Allison was an early pioneer in the fine art of internet attentionmongering, so it makes sense she's tried to establish a beachhead on disclosure. The NonSociety founder today apologetically issued a "so corporate" post to make sure everyone understood who has been paying her to say nice things about them:

• Blueprint Cleanse, which has been flushing things out of Allison's colon for "over a year."
  
• SeaWorld, whose payments Allison did not disclose until after we raised the issue.
  
• Sony, who gave Allison an unprecedentedly classy deal involving actual TV commercials.

We expect this will be the tip of the iceberg; FTC rules say that bloggers must disclose their "material relationships" with people they write about, including anyone who provides freebies or cash. If you see any other confessionals, email them in; we'll round up the blogger confessionals tomorrow.

(Top pic: One of Allison's Blueprint Cleanse endorsements. Via NonSociety.)

Today, the Times runs a trend(ing) piece in the business section on how Twitter users are making serious cash Tweeting ads. Like, serious cash. How much?

Meet John Chow, a guy who makes money telling people how to make money online with his blog. Basically, imagine an infomercial about making infomercials. That's this guy, who's described as a "blogger and Internet entrepreneur." Watch, he makes money:

Mr. Chow treated his 50,000 Twitter followers to a photograph of his lunch (barbecued chicken and French fries), discussed the weather in Vancouver and linked to a new post on his Internet business blog. Then he earned $200 by telling his fans where they could buy M&M's with customized faces, messages and colors...In October, Mr. Chow's income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. "I get paid for pushing a button," he said.

$200 bucks. For telling people about M&Ms. Since the Times doesn't, let's take a look at what that Tweet looked like:

He's got the designation of it being an ad in two characters, four if you count the parenthesis. He puts the designation of it being an ad after he places the link, so visually, your awareness doesn't come into play until you've been given the chance to get to/click on whatever's being sold. And four characters out of 88 comes to about 4.54% of the message. It looks subversive to me, and I know it's an ad, but then again, I'm not dumb enough to follow this guy in the first place.

Yet advertorial content is a time-honored tradition in all kinds of publishing formats! Including this one, where we place "sponsored ads" everywhere. But these look like out-and-out endorsements, followed by the designation of it being an ad. And if you attach them to hashtags and @feeds, you can more or less just harass and molest the flow of information coming in to Twitter. Just like when you could see HOT XX NEKKD AMATEURS being attached to Twitter messages that were coming out of Iran after their elections a few months back, by automatic spam bots. Brilliant.

So: what's the defense for completely subverting and messing with the user experience on Twitter? Enjoy this:

"We don't want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network," said Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. "All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us."

Kind of sounds like the way vampires work, right? Once you're done with getting your blood sucked, you become one of them because you need more blood. The reason people left MySpace en masse (besides the fact that Facebook offered a cleaner interface and unanimously better user experience) was because of the gross, nonstop barrage of advertising, which Facebook has thankfully kept to a tolerable minimum. What's to stop your Twitter feed from becoming just one, long, advertisement if the people and trending topics you follow are being turned into ad-vampires left and right? And do people even really care that much?

One problem is that many Internet users eschew the idea of these ads, saying they commercialize authentic dialogue and undermine people's credibility. "It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience," said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he "unfollows" people on Twitter who send him ads.

Exactly. So who's to blame for all of this, really? When Twitter goes to shit, and like a bad strain of drugs, everything you touch comes from the same gross source lacing it with their nasty advertorial additives? This assclown, snake oil salesman Mr. Ted "The Murphman" Murphy, he of Pay Per Post, a company basically everyone in Silicon Valley regards as straight-up evil.

They're not wrong. Pay Per Post was having users sell other users on products with no disclosure that they were ads. Whoops! The Times article catches up with Murphy, who's now doing Izea. Which is how Julia Allison ended up shilling for Sea World. But Murphy's reformed! He's better now! He knows he made a mistake!

Ted Murphy, the C.E.O. of Izea, now a 30-person business backed by $10 million in venture capital, said the company initially "made a big mistake" by not setting disclosure standards for publishers and advertisers. Today, ad networks promote their standards; Izea's ads on Twitter are typically demarcated with signifiers like "#ad" or "#sponsor."

Right. Except, whoops, not all of them:

The Times piece wraps up like so, as they chat with people running Likes.com, which, I don't even care to know what it is, really. All of these people are gross and lecherous. Here:

"We are trying to limit it, to prevent people from losing their following," said Bindu Reddy, a former Google product manager who started the company with her husband, Arvind Sundararajan, a former Google engineer. "We know people are queasy about this."

Right! But probably not as much as Twitter is, or should be. It doesn't appear that they're doing anything to even take a cut of the product being moved under their hood. Amazing that the most money being made on Twitter isn't by Twitter. Their product goes down in value to them because it's becoming an ad network.

But who's even dumb enough to follow Julia Allison and John Chow? Won't they catch on to the con being run on them? Well: the same people who watch bad TV, for one thing. Philo Farnsworth probably thought his invention was going to make the world a way better place, too.

Meanwhile, spambots and assclowns like Ted Murphy's zombie army who're getting small bucks will attach themselves to hashtags and your @feed like leeches. Big brands won't care whether this hurts what people think of their product—however much we want it to, or however marginally it will—because this creates awareness. And to think, it's all because of a guy who likes like Ted Murphy. Look again. Right?

Nothing gold can stay, Pony Boy. Unless we can get everyone to do this:

Someone called me up tonight and she sounded panicked. "I was in a bodega and heard Julia Allison's voice over the radio. She's advertising for some computers, does she even matter anymore?" I wasn't sure and I'm still not sure how to answer that question other than to say "it's for Sony, she's taking over the airwaves, now, wow."

And now, art.

I am not an art critic. I know nothing about performance art or how to "deal" with it.

I also know nothing about the DJ Mayonnaise Hands person that emailed this to us is (he has something to do with the video) or why he exists or what he has to do with Julia "I Potentially Had Sex With Your Little Brother, Dave Eggers" Allison. In fact, I'm determined to know as little about this video as possible in order to preserve the incredible context in which I got to view it, which was without any. All I know is how it made me feel. I just, I don't know, I mean, okay:

Here's Julia Allison, standing outside a bunch of galleries in Chelsea. She's asking people what it takes to be an art critic and who should be an art critic.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.

It was an odd pairing, the shameless blog-and-video fameball, with a contributor to the famed Eggers line of elaborately precious and self-consciously-old-fashioned written products. But then, judging from the Twitter account Allison, 28, set up for young Eggers, 26ish, there were mutual benefits to the relationship. Toph, reportedly developing a feature film, was determined to make Allison school him in the tricky art of internet self promotion:

Allison, meanwhile, got the high drama of a tantalizingly secret relationship with the mysterious "TK" to write up for her various revenue-generating "lifecasting" endeavors.

More surprising than the pairing was how it ended: At Allison's behest. We hear that Toph had an ex-girlfriend who wasn't ex- enough. With the breakup and its slow leak into public view, Allison is feeling "teary" and old and "the world would be a much better place if we were all more honest."

Hard to imagine this fairy tale romance went awry, given how sweetly it started:

Awwwwww.

(Top pics: NonSociety, Facebook)

The New York Times' Stephanie Clifford posted a picture of an adorable kitten on the internet in a shameless bid to be associated, on the internet, with an adorable kitten — who just so happens to need your urgent help. Well. We would never do anything like that. (Kitty photo courtesy Clifford, btw. Ahem.)

