Earlier this month we wrote about how New York socialite Emilia Fanjul (pictured) hired as an executive assistant and charter-school press contact one Chloe Black, who marries and otherwise travels in white supremacist circles. The story was picked up by the Post and down in Palm Beach, and boy did the shit hit the…
Ok guys, deep breaths. Do you know the Fanjuls? Pepe and his lovely wife Emilia? They're maybe the wealthiest Cuban-American couple in the nation. Emilia, a socialite about Palm Beach, the Dominican Republic, and, yes, New York, is famous for her charitable work. Recently she's made a couple headlines for her newest…
Google PR überführer Elliot Schrage has issued a diktat, we hear: No comment! Google employees are forbidden to comment "officially or unofficially" on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Right. Like that makes any difference. We haven't been able to get any of our Google sources to stop laughing long enough to give us an…
When you've got the buzz from Demo, Chris Shipley's startup conference, and $30 million in funding, it's hard to believe a startup would sink to spamming blogs with upbeat comments. But social network Moli, which hawks itself as a privacy-oriented alternative to Facebook, isn't above such base tactics. Blogger…
People say the craziest things to New York Times reporters. In an attempt to explain that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn't, you know, lying when he implied to NYT staffer Louise Story that Facebook's Beacon ads wouldn't report on users' purchases and other activities unless they opted in to the system, "Matt…
Monica, Monica. First you rob me of all that I loved about PR — the illusion that you labor over each email you send to make it personal to me, just me. Now you're threatening to kill our relationship entirely by bringing in lawyers. Monica, how am I supposed to write the news without your help? How will I learn of…
Thinking about getting an iPhone as a gift for your loved ones this holiday season? Wait 'til next year! That's the message AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson delivered at a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara yesterday when he announced that a 3G iPhone would arrive next year. "You'll have it next year,"…
I got a free pass to DEMO! I was really happy — until I got to the last line of the attached email.
PR blogger Vince Bank is peeved that tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki is using Twitter to promote his startup Truemors, instead of giving him "personal insights." And he calls himself a PR guy? Kawasaki's fanboys accept and defend his self-promotion. Bank even misses the valuable lesson Kawasaki taught him when Bank's…
Richard Laermer of RLM PR is either into some really depraved adult entertainment. Or he's very lazy. That's the conclusion of fellow flack Peter Shankman, an early riser who was no doubt checking out Laermer's source code at 4 a.m. before going for a jog. The site's code reveals links to sites featuring bestiality…
A British journalist attempts to ask Apple executive Phil Schiller a question about the effective iTunes monopoly on downloads for the iPhone. Apple's PR people jump in and try to end the interview, saying how they're "excited" about the iPhone and "want to stay focused." The problem? Their body language betrays…
Read/WriteWeb last night reported that Amazon.com will announce today, among other things, support of Google's OpenSocial Web widget platform in all of its applications going forward. Now Google can tout Amazon's support for its rival platform to extend social networks. Or can it? Amazon flacks, after sending…
Did you get your pass to the Google Holiday Party? We understand. Email can be so unreliable. A helpful tipster saved us the trouble of digging through our Gmail spam filter to find our invitation. Don't know if we'll crash the December 12 event at the Googleplex. If it's like past parties, expect a room full of…
Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had it up to here with unsolicited emails from PR agencies. But he's the beneficiary when colleagues use the tactic. Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter notes that his inbox is filled with unsolicited emails from Wired flacks. Sent to an email address, Schachter points out,…
Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had enough of unsolicited emails from PR professionals. So much so, that he posted a list on his blog of 329 PR Hester Prynnes, guilty of promiscuous overuse of their email outboxes. No more will their very unimportant missives waste his time — emails from these people will…
Last we heard from PR flack Steve Rubel, he was on his knees apologizing for publicly trashing PC Magazine. Now Edelman PR's spokesblogger wants the world to know he's sorry for inflating the Web 2.0 bubble. He writes, "Since I started this blog lots of people have rightfully made fun of how much I touted every…
This morning, we reported on a Facebook employee who allegedly looked up a user's password, logged into her account, and changed her profile picture to a graphic image. When a tipster wrote in to name the employee, I contacted the accused, Jordan Moncharmont, for comment. I wrote, "Jordan — Please read this and then…
One curious thing about the Wall Street Journal story reporting that Facebook was looking to raise as much as $260 million — but not the $500 million celebritard blogger Fake Steve Jobs suggested. The Journal's Vauhini Vara cites "a person" or "people familiar with the matter" six times. What does that…
A reader emailed Comcast to complain about its blocking the Bible and received back a typical PR-speak response. Within was this gem: "We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our customers have the best broadband experience possible." Aha! I hadn't realized the "best broadband experience"…
In response to my public putdown of tomorrow's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, conference organizer Tim O'Reilly's publicist gave me a press pass to the three-day event. This is becoming like the plot of Dune — tricks within tricks within tricks! Look for my fawning, co-opted coverage at Rupert Murdoch's feet,…
