The journalists, columnists, editors, and one blogger (also along for the ride was the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal, and Cynthia Tucker from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) lunched with Obama, David Axelrod, Anita Dunn, Bill Burton, and Robert Gibbs. It was, of course, off the record, so stop emailing Gail about it already Maureen jeez!

Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo brand new to the official White House press pool, so now Marshall gets to hang out with the grown-up journalists (and David Brooks).

Despite the impressive profit numbers, former Valleywag Owen Thomas notes at NBC Bay Area, the internet company's revenue is down 12 percent, which means Yahoo is cutting its way to profitability — rather than growing like Google. "No wonder she's feeling under the weather," Thomas writes, in a refrain that will be all-too-tempting for the financial press. It's enough to make an executive want to suck her thumb.

Or so a reporter tells fellow New York Times writer Brian Stelter:

"Tired" of this whole circus? You speak for many of us this weekend, Heenes family. Many of us.

Also, people who are guiding companies should run those companies, which they are guiding. Or at least that's how Zuckerberg phrased his philosophy in a sit down with Business Insider's Henry Blodget. There's an exceprt of the interview above, or you can watch the whole segmented unedited here, in case you think we're taking poor Zuck out of context; other questions are here.

Given Zuckerberg's obvious PR skills, it's a wonder he doesn't do more of these little chats with journalists. Maybe then people wouldn't be so ready to dismiss his effectiveness as a leader.

Will Apple's CEO, recently recovering from a liver transplant, step onto an Apple stage today, or won't he? The company isn't saying anything, but the consensus in the press is that he won't:

• Brad Stone of the New York Times: "With Mr. Jobs still convalescing from a liver transplant - and this being a somewhat minor news event - an appearance seems unlikely."
  
• Joseph Menn of the Financial Times: "But most analysts aren't expecting him this time around, in part because he is still recovering from a liver transplant that followed his bout with pancreatic cancer and in part because they don't think Apple has anything truly tremendous to roll out."
  
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball: "I hope he's up on stage doing his thing, but my gut still says no, that he's done as the company's spokesman."

So, wait a minute: Steve Jobs, the longtime face of Apple Inc., isn't going to run this little show, even though two publications, including the Wall Street Journal, say he is well enough to obsessively shepherd the development of a tablet device? Even though he's apparently driving himself to work again? And even though he's a control freak, famous for treating those around him at Apple like inept bozos? And even though he ran the same iPod event last year?

Sure, it's possible Jobs has carved out a brand-new role for himself at Apple as the behind-the-scenes product shepherd, and is skipping public events, at least until he has bulked back up again and appears more healthy. But if that's the case, Apple is going to have to pay in two big ways, neither of which Wall Street will be thrilled about: First, less free product hype in the press, since Phil Schiller lacks Jobs' charisma and fan base. Second, less transparency about the state of Jobs' health, since he's out of the public eye.

Indeed, the context of the Jobs health scare will make it harder for Apple investors to swallow the idea that Jobs would skip this event because it's too small time. The CEO knows his health is a longstanding issue on Wall Street, and he knows this event is one opportunity to allay concerns. If he's a no-show, some investors are going to see that through the prism of health and assume, at the very least, the he doesn't appear well enough, at the moment, to walk onto a stage.

There's also the remote possibility that Jobs will show, that Apple's led people to believe, or allowed them to believe, that he'll be absent in order to maximize the positive buzz when he actually shows up.

Whatever happens today with regard to the Apple CEO and his products, a new chapter will have unfurled in the great Steve Jobs Psychodrama, and Apple obsessives will have new information about their Dear Leader — he showed and looked like ______, or, more likely, he didn't show as expected — which they can spin in innumerable ways.

UPDATE: Jobs made a surprise appearance on stage.

(Pic: Jobs at a special iPod event September 9, 2008. Getty Images.)

When our last president went on vacation, he went to a giant make-believe Hollywood "ranch" in a shitty suburb of Waco. No one was inconvenienced by a busload of reporters and phalanx of security. But Martha's Vineyard is a little inaccessible island of salty sea-folk and thousands of incredibly wealthy vacationers! This is no place for a media circus!