Heidi Montag of The Hills has developed a dance move just for The Gays, presumably in a special lab of some sort.

Above the Law's David Lat, meanwhile, testified to the very precise targeting abilities of said lab.

Ashton Kutcher is just growing up so fast, isn't he, Demi?

Tech writer Milo Yiannopoulos issued a seemingly unlikely retweet of fameballer Julia Allison. The disdain was implied.

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

Jordan Reid, 27, is good evidence that fameballing remains attractive, albeit in a down economy. Mediaite's Rachel Sklar has Reid's top-shelf bio: Dalton, Harvard, an abortive LA acting career that took her to Law and Order (here) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, marriage to a Yalie indie rocker, then the law firm where protocelebrity pimp Allison, in the words of a NonSociety press release, "discovered" her. Now she'll be working for Allison's "lifecasting" startup NonSociety, blogging about "tips on home décor, style, cooking and restaurants, as well as advice for couples in committed relationships."

NonSociety made all of $60,000 last year and lost a shot at a Bravo reality show contract amid the Wall Street implosion. No surprise, then, that the last time we checked the company was trying to recruit a slew of new bloggers like Reid without pay or equity. Reid, in fact, is the prototypical NonSociety recruit — a company ad said it was looking for someone "like [a] 27-year-old Harvard grad housewife married to a rocker." So maybe she nailed down an actual salary. Allison declined to address pay in an interview, telling us only that Reid was under a "fairly standard management contract."

"Management" contract? That implies Reid will live off the revenue she brings into the company, presumably through sponsorship deals. Ouch: Allison has a decent gig endorsing Sony products and fortified water, but before that she had to pay her dues shilling for the likes of Sea World and Dunkin' Donuts. But maybe things will be easier for Reid. Allison insists this is a banner year for NonSociety. "We're making money and it's legit," she told us, before declining to provide hard numbers to back the hype.

NonSociety has enough money, at least, to fortify its executive suite, such as it is: Allison has named her first Gotham roommate Krystal Kahler as titular CEO. Megan Alagna is "Chief Operating Officer." Fancy.

If microcelebrity is making a comeback, then, it is thanks to some intensive care from NonSocieyt's increasingly fancy stable of advertisers. The monster will not be easily slain. And that's putting it optimistically.

(Reid's hire was first reported at Reblogging NonSociety. Lower pic via.)

Full press release:

NonSociety Announces Hiring of Newest Contributor Jordan Reid

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 13, 2009: NonSociety, an online social platform wherein the contributors share their opinions via their personalities with an interactive audience, announces the hiring of their newest contributor Jordan Reid. Joining current NS contributors and founders Julia Allison and Meghan Asha, Reid's focus will be "Domestic Bliss Done Differently," and will offer tips on home décor, style, cooking and restaurants, as well as advice for couples in committed relationships. The website goes live on September 14, 2009, and can be found at www.jordan.nonsociety.com.

The hiring of Reid marks the next step in the progression of NonSociety as an online venue for experts. Reid is the first of many new contributors to come, each in a different niche, who will share their expertise in their particular field while also giving readers a glimpse into their personal lives.

Lifecasting, as NonSociety calls it, helps readers develop a personal connection to their contributors. Readers get to know and trust contributors' opinions the way they do with their friends. "The synergy of professional expertise and personal divulgence is the backbone of the NonSociety online platform," NonSociety's Chief Operating Officer Megan Alagna says. "It establishes a reader/expert relationship in a way not currently seen in media, making NonSociety the go-to platform for professional branding – and personal journalism which informs, entertains and inspires."

Reid was discovered by Allison at a NYC party. 27 years old and married, with a Harvard degree and killer style, Reid was working at a law firm but longing to turn her hobby - DIY home projects – into a full time gig. Her search for wedded bliss in the city of career obsessed singles stood out to Allison, who immediately dubbed Reid "The Uncommon Newlywed" and convinced her to join the team at NonSociety.

Says Reid: "Am I a chef? No. An interior designer? Hardly. I consider myself a somewhat talented amateur in these arenas, and for me this lifecast is an exciting journey and an on-going learning process. I'm hoping my readers will benefit from seeing someone just like them who is unafraid to try...well, just about anything."

NonSociety founder Allison says, "Jordan is what would happen if a Harvard-educated, twenty-something Martha-Stewart-in-training married a rocker, rode a motorcycle, and refused to wear any skirt that hit below mid-thigh. We're beyond thrilled to have her on board!"

Aside from Reid, NonSociety has brought on young writer and girl-about-town Cary Randolph to cover fashion week. Reid and Randolph mark the first contributors to be hired by NonSociety since the departure of styleblogger Mary Rambin. Allison and Asha (along with Rambin) continue to co-host TMI Weekly, a Next New Networks production airing on NBC's lifestyle channel NY NonStop. NonSociety is expected to grow exponentially as on online media platform in the next few months, bringing on several new contributors in areas like entertainment, fashion and home décor by the end of the year.

Did you know she carries a Sony Vaio Lifestyle PC in her purse? It's not the only thing she pulls out of her purse with the word Lifestyle on it. Zing! Also, Julia likes Justin Timberlake (one of her fellow Vaio hawkers), cupcakes, and updating her Facebook status. We never knew! We do love the idealized version of the subway that she rides. It's white and clean, has beautiful chairs, and doesn't smell like three-day-old vomit that some sorority girl left on the 6 train on her way home to Murray Hill.

So, when Julia goes to play movies, she pulls up Cupcakes by Julia Allison and when she goes to web, it goes to Julia Allison's crazy version of Twitter. Does that mean the Vaio only works with programs that run on a Julia Allison interface? Or has Julia Allison finally succeed in taking over the entirety of the internet? The mind boggles.

She calls the device, "smaller, cuter, portabler—wait that's not a word." Do you think JA gets $4 for make-believe words too? She loves this thing so much because it's cute and tough and makes her illicit little growls. Is she a tiger or a sex kitten? Is she a Notebook PC or an Entertainment Machine? Well, we know that she's not a computer, so she has to be an entertainment machine. Oh yes, definitely, she's been churning out ridiculous situations for years now.

Thanks Julia. Cute purse!

How much would you pay for the dulcet writings of one Julia Allison, famous thinker of the internet? One editor asked JA about doing some freelance work, and here is the price she was quoted, via email:

Um ... you're going to have a heart attack :)

I'm at $4 / word, which works out to be about $ 2,500 - $3k for an
article / column.

I for one am having a heart attack, right now. Entrepreneurialism! Can this be true, on the actual planet, Earth? JA tells us via IM that yes, it is true. And that some unknown customers out there are in fact paying her this much money, for writing words for them. [Here is a thing JA is doing now, if you are really curious and masochistic.] So, you should be inspired that it's still possible to "make it," struggling writers. [Gunshot].


OC Register sports columnist Mark Whicker has used the "Let me fill in the victim of a tragedy on all the sports news they have missed" trope before! He tells Poynter: "In 1991 he followed up on journalist Terry Anderson's release after being held captive in Lebanon for close to seven years by writing about all the sports news he had missed." Also Whicker doesn't believe his column "mocked that woman" at all. Mark, just take a few days off from answering phone calls now.


Trendy! The latest addition to the growing canon of laid-off journalists writing about their new, non-journalism jobs: Jay Field, a former public radio journalist who now drives a taxi. And blogs about it! Man. Kind of sucks cause that would have made a good experiential public radio piece.


Folksy human Garrison Keillor is recovering after suffering a "minor stroke" yesterday Monday. He's reportedly up and working already, so hopefully it was, in fact, minor.

