCrunch:

MySpace has been holding a number of meetings for staff... during which they've referred to the recently terminated employees as "fat". Unfortunately, some of these "fatty" employees have been present at these very meetings - the company has kept a number of terminated employees onboard through the duration of their contract...

And if that weren't bad enough, workers' final paychecks will bounce, incurring a bank fee and possible overdrafts, since MySpace screwed up its calculations and put a stop payment on the drafts. Hopefully you didn't deposit yours too quickly!

It's a good thing MySpace's business doesn't involve brokering sensitive relationships or allowing people to communicate clearly with one another.

Steven Brill Fails at Customer Service, Too

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:35:07 EDT

Airport-security gimmick Clear is just the latest example of Steven Brill failing investors (see also: Brill's Content, Inside.com, etc. etc.). But this time the mogul is just stone-cold ripping off customers, too, pocketing their half-used $200 membership fees.

It's not that Clear is bankrupt; according to a FAQ on the company website, it's not seeking legal protection from creditors. It's just that right now "Verified Identity Pass, Inc. cannot issue refunds due to the company's financial condition."

Translation: If you think you're legally owed a refund, we're going to make you sue, as we have a "senior creditor" to worry about.

Of course, Clear customers were already used to poor treatment from the company; as software entrepreneur Joel Spolsky points out, Clear required customers undergo detailed background checks, even though this was a pointless waste of time, since the customers ended up having to go through the same security inspection as everyone else (after they cut to the front of the line, the reward for paying $200/year).

Right about now the customers are wishing they had run some background checks of their own. Brill, who left the company in February, says customer data submitted to the company is safe. Probably.

The Deadly Side (For Real) of Twitter

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:17:14 EDT

Twitter won't just give you a black eye; as Flavia Maria Boricea found out, Twitter also kills.

The Romanian teen was way, way too addicted to the microblogging service. Not only was she using it in the bath, she ran down her laptop battery doing so, and then tried to plug the thing into the wall. Reports the Croatian Times:

Flavia's mother... said her daughter had tried to plug the power into the socket with wet hands after the battery had died as she used the device for a lengthy period in her home in Brasov, central Romania... Her only injury was a burn mark on her hand.

The lesson, of course, is to always dry your hands before connecting your electrical Twitter device to a power source and bringing it into a tub of water.

(Pic via ebertek on Flickr)

Michael Jackson Traffic Melts Entire Internet

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:32:27 EDT

Any doubts about Michael Jackson's megastardom should have ended after news of the singer's death tripped up Google and crashed AOL Instant Messenger, Wikipedia, TMZ and, of course, Twitter. A survey of the epic traffic:

Leading news websites saw traffic surge to 4.2 million visitors per minute from around 2.75 million visitors per minute, according to Akamai.
CNN's traffic grew fivefold in one hour and the site clocked 20 million pageviews.
Twitter had its biggest spike in traffic, to 5,000 tweets per second, since Barack Obama's election as president, according to co-founder Biz Stone.
Facebook status updates tripled.
AOL Instant Messenger went down for 40 minutes.
TMZ, which broke the news of Jackson's death, crashed several times amid a surge of traffic.
The LA Times, which got early confirmation of the death, went down, as well.
For about half an hour, Michael Jackson queries weren't working on Google News.
Wikipedia froze amid an edit war on Jackson's page.

Twitter Doesn't Care About Iran Anymore

The Cajun Boy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:27:40 EDT

Well it's taken almost two weeks, but it looks as though The Week America Died is about to knock "#iranelection" out of the top ten Twitter trending topics.

I just caught this screengrab off of my Twitter homepage at 9:16PM eastern time. What could possibly knock it off? Another celebrity death? Or another fake death perhaps, like the Jeff Goldblum dead in New Zealand rumor? Anyone down for starting a Steve Guttenberg death rumor with me?

UPDATE: Oh snap! Our own Richard Blakeley just snapped this screengrab on his Twitter homepage, and it loooks as though, if only for a moment, #iranelection has been knocked out of the top ten.