Which is why the White House is demanding that the reporters who followed Barack Obama on his vacation not do any "reporting," while they are there. No pictures of the kids without Obama! And no telling anyone where he is going!

Further, added press aide Katie Lillie, there will be no tolerating reporters using cellphones to call or text friends with the president's latest movements on the island. Since the Vineyard has relatively few roads - and it's easy to figure out how Obama would travel from one venue to another - those in the press pool must agree not to telegraph where he's going.

Violators, she said, would be thrown out of the pool.

Plus if they say where on the Vineyard Obama is going, it'll become a shitty tourist trap, like when Bill Clinton wore that Black Dog t-shirt that one time.

Drudge even ruined the website of the Martha's Vineyard Gazette!

Still, if the reporters are excused from doing "work," they can at least enjoy a free trip to the Vineyard. It is much nicer than August in Texas. And after a slow, rainy, recession-y summer, the local business-owners can cash in with Obama-related drinks and merchandise. Make sure to buy some Obama crap from one of island's hundreds of t-shirt stores while you're there, pool reporters!

Jobs and his secretive minions are notorious for this sort of behavior; the company famously derailed a Vanity Fair excerpt of Alan Deutschman's Jobs biography. Apple flacks had less luck with the Times:

"We want to discourage profiles," an Apple PR tells me stiffly, apparently unaware she is waving a sackful of red rags at a herd of bulls. Another PR rings the editor of this magazine to try to halt publication of this piece.

This attempt to block the report launched a flurry of headlines about a story that was otherwise a thumb-sucker: "Apple Attempts to Suppress Steve Jobs Profile Article;" "Apple Tries to Kill Steve Jobs Story in Sunday Times;" "Apple Practices 'Corporate Omerta';" etc. The incident was a perfect illustration of the Streisand Effect, named after an incident in which Barbara Streisand attempted to remove from a public database a photograph of her house, causing the image to spread far more widely than it would have otherwise.

It's foolish PR, sure, but this sort of heavy-handedness is also as good a sign as any that Jobs has resumed his very firm grip on Apple Inc. Welcome back, Steve!

She is old, so she doesn't know that cupcakes were over like six years ago. Tonight she's gonna drink a Cosmo!

Ha, just kidding. Helen Thomas has finished a day's work with a lowball of neat rye every night for the past 39 years and she's sure as shit not gonna stop now. (We assume.)

(Seriously, this is kind of adorable, everyone singing to Helen and all.)

Watch CBS Videos Online

By the way, here's Times reporter Jeff Zeleny trying to defuse the Birther thing, today:

The controversy will surely fade away. But the date in history will not. The birthday of President Obama, who incidentally shares the day with Queen Elizabeth II, has already been etched into the history of Hawaii and the nation.

Why should we believe this "Obama was born in Hawaii" nonsense when you don't even know that the Queen of England was born in April? (He might mean the late Queen Mum. Either way, that passage does not appear in the current version of the article. Because Obama's GOONS got to the Times.)

[Photo: AP]

George Smith, who does online marketing for Crocs, wrote about a blogger at the conference who was upset the company ran out of free pairs of its inexplicably popular plastic shoes. The blogger started out timid, but grew brazen:

"Ya know, if you don't give me shoes – I could totally write something bad about you on my blog."

"Excuse me?" I asked – hoping she would laugh or give me some indication that she was just joking around. Nope…

"It's just a pair of shoes. It's a lot easier to give them to me than deal with the negative press I could make."

Smith hadn't heard of this "nobody" and dispensed with her quickly:

She looked shocked – like she really thought her sad attempt to blackmail me would work. In a second, she walked away and, before I could really gather myself, disappeared into a sea of bloggers. I never saw her again.

