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Overheard: "Folks didn't really get it, but I think ...
"Folks didn't really get it, but I think their widget says it all." -- Conference organizer Jason Calacanis, offering the best defense of a company EVER.

Hires: Facebook hires veteran of overvalued startups
How leaky is Facebook? So leaky that new hires sometimes out themselves right on the company's own website, as new hire Jonathan Heiliger has done. Heiliger, you see, revealed his new employer by joining the company's private group for Facebook employees, a move that's visible on the site. Heiliger, who, back in the '90s, used to be a 20something rock-star Internet executive like new boss Mark Zuckerberg, will be the company's vice president of technical operations, charged with, oh, say, making sure the site doesn't crash, spew private data, or leak code. By my count, that makes Heiliger the fourth vice president with "operations" in his title. But I think Heiliger, a veteran of bubble-era companies like GlobalCenter and LoudCloud, will spend more time regaling Zuck with war stories about what it was like to run a ridiculously overvalued Internet company. And he'll thereby get to relive his fading youth. What a job!

Stats Feed: Today's most popular headlines are Party ...
Today's most popular headlines are Party at the New York City Googleplex! (1,462 views today), Did Reuters steal an Engadget photo? (1,330) and Google guys get yet another jet (1,091).

Bad Ideas: White-supremacist social network? Call it "Racebook"
The more popular this social networking thing gets, the more exclusive the communities become. For an evil example, there's the site Newsaxon.org, a MySpace for racists which bills itself as "an online community for whites by whites." Though we suspect that the clientele of this network is a little less powerful than the mega-moguls on Facebook -- five of the twenty available job descriptions are "Looking for Work," "Laid Off", "Unemployed," "Billionare" [sic], and "Millionare" [sic]. What, no "Entrepreneur in Action"?

Club Penguin: Did Disney buy a $350 million dud?
If word on the playground is to be believed, Disney spent $350 million (or maybe twice that) on Club Penguin, a fad fading faster than hypercolor. Apparently children are fickle beasts, happy to glom onto the newest igloo-decorating simulator. Penguins have fallen out of favor, according to our preteen correspondents. "Do you use Club Penguin anymore?" asked one 8-year-old. The response: "No, it's too old school." At least they're learning to cynically identify fads when they're young. The kiddies, anecdotally, are migrating to the newest form of virtual world crack, WebKinz. No doubt this, too, will be a fleeting obsession. Eventually kids leave PlaySkool behind for more serious toys, like MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach. The larger problem is that no one is developing kid-friendly worlds that contain anything to promote long-term interest. Until they do, they'll flash in and out of vogue faster than playground taunts.

Quotable: "YouTube could do a much more aggressive ...
"YouTube could do a much more aggressive job about taking down content that is a copyright violator... It's pretty safe to say that [Google has] the technology available... it's publicly available and I haven't yet heard a lot about Google being technologically constrained." -- News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin [FT]

Acquisitions: 3Com's buyout by Bain Capital could get hung ...
3Com's buyout by Bain Capital could get hung up in Congress because of Chinese telecom-equipment maker Huawei's involvement. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States could review the deal, examing the national-security implications of Huawei getting "shareholder voting rights, seats on the board or access to technology." [AP]

Quotable: "Google tells us we're polluting the Internet.... ...
"Google tells us we're polluting the Internet.... In fact, we're just messing with their algorithm. Google created an algorithm that puts all its weight in links. That's their problem, not ours." -- Search consultant Michael Gray, an advocate of paid links, daring to suggest that what's good for Google may not be good for the Internet. [Forbes]

Media: Did Reuters steal an Engadget photo?
Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo pride themselves on getting photos of new cell phones and MP3 players before anyone else -- even the lightning-fast wire services. And to protect their scoops, they've taken to watermarking their photos. A wise practice. Reuters has apparently run, uncredited, a composite image, above, incorporating three watermarked photos from a post that ran last week on Engadget detailing Verizon Wireless's new holiday line. Product photos are generally seen as fair game by gadget bloggers, of course -- but for Reuters to carry Engadget's watermark but not acknowledge the blog in any fashion seems not just ungracious but clueless. (Photos by Engadget, not Reuters)