The Still Re-Birth of Julia Allison

Ryan Tate — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:10:28 EDT

Julia Allison no longer has her last proper job, at Time Out New York. Her reality show fizzled; a business partner ditched her. The archetypal protocelebrity was reduced to shilling for an amusement park. Time for a rebirth, via hair.

Yes, it's red. And yes, Allison assures us, it's permanent. As permanent, at least, as her two-year stint as a Time Out New York dating columnist (the magazine now brags of its "Julia-free Sex & Dating section") or her overpaid gig as a Star "editor at large" ("an embarrassment" one editor later sneered).

The fameball is not without her assets; she retains her "lifecasting" Web startup, NonSociety, and a deal with NBC's obscure digital channel New York Nonstop, which gives Allison a toehold into the glamorous world of cable-news punditry (she was on MSNBC just this past Sunday).

But as Allison's fellow protocelebs can attest, fameballing in the midst or a recession and reality TV glut isn't what it used to be. And her business grossed just $60,000 last year, before things got really bad.

So while Allison might say (as she did in a recent instant message to us) "I feel like I haven't been on Gawker in eight weeks; it's making me feel happy / irrelevant" and ask if she's "blacklisted," her real problem isn't grabbing attention. It's making a living, and thus a life, out of it.

UPDATE: Regarding the hair, a tipster adds:

Julia was broadcasting for some really random network from a soccer event at Hudson Terrace last night. While she was still sporting that HIDEOUS one piece (it looked Aladdin-inspired) she's wearing in the pic on Gawker, her new 'do was covered by a huge headband. The reason? Apparently the dye turned BRIGHT RED near her scalp over the course of the day, leaving her with noticeably two-toned hair. It looked entirely heinous. In typical Julia Allison fashion, she was bitching very, very loudly about it. She obviously mentioned that it was Anne Hathaway's colorist that did the job so she "should have known better." Yeah, ok, Julia.

Another choice remark: "I was trying to look like Lindsay Lohan but it ended up like the fifth element!!!"

UPDATE 2: Allison wrote in to say her decision to part ways with Time Out was mutual and that she hadn't "lost" her job, as we had it, or "complained" about not being on Gawker.

How Google's Thirst for Power Might Bury San Francisco in Rubble

Ryan Tate — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:00:52 EDT

With its many servers, Google devours electricity. And with search queries growing by 50%, it's only getting hungrier. The solution? Drill a two-mile-deep hole in the Earth, extracting geothermal energy and possibly destroying San Francisco with a terrible earthquake.

The AltaRock project north of San Francisco is hardly Google's first foray into electricity production; the company has hydroelectric projects scattered across the country.

But AltaRock is special, what with its capacity for triggering deadly seismic activities. With investors like Google, Kleiner Perkins and the federal government, it's no wonder the company has, according to the New York Times, denied an inconvenient truth: that a similar geothermal project in Basel, Switzerland "set off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many" in December 2006, according to Swiss government seismologists cited by the Times.

And, yes, it could happen here:

Seismologists have long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will not set off a major temblor.

It's been easy for politicians to convince themselves that what's good for Google — a high-paying employer that doesn't make its money polluting — is good for their communities. That's an assumption they may have to shake off.

[Times]

How the Crescent City Revealed Wired's Plagiarizing Editor

Ryan Tate — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:09:23 EDT

How did the Virginia Quarterly Review connect Chris Anderson's book to Wikipedia, thus unraveling a plagiarism scandal? A strange use of parentheses.

Anderson referred to a certain town as "Crescent City (New Orleans)," and the reference caught VQR's Waldo Jaquith, who was reviewing Free, off guard. As he told Fishbowl NY:

At first, I was thrown off. I thought that maybe that before it was called New Orleans it was called Crescent City and I was mad at myself for not knowing that.

But Wikipedia's entry for New Orleans only had Crescent City as a nickname, not as the original monicker for the town. So Jaquith ran a Google search using some of Anderson's specific language and — boom! — up came a Wikipedia article describing the origin of the term "Free Lunch," which Anderson had obviously copied from.

I figured that what had happened was that whoever had written it wanted to be cute and call it Crescent City, but also wanted to link to the New Orleans article [on Wikipedia]. So they put it in parentheses,

Then Jaquith remembered Anderson had once, in Free, weirdly put the word "currency" in quotes, so he ran that section through Google too, and found another chunk of text had been copied from the Web. The rest is history.

Anderson might be a plagiarist, but at least he has what poker players refer to as a "tell." And how appropriate, for the editor of Wired, that it's his reluctance to remove hyperlinks.

[Fishbowl NY]

(Pic by Pieter Baert)

iPhone Porn Makes Long-Awaited App Debut

Ryan Tate — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:14:03 EDT

It's been a full year since Time magazine dubbed porn "The iPhone's Next Frontier," and only now has an application publisher dared to distribute a truly adult application: An app called Hottest Girls was updated to include naked pictures.

The upgrade looks like a brazen publicity stunt; Apple told Time last year it would ban adult content from official applications. Assuming that position hasn't changed, Hottest Girls could soon be pulled from the app store and even, if Apple elects to do so, yanked from iPhones where it is now installed.

If it permitted to stay —Apple is now allowing NC-17 games, after all — expect a flurry of "innovation." While porn has long been available through the iPhone's Safari browser, publishers haven't even begun to explore the possibilities of being able to use the device's touch screen interface. Apple has the opportunity to change the world again; it just needs to seize it.

Facebook Tell-All Has Founders Banging Groupies in Bathroom Stalls

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:52:08 EDT

Ben Mezrich's forthcoming Facebook exposé was sold to film producers before it was even written. The Hollywood influence helps explain why the book answers such pressing questions as, "Who might the co-founders have conceivably boned, and where?"

Far be it from money-and-technology-obsessed Silicon Valley types to fixate on the fleshy trappings of wealth; they want to know the nitty-gritty details of how a market-leading social network was born. And indeed, both Boston magazine and the New York Times, which obtained galleys of the book, note that Accidental Billionaires doesn't tell the reader much about how the site was actually assembled; instead, lustier details — well, purported details — win out.

Luke O'Brien recapped one scene for Boston:

Zuckerberg himself remains distant, a robot in a fleece. How strange, then, to see this cipher getting freaky with a coed in a bathroom. Rendering Zuckerberg and [co-founder Eduardo] Saverin as campus studs, Mezrich shows them turning out groupies in adjacent stalls.

Zuckerberg is also shown being picked up by a Victoria Secret model at a party in San Francisco (a change from the book proposal we obtained last year, which had co-founder Eduardo Saverin with the model). The pair leave together. As both the Boston and the Times note, the scene is hard to swallow; Facebook had launched just months prior. Dweeby Zuckerberg already had groupies? O'Brien, who has himself dug into Facebook's past, wrote that Zuckerberg has "been dating the same girl since the site's early days" and that there's no evidence Facebook was created so Zuckerberg could score with women.

Even Mezrich doesn't sound too confident in the hook-up scenes. From Boston:

"I just told the story that I was told by multiple sources," Mezrich explains now. "More power to Mark if that's what really happened. ...I have a feeling that Mark Zuckerberg right now could date anybody he wants to. ...Mark has done some amazing things, and if having sex with a Victoria's Secret model is one of the things that he doesn't like to read about himself, I would be surprised."

In other words, if Zuckerberg should accept the tales because they're flattering. That was the stance the subjects of Mazerich's Burning Down the House seemed to take when it emerged much of that book — also turned into a movie — was fabricated. But, unlike those obscure college card sharks, Zuckerberg's ambitions extend far beyond silver screen notoriety, and the Facebook CEO is more likely to make a fuss. Indeed, his flacks have already declared that Mezrich's unreleased book sounds inaccurate. Somehow we doubt they'll leave it at that.

[Boston, Times]

Layoffs Rumored at Mrs. Google's Genetics Company

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:24:19 EDT

Genetics company 23AndMe can purportedly help you predict your health in decades to come, but we're hearing the three-year-old company can't even forecast its own near-term needs: A tipster tells us the company laid off seven employees.

"There was some talk about meeting 'aggressive sales targets' to get through next year," this person added, inmplying the company will quickly burn through the $13 million 23AndMe just raised from Sergey Brin and the company he co-founded, Google. Brin is married to 23AndMe's co-founder, Anne Wojcicki (pictured); 23AndMe also just leased office space from Google.

23AndMe is also in the process of raising another $11 million from other investors to close out its second round of financing. The company had a total of 30 employees, according to CrunchBase, but it's not clear how up-to-date that number is.

23AndMe didn't respond to a call and email seeking comment; presumably the startup is busy trying to get more money in the door. Time for more spit parties.

Do We Need a Restraining Order Against Josh Quittner?

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:00:13 EDT

We never imagined Josh Quittner would burn a previous Valleywag editor in effigy, but after seeing the video he's posted on Time.com, we wonder if we might need a restraining order.

As editor of the late Time Inc. title Business 2.0, Quittner once employed Valleywag emeritus Owen Thomas (as well as your current Valleywag). But somewhere along the way, Quittner soured on Thomas.

Thomas jumped to Valleywag and Business 2.0 folded. When Quittner landed at Fortune, Thomas wrote about Quittner's inflated title, covered Fortune's suspension of his blogging privileges, and quoted the Scrabulous-playing columnist saying he had "too much time on my hands."

Quittner seemed to take it personally. After jumping to Time, he used the magazine as his personal burn book, noting in January that a Sony virtual world wouldn't create an avatar "as fat as your average tech-gossip blogger."

Now Quittner's at it again, with a Sims 3 review in which he creates a "Loser" character named "Thomas Woodchuck" and burns him alive (see clip above). As several tipsters have noted, the resemblance between Woodchuck and Thomas can't be missed — nor can the creepiness of teaching his daughter to drown an enemy in the pool.

It seems early to get too alarmed; there are worse things than being called an "unredoubtable... woodchuck" in an anonymous comments, or killed virtually in a videogame. We're just a little surprised Time indulges Quittner's grudge — or that the reporter, after all this time, still holds it.

Facebook Backer Peter Thiel Wants You to Know Environmentalism Will Kill Us All

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:39:44 EDT

Peter Thiel's objectivism and anti-immigration donations were hard enough for Silicon Valley colleagues to stomach. This attack ad he helped fund against climate-change legislation should be even less popular among California's Tesla-driving, cleantech-obsessed venture capitalists.

Clarium Capital boss Thiel was an early investor in Facebook, where he sites on the board of directors. But Thiel, an outspoken campus conservative at Stanford, has had trouble reconciling his self-professed faith in science and innovation with the "fraud" he argues "major research is turning out to be."

So perhaps it's no surprise Thiel is eager to fight climate-change legislation grounded in "major research." He's a key backer of American Solutions for Winning the Future, Newt Ginrgrich's group to support oil drilling and coal mining. The political organization just produced a new attack ad to try and derail the Waxman-Markley climate change bill, which would cap greenhouse gas emissions and charge energy companies for exceeding them.

And boy is it terrifying! Maybe after all the bridges fall down, everyone's homes are foreclosed and millions of families starve, John Doerr can personally apologize to Thiel for trying to get rich off cap-and-trade.

The Case Against Chris Anderson

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:41:22 EDT

Chris Anderson's plagiarism scandal is still unfolding; Brooklyn writer Ed Champion has found instances where the Free author copied material he was supposed to be summarizing. But there was grumbling about Wired's editor long before his book scandal.

Anderson should be given his due for what he's accomplished with Wired. His magazine took home a general excellence prize at the latest National Magazine Awards, along with the prizes for design and best magazine section. It is a favorite of our own readers, and a formidable title.

But Wired is not without its problems, which Anderson is arguably too distracted to fully address. Examples:

Wired.com: A magazine obsessed with technology should have no trouble integrating its print and online editions, but by most accounts the two sides remain deeply divided at Wired, stunting the magazine's online strategy just as print readers increasingly jump online.

Joel Johnson's Boing Boing post is the definitive word on the matter, along with the comments underneath. But there's also history. After Condé Nast acquired Wired.com, Anderson initially ran it as a separate company. He once slammed its interface to bolster the print edition.

And, readership trends be damned, Anderson has made cuts to the online staff, twelve in November and an additional round in April (Condé Nast said only three staff were let go in April, but wouldn't tell us how many freelancers/permalancers/contractors were also cut).

UPDATE: As Anderson points out in an email to us, he does not run Wired.com. But integration is a two-way street, and Anderson at least shares responsibility for friction between the online and print sides, as described in the Johnson thread, and for their disparate strategies. And as his title's top editorial executive, Anderson is in a position to push for changes in the relationship between print and online.

Galavanting over advertising: Anderson makes an estimated $2 million a year giving around 50 speeches, according to numbers compiled by the New York Times. This lucrative circuit takes him to places like Oslo, Norway, where he recently lectured a gathering of marketers. The trips, we hear, do not sit well with Condé's publishing side.

Plagiarism: Anderson has said that, in lifting material off Wikipedia for Free, he simply forgot to convert some footnotes to in-line attributions within the body of the text. But even with attribution, he should have paraphrased the material or, failing that, used quote marks.

Books counter to the recessionary zeitgeist: Granted, the most useful books often demolish conventional wisdom. And successful authors often face swift backlash from New York's finicky media elite. But it's worth noting that Anderson's book Free is coming out at precisely the time many businesses are finding new ways to charge charge customers, rather than new ways to give things away.

Likewise, the sort of niche Web content one might have invested in after reading Anderson's last book, the Long Tail, is faltering amid the advertising downturn.

(Pic by Pop Tech 2008)

Apple's Frozen Board Needs a Reboot

Ryan Tate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:14:07 EDT

A hospital officially confirmed Steve Jobs received a liver transplant there, and did so with Jobs' permission. Meaning everyone is talking about the Apple CEO's sickness, except Apple. The pressure on the company's paralyzed directors is, justifiably, mounting.

The deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal went so far as to call out individual board members on Twitter. "Gore, Jung, Schmidt, York, Levinson - where are you?" Alan Murray wrote. Yesterday, before the hospital confirmation, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera accused the directors of "dereliction of duty."

Like a hung computer operating system, Apple's board is neglecting pressing information-retrieval work. Data on the effectiveness of liver transplants for Jobs' condition is, at once, scant and unpromising. Yet some specific information about Jobs' condition would be useful in evaluating his prognosis, according to an anonymous surgeon's blog (see prior link, via).

The kindest and most generous characterization that can be made is that that the evidence for treating neuroendocrine tumors metastatic to the liver with liver transplantation is mixed at best.

But obviously Jobs' is recovering nicely if he's going back to work next week, right? Perhaps, but it's not clear how hard he'll be able to work; recall that Jobs may be working part-time, per a Journal report earlier this week. Or he might not. He might be already back to week, per an anonymous (read: probably spoon-fed by Apple) report from CNBC's Jim Goldman. Or he might not be returning until June 30.

It should go without saying, but apparently needs to be said: Apple shareholders deserve to know who is running Apple — and who will be running Apple a month from now.

Rob Corddry Sorry About the Ogling

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:49:11 EDT

A Daily Show host weirded himself out a little bit; a San Franciscan had pizza envy and Doree Shafrir discovered a yoga mat that automatically raises your blood pressure. The Twitterati were flabbergasted.

The Daily Show's Rob Corddry owned his creepiness.

The SFAppeal's Eve Batey rose above petty jealousy.

Amazon.com mailed former Observer hand Doree Shafrir a thinly-veiled serenity test.

The Daily Show's Miles Kahn was determined to make the Iran situation somehow funny.

Vice's Nick Douglas found inspiration in the DirecTV program guide.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Nikki Finke Did Not Make $15 Million Today

Gabriel Snyder — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:34:34 EDT

News broke earlier today that Nikki Finke had sold her Deadline Hollywood Daily blog to Jay Penske's Mail.com Media Corp. Now, fantastical numbers are being floated around about how much she got. Who would do a thing like that?

Finke's success at turning the thin gruel of studio press releases into high-drama gossip has always hinged on her ability to put herself into the middle of every story. Everything is "Toldja!" this and "I just spoke to" that. Take her coverage of this past weekend's executive shakeup at Paramount - Finke can only write in the first person:

4:20PM: As my sources predicted...
4:20PM: I just heard that
3:50PM UPDATE: I've just learned that my story today

She is a fantastic story-teller, but the greatest character Finke has created is herself: dogged scoop-monger with spies in every corner of every studio lot and agency suite. It's neat stuff, and puffing up one's persona puts her square in the tradition of columnists — well, good columnists — everywhere. But Deadline Hollywood Daily is a pretty small Internet property. Finke's 90,000 pageviews per day is less than a tenth of what Gawker (to pick a site at random) receives on a good day. So, when figures start getting thrown around about how she sold her blog for $15 million, it's easy to suspect that there's some self-mythmaking at work. (On that basis, Gawker.com alone would be worth $150 million. Hey, Nick! I want a raise!) To put that number in perspective, you would have a tough time finding anyone to pay $15 million for The Hollywood Reporter these days.

The deal was announced this morning via a press release that did not disclose the terms. But sometime this afternoon, PaidContent started the ball rolling with a report that Finke's deal was worth around $1 million, which even then was hedged. Citing just "sources," Rafat Ali wrote, "the sale amount was in 'seven figures' and there are some other incentive triggers built in. My bet is it is in very low seven figures." Though even that number was pretty jaw-dropping, it's pretty easy to imagine that there are incentives — Penske guarantees some salary to Finke and bonuses based on revenues or traffic — that could theoretically push the value of the deal up to seven figures.

But pretty soon, another zero was added. Jeff Bercovici got ahold of "a source with knowledge of the details" who put the pricetag at $10 million. He qualified that by noting that included "a long-term contract for Finke's services" — again suggesting that there is no way that Penske cut a big check to Finke today — but still struck a gobsmacked tone: "Who says you can't get rich blogging? Showbiz reporter extraordinaire Nikki Finke did — to the tune of eight figures."

Then Finke's arch-nemesis Sharon Waxman, who's got her own startup The Wrap to run, took up the story. Waxman said Finke "would not comment on the purchase price" and couldn't get ahold of Penske (a classic journo tell), but she got the scoop: Deadline Hollywood was sold for $14 million. And we weren't done yet. The Financial Times, without citing anyone, just stated flat-out that the deal is "worth about $15m."

Do I know that it's Finke spreading this absurd number around? No. She didn't reply to my email, which in my state of shock after seeing Waxman's story was, in its entirety "$14M? Really?" And when I told Waxman "I simply do not believe the $14M number" she stood by her report as the "real deal" and added a qualification that "the number is paid out in chunks, over years. And she has something like a 10-year contract." Her story, however, was a less explicit: "The individual knowledgeable about the purchase price said it would be paid out over several years. Normally such deals are tied to traffic or to revenue projections. Nonetheless, it is an exceedingly high price for a relatively small website."

And then she noted the most important part of why these ludicrous values are being tossed around the Internet: because it suits everyone's purposes to think that an industry gossip blog is worth major bucks. As Waxman noted: "It is a crazy-stupid number, in my opinion, but I'm very happy about it — I'm all for people paying stupid money for websites."

Finke no doubt received a nice little pay-day in her deal with Penske, but I would be willing to bet $15 million that whatever check he wrote today wasn't for anything close to $15 million.

The First Rule of Facebook Club Is...

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:13:23 EDT

Columbia Pictures is close to securing a director for its Facebook movie: David Fincher, of Fight Club fame, is reportedly in advanced talks. He'll be expected to move fast, before the market for a movie about the social network evaporates.

Columbia wants to start production by the end of the year, according to Variety, even though the book on which the film is based won't be released until July 14. So even assuming screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is working on advance manuscripts, he and his colleagues will need to move quickly.

The book is being done by admitted fabricator Ben Mezrich, so they should probably start with the fact-checking.

Wired Editor Steals Content for Book About How Content Should be Free

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:54:27 EDT

Chris Anderson has been caught lifting huge chunks out of Wikipedia for his book Free. The irony speaks for itself. But it's worth noting that the Wired editor's excuses are disconcertingly clichéd.

Like so many plagiarists before him, Anderson claims his act was unintentional. The Virginia Quarterly Review first reported his copying, and the explanation he gave us is that he and his editors decided to kill Free's footnotes "at the 11th hour;" though much attribution was restored within the body text, Wikipedia sources were not. This was due, according to the statement he sent to VQR, to "my inability to find a good citation format for web sources (I resisted the time stamp proposal)."

The upshot: Print authors like Mike Pollan were cited for "intellectual debts" Anderson owed them, while many of the forward-thinking, freely-contributing writers Anderson champions in the book got no attribution. As it happens, this is violates the copyright license governing Wikipedia.

Anderson told us, "this is my screwup... I feel terrible about it." The lifted work was "mostly historical asides and nothing central to the book." But history is hardly simple to document, and it would seem a book on free products would be significantly diminished without its passages on the famous "free lunch" of the 19th-century saloon, or the origin of the phrase "there's no such thing as a free lunch."

Like Maureen Dowd before him, Anderson promises to fix everything on the Web:

We'll have the original notes that were supposed to accompany the book, which includes all these, online by publication date

Update: Hyperion, Anderson's publisher, has gave a statement to VQR backing his mistake-not-plagiarism spin:

We are completely satisfied with Chris Anderson's response. It was an unfortunate mistake, and we are working with the author to correct these errors both in the electronic edition before it posts, and in all future editions of the book.

Jay Penske: The Hard-Partying Si Newhouse Wannabe of Bel Air

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:21:55 EDT

As the L.A. media otherwise disappers, Jay Penske is in empire-building mode. His hitherto low-profile Mail.com Media Corporation acquired Nikki Finke's showbiz blog and he backed Movieline in April. From what we've gleaned, the guy's a true Tinseltown dreamer.

Age: 30

Residence: The tony Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air.

Childhood: Born in New York, Penske went to high school in the Detroit suburbs, where he made the All-American Lacrosse team.

Family wealth: Father Roger Penske, a race car driver, owns Penske Corporation, which owns auto dealerships, leases trucks and makes various auto parts.

Love life: Has dated actresses Lara Flynn Boyle, Gina Gershon, Jordana Brewster (left) and Devon Aoki (with Penske, top of this post)

Personality: Says an associate, "He comes across as hugely elegant, massively sophisticated then as you get to know him, you see this slightly skeevy side, heavy drinker likes to party."

Business: Penske's Mail.com Media Corporation took a $35 million investment from Steve Rattner's Quadrangle Group in September; but we hear he's been having trouble finding properties to buy.

Sites: MMC runs Mail.com, an also-ran email portal whose heyday was in the 1990s; OnCars.com; our former Defamer colleagues' Movieline.com, celebrity news site HollywoodLife (he shut down HollywoodLife the magazine earlier this year) and now Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily. It also provides private-label sites to large organizations like sports teams and universities.

Dragon fetish: Penske also runs Dragon Books, a vanity boutique book store he runs a little Bel Air shopping center. Its placeholder website has been under "redesign" for more than two years. Then there's the Luczo Dragon Racing team, which he co-owns with the chairman of hard-drive maker Seagate Technologies.

Flops: Started Firefly Mobile, selling cell phones for kids, in 2002; by 2006 the company needed a restart.

So how much did he pay for Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood?: Seven figures, supposedly. PaidContent's Rafat Ali reports that his company had been in talks with Finke at a lower number. We heard from Finke's editor at the LA Weekly, Jill Stewart, that Finke was talking as if she was looking at "so much money" while she pondered the deal. Seven-figures sounds mighty high for DHD, but if Penske was having trouble making deals, maybe he was willing to overpay.

Aspirations: Penske is said desperately seeking entree to the fashion world, part of a broader quest for elegance. The same associate:

He wants to be a modern day Si Newhouse, he wants to have a glamourous publishing company.

We hope, then, he reconsiders the name Mail.com Media Corp. as the name of his flagship.

Return of Fake Steve Is a Vote of Confidence in Real Steve

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:02:30 EDT

Fake Steve Jobs is back. Dan Lyons, author of the piercingly funny satire blog, insists his return may be temporary. But he wouldn't be having this much fun with Jobs' illness if he still worried about the Apple CEO's death.

Sure, the tech writer has a forthcoming Newsweek blog to promote, named after his column at the weekly magazine. But his decision to lay off on Jobs wasn't a business decision so much as heartfelt concern about the Apple chief's health.

Now, as Fake Steve, Lyon's again cracking wise about favor-currying New York Times columnists begging to donate their livers, CNBC reporters bringing him lattes and, our personal favorite, having a gaunt Jobs brag that "I'm bench-pressing twice my body weight."

We're surprised his bosses at Newsweek are playing along; Lyons killed his personal blog after they demanded he remove a post calling Yahoo flacks "lying sacks of shit." Perhaps the subsequent problems at the magazine's print edition have opened Newsweek's eyes to the promotional power of the Web.

Sure enough, Lyons is already linkbaiting Gawker. Yes, Mr. Jobs, we'd be happy to show up at your house with a camera; just send along an access code to the front gate in case we need to use the restroom.

(Pic by Mark Coggins)

Tesla Gets $465 Million from Feds

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:00:45 EDT

The Department of Energy has made it official: Tesla Motors will, in fact, get $465 million in government loans to fund its Model S sedan. Chalk another one up for founder Elon Musk's improbable dream of a mass-market electric car.

Having amply documented Musk's shortcomings, we must give him his due: It was no small feat to convince the federal government of Tesla's financial viability, given his firm's recent struggles with liquidity and shakedown of customers for more money. It also must have been tricky to sell the Model S itself, given that Tesla has been showing off a "barely ambulatory" prototype, in the words of the Los Angeles Times.

And yet there's Tesla, mentioned in the same breath as automotive giants like Ford and Nissan as recipients of federal largesse. DOE convened a press conference confirming anonymously-sourced reports that the three companies will share an $8.5 billion stimulus fund for fuel-efficient vehicles.

Daimler's recent 10 percent stake in the company no doubt helped. Now Musk just has to build a $100 million powertrain factory and deliver an affordable electric sedan in less than two and a half years — or hope his new investors are as flexible about such deadlines as the rich California environmentalists who have funded him until now.

MySpace Exec Gets $500K to Sit at Home While 300 Laid Off

Ryan Tate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:20:50 EDT

MySpace today confirmed the rumors it will lay off 300 international staff, on top of 400 U.S. layoffs last week. The social network also shoved aside purported co-founder Tom Anderson, who has a new gig: NOT going to the office.

For this, Anderson will earn $500,000 a year for two years, Business Insider hears. He also needs to be an "ambassador," for MySpace, which sounds very much like a non-job:

As a part of the deal, [MySpace CEO] Owen [Van Natta] and new News Corp digital media boss Jon Miller asked Tom to stop coming to the office..."He'll have little decision or involvement with the product," says a source.

Of course, Anderson will continue to be everyone's default MySpace friend and will presumably continue to show up for all kinds of exciting parties. He's just not getting tens of millions of dollars for it anymore, having been demoted to six figures, and won't be mucking with MySpace's "strategy" of being a zombie social network. An economy like this requires certain sacrifices.