Mayer's previous attempt to pretty up the customizable iGoogle homepage with designer looks fell flat. At a press event for this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Mayer showed off less girly "themes" for iGoogle featuring videogames and professional sports. In designing the FIFA soccer theme, however, someone forgot that tarnished insurance giant AIG still had its logos on Manchester United players' uniforms. Oops!

Here's Mayer briefing the press on the new designs:

One witness declared her top "hideous." Another offers the following commentary: "Something a Palm Beach retiree would wear to a VFW ball. Also, roots showing badly." Meow!

Karp decided to ban five blogs, including two which primarily mocked Tumblr posts by Allison, a dating columnist turned Internet microcelebrity, on Monday — and then announced a new anti-"harassment" policy supporting his decision on Tuesday. Today, he revoked that policy, and reversed the ban. "This policy had nothing to do with any personal relationships," he wrote in his Tumblr. Bold and italics, so you know he really meant it!

Instead, he introduced a blocking feature users have long asked for. Here's why they want it: When someone "reblogs" a Tumblr post, a link to his or her blog appears on the reblogged post. Some Tumblr users, Allison included, find this annoying, especially when the Tumblr blogger does not agree completely with their worldview. This may have something to do with most Tumblr users having an emotional age similar to the chronological age of Tumblr's CEO. Tumblr's new "block" feature allows them to blithely ignore people who read and comment on things they publish on the Internet.

The "block" feature has a salutary bonus for Tumblr as a business: It avoids the need for Karp to get involved in his friends' hysterical fits over people reading and commenting on things they publish on the Internet. Instead, he can figure out how to make money for his investors.

He had previously hinted about announcing some kind of money-making scheme on Monday. (He sold some electronic valentines. So cute!) Instead of crowing about that, he was tied up figuring out a policy to protect the Julia Allisons of the world. His backers must be pleased he's finally rolled out a feature to block his friends' personal problems from his agenda.

(Photo via Flickr)

He tells the New York Observer:

I’m over it now. It’s guess it's funny. I guess it keeps my name in the spotlight, doesn’t it? And I didn’t have to do anything—zero! I called my lawyer—not to sue—but I kind of, like, didn’t know what to do. The design was fine, but I didn’t want to be like misquoted. I mean, this is for, like, the president’s wife! Not that anyone is reading that piece anyway, I’m sure.

Heh. Ouch.

One of the calls was from a young man who could positively identify the pair and provide their whereabouts. Because they were his parents. Just a regular old German couple. Ooooops. The television network that runs the show says it's not their job to apologize and has passed most of the buck (or, Euro) to the FBI, which took five days to take the photo, which they apparently had no ability to verify whatsoever, off their website. I mean this is all much deserved karmic payback for that WWII thing, but it's still pretty funny. Do you have any Bulger theories? Let's meet at the L Street Tavern to discuss. [AC360]