Crash This Bash: Party at the New York City Googleplex!
We're getting live reports on who's making it past the velvet rope at Google's New York party. The bash, held in Google's West Chelsea offices at 76 Ninth Avenue, has already kicked up a fuss. Google's controlling-but-not-that-bright PR people have tried to limit the guest list to consumer and fashion reporters, figuring they'd be more likely to critique the buffet and less likely to ask pesky questions about the search engine's business practices. So far, they've had mixed results. Here's who we've heard has showed up so far -- and who's been barred at the door.Notorious nobody and Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison has swanned her way in, as has Erik Sofge of ... Popular Mechanics? So much for the event's glam factor. Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer is being held at the door in, after receiving a self-righteous lecture at the hands of an overly empowered Google staffer. Got more reports on who's in and who's out? Let us know.

Quotable: "Eating $95 white truffle pasta and damn ...
"Eating $95 white truffle pasta and damn proud of it... Sooooooo dope!" -- Internet entrepreneur and former overweight guy Jason Calacanis, living large and risking a return to fatblogging by blithely ingesting overpriced carbohydrates.[Twitter]

Lifecasters: Broadcast your miserable life with Justin.tv
On the Internet, everyone is famous to about 15 people. In case you happen to be an anomaly, Justin.tv wants to ensure you have your own shot at microcelebrity. Since YouTube quickly turned into a dumping ground for loser-generated content, creating another video destination that hosts unedited, streaming video of oh-so-important mundane lives seems like a brilliant idea. The fact that Justin Kan continues to raise funding despite his 30 seconds of Internet superstardom drying up is a sure sign of the pending Web 2.0 apocalypse. Kan's company is late to the lifecasting-platform game -- Ustream.tv or Kyte, anyone? -- and yet he remains convinced he's the Second Coming of online video. Does the Internet honestly need thousands of people lifecasting? No one can possibly be that interesting. And hundreds of companies to help them embarrass themselves in public? If this doesn't devolve into live pornographic Webcamming, it's time to move off the grid.

Copyfight: Butt pirates battle Internet pirates
All-male porn peddler Titan Media has sued to shut down an "online gay porn piracy ring." Titan is suing 22 defendants working on a half-dozen blogs. In this arena, for a change, the porn world is behind the curve, not on the cutting edge of tech. While the RIAA and MPAA have huge budgets and companies like MediaDefender and BayTSP to do their antipiracy dirty work, those companies don't "want to be known in the porn space," according to the CEO of BayTSP. As a result, sex sites must do their own dirty work.We can't wait to see save-the-children-type public service announcements before our porn starts, begging watchers not to pirate the videos like the ridiculous ones we see now before movies showcasing all the people "behind-the-scenes" like gaffers and script editors and the like.Dear readers, remember: don't pirate pornography. Please, think of the fluffers.

Josh Quittner: Time Inc. insults Business 2.0 editor one last time
Josh Quittner, the former editor of the late, lamented Business 2.0 -- where, I'll disclose, I worked for seven years before joining Valleywag -- has gotten one more kick in the pants from Time Inc., the tech magazine's publisher. In a cover wrap sent to subscribers with the last issue, he's listed as the magazine's "managing editor," even though he's always gone by the title of "editor" in the masthead.At best, it's careless; at worst, a deliberate slap. Add it to the list of ways Quittner, a difficult, mischievous, but endlessly creative personality who arguably saved the magazine (and, with it, my career) from a much-earlier death, has been treated disgracefully by his employer. The only mystery: Why is he sticking around, save for the New-York-media-level salary?

