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.