Blackmail over a $30 pair of Crocs? Really? Talk about small time. If bloggers can be bought so cheaply, it's sad to think how many glowing posts the free schwag at BlogHer is generating. The conference featured giveaways in the SocialLuxe "pampering" lounge, including makeovers and Smith's Crocs, as well as gift cards and laptops on offer at the conference website.

Bloggers insist ample freebies don't influence what they write. But those at the feeding trough are bound to get their egos bruised sooner or later; how many will be able to avoid a pathetic, prideful outburst of "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??" schwag extortion?

(Pic: Smith by @greeblemonkey, via)

Bezos' video, above, was directed not at the press or even customers but at Zappos employees, who Bezos presumably wants to keep firmly in place through the acquisition and integration of the company. The CEO of Zappos, meanwhile, did his talking on the company blog.

Bezos cut out the middleman — the press, in this case — big time. And why not? Instead of having to answer boring financial questions, Bezos got to pontificate on Amazon's history, ostensible focus on its customers, and on his management philosophy. The manic laugher would never have been able to sermonize like this in the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE: And of course there's a downside, which is being mocked by the likes of Fast Company's David Lidsky. Lidsky's funny satirical liveblog of Bezos' video is here.

Then again, even a poodle will bite once in a while.

Take the TechCrunch dust-up. The tech business blog sheepishly negotiated with Twitter Inc. the release of internal company documents it received, unsolicited, via email. It was tech bloggers who lead the craven charge, excoriating TechCrunch for daring to run anything at all. On Twitter, several of Arrington's tech elite colleagues said he deserved to be literally spit upon. John Gruber of Daring Fireball called Arrington "a very sad excuse for a man" in a post that garnered strong agreement from longtime newspaperwoman Kara Swisher at All Things D, who added, "there should be no difference between Web 'journalism' and the old-fashioned journalism." Except of course, Swisher was only demonstrating just how different the two are.

This episode's Woodstein was as distraught as anyone to see their dear friends at Twitter burned. TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington wrote: "I wish this had never happened."

But of course, as at least two media lawyers have pointed out, old-fashioned journalists have been utilizing information obtained in violation of both laws and legally-binding civil agreements for years without this sort of ethical outcry. As far as the law goes, it is legal to use such information to journalistic ends, within some fairly wide parameters.

Yet blogs, especially tech blogs, lash themselves oh-so-closely to their sources. TechCrunch is hardly the only example. The diverse and vibrant collection of blogs that track Mac rumors routinely cave to cease and desist letters from Apple, because who wants to end up like the teenaged publisher of ThinkSecret, bullied into submission by Apple for reporting legitimate news about Apple products, news that was proven accurate and was gathered no more nefariously than the stuff that turns up regularly in the Wall Street Journal?

Who wants to be trashed by a spoonfed CNBC reporter , or have your (eventually proven accurate) sources called "illiterate"-sounding by a blogger, for contradicting Apple's company line on the health of its CEO?

This is how journalism dies. Not with a bang, but with a series of favors and quiet surrenders.

(Top pic: Alison McNeill of bub.blicio.us and "Gadget Guy" consultant Dave Mathews engage in a typical in-depth interview at a TechCrunch party last year, via Flickr)

Eric Brown, Yahoo's new head of PR, just started work on Monday. He's ostensibly in charge of enforcing Bartz's edict to "dropkick to fucking Mars" any employees caught leaking things to the press. But before he does that, he'd like to tell you about his love for champagne, reading the Kindle in bed and his "couple of very close friends" that he frequently crashes with in Paris three or four times per year (sounds cozy!).

Kara Swisher at All Things D got Brown's companywide introduction email. This guy is going to be awesome.

—-From: Eric Brown (SVP Global Communications) Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 6:00 PM Subject: It' s great to be here!

Global comms team,

Thank you so much for the wonderful intro materials you gave me. I' m going to spend quite a bit of time on the org charts, budgets, plans, and results package you compiled for me. But I' ve been especially thrilled with the personal profiles you sent my way. I' ve seen other people whose phobias are the same as mine: spiders and heights; enjoyed how many of you put Paris as your favorite place on Earth; and am impressed with how many amazing books this group has collectively read.

