Once upon a time, media bulletin board site Mediabistro had a talented, anonymous ad blogger called Agency Spy, who got good dirt and the occasional undeserved murder rap. The original Agency Spy left to start her own blog a couple months ago, but earlier today she put up a post saying the site was grinding to a…
Boa-wearing internet entrepreneur Laurel Touby shocked and awed the media world when she sold her freelancer-helping website MediaBistro for $23 mil, despite her famous inability to use e-mail. "I thought, 'O.K., a car and driver and a new apartment and a whole new life.' In fact, I can only afford two out of three,"…
There's no Gawker correspondent at this week's Mediabistro conference-unless a tipster volunteers for the role. (Photograph: Julia Allison and sidekicks greeted attendees with top hats.)
Freelancer-helping website MediaBistro's upcoming conference, the unfortunately-named MediaBistro Circus, may not be coming along so well: boa-wearing propriestress Laurel Touby recently emailed, like, literally every single person she knows, begging them to register for "two days of inspired programming designed to…
Boa-wearing MediaBistro entrepreneur Laurel Touby has made the mediabaristas of New York City laugh, again and again, with her inability to use e-mail. (Then we remember that she sold MediaBistro for $23 mil—at which point all laughter abruptly stops.) So you can understand the concern we feel about her brand-new…
We're not the only ones with a fancy new office! MediaBistro is, we hear from sources close to the listings site and blog concern, moving up to 33rd and Park, which is on the Upper East Side or something, right? Should be a fun commute! FishbowlNY editor Neal Ungerleider won't have to make it, though, as his last day…
Semi-sane octogenarian gossip Liz Smith is really feeling her oat bran now that she's cranking out columns for the aged women's site WowOWow.com. In her latest effort, she tackles the issue of our time: the rumors of Nicole Kidman's breast augmentation. And she speaks without fear or favor:
Rachel Marsden, the former pundit on the Fox show "Red Eye" who was tossed out for being too crazy, and who then went on to date Wikipedia guru Jimmy Wales before breaking up with him and putting his clothes up for sale on eBay, is now, predictably, unemployed. So she's trawling for jobs on Mediabistro, just like…
Boa-wearing weird-lady Laurel Touby, CEO of MediaBistro (and windfall wealth recipient) stars in a completely ridiculous promotional video for the upcoming MediaBistro conference. It's called, inexplicably, MediaBistro Circus. Just as inexplicably, the video stars Laurel in a ringmaster's uniform and top hat, holding…
Did you know that seemingly harmless job listings site and blog network MediaBistro is a tool of the FBI? It's all true. FishbowlLA editor Kate Coe wrote an item about the Clintons' secret CIA plot to destory former POW John McCain. Which led one intrepid blogger to uncover the secrets behind the CIA control of the…
The New York Observer's beleaguered media editor, Zachary Roth, "has quit," according to Mediabistro. Word on the street since Roth took over the weekly's press coverage in August, was that he might have been ill-prepared for the task. Roth was under so much pressure, in fact, that according to a source he broke…
So Laurel Touby says she came home from the sale of her allegedly freelance-journalist-helping website Mediabistro.com with $9 to $11 million after taxes. (Really? What about those investors? Hmm.) She tells the Times: "'I had all kinds of illusions about how far the money would go and what I would enjoy, but they're…
I have never paid, and I will never pay, for an "AvantGuild" membership to "freelancer-helping website" Mediabistro. (Also, I hope that I never have to say "AvantGuild" aloud. What the HELL construction is that?) So I will never read this story by Greg Lindsay about how hard it is for him to write his book. The…
Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby and all her Laurel Touby-loving friends have put together a very special Christmas video to wish you happy holidays! From Touby's "media family" (which includes husband Jon Fine, Bonnie Fuller, and Arianna Huffington) to yours (which probably doesn't), please have a "warm and fuzzy…
Last night, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby wonderfully displayed her utter inability to use email. (Once again, we question how this woman founded an internet company and sold it for $23 million.) Rebecca Fox, Mediabistro's managing editor, had sent out an email alert that News Corp. had bought Beliefnet.com.…
So just how awesome was Laurel Touby's Mediabistro "Golden Boa" party that her husband Jon Fine is still nursing his hangover via Facebook? This awesome:
Mediabistro, the little $23-million media company that could, is turning 10! So they're throwing themselves a party tonight, with a special extra: The Golden Boa Awards, which recognizes 10 media stars from "from within the 10 verticals that mediabistro.com serves," according to the press release. Mmm, verticals.…
We've had this wacky theory that the new owners of Mediabistro are going to jettison their useless collection of blogs, which, save for TVNewser, are increasingly irrelevant and probably draw focus away from the company's core strength of getting guileless freelancers to shell out money that they could better use for…
The Voice has a great profile of Mediabistro millionairess Laurel Touby today; it includes two of our favorite Laurel anecdotes ever. What you need to know about the former desperate freelancer:
When you sent us an email this morning with a link to your BREAKING NEWS that Karl Rove is resigning, we collectively snarfed up some coffee. (Or a Rolaids-coffee mixture, for some of us.) You know, we all read newspapers. [Fishbowl]
