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Valleywag

child porn

Wikipedia Is Arguing Whether This Album Cover Is Child Porn

In the original, the teddy bear's not there; there's just a crack obscuring the girl's vagina. This 1976 album cover from the Scorpions was banned in the U.S.; the German metal band used a shot of the band for the American cover of Virgin Killer. Now Wikipedia nerds are deciding whether it's child porn, and whether they should delete it from this Wikipedia page about the album. And if you clicked that last link, you might have just broken federal law. More »

viral video

How Levi's Jeans Duped The Internet With Their New Secret Ad

My friends are blogging about this viral video of guys doing backflips into their jeans. So neat! So shareable! So worth the million views the three-day-old clip already earned! But I could tell instantly (and I have no idea why no one else did) that this was a stealth ad — because it's a direct copy of a stealth ad that got over 3 million views last year. More »

the long tail

Julia Allison Is Chris Anderson's Tail Tonight

Wired editor Chris Anderson tonight came face-to-face with the "Long Tail," his oft-cited metaphor for low-grade internet fame, via an encounter after the National Magazine Awards with fameball Julia Allison. Star Editor-At-Large Allison worked Anderson hard, no doubt as part of her relentless effort to take the "proto" out of her protocelebrity — to be more than tail, basically. She reports on her blog that she chatted Anderson up for 20 minutes and ended up "bopping him enthusiastically." Wait, Julia. Didn't you just tell the Times you were going to stop using your "pink-encased loaded weapon" this way?? Anyway, alternate photo captions for the picture above are totally welcome after the jump. Even if you're drunk. Especially if you're drunk. [Julia Allison: 1, 2, 3, 4]

book deals

Three Steps To Getting A Book Deal For Your Blog

If everyone's getting a book deal for their blog, why aren't you? Mostly because your writing hasn't gone anywhere better than a Gawker comment thread, but also because you haven't followed these three steps (note: not a joke article! Real advice inside) to getting a blog book deal. Short version: Start a blog that's short and sweet and high-concept, spread it on Tumblr and LiveJournal, send it to Gawker, and call Kate Lee. More »

myspace

Animated Social Networks Have Exactly The Fruity Voices I Expected

Remember that one funny show on Current? Super News, the animated series that brought you Perez Hilton's giant vagina, has an episode about Facebook, MySpace, and Second Life. A little dated but still funnier than that Internet Party skit. My favorite bit is site founder Tom's first principle of MySpace: "Skanky pictures of skanky people doing skanky things." More »

astroturf

Fake Bloggers, Go Directly To Jail!

Wow! As a nerd on the PR and marketing beat I find this to be absolutely astounding and heartening: the UK is about to make it a crime for companies to misrepresent themselves as consumers in their online marketing. That means, for example, that a company setting up a fake blog to hype its own products could be prosecuted, fined, and jailed. Free speech? Whatever. This is an awesome development. And bloggers can be locked up, too! More »

rupert murdoch

Old Man In A Hurry

Rupert Murdoch's 78th year has been busy. With the exit of the Wall Street Journal's native managing editor, Marcus Brauchli, the Australian media mogul's lieutenant now has a free hand to turn the business newspaper into a broader national title. We're hearing this afternoon that Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman has dropped out of the bidding for Newsday, clearing the way for Murdoch's News Corporation to take control of a third newspaper in the New York market. And the New York Post is this week shrinking to allow the News Corporation tabloid to be produced on the same presses as the Journal. But here's the question: why the rush? There are three main reasons: newspaper publishing economics; the broader synergies available to a media group with heightened political influence; and mortality. More »

webtards

Eleven Ways The Internet Can Kill You

While I was pulling an all-nighter this weekend watching YouTube, my stomach started to growl even though I'd had like a whole thing of goldfish crackers and a bottle of Kahlua, and as I popped a diet pill and scratched a couple scabs off my forearm, I had a vision of the eleven ways the Internet could kill you. (Please don't sue: Of course not all the sites and practices listed below are directly responsible for any deaths. But if you're already at risk, you might just get yourself killed when you use them.) More »

netiquette

Facebook Chat Is Only Good For Spreading STDs

Facebook chat will no doubt improve the sex lives of college students everywhere. Asking for someone's AIM is totally obvious; it's like the oldest move in the Web 1.0 book. Facebook message flirting takes forever. So Facebook chat just may become the most subtle and fastest way to get laid in college. The only problem is that I'm not in college. I'm an adult who uses Facebook to judge the lives of people I knew in college. Facebook chat reminds me that I'm old. But that's only part of the problem. More »

youtube

How Much Did Everyone In The South Park YouTube Episode Really Make?