I must also admit to being slightly intimidated by all of you who put " bad grammar" as a pet peeve and will triple check this email to avoid any grammar infractions…

I know I have a Thursday group meeting with you, but thought the least I could do on day one is return the favor and complete my own handbook profile. So here goes…

Date I joined Yahoo!: today (6 July 2009), though I did spend two days at the senior leaders meeting in mid-June and thank all of you who were there for the warm welcome in Half Moon Bay.

What I do here: lead a team of amazing, intelligent, motivated people who put Yahoo! in the best light possible and tell our story in compelling ways that make users and advertisers around the world want to embrace Yahoo! heartily.

Where I grew up: Warsaw, Virginia– a tiny town about 90 minutes from Richmond, Virginia and 150 minutes from Washington, D.C. For those of you who are American history buffs, Warsaw is about 10 minutes from the birthplace of Robert E. Lee and 15 minutes from the birthplace of George Washington.

Where I live now: Sunnyvale, California. Can' t beat the commute.

College: William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. BA in English. Loved lit crit. Senior honors thesis was on post-WWII masculinity in American society as represented by the works of Norman Mailer.

My first job: an internship for the U.S. Navy (my parents' employer-they were civilians) analyzing different process flow diagram software packages for a team creating warship defense systems. For the rest of high school and college, I had LOTS more fun as a waiter at dive restaurant called The Stagecoach. The food was ghastly; the people were amazing.

What I did before Yahoo!: I ran comms (PR, social media, internal comms, and exec comms) for NetApp, managing a global team of about 60+ people doing amazing enterprise and B2B work in 30+ companies worldwide. I' m very excited to learn " consumer" from all of you– and equally excited to share experiences from my almost 20 years in the business in return.

What I do when I' m not here: I love travel (had a super 3 days in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney two weekends ago), cooking (yes, seriously-cooking is very therapeutic and relaxing for me), and reading (though I haven' t picked up a Norman Mailer since my undergrad days).

If the Internet didn' t exist, what I' d be doing right now: teaching literature to high school students. I believe that at some point in my life, I have to return to society what it has given me. And I' d be a better teacher than firefighter or doctor!

Favorite place on Earth: Paris. I try to go there 3 or 4 times a year and have a couple of very close friends who are kind enough to let me crash with them. Second favorite is Hong Kong.

Proudest accomplishment: professionally– being part of the " inner counsel circle" for NetApp execs on a variety of comms and marketing issues (which I hope to be here at Yahoo! as well); personally– being a good friend, partner, and family member.

Favorite Yahoo! moment: there have only been 3 days of them so far-and all have been great. I felt very honored and lucky to be part of the Half Moon Bay leadership summit– and meeting people from all over Yahoo! there was inspiring.

Favorite book: someone who majored in literature can' t just name one, so I'll split them into categories… Favorite works of literature: The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Favorite work that kindled my imagination: The Hobbit by Tolkien. Favorite works that make me laugh: anything by David Sedaris (the man is wicked funny).

Favorite movie: two– Moulin Rouge and Orlando– both visually stunning.

My first car: a Buick Skyhawk in a horrible shade of brown– the thing was so ratty that I had to add oil to it every other day so it wouldn' t break down– it made its last hurrah on a cross-country trip from Virginia to California and made it over the Rocky Mountains without any issues but then was quite unhappy crossing the Sierra Nevada range.

My next vacation destination: somehow I think I' m going to be very busy for the next few months so I' m not planning any big trips, though I have told a friend I' ll attend his 50th birthday party in Munich and from there I' ll try to drive to Vienna for a few days.

My hidden talent: navigating subway systems when everyone else insists on taking a taxi (the exception: Tokyo– because it is just too darned crowded).

My favorite online video: I like online videos to catch up on things that MTV no longer carries– like videos from Gus Gus (though I only see one of their videos on Yahoo! Music… )

My guiltiest pleasure: ice cream in bed with the Kindle (yes, just as Elisa put in her email)– the ice cream HAS to be Ben & Jerry's (LOVE being on this floor with the conference room names!) and my favorite is Peach Cobbler.