Virtual Worlds: "Law & Order" provides public service by scaring you away from Second Life
newVideoPlayer("sl_lawandorder.flv", 475, 376);Second Life is well past its prime on the hype cycle. Which makes it, of course, just the right time for the sluggish broadcast-TV networks to discover it. The producers of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" have determined it's time to investigate the crime-scene-in-the-making of virtual worlds. Two college girls get sucked into a fantasy playscape -- a fictional Second Life clone, Another Youniverse. The plot, such as it is:14-year-old avatar Vixy Platinum is so popular in her Another Youniverse underage-vixen sex club that a fellow Youniverser can't resist meeting her in real life. She is, of course, actually in her 20s, and he is in his 60s. They don't hit it off, to say the least."Law & Order" isn't the only one trying to score viewers with virtual-world forays. "CSI: New York" is sending Gary Sinise on a rather hellish mission -- to catch a killer residing in Second Life -- on October 24's "Down the Rabbit Hole."...

Media Relations: Um, magazine editors? Your cover is already blown
Magazines, whose bread and butter used to be breaking news (exclusive photos) or making news (silly pronouncements like "Person of the Year"), are scrambling to beef up the security wall between their content and the Internet. But let's face facts: The exclusive is dead. Embargoes are pointless. Computers isolated from the Internet, armed guards, and nondisclosure agreements do nothing to sate the public's insatiable appetite for content. Blogs, on the other hand, are all too happy to feed it. Rather than increasing useless security measures, old media would be better served going with the flow by building open communities. Fortunately, at least one magazine editor, Richard Stengel of Time, gets it.Stengel observes the benefits provided by Internet leaks: Internet chatter builds buzz. And speculation just increases interest:In a way, it's a much huger smokescreen now.Prerelease chatter also builds anticipation for content:There's a benefit of something leaking out in small ways...

Copyfight: File-sharing lawsuits are mere shock and awe
The record industry, according to a Sony executive testifying in the court case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, is losing millions taking alleged file sharers to court for crimes whose damage it can't assess. So, let's review: The record industry can't identify who's sharing files, can't account for how much an incident of piracy costs them, and can't explain to its customers why it's suing them. Is this any way to run a business -- by bluffing?(Photo by P.B. Rage)

YouTube: UC Berkeley makes it easy to skip class
UC Berkeley is claiming to be the first university to provide full-length lectures on the popular video-sharing site YouTube. The university is positioning the move as "a public window into university life, academics, events and athletics, which will build on our rich tradition of open educational content for the larger community." But we all know this will mostly be used as a justification for hung-over undergrads to skip class and send their friends messages on Facebook.

Larry And Sergey: Google guys get yet another jet
How many planes does one man need? Or, more precisely, three men? Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin already own, with CEO Eric Schmidt, an extensively remodeled 767, pictured here in New Zealand. Schmidt, by himself, owns at least one Gulfstream V (some reports say he has two). But we now hear that the Google trio are buying a 757. While smaller than the widebody 767, the 757 is still a commercial airliner, considerably bigger than most private jets. So why would Page, Brin, and Schmidt need four planes between them?Well, with four planes, there's no risk that one won't be available when the Google boys are ready to fly. But there's also this bean-counting theory: Google's insurers may now be insisting that the founders and CEO travel separately, to lessen the risk that all three might die in a single, tragic plane accident. Which would be the height of irony: Larry and Sergey could cast this bout of aerial extravagance as a sensible financial measure, lowering their...

Surly Adopter: What's Spanish for "fail?"
Readers point out that I goofed big-time when I tested Google's automated directory service on Monday. I left out an important real-world test: Call the giant phone number on the roadside billboard. When it answers, speak to it en Espaol. The system's response: "Try again."

Silicon Valley Tool: Buy CNET or the terrorists will have won
Reformed stock promoter Henry Blodget has a suggestion for CNET: Take it private, with the help of former CEO Shelby Bonnie. An excellent idea. From all we hear, morale couldn't be lower at the tech-news portal. And current CEO Neil Ashe isn't helping matters. His idea of a pep speech? "We should be more like Al Qaeda," he told an assembly of employees. You mean, hated by everyone on the planet? Judging from how his underlings feel, Ashe is getting a head start on that project inside his own offices. Cheer up, Neil! You just won the latest prize for being a Silicon Valley Tool.

Craigslist: Ask Craig Newmark anything you want!
The Freakonomics blog is inviting readers to pose questions for Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster to be asked in an upcoming Q&A. The blog's readers have already started to make pointed suggestions, but none has stepped forward to ask this question: Exactly how much money did Newmark and Buckmaster make when eBay took a stake in their company?

Quotable: "There is nothing more frustrating than writing ...
"There is nothing more frustrating than writing a perfect sentence and not being able to publish it. That's why I love having this blog. Otherwise, it's just me and the cat having a laugh at how witty I could have been. And it's creepy when the cat laughs because I can never be sure we're laughing at the same thing." -- Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams on dirty words in comic strips. [The Dilbert Blog]

Geeks Gone Wild: Mark Cuban keeps on dancing
newVideoPlayer("Mark_Cuban_moves_on.flv", 475, 376);If, like me, you've been rooting for filthy-rich dotcom entrepreneur Mark Cuban, then take heart: The grace-challenged terpsichorean has made it to the next round on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." But he may not have won new fans with his moment of exultation: Wearing an ubergay sleeveless shirt, he pumped his arms straight up in the air, exposing his hairy, sweaty armpits. Then again, maybe you're into that kind of thing.

Online Video: Boing Boing TV travels back in time 50 years
There's something retro about Boing Boing tv, the new daily video from the wacky superblog. Not just the archival videoclips that make up half the show. BBtv's anchors, Xeni Jardin and Mark Frauenfelder, are shot in classic TV newsanchor style. The most popular vlogs broke the rules. Ze Frank spent hours each day in stitching together multiple angles of the same monologue. RocketBoom took the other tack - just let the cameras roll. Boing Boing's hosts are in the middle ground occupied by CNN - one straight take of a talking head reading a script. It feels dated, out of step with the website's glib groove. I want the show to succeed, so yo BB: How about revising the format? And trim the 15-second intro down to two before the action starts. You're almost as slow to roll as GigaOm TV's 23 seconds, an online video eternity.

Goodbyes: Fake Steve Jobs is crying fake tears
Another rabid Apple fanboy has put down his Jonathan Ive-designed pom-poms. His complaints? Wholly predictable and tiresome. He's upset over a software update which can disable iPhones and prevent third-party applications from running. Actually, the "goodbye cruel world" post has some pretty good analysis on the whole situation, though it's a little -- ok, a lot -- heavy on the melodrama. His rant about Apple CEO Steve Jobs, after the jump.This is not good economics and it isn't good marketing. It is the ravings of a brilliant, talented and apparently completely delusional man. He tried this with the Mac, and thankfully failed. Unfortunately there was no one there to tell him how short sighted he was being this time.Watch out Steve. If 22,000,000 more Mac users feel the same way, you might actually be in trouble. Until then though, this is just another mad ex-girlfriend. (Photo by Daniel Shaw-Cosman)

Lawsuits: A patent holding firm is suing Google, AOL, ...
A patent holding firm is suing Google, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo over its patent for "Systems and methods for transacting business over a global communications network such as the Internet." Or rather, for using automated bidding systems to sell online advertising -- in other words, where all the money is. At least the company's a clever patent troll. [InformationWeek]

Delays: Palm says their new smartphone OS won't be ...
Palm says their new smartphone OS won't be released until the end of 2008. The new system is progressing "as well as possibly could be expected," executives say. Sounds like that plan to split off Palm's software division isn't working out that well. Shareholders, we hope you aren't still holding your breath. [The Register]

Quotable: "Venture capitalists are still living in ...
"Venture capitalists are still living in 1999." -- Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, Facebook board member, and VC, on today's investment climate. [BusinessWeek]

Copyfight: Google still won't let video makers claim content
Content creators on YouTube might as well be stuck at an empty carousel, waiting to claim their videos in order to prevent piracy. The site's Claim Your Content tool, announced last April, was promised to arrive in September. A month late, it has obviously been delayed. Or could it be intentionally missing in action? While there's been speculation that Google is holding back to delay the day when it would have to share ad revenues with video creators, other believe that there's software trouble -- that Google took on a bigger task than anticipated. After all, once Google removes a video from YouTube, wouldn't it also have to remove all references to specific clips from its search engine and ad network? Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by biting off more than you can chew. (Photo by Denise Chan)