A friend at YouTube told me that maybe a half-dozen people make their living as YouTube creators. Everyone else in the site's partner program gets maybe a couple thousand bucks for millions of views (like our guest writer Yuri Baranovsky). How can someone figure out their personal worth to YouTube? Good question. Tech and media blogs like paidContent keep guessing and making rough calculations, but it's all fake numbers based on spotty data. So how much did the YouTube stars in that South Park episode — the ones waiting in YouTube's office for their money until they all fight to the death — how much money did they really make? More »

newspapers

America's Pernicious Pulitzers

America's newsrooms are in a state of excitement: the Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism have been awarded. Washington Post, winner in six categories, is said to be particularly febrile. "It's a pretty amazing atmosphere over here right now," one reporter told Media Mob. "The big editors are roaming around with big smiles." (Update: this is what counts as jubilation.) Too bad the payout is only $10,000 per prize: the Pulitzers aren't going to finance American journalism; in fact, one can make the argument that these self-congratulating awards, and the attention devoted to them, are symptomatic of the decline of the newspaper industry. More »

branding

Apple Says New York Bites Its Logo

New York might be called the Big Apple, and apples themselves might be beautiful creations of nature, but as far as Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs is concerned, Gotham has no business affixing depictions of the fruit to anything conceivably related to its products. Like, uh, organic cotton shopping bags, which carry the logo and are produced by the city's GreenNYC campaign in conjunction with grocer Whole Foods. Someone might buy one of those bags and expect it to be functionally equivalent to a MacBook Pro! Ditto for the bus shelters and hybrid taxis that carry the symbol — they look just like Apple products. So Apple and the city are slugging it out in trademark filings, Wired News reports today. Dig through Apple's filing and you'll find the company is specifically upset about the little angular leaf at the top of GreenNYC's logo. But also, Apple has convinced itself that its own mark is somehow synonymous with the entire city of New York, and it looks like maybe the Times is to blame for this delusion: More »

refugees

Tina Brown "Still Having Trouble Getting Her Email"

The picture of the grandes dames of New York publishing, fighting for places aboard the internet lifeboats, is a source of endless amusement—not least because they bring their feuds with them. More »

branding

Apple Logo Makes You Creative. Really

A counterpoint for all you Apple-haters out there: a new study by researchers at Duke University found that "even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively." How did they measure that? By having the subjects list "all of the uses for a brick that they could imagine beyond building a wall." That's science for you! If only gazing at the Apple logo could help me think of a good joke for this post. The actual scientific findings: More »

the future is stupid

I'm A Web Celebrity. Am I Rich Yet?

Internet TV is as disappointing as real TV, but at least there's money in it, right? Not yet, says Yuri Baranovsky, writer of the serial comedy Break a Leg. It's one of the few popular YouTube series with a full cast, real (if illicitly borrowed) equipment and multiple locations. The series has millions of views and thousands of dedicated fans. It's part of YouTube's partner program, which was supposed to revolutionize indie media by funding small-time creators — at least according to YouTube and many breathless magazine articles. Obviously Break a Leg isn't making a profit, but is it even making enough to pay the show runner? Yuri writes below. More »

rants

Apple Fetishists: Grow Up

Karl Rove loves his iPhone. He uses it all the time! (The entire Bush administration has good reason to love the little gizmo.) The roly-poly Machiavelli also recently admitted to owning a damn MacBook Air, the laptop whose sole selling point is its ability to fit in an envelope. Drug-addled radio tyrant Rush Limbaugh had to ask Apple to help fix his own new Mac. Your favorite propagandists love the sleek design and friendly usability of Apple products. Crypto-fascists—they're just like us! Which brings us to this plea: can we please, please end the tiresome trope of Apple having any sort of hip sensibility? More »