I have an intense fear of: spiders and heights– I even had a spider vacuum for a while so I didn't have to come near ‘ em or smash ‘ em– but then I was scared they'd survive the suction and electric shock and crawl back somewhere– so now they' re routinely smashed.

My biggest pet peeve: beating around the bush– tell me what you want me to know because I' m not telepathic and say it without a lot of metaphor or subtlety– if you really want me to know something, please make it crystal clear.

My best celebrity encounter: dinner with friends in the outdoor section of the Restaurant du Palais Royal in Paris on a gorgeous May evening– next to us was Tom Ford (at the height of his Gucci power)– I have never wanted to NOT eat so much in my life.

Something few people know about me: I abhor cava (sorry to those of you in Spain)– champagne is my favorite drink on Earth, prosecco will do in a pinch, and New World sparklings are hit and miss– but I universally detest cava.

Best for advice for working with me (yes, a little changed from what you all submitted): honesty really IS the best policy– unless I' m having a bad hair day in which case please just don' t say anything about that at all.

Thanks again for having me here– and we'll speak more on Thursday.

Best regards, Eric

It's easy to miss this aside in today's New York Times story about Google's lobbying, which has Microsoft flacks collecting intelligence on closed-door Google presentations, so they could disseminate counter-propaganda in real time:

Microsoft declines to comment on its archrival's efforts. But during Mr. Wagner's presentation to journalists in San Francisco this month, Microsoft P.R. handlers, who had learned the gist of the presentation, were e-mailing reporters offering rebuttals of Google's arguments. Mr. Wagner faced a barrage of pointed questions.

See: The Silicon Valley press corps can ask tough question of tech companies; they just need said questions spoon-fed, via iPhone.

(Pic by Hamed Masoumi)

As the newspaper disclosed on CNN tonight, it has since December had emails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress, it's just been trying to authenticate them. Then this morning the paper busted Sanford returning on an airplane from South America when he was supposed to be on the Appalachian Trial.

The paper then informed Sanford it would finally be publishing the emails, exposing his adultery, according to The State writer John O'Connor.

"They refused to meet with us to discuss them prior to the press conference," O'Connor tells us. "He cut off conversation at the airport when our reporter asked with whom he was in Argentina."

That Sanford's admission was forced by the imminent publication of romantic emails would help explain the extraordinary scope of his confession; Sanford's on-camera blabbering was a meltdown for the ages. It also speaks to motivation.

Sanford's apparent desire to repair his marriage remains admirable. And it was already clear, at the time of the governor's press conference, that he was under intense media scrutiny. But voters will look less generously on his confession knowing just how coldly the press had him nailed.

(Thanks to commenter and sometime liveblogger MisterHippity for raising this issue in the comments of a prior post.)

The deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal went so far as to call out individual board members on Twitter. "Gore, Jung, Schmidt, York, Levinson - where are you?" Alan Murray wrote. Yesterday, before the hospital confirmation, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera accused the directors of "dereliction of duty."

Like a hung computer operating system, Apple's board is neglecting pressing information-retrieval work. Data on the effectiveness of liver transplants for Jobs' condition is, at once, scant and unpromising. Yet some specific information about Jobs' condition would be useful in evaluating his prognosis, according to an anonymous surgeon's blog (see prior link, via).

The kindest and most generous characterization that can be made is that that the evidence for treating neuroendocrine tumors metastatic to the liver with liver transplantation is mixed at best.

But obviously Jobs' is recovering nicely if he's going back to work next week, right? Perhaps, but it's not clear how hard he'll be able to work; recall that Jobs may be working part-time, per a Journal report earlier this week. Or he might not. He might be already back to week, per an anonymous (read: probably spoon-fed by Apple) report from CNBC's Jim Goldman. Or he might not be returning until June 30.

It should go without saying, but apparently needs to be said: Apple shareholders deserve to know who is running Apple — and who will be running Apple a month from now.