Living in a pool house in L.A., playing poker at a race track. Allen Salkin—the Seymour Hersh of the Styles section—files this weekend on Harris, who's doing some kind of strange press round for Ondi Timoner's documentary about him, We Live In Public. The last guy to file on Harris? Jayson Blair.

Harris was maybe the first chronic oversharer. The guy who founded Jupiter Communications and Pseudo Programs once webcammed his entire life and broadcast it for web-savvy voyeurs to see. He could be considered a pioneer in a culture that gave rise to Julia Allison—who, of course, appears in the doc—as well as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and pretty much any other form of communication that shoves someone's life down your throat.

Maybe suspiciously, Salkin's plugged Harris before, when writing about a group of New York writers who abstain from oversharing at their salons (but still tell their story to the New York Times). He's dipping back into the same well for his profile on Harris. Commence quoting of tech luminary Jason Calicanis, whose pool house Harris is now possibly housed in:

"He is one of the 10 most important people in the history of the Internet," said Jason Calacanis, an entrepreneur of digital media who once chronicled New York's tech scene in his publication, The Silicon Alley Reporter. "He may not be the most famous."

But Salkin eventually gets to the good stuff, chronicling how far Harris, who once threw parties at his SoHo loft in which there was "sushi served off naked women, boxing, hip-hop artists including Eminem, and Mr. Harris sometimes dressed as his alter ego, a shrieky clown in smeared makeup named Luvvy, based on the wife of Thurston J. Howell III, a character from "Gilligan's Island."

You know someone's has both made it and simultaneously sealed their fate once they start dressing up as Pennywise impersonating Lovey. And so it was. Harris:

• Had only $741 to his name when Salkin interviewed him.
  
  
• Sold the apple farm he tried to escape to from Manhattan in 2006.
  
  
• Had to ensure part of the buyout deal for his second company, the marginally successful Operator 11, involved a provision that'd pay off his $150K AmEx bill.
  
  
• Went to Ethiopia to start another entertainment channel (which was well documented). Instead, he ended up smoking lots of weed (which wasn't).
  
  
• Just this year, when Timoner won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, she had Harris fly out for the festival Q & A's. He only came pending oatmeal and the promise of a visit to a dentist. He never came back from Park City with Timoner.
  
  
• Is also delusional. Salkin experienced Harris' insanity first hand when Harris explained that he thinks the F.B.I. went after him for being connected to 9/11.

The denouement is that Harris is trying to start a new startup, and Jason Calacanis wants to help. The startup is called The Wired City. Any New York Times sentence that begins with the word "basically" should prepare readers for a concept that, if not boiled down to less than a sentence, is otherwise absurd. And it is:

Basically, it would have a large group of people living in a sort of three-dimensional real-world Facebook, where "friends" could participate in one another's every move.

He explained that if two people were Wired City participants having lunch at a restaurant talking about clowns, friends watching remotely could send video that would, perhaps, be broadcast on the table showing a clip from "Shakes the Clown" followed by menu recommendations. The cleverest friends would be rewarded.

It's hard to be completely cynical about an idea like The Wired City—as history's proven, crazier ideas have taken off—but Harris' manic self-destruction is ultimately going to be the large roadblock here. Salkin—who could've made a great trend piece out of this, too—lets a few salient points escape him, as he's wont to do.

Timoner's last documentary, Dig!, which detailed the almost-rise and tragic fall of The Brian Jonestown Massacre (a band led by a singer with another really, really bad Icarus complex), basically tells the same story. Guy reaches apex of fame and decides to throw it all away in a fit of self-indulgence. The Brian Jonestown Massacre isn't the band it could be, but they still play shows and make money, boosted by the spectacle put on display in Dig!, which lead singer Anton Newcomb quietly, smartly capitalized on. If Harris is smart, and can reign in the crazy, he might be able to hose some angel investors into doing the same, thereby giving him a second chance.

The fates of Mark Zuckerburg - the Facebook Boy Wonder whose life is getting the Aaron Sorkin treatment - Twitter's Evan Stone and Biz Williams, Tumblr's David Karp, and a bunch of other young, hot tech entrepreneurs have yet to be completely written. If they've got any sense about them, they're gonna pay close attention to Harris, whose tragic genius now amounts to insane, conspiratorial Styles Section kickers:

Walking past his old Pseudo offices at Houston and Broadway, Mr. Harris, who said he has never been in love, adjusted his dark sunglasses.

"It's a funny thing being in fear for your life," he said. "It's kind of addictive."

Allison has confirmed to us that her "lifecasting" startup, NonSociety, is behind this audacious Craigslist ad. It's already been chewed up and spit out in the blogosphere for, among other things, asking the world for a "vibrant" personality, "ridiculously reliable" work ethic, maybe a Harvard degree and a glamorous spouse in return for no money and no equity. Or, as Allison puts it, "all of the support, the audience, the connections and the PR you need to launch your brand."

It doesn't help that the list of potential lifecasting roles outlined by Allison and her partners sounds like it was ripped from a catalog of stereotypes: "gay, style guy, teen, prom obsessed" ... "alternative lifestyle, interior/exterior design expert" ... "preppy" ... "rapper." As Just Another Brooklyn Blog put it:

Oh, so I can either have some quirky skill, or just enjoy man on man anal sex. In lieu of a resume, should I just send you a picture of me giving another man a reach-around.

If your life fits into a category that Allison and business partner Megan Asha consider brand-able, AND you clear their application process, you'll have the privilege of constantly broadcasting your life for NonSociety through "text, photographs, videos, perhaps music selection, quotes - and beyond." And beyond.

And, who knows, maybe after a few years you can graduate into a paying gig endorsing consumer electronics or "enhanced water." If that doesn't pay the bills, why not start a lifecasting platform of your own? After all, the internet fame game played by Allison and her protocelebrity cohorts might be a deflating bubble, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people still willing to buy into it. It's not like media and financial companies are hiring much these days.

(Pic: TMIWeekly)

It's still easy to sneer at Allison as an overreaching wantrepreneur; her NonSociety made all of $60,000 last year and lost one of its three partners this year. It replaced an option from NBC's national network, Bravo, with a deal involving NBC's local lifestyle cable channel, a much smaller venue. And Allison's Time Out New York column ended — so when Sony calls her a "columnist and Web celebrity" it's a bit of a stretch.

But Allison has come a long way from selling Dunkin' Donuts product placement on her blog and pimpage in Herald Square, and from getting paid to blog about a cheesy trip to Sea World. In the pantheon of brands Allison has been closely associated with — AM New York, Star magazine, Dunkin' Donuts, Sea World, New York Nonstop, etc. — Sony is easily the most distinguished. And the electronics company is putting her in good company, alongside writer Amy Sedaris, singer Justin Timberlake and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. Via national TV commercials, radio, print and online ads and retail display, Sony will hawk...

...the BRAVIA television line, Blu-ray Disc home entertainment, Cyber-shot digital cameras, alpha digital SLR cameras, Handycam camcorders and Sony professional high-definition camera systems, VAIO notebook computers and Sony Reader digital books

Allison is more of a Macbook and Canon and Kodak and iPhone/Kindle kind of girl. But if Sony — last real hit: PlayStation 2 — wants to connect with the Facebooking, Apple-loving young masses, it has to start somewhere, and spokespeople like Allison and America's Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker are clearly meant to help endear the company to the tech-savvy, style-conscious younger women Sony thinks should be buying its products.

So while reality television might be an saturated market, Alllison and her agents at ICM have stumbled onto a new opportunity for lifecasters, in a down market no less: Lending flailing tech companies a distinctly Webby buzz they hope to deploy against cooler rivals. For this, Julia Allison the crossover protocelebrity deserves her due. Now Julia Allison the aspiring Web media mogul has to finally show how her uniquely relentless brand of self-promotion can actually power a company (NonSociety) that offers long-term value to people other than herself. There will be, it is safe to say, plenty of people watching.

Amazingly, a San Francisco technology startup failed to give George W. Bush's henchman the recognition he felt he deserved.

Twitter's Evan Williams took his son to work, if only virtually.

Daniel Victor of the Harrisburg, Pa.'s Patriot News conducted some journalistic anthropology.

The Daily Show's Rob Corddry reported quality-control issues at the Cheesecake Factory.

Lifecaster Julia Allison needed some help to overshare, for once.

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

ABC News' Jake Tapper, 40, launched into a sarcastic inter-generational feud with NBC's Joe Scarborough, who is all of 46. Come on, Jake, it's not like there aren't plenty of valid reasons to hate on Joe Scarborough.

Julia Allison asked if it's OK to be rude in order to satisfy one's curiosity, as opposed to acting curious in order to be rude.

Kevin Tofel of mobile tech site jkOnTheRun had a little trouble letting go of his precious, precious internet.

If counting a bloggers' pageviews can damage his ego, comparing his pageviews can obliterate it. Metcalfe's law is a fickle mistress, indeed. Just ask Gizmodo contributor Joel Johnson.

To Gina Trapani, 2003 seems like just it was just five years ago. This is either a natural symptom of aging, or of juggling a podcast, website, columns at Harvard and Lifehacker and two open-source projects.

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

Protocols, the group in question, was put together by Michael Malice, the Overheard In New York guy, whose "life story" was also chronicled by Harvey Pekar in a comic book. Some of the writers: noted Fingerbanging Expert Justin Rocket Silverman of the New York Post; Gawker Media 's Fleshbot Editor Lux Alptraum; Heeb's Jeff Newelt, a publicist/comic book artist; and illustrator/artist Molly Crabapple. No question, as far as media gatherings go, it's an impressively diverse group. Most of the time, when media people get together in New York, it's the same fifty people, at the same bar, and they're all talking shit on each other, or the shit they talked earlier in the week. Pathetically guilty as charged.

Salkin, as he's wont to do, trots off a bunch of numbers about The Way We Live Now with Facebook, Twitter, texting, cell phones, clubs that won't allow you to take pictures of other parties, bars that don't allow you to document their goings-on, and various ways in which people in New York put themselves out there. He ends on a salient note: the documentarian behind We Live In Public - about this very trend, which features an appearance by none other than Julia Allison - at one point mugs to a camera in the doc: "I'm just a product ready to be harvested." His eventual fate?

He moved to an upstate apple farm in 2001. According to his biography on the film's Web site, he is now running an entertainment network in Sidamo, Ethiopia.

Impressive that Salkin - normally a slave to his stories - got this one right, even if he still has a lot to learn about Twitter (as evidenced by the screengrab above, ha). But it feels like he might've missed the larger picture:

1. The idea that a group of people getting together who aren't allowed to broadcast their whereabouts or ideas even makes the news.

2. The fact that Protocols - a conversation whose foundation is wrapped around the idea of not being broadcast - wasn't able to resist being profiled by the Sunday Styles.

3. That the urge to express ones-self in some way is - yeah, besides self-evident - possibly just the American Condition.

Writers have been talking into the abyss for ages. Now, every away message, Tweet, and Facebook status puts people who wouldn't have ordinarily found themselves sharing inane sentiments on the same road as, say, Julia Allison, or any chronic over-sharer ever chronicled (or bylined) on this site. They might not be so far down said road as her, but anytime anybody talks into the vast expanse of the internet, they've expressed the desire to be heard by someone, anyone, anywhere. For better or worse, the repression (or restraint) that caused people to once stay silent in any number of ways is now a rarity.

That same desire isn't so far, ironically, from what Protocols nobly sets out to do. The difference is that they know who they're talking to. And quite frankly - again, for better or worse, wonderfully or creepily - I have no idea who any of you are.

• Julia Allison, professional lifecaster/shill blogger.
  
• Sarah Lacy, noted interviewer, interrupter, and lover of junkets. (Speaking of which, we're told this LA trip is all expenses paid. With a swanky hotel!)
  
• Shira Lazar, who hosts TV shows on KNBC and "Reelz," dated Kevin Rose, flirted with Mike Arrington and was Julia Allison's date to the inauguration.
  
• Brigitte Dale, video blogger for ABC Family.
• Scoble. We hear manic blogger/Twitterer/FriendFeed-er and ex Microsoft flack Robert Scoble is to contribute his insights as well.

So basically, all the top brain power in one spot.

Allison uploaded the picture above of this dot-com Algonquin Round Table, in their flip-flops and beach clothes. We cannot wait to read their report.

"Try not to seem lame," Julia admonishes the youngsters of America while she counts down five tips for dating in a tech-oriented world. It's solid advice. On that note, things to watch for: Julia's hostility and skepticism of men being projected on her young audience, Alexa Chung's visible discomfort when talking about sex tapes with teenagers ("I've always...found myself...to be offended by those"), and Julia's orbit orange mane, god bless it. It's wavy!

In the greater context of MTV, this represents two things, I guess: the first being that there's some crossover between the tech world and the cable network, which is maybe trying to get hip to the game of figuring out what people are connecting to on Those Goddamn Internets (operative term: "hip," ironic term: "hip"), the other being that Justin Timberlake's complaint that they should show more music videos has very clearly been wiped from the agenda. Somewhere, Mark Knopfler is maybe crying and The Buggles are maybe celebrating and Kennedy is definitely like fuck this noise. God, I miss Kennedy.

And yes, I know: groan, not her again, we're sick of her, it's Julia Allison (or so goes the typical party line around here). But realize, for a moment, that in the greater context of Julia Allison, this represents a watershed moment: being referred to as a Carrie Bradshaw-type on MTV has to feel pretty good for her. On the other hand, her day-gig's still on an obscure digital cable channel, she's shilling for Sea World, and her dog has yet to be fully house-trained (unless she has it shitting on command).

She comes across a little strong in contrast with Chung, no? Maybe it's because we're used to her outsized personality that she's not afraid to fling onto the far-reaches of the internet, but her appearance with Chung is a little shocking, in a way. Do you think the kids in that room were prepared for that? I feel like she's drunk cousin Hailey lecturing the young'uns

The greater question remains: what's the endgame for Julia Allison? Is she still trying to promote Julia Allison, The Brand? Is she now just aiming for a career of TV punditry, like her short-lived career as Star's editor-at-large? Or does she want moneybags to invest in her as a personality that transcends brands and mediums?

Whatever it is, it inexplicably keeps moving along. Hopefully, for her sake, towards something besides a ceiling. Then again, she's proven such things penetrable. Like my brain, after writing this post.

These friggin' bloggers are pimping stuff all over the place without disclosing their involvement with the stuff they're pimping. They're doing it on blogs, on Twitter, in their Facebook status updates—Who will stop these virtual charlatans from deceiving the doltish masses? The government, of course! Well, maybe.

The proliferation of paid sponsorships online has not been without controversy. Some in the online world deride the actions as kickbacks. Others also question the legitimacy of bloggers' opinions, even when the commercial relationships are clearly outlined to readers.

And the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look at such practices and may soon require online media to comply with disclosure rules under its truth-in-advertising guidelines.

A draft of the new rules was posted for public comments this year and the staff is to make a formal recommendation to be presented to the commissioners for a vote, perhaps by early fall.

"Consumers have a right to know when they're being pitched a product," said Richard Cleland, an assistant director at the Federal Trade Commission.

We almost always find it amusing when the Times takes issue with the internet in some way, but in this case we'd have no problem if all of the bloggers mentioned in this article were subjected to public stonings, especially this one:

TNT, for instance, is experimenting with a paid relationship with a popular blogger, Melanie Notkin, founder and chief executive of SavvyAuntie.com, a site that has carved out a demographic niche of professional aunts without children.

Ms. Notkin is sending out several messages to her more than 10,000 Twitter followers on Tuesday nights, when a new episode of "Saving Grace" is shown.

Bloggers like this one give blogging a bad name, which is quite an accomplishment when you really stop and think about it. With that said, the name "Julia Allison" appears nowhere in this piece, amazingly.

When a Blogger Voices Approval, A Sponsor May Be Lurking [New York Times]
pic via

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.

Held on a rainy Friday under an enclosed rooftop a stone's throw from Lincoln Center, The Webutante Ball was the sordid brainchild of URLesque blogger Jessica Amason and Gawker Media video maven Richard Blakeley, the two of whom are the co-authors of forthcoming blog-to-book-deal staple This Is Why You're Fat and an egregiously, irritatingly cute capitalist couple. It was, for all intents and purposes, a prom for internet, tech, and media dorks. There was a ballot, and there were nominees. There were winners! And there was a rope, with a line.

I braved the entire thing with my hot date/cover fire, Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz, who was incidentally - and, at least to her, incredulously - a balloted nominee. "I have absolutely no idea how I ended up on that ballot. I'm decidedly not internet-famous." Oh, honey. You are now. Also on the ballot, former Gawker Mascot Andrew Krucoff, who declined to show for the festivities: "I'm celebrating shabbat," Krucoff noted. "Also, fuck that noise," he added. Onward: to the gallery we go!

Former and still-sometimes HuffPo writer, Dan Abrams Kool-Aid Drinker, and author of her upcoming and hotly anticipated book-deal book Jew-ish, Rachel Sklar, gets "man"-handled by her date, the VP of some telecommunicating tech thing called LifeLinks, Ash Kalb. This was staged.

Former Flavorpill editor and Double-X contributor, Anna Balkrishna with New York Post writer Justin Rocket Silverman. I asked Rocket - yes, Rocket - about his recent story for the Post in which he covered the meditative art of fingerbanging. Silverman instructed Balkrishna and I on proper performance, which is apparently akin to the "REDRUM" finger painting from The Shining.

Webutante Ball co-founder Jessica Amason is the "Yearbook Girl" of this entire enterprise. "Also, make sure you don't credit me as 'Blakeley's girlfriend,' goddamnit." She then grabbed me and hung me over the roof of the Empire in a Suge-Knight esque manner to ensure I understood what she was saying. Point taken.

Roger Wu, the founder and president of Klickable.TV, gives us his best entrepreneurial smile. He just gave a bunch of Vimeo kids a curbside beating and left them for dead on the third floor of the Empire.

Nerve and ASSME writer Drew Grant conspires with Yalie and Dan Abrams henchman (yes, that is what a Dan Abrams henchman looks like) Andrew Cedotal to feed me information regarding the sexual workings of fired media elites, which they will then use for profit when taken to corporations who could give a shit about the bold line between journalism, market research, and publicity. They are the future.

Julia Allison showed up in an Escalade, wearing a crown, and walked around the party as such. I have nothing to add here. She didn't win anything, luckily, and went home the same person she arrived as. Also, she came with an unnamed foot solider.

Regular Party Crash contributor Melissa Gira Grant, with former Valleywag editor, the dangerously ginger Nick Douglas. "I'm off the fucking job, get away," Gira delicately noted. Douglas smiled politely and retreated to his iPhone where he used his Pot 'O Gold app to make sure nobody had taken his treasure in the last two minutes.

Guess what party these people aren't with. No, really, guess.

On the left, Former Gawker Intern Mary Pilon, with Web Personae and Webutante nominee Anthony DeRosa on the right. Mary went from being a Gawker Intern to working for the Wall Street Journal! Anthony does something with tech something or other and blogs about the Mets. Neither would take a picture without me in it, so I happily obliged. Suckers.

Jake Hurwitz of College Humor, kissing sweet nothings into the face of College Humor's Ben Joseph. They take a bunch of these kisses and make laughs out of them! Whee! Barry Diller actually encourages this kind of thing.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The winner! College Humor's Amir Blumenfeld is the King of the Webutante Ball, because he fixed the vote! As if having his own MTV show and web series weren't enough, he and the College Humor people had to come and win this shit, too. His queen, ridiculous Jewess Cutie and fellow College Humor startlet, Sarah Schneider, poses with him here. Barry Diller doesn't just encourage, but mandates this kind of thing. Well done, kids. Pictured with him here: an unnamed friend.

Richard Blakeley takes Boyfriend Duty incredibly seriously.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.MediaBistro reporter Hunter Walker tries to scoop something out of Random Night Out photographer Nick McGlynn. McGlynn's doing some startup with socialite creature thing Adrien Field, and Hunter, intrepid reporter that he is, probably wanted to know what planet Field is from.

They don't care about the Young Folks; they're here to sap them of their youth and enter one of their heads through a portal, like the end of Being John Malkovich, except the low-rent version.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Brah! My thoughts exactly.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Cnet reporter Caroline McCarthy is shocked - shocked! - that there are people here taking pictures. This is also the face she makes before she turns into Golum, takes the camera and my notes, leaps off the roof and into her batmobile, where she goes home and tirelessly reports the comings and goings of the rest of these people for a living. Princeton grad. Princeton. Grad.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Foursquare Mayor of Kensington, Brooklyn, New York Press and ASSME writer Matt "Slim Thug" Harvey is being properly identified in this picture.

Gawker Media business something-or-other Scott Kidder wants to know what's in his teeth, and if you could get it out, please, so he could then latch his fangs on to you and suck your will to invoice him for services rendered out through your neck. This is why Denton pays him the big bucks, insert Bloodcopy joke here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Blogger and Media Maven Brian Van wants to know why everyone wants his picture. It's because he's the one guy wearing sunglasses inside. That being said, this was probably the place to do it, as it was maybe the least egregious display of jocular self-seriousness in the house.

Esquire's matrimonial expert Matt Shepatin was just given some BHG. It's like GHB, but instead of knocking you the fuck out, it makes you all too aware of your surroundings, which can leads to blackouts and unconscious episodes that eventually render you both useless and clinging to the floor of a J-Train, talking to a cat-strewn BagLady about the future of digital media.

Richard Blakeley's Delta Force of terrifying interns. They sit around all day and pick out video clips like monkeys pick coffee beans from trees in far away countries, and then bring them back down to Blakeley. Some coffee-picking monkeys eat the beans and then shit them out for their coffee-harvesting masters; luckily, Blakeley doesn't ask them to do that for him. Yet.

The Founding Couple of The Webutante Ball, together. I asked them, in all seriousness, why they were doing this. Blakeley kept his mouth shut, while Jessica kinda explained. Was it for money, to generate book sales buzz? "Eh, kinda." Why, then? "These people probably didn't go to prom, or never had a chance at being elected king or queen. Now they do. Also, this scene's more or less exactly like high school, no matter what level you're on. It makes perfect sense." But WHY? "Because we're sick of the same parties. We wanted to make people dress up for a change. We needed to class it up." Despite her attempts, these people - myself included - are all circlejerky, pompous, and declasse. But they got drunk on a rooftop bar uptown, which was actually a nice change from Tom and Jerry's. Sigh. All's fair in love and social media.

Party Crash photog and Webutante nominee Mo Pitz is drinking away the sorrow of losing. Ha! Just kidding! She's drinking away the sorrow of being my date.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.How 'bout Guest of a Guest blogger Rachelle Hruska, who wins a title of "THE QUEEN BEE" from Meltzer. Meltzer got this one correct, but anyone could've: Hruska has the social-scene-y blogging game on an insidiously smart lockdown. Remember Park Avenue Peerage, Socialite Rank, etc? Nobody does, because the Omaha-born former hedge funder blew them out of the water with a special Kool-Aid-esque formula that everyone in everyone's managed to take a sip of: cover the highbrow, the exclusive, the velvet rope-y shit. Mix it with coverage of "Normals" (i.e. New York Media/Tech neophytes who have more inherent accessibility than the Other Half, who want to be capital-c, Cool, too). Perfect example: the GoaG Hamptons Launch party this very website reported on last week. Sure, there were other people there besides the usual New York Media suspects, but who cares? The ones that mattered were the ones that will most likely disseminate her message to others: bloggers. We award Hruska the Distinguishment of Subversive Evil Genius. Rachelle's the exception to the group, because she actually makes money doing what she does, supposedly. Also, she's exhibited intelligence, and doesn't make herself the star of the show.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Speaking of which, now we get to the good stuff: Mary Rambin, Julia Allison's NonSociety ex-pat (ex-pet?) whom Meltzer awarded The Soloist. Chortle-worthy comparisons to a black, homeless, schizophrenic cello genius aside, Meltzer used the term "unsettling" to describe some of the things readers ("fans") of Rambin's blog have discovered about her, including when she "shamed readers who won free products and then failed to send her thank-you notes." Hysterical, and kudos to Meltzer for doing her research. My only contention with this is that Rambin's presence on the web is marginal at best, and it's going to get exponentially smaller when she moves back to L.A. (where, like the rest of the country, nobody gives a shit about media people) which she's apparently doing. Rambin gets The Ringo Starr Silver Ribbon, as in: no matter how many Beatles you outlive, you're always going to be Ringo*.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.I have no idea what an Ashley Simko is, but apparently she stepped on Kanye West's shoes, once, according to Meltzer. Also, she's friends with the Guest of a Guest crew and - oh, wait. She works in graphic design. That's why we have no idea who she is. Here's her blog, I don't get it. As far as being a fameball goes, Meltzer's wrong, Simko doesn't make the cut. Congratulations, Simko! You made it out alive. You're awarded The Free Pass Out Of New York's Social Alcatraz. Go forth: design beautiful things, live quietly!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Meltzer also named Paper writer Paul Johnson-Calderon to the list, but didn't name the only reason anyone's ever heard of him besides being an assistant to Lauren Davis at Vogue, once: he was the subject of one of my favorite Page Six items ever run, after he stole some hostess' purse from LES $23/drink nightclub The Eldridge. Petty larceny? So 90s! And hip! That same item had some ex-boyfriend of someone and socialgay Kristian Laliberte both saying he'd jacked shit from them, too (a BlackBerry and a watch), so either Meltzer's friends with the guy, or just got so sick of writing about these people, she just phoned that one in. Johnson-Calderon is hereby awarded The Honorable Position of Class Treasurer..

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Moving along, we have my favorite: the delectable, oft-bespectacled, bow-tied little creature known as Adrien Field. All of 20 years-old, nobody has any idea what earth he doth sprang from (supposedly, "South Jersey," which: so funny), nor do we know how powerful he is, but I think Field is just a viral marketing campaign for Terminator Salvation, wherein Sam Worthington's character wakes up in mud screaming and he's this incredible warrior that may or may not be a motherfuckin' Terminator. Woah.

Meltzer labeled him "The Youngster" and noted that's he's a correspondent for TMI Weekly, so he's basically a crony of Julia Allison and Mary Rambin. Implications of that aside, Meltzer notes that Field has a "men's style" blog that looks like the result of Agador from The Birdcage learning how to use the internet. Seriously (example here). Field can actually write, and he's astoundingly good at getting himself in front of cameras. If he can figure out a way to either (A) monetize himself or (B) keep himself out of the fameball spotlight while building a product, he might be able to survive, unlike the other Gungans, who will just become extinct when the Empire takes over the universe. Just kidding. We're all gonna die out, eventually, especially when people start reading books again. Field gets The Chris Crocker Memorial Award for his distinct style, emotional connection with his audience, and the bright future that Crocker never made it to.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Last, we have Jessica Schroeder, a born-and-bred Tumblr celebrity. Meltzer called her "The Hippie Hipster," but we all know any serious hippie does acid (right?), and Schroeder's your perfectly clean-cut, New York neophyte: a Midwestern import, who moved here to work in fashion and build herself as a brand. I hate this city. She takes pictures of her outfits, blogs about them, and subsequently got a few clips in fashion magazines. Her sartorial style appears to have quality, but her personal blog has seen her prone to personal misgivings about other girls on the internet, and is also shows her as an ardent and aggressive defender of thin women. She rose to fame on Tumblr, and has since been seen out on the town (on occasion) with Tumblr founder/boy wonder David Karp. Jessica wins "Best Dressed" because we're all out of other awards and her plan is so diabolically perfect, it's probably going to work, and Jessica Schroeder the Brand will kill at Target.

America, on behalf of the rest of New York and the last 7,000 characters, I apologize. Our final award of the evening goes to Marisa Meltzer, author of the piece, who you may remember from her linguistic beatdown at last week's N+1 90's panel. We appreciate that Meltzer is trying to document and create culture rather than wax poetic about it in a white room in The New Museum, but really: Marissa. You write for Slate and the Times. Unless this thing bought you nine dinners at Per Se, what the hell?! Meltzer is hereby designated Nu-Fameball Class of 2009 Advisor, or something. It's only fair we thank you appropriately. May we never write about anybody here again.

*This reminds me of a famous quote in which John Lennon was asked if Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world. Lennon replied that he wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles.

After nearly missing her flight, the internet fameball didn't hesitate to violate federal aviation rules.

And then she dove right in to the wining and dining with her hosts.

But after a few drinks or bites of dead sea creature of whatever, Allison suddenly heard an odd voice in her head. Is that her conscience?? Time to lob some softballs at the flack have a "forthright discussion."

Whale kiss + dating joke, bwahahaha. Forget about the specifics of that "forthright discussion" on animal rights, those can wait another day (or forever).

With fellow "sponsored" bloggers. Not her usual crowd.

Sea World rescued 17,000 animals! They rule!

Except when they confine polar bears to "tiny rooms" and make them look morbidly depressed!

This man invited Allison to touch the fat little upright creature on his lap. She was scared at first, but came around.

She ended up wanting to puke.

After 22 tweets and 28 blog posts, Sea World seems to have gotten it's money's worth. And Allison's still going! It turns out her benefactor's creepy/hilarious YouTube video was right, after all:

Times are tough, and Allison's startup NonSociety has not escaped the bad economy: It's already lost a reality-show deal (Bravo declined to proceed beyond a pilot) and one of its three co-founders. This perhaps helps explain why Allison has become a "featured blogger" for "Social Media Marketing" firm Izea.

Listed on the front page, Allison helps the company advance its mission to "provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for posting social media content about a product, service or website on their blog."

Izea, in other words, pays for posts. In cash. And Allison has started working hard for one of its featured clients, Sea World, which is inviting bloggers to a press junket this week. Today on her NonSociety blog, Allison gushed about her upcoming trip to the marine park with no fewer than five exclamation marks. On Twitter she was a bit more restrained, with just one "!" (the microblogging service limits users to 140 characters, after all).

Neither of those posts included any disclosure of Allison's relationship to Izea or Sea World — even though such disclosure is required by Izea.

After a tipster pointed us evidence of Allison's shilling, we got in touch with her for comment. She's promised to get back to us.

But other bloggers, including all those laid off print journalists hoping to chase their dreams online, can draw a quick lesson: There is still money to be made in blogging, even independently. But you'll have to do some ethical soul-searching. And in the end, you'll have to disclose whatever innovative monetization techniques you settle on. Not eventually, either, but up front, right in that first post. Because if you don't, you'll get caught.

UPDATE: Yes, Allison got paid, but "THIS IS THE FIRST THING THEY HAVE EVER PAID ME FOR." The bastards! More:

Just as in relationships, when a significant other's dog empties itself on your carpet, you've broken a threshold, a deed that will never be undone. And we imagine Julia Allison's cupcake-eating dog, Lilly, has shit on a lot of carpets.

This probably happened to Vimeo founder and retreated-fameball Jakob Lodwick shortly before he was ousted from the company.

We've all heard about the troubles of Facebook lately (Spam! Departures!, Gadfly speculation on the non-monetizable nature of the company!) since her and Randi Zuckerberg became besties and started smoking in the bathroom and whatnot.

This probably didn't happen to social-network-as-video-game OMGPOP founder Charles Forman, because we haven't heard anything about that company other than people pouring money into it sometime both before and after the couple broke up (Forman more or less claimed tinnitus, not dogshitting, as the breaking point).

But Tumblr founder David Karp, while never in a relationship with Allison, has, at the least, always been cozy with her. From deep inside the Tumblr headquarters, proof that this thing has reached a breaking point: The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Yeah: that's Allison, cleaning up Lilly's satanic curse from the floor of the Tumblr offices. Allison has referred to Lilly as a business partner; we don't doubt the dog's cunning skill in strategic shittery as a mark of both territory and omen. Open memo to David Karp and the rest of Tumblr: fumigate the place. Smudge it with sage. Rain dance the hell out of it. And Dennis Crowley of iPhone social networking app Foursquare: put that thing down NOW.

Since her brother, Facebook's Aspergerian CEO, is incapable of normal interactions with people on camera (or off), Randi has taken on the role of the face of Facebook. So her people arranged a whirlwind tour of the nation's media capital: 30 Rock! CBS! Good Morning America! MTV! Colbert!

She capped the day off with a "private" dinner with Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem (of the Gloria Steinem Steinems). Private, that is, except for a certain notorious nobody who crashed the affair: Julia Allison, the vaguely employed former dating columnist, celebrity microblogger, and nontrepreneur. (Randi once popped in between her brother and Allison to prevent a shot of the two side by side from circulating on the Internet. Allison has since expertly employed guilt to worm her way into Randi's circle and extract professional favors from her employer.)

The two were all smiles during a photo op with Steinem. Oh, and then Allison "randomly" bumped into her at the MTV offices the next morning. One can't help thinking that the experience left Randi smarting. She seemed downright testy after an altercation with a bouncer at Manhattan nightclub Apothecary, even threatening to abuse the power of her position to erase the hotspot from the social graph:

(Photo by Julia Allison, naturally)

Internet microcelebrity Julia Allison gazed into the abyss.

Rich Barton, CEO of real-estate startup Zillow, let his iPhone app go to his head.

VH1 pop-culture commentator John Aboud sartorialized.

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean finally turned into a crazy cat lady, as we'd all kind of expected.

MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall feigned objectivity.

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

The ruckus has been stirred up by a sudden rise in the number of people who list themselves as fans of "Julia Allison" on Facebook. Allison has confessed to what happened: After Allison had a meeting with Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who is now actively promoting the site's celebrity pages, Facebook listed Allison's page on a list of suggested pages for new users.

That accounted for most of the jump. But Allison also admitted that she had Facebook "convert" 2,500 people who had requested her friendship on Facebook into fans. That's where she got herself in trouble.

Allison declared herself a "brilliant businesswoman" after her egoblogging startup, NonSociety, cleared five figures last year. She hopes to make more by accumulating a fan base and then shamelessly marketing products to them. In theory, she ought to be familiar with the strict laws around endorsements.

New York, California, and a number of other states have strict laws regulating what's called "commercial appropriation" — simply put, the right to control whether one's name and likeness is used in an advertisement to give the appearance of an endorsement.

Legal pundits have long been alarmed by the way Facebook skirts these rules. When users sign up to be fans of a product or celebrity on the site, the privacy argument goes, they didn't necessarily consent to broadcast that fact to all their friends in a way that's similar to an advertisement. Daniel Solove, a law professor has called this feature of Facebook a "privacy debacle" and argued that simply expressing appreciation for a product or person wasn't the same as signing up to appear in ads. But at least this involves users who willingly signed up to be fans. What of people who found themselves yoked into fandom without giving any kind of consent at all?

That's what happened to 2,500 users who aimed to be friends with Allison, but instead ended up in ads for her described as "fans." Facebook can't fall back on its old defense that they volunteered for the endorsement. They could well file a class-action lawsuit against Allison and Facebook. Nothing in Facebook's terms of service seems to cover such a conversion, which Allison now admits Facebook did as a favor for her.

There may be no separation in Allison's mind between friendship and a commercial relationship, no line between the self and the product. But there is a distinction in the law.

The back story on the friendship between Allison and Randi Zuckerberg: At the SXSW Interactive conference in 2007, Allison had posed next to Mark Zuckerberg at a party. Lest a photo of Allison and Mark start circulating, Randi dived into the shot, sticking out her tongue. When Allison and Randi met later, Randi apologized for judging Allison, and they became fast friends. Allison went to Randi's bachelorette party, they appeared in music videos together and threw a joint, bicoastal birthday party.

The lesson here: Sometimes first judgments are right. And sometimes guilt can be a dangerous thing.

(Photo via Guest of a Guest)

She's already set up an account. Ashton Kutcher, a big Twitter user, is scheduled to appear on the show Friday to talk about Twitter. Ex-dating columnist Julia Allison is trying to recruit other Twitterers for the show. And videoblogger Robert Scoble has posted that Oprah is going to be doing her first tweet.

With so many Internet celebrities on board, how can it not be happening?

She called up a Gawker Media employee, who shall go unnamed, to complain about unspecified errors in Owen Thomas' recent coverage. But not from anger (or an overdose of Blueprint Cleanse) but out of love. See, Gawker's going downhill, she claims, and she'll buy a "round of drinks" if her will is done. Thankfully, I'm not taking orders from Rambin.

Owen's cranky streak is one of the reasons we love him. (Other reasons: he's a talented writer who knows the tech beat inside and out.) Around here, unsolicited and unhinged rants are worn as a badge of honor. The only reason, as far as we can tell, that she thinks Gawker is falling apart is that we're not covering her every move. Such is the double-edged nature of fameballing. And, Mary, if you have a problem with one of my writers, rather than calling the ad staff, you should get in touch with me directly.

Earlier today, "Julia Allison" was the No. 1 search term on Google Trends, which measures fast-rising searches. (It's down to No. 3 at the moment, behind "scott podsednik" and "lil kim wardrobe malfunction".)Why are large numbers of people who have never heard Allison's name before trying to Google the relentless egoblogger who, despite her best efforts to cultivate fame without achievement, remains little-known outside of New York media circles?

It has to be her Saturday-night romance with Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. Reports of her standing between Cutler's beefy thighs at a nightclub have brought her to the attention of a whole new audience: football fans. How frustrating this must be for someone who drunkenly insists that she's a "brilliant businesswoman." Now she's best known as a football player's Saturday night girl.

That's per Page Six. Per the oversharing queen's Twitter, we know Allison was showing the new QB her headband at 2 am in one tweet, and then not posting again until 7:35 am the next morning (see below left).

"Jay is one of the top 10 quaterbacks in the NFL," she wrote a friend. "I didn't know who he was until last night."

Now she knows him.

It's rough time for Allison's "lifecasting" startup NonSociety; one of her three co-founders just split and an option to expand a reality show deal with Bravo expired at the end of February. A little tabloid-fueled traffic bump could come in handy right about now, if only for morale-raising purposes: Allison, it goes without saying, thrives on attention.

The question is whether Allison would allow herself to be called "gross" in order to plant an item like this on Page Six. Not normally. But she kind of needs a "Hail Mary" right now, apparently in more ways than one.

NonSociety, a group blog detailing Allison's, Rambin's, and Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha's daily misadventures, has always promised to be more than just a stream of the trio's daily trivia. "It's just the three of us... but not for long! We're bringing on other contributors," the site has promised since it launched last year. Only now, with Rambin's exit, is Allison looking seriously for more people. The site was never about the three of them, Allison now argues. Well, of course, it was never about anything at all.

Here's what you DO need:

• An unquenchable desire for fame: Obviously. It is what drives all fameballs.
• Shamelessness: Your desire for fame must be greater than that voice in your head screaming, "Stop; you look like an idiot."
• A lack of redeeming talents: This isn't the Nobel Prize, okay? If you're a shameless fame whore but you also, say, cured cancer, one could argue that your talent is being properly appreciated. This will not do.
• An abundance of non-redeeming talents: These may include, but are not limited to: oversharing, self-regard, delusions of grandeur, superficial physical attractiveness, a ridiculous distinctive personal fashion trademark, the ability to talk about oneself without end, conspicuously false modesty, and sluttiness and/or man-whorishness.

• Growing a conscience: It can happen to the worst of them. Instant death.
• A desire for meta-fameballdom rather than actual fameballdom: This is the key mistake that people make when they come directly to us, begging for coverage. We're talking to you, lady who keeps sending us emails billing herself as "The next Julia Allison." You see, while we do grow and cultivate fameballs, it's absolutely essential that those fameballs are not seeking our approval; they must dream of stardom (even micro-stardom) in the outside world, not simply with a knowing wink on Gawker. A fameball's famelust must be their undoing, not their doing. If you're deserving, we'll find you.
• Being a one-trick pony: Lots of people do embarrassing fameball-like things from time to time. But do they have the staying power to keep plumbing ever-greater depths of self-abasement? Only the greatest do.

That would be the "walls indented with plaster vulvas" in back, and JA in the front. She Twittered it, but then deleted it. We saved it for you, JA. (You forgot to invite us though!)

For extra credit: See how many of Allison's microcelebrity pals you can identify in the comments!

(Video by Mike Byhoff and Nicole Keller)

Here, the three ways Julia says she is going to get paid:

1) "Hopefully we'll sell — well, 'we' meaning myself and I and Lilly [her dog] over there — we'll sell a book, we'll sell a company, we'll sell a television show, and we'll sell a screenplay."

2) "I have started to do a lot of public speaking. I've spoken to all the senior execs at A&E, and the top three hundred marketing execs at Unilever."

3) "We take the [standard] click-through ad sales and tweak it so it's much more personal...People look at us like we are their friends, so when we recommend something it has a hell of a lot more value than an ad."

Here, the two ways Julia says she will not get paid:

1) "It can't be dependent on me writing more articles. You can make what? $50,000 a year?"

2) "What, like fucking my way to the middle? Yeah, I didn't do that."

Have any screenwriting, public speaking, or product endorsement work that does not involve writing articles or fucking? Contact "the next Oprah," thx. [Huffpo. Fun fact: Jeremy Abelson is the mastermind behind "Fashion Meets Finance." Appropriate!]

Allison, in a drunken moment at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, admitted to Rambin's impending departure from the lifestreaming venture, in which Allison, Rambin, and Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha Parikh posted constant blog entries, photos, and videos from their empty lives.

Rambin was the least prolific blogger of the three. And yet she contributed so much to NonSociety in contributing so little. True, her "speach" often lacked "coherance" (two actual recent typos). But there's nothing as entertaining as watching a rich girl who recently spent a month on a yacht opine about what it takes to make money. (Which, apparently, she needs.)

Here's Rambin's ramble about the future of Web video:

Here's my answer: I think the key to web video is creating all different formats that can exist together. Create a show with a relatively high production value with approachable characters or personas. Have these people or actors make their own unedited videos so the audience gets to know and love them. Concurrently, short, edited videos should be shot with experts and celebs to show a different perspective in an entertaining way. Approach major brands with sponsorship packages that supplement their current traditional campaign (so they don't get their panties in a bunch). Pitch brand awareness and your distribution channels (which should be any website that will have you). License the show to a major network to increase your eyeballs and the show's value and revenue.

She seems to be talking about TMIweekly, a Web-video show which recently got picked up by NBC's most obscure TV channel. Rambin, Allison said, is sticking with the show even as she's dropping NonSociety. Can you blame her? It's the only part of Allison's laughable startup which is showing even a glimmer of commercial promise. It almost makes you feel sorry for Rambin, when her best prospect for making money consists of unwatchable video on a channel no one watches.

Take last night, for example. The conference's official happy hour was packed, while the cocktail party hosted by Break Media, CollegeHumor, and other panelists from the "Comedy on Television and the Web" panel was far more relaxed. Attendees included CollegeHumor's Ricky Van Veen and The Office's BJ Novak. In between buying dozens of Kamikaze shots, Break Media CEO Keith Richman complimented Mahalo's Jason Calacanis's poker game. (Calacanis is a noted gambler, so much so that we sometimes wonder if he might have a problem.)

Break Media CEO Keith Richman, former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas, and New York writer and comedienne Caroline Waxler

We arrived at Digg's Second Annual Big Digg Shindig at Stubb's BBQ too late to see the live Diggnation taping — though we hear it was packed shoulder to shoulder — but just in time to see fanboys mob Diggnation host Kevin Rose and dispensable sidekick Alex Albrecht for autographs en masse.





NY Tech Meetup organizer, proven wantrepreneur, and host of The Interwebs Nate Westheimer

iLike's Ali Partovi and Hype Machine's Anthony Volodkin

Valleywag alumna and Boffery cofounder Melissa Gira Grant with Automattic's Matt Mullenweg

After a stop at an impromptu Next New Networks party, we headed to the Driskill Hotel. Microcelebrity egoblogger Julia Allison was flanked by fans who showed up after she sent a message on Twitter seeking reassurance of her self-importance. She has actual fans! Three of them!