The internet calling startup has enjoyed back-to-back coverage on Sky TV News and on Al Jazeera English, and that's probably not luck: The company's flacks distributed a press release about heavier Fring usage in Iran; they've also been working the press on Twitter.

The Fring story is an especially easy sell because the company is based in Israel, so Iranians are using software and services from a country their government officially wants to destroy. Reporters love that sort of conflict and irony.

Of course, there's always the chance the strategy will backfire if viewers decide you're harnessing bloodshed for marketing purposes. Which is why you might want to confine your flackery to spoken conversations, rather than committing it to easily-repubilshed words. Using a technology like, say, Fring.

We wish we were making any of that up! But we're not! Tomorrow at 1 p.m., in DC, insane anti-abortion activist Randall Terry's "Society For Truth and Justice" will throw a press conference about how to "derail Sotomayor and overturn Roe." The email promises that the conference will compare the murder of George Tiller to Nat Turner's slave rebellion and Terry himself reports that this cold-blooded shooting of an innocent doctor by a psychopath "will propel us to victory more speedily."

Now it can be tough to get positive press coverage if you are a dangerous lunatic who should be in a padded cell. But Terry's got that covered.

Time: 12:30 to 1:00 P.M., Chicken Wings and Guinness will be served (for members of the press only). (Please RSVP at 904-687-9804 by Wednesday morning.)

And that is why there will be like two dozen reporters at this press conference, tomorrow.

Here's the full email.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

From: Studio Staff
Date: Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Subject: Tiller, Sotomayor, Overturn Roe PRESS CONFERENCE Thurs. 1pm
To: [Redacted]

*How Tiller's death and office closing can help propel pro-life movement, derail Sotomayor and overturn Roe. Four Key Senators will be targeted to vote against Sotomayor; Catholic Bishops will play a role to defeat Sotomayor.*

Press conference 1 PM, Thursday, to announce details how Pro-life groups can derail Sotomayor, and root out hypocrisy in pro-life ranks.

Also: Emergency Pro-life leadership training to be held in DC, June 12-14, with Randall Terry, Dr. Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey, and Father Norman Weslin. Pro-abortion activists threaten to disrupt meeting.

*For immediate release: Dateline: Washington DC Contact: Kathy Veritas, 904-687-9804*

Press conference will cover:

1) How Mr. Tiller's death can propel the pro-life movement forward based upon lessons from Nat Turner's slave rebellion, and how abolitionists responded;

2) Plans of pro-life groups to seize moment to defeat Sotomayor, and expose hypocrisy within the GOP; names of 4 key Senate Targets to be released.

3) The role certain Catholic Bishops must play to insure Sotomayor's defeat;

4) Upcoming pro-life training: Pro-abortion activists threaten to disrupt.

Location: National Press Club, 14th and F Street, Washington DC

Time: 12:30 to 1:00 P.M., Chicken Wings and Guinness will be served (for members of the press only). (Please RSVP at 904-687-9804 by Wednesday morning.)

Press conference to begin at 1:00 P.M.

Members of press will be provided concise yet comprehensive research on the above topics. Upcoming plans and details of June 12-14 seminar will be laid out.

Randall Terry States:

"Tiller's death will either set the pro-life movement back twenty years, or propel us to victory more speedily. The outcome depends on our courage over the next 3-6 months.

"If we follow the example of the abolitionists, we will prevail; if we run like French Soldiers, we will be imprisoned in irrelevance.

"Our upcoming seminar is designed to raise up stout hearted, peaceful pro-life warriors, who do not fear, but follow this maxim: ".urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD." (William Lloyd Garrison)

—
Society for Truth and Justice
904-687-9804
P.O. Box 23775
Washington, D.C. 20026

[Photo: AP]

Speculation had been thick that Jobs would put in a cameo at the conference. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the CEO would likely return to Apple at the end of June, as planned, and might drop by today's event.

Instead, Jobs left senior VP Phil Schiller to handle his second major Apple event without the CEO.

Even barring a brief on-stage appearance, Jobs, at the tail end of his medical leave, had other options. He'd have been great for demonstrating the video camera on the new iPhone, for example, via a recorded greeting for the conference keynote audience.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.But if this is Apple without Jobs, it doesn't look so terrible. Early indications are that the company's new products will receive the customary lavish attention in the mainstream press, even though anyone who's got the old model will have to fork over at least $500 for the upgrade (read the fineprint) and the best new software features are still useless for American customers. Just like Apple's stock, the company's products can still muster cultlike interest, even in the cult leader's absence.

An internal memo about the new VP of Corporate Communications, Eric Brown, was obtained by Kara Swisher of All Things Digital. In it, Yahoo is careful to describe Brown's "bad habit of eating ice cream in bed while reading my Kindle and surfing the web."

Also, his "partner's name is Scot, he has a Pomeranian named Clio, a passion for cooking and travel." So adorable!

Less cuddly: Brown is tasked with enforcing his boss Carol Bartz's edict that anyone caught leaking information will get "dropkicked to fucking Mars."

Like former Autodesk honcho Bartz, veteran Wilson comes from a business software background, specifically storage company NetApp. Hopefully for his sake he developed a passion for "dropkicking" there.

Full Bartz Memo:

Marketing & Executive Teams,

I'm very pleased to announce that Eric Brown will be joining Yahoo! as Senior Vice President, Global Communications, reporting directly to me. In this critical role, Eric will oversee our Global Communications function, including public relations, product promotion, executive communications, public affairs, internal communications, corporate reputation management and social media outreach.

Eric is joining Yahoo! at a particularly pivotal time, as we update our corporate position and message, develop and execute a renewed global brand strategy and launch major new products and solutions. Eric will be tasked with more closely integrating the global communications team with broader marketing initiatives and the company's overall business strategy. A critical objective will be to set the communications agenda and drive Yahoo!'s message to our various constituencies–the media, analysts, consumers, employees, and key industry influencers who create buzz and can have a significant impact on how our brand is perceived.

Eric is a Silicon Valley communications veteran with 18 years of tech experience. Most recently, Eric and I collaborated at NetApp, where he spent the last nine years helping to transform the company into a multibillion dollar global enterprise. As Vice President of Corporate Relations, Eric managed a large global team and strategic communications program. He was the core communications executive responsible for the company's recent revamp of brand strategy and execution. He also played a significant communications role in helping the company gain recognition by Fortune magazine as the "Best Company to Work for in America" in 2009. Prior to NetApp, Eric was the head of PR for Adaptec responsible for B2B, brand and consumer communications, and held additional leadership positions in both corporate and agency environments.

On a personal note, Eric's partner's name is Scot, he has a Pomeranian named Clio, a passion for cooking and travel, and a self-described "bad habit of eating ice cream in bed while reading my Kindle and surfing the web."

Eric will join us in early July, so please join me in giving him a warm welcome. I look forward to his leadership contributions in this vitally important role at Yahoo!.

[All Things Digital]

After nearly missing her flight, the internet fameball didn't hesitate to violate federal aviation rules.

And then she dove right in to the wining and dining with her hosts.

But after a few drinks or bites of dead sea creature of whatever, Allison suddenly heard an odd voice in her head. Is that her conscience?? Time to lob some softballs at the flack have a "forthright discussion."

Whale kiss + dating joke, bwahahaha. Forget about the specifics of that "forthright discussion" on animal rights, those can wait another day (or forever).

With fellow "sponsored" bloggers. Not her usual crowd.

Sea World rescued 17,000 animals! They rule!

Except when they confine polar bears to "tiny rooms" and make them look morbidly depressed!

This man invited Allison to touch the fat little upright creature on his lap. She was scared at first, but came around.

She ended up wanting to puke.

After 22 tweets and 28 blog posts, Sea World seems to have gotten it's money's worth. And Allison's still going! It turns out her benefactor's creepy/hilarious YouTube video was right, after all: