Combs, aka Diddy, aka Puffy, was inexplicably put forward by AOL as a company icon in the midst of its stock market re-debut, as evidenced in Kara Swisher's video for All Things D, excerpted above. The producer and entrepreneur does have a presence on AOL Music, so maybe that's why he was posing with AOL execs last night at a party on the New York Stock Exchange, the beating heart of Wall Street. "2010 is going to be an AOL year," Combs told the financey crowd. "Good luck tomorrow," the first day of trading following AOL's spinoff from Time Warner.

Shares of AOL closed down half a percent. Hopefully Combs can share more helpful words with the content-obsessed internet conglomerate on the art of creating profitable crowd pleasers in a notoriously crowded genre. Are the blog game and rap game really so different?

Reading it, we learned a little bit about how AOL — transtioning from a dying dial-up ISP to a huge media company — expects its 500 fulltime and ~2,500 freelance editorial staffers to produce 80+ content sites.

We expect some of the procedures outlined in the email will probably find their way to most any online-only publications — from the New York Times on down.

The email, from an editor at AOL site RentedSpaces.com, encourages writers to produce 300-500 word stories fast in a style that's "colorful, concise, [and] opinionated." But he doesn't want them to go too far.

"We're not Gawker, so be friendly and authoritative."

He tells them stories don't have to be based on original reporting. He writes, "All we want to know for a pitch is: what's the story, who broke it (AP, NYT, BW, Bloomberg,etc.), and how you will advance the story if you are following someone else's reporting," reads the email.

When writers file their copy, they're expected to "Include 140 characters for a Tweet or Facebook update."

AOL wants its editors to write in a way that will help Google will find their stories — that they're "search engine optimized." For example, the RentedSpaces editor tells his staffers to "make sure the first few words and first graf contain the critical keywords."

Of course, all these guidlines could change soon. AOL told the Wall Street Journal over the weekend that it's developing an algorithm that will assign freelance writers stories based on user Web searches and the sites AOL ISP subscribers visit.

We've pasted the whole email, below. Read:

Hi everyone:

Hope you are having a terrific break. I have a few notes before Monday. My apologies in advance for a long email.

First, I want to welcome Amy Cortese, who will now solo as news lead, and also announce Fred Bernstein of the New York Times as design lead, as well as the imminent hire of Robert X. Cringely as a senior columnist. Cringely was a bellweather of tech journalism, rising in the early 2000s to prominence via his own series on tech stuff at PBS (I, Cringely). Like many of us, he "discovered" real estate when his own 5/1 reset, and a couple of years ago, made some headway with a blog on the mortgage business that morphed into home-account.com. Bernstein is one of the Times' most eminent real estate and design writers. You'll find bios on all these guys at LinkedIn/Wikipedia/etc. It thrills me to have such an amazing group of early advocates for our mission, and I can't wait to witness them spread their wings through their writing, networks, and their experience of what makes real estate tick.

Second, I want to encourage each of you, writers, editors, and of course leads, to join our call Monday to Friday at 10AM. At this early stage of our formation, having the ability to build a shared DNA is a very cool thing. Don't pass it up. The calls are a half hour long, and lurkers are welcome. Of course, we're not about lurking, we're about participation, so listen in, learn, and pitch to get assignments. As I've said to many of you, this is a Darwinian platform. The more you contribute, the more you'll achieve. So pitch, pitch, pitch.

How?

Several of you have expressed confusion about how exactly you go about pitching, and what  to do once you get an assignnment. To make that a little clearer, here's a little step-by-step advice.

1) Build a pitch.  All we want to know for a pitch is: what's the story, who broke it (AP, NYT, BW, Bloomberg,etc.), and how you will advance the story if you are following someone else's reporting. Here's an example:

Owners Charge U.S. Made Toxic Drywall 
Now US-made drywall may be at risk, too. We blow out solutions with per foot cost estimates for each cure.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/23/cbsnews_investigates/main5752469.shtml?tag=stack

Simple, right? (And note the format: really helps to catch our eye in the AM.)

If you see a great story, or better yet, a great story than needs reporting, let us know, even if you're not the right writer. For now, send your pitches to me and Brett, and we'll forward to everyone else. By Tuesday or Wednesday, we'll have a new email address for pitches ([redacted]@housingwatch.com or something like that).

2) Write it. Don't hesitate. This isn't print. So do it fast. We're looking for colorful, concise, opinionated analysis that always expands the consumer viewpoint. We're not Gawker, so be friendly and authoritative, but on the other hand, don't be afraid to take sides.

Most important: Show, don't tell. Take a statistic and tell us a real human story attached to it. Or why current technical analyses miss the point. Don't just define MBSs (mortgage backed securities); find someone who sold them, tell his story, how the instrument evolved, what you think of it, and why we should or shouldn't allow them in their current state—and do it crisply. Appeal to, and link to, relevant facts. You have 300-500 words to make your argument, although going long is not a problem if the copy rocks.

3) Keep it clean. Yes you can write in another program and drop it into Blogsmith, but that program isn't Microsoft Word, which throws in all sorts of gobbledygood into your copy. Use TypePad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) and paste it in.

4) Until told otherwise, make sure the dropdown says RentedSpaces and tag your post HousingWatch (unless of course you're writing expressly for RS). Your lead will help you figure out where the story will go. 

Which raises another question: How will you know who's your lead? Simple: join the morning call, and make sure your pitch gets considered (i.e., speak up) . If your pitch is good, someone will grab it.

5) All that other stuff on the page:

Links: Link promiscuously based on major points in your story. Make your story good enough that someone won't want to lose you. Link to important search-engine-optimization keywords. For the drywall example above: Drywall, rot, fungus, mildew, construction might all be keywords that would need to be linked in a story. Try not to link to Wikipedia but to other sources, even smaller ones. Create a virtuous cycle between you (AOL) and a smaller site from which you may be capturing a story. Linklove is real. Use it. 

Headline: Make sure the first few words and first graf contain the critical keywords: "Now,US Drywall Rots, Sucks. Eats Your Home." That's a good head. Provoke the reader to click, and to think.

Categories: Basic taxonomical barns your story fits into. Think library science: the drywall story could be categorized under "development," "design," and if there was a local element, the specific location ("Florida"). Tags are not library science. They help you make organizational connections between stories. For example, drywall, drywallrot, construction, China, are all significantly related.

SEO: Hot topic of the day. The key is the keyword. Not any keyword, but keywords essential to real estate that AOL Real Estate can win on. For example, drywall isn't very descriptive, but "chinese drywall rot" is. Our aim is to be in the first three pages of Google listings on any term on a real estate story. Here's an interesting way to check if you're on the right path: check out your search term on Google and see who else is there, how your story can be better than theirs', and what you need to add to advance the story. Then keep sprinkling the words throughout your story without changing either the story or your voice. One keyword in every graf is a decent metric but avoid slavish repetition.

6) After you're done: Send a note to your lead telling them your story is up in Pending. Include 140 characters for a Tweet or Facebook update.

7) Our next job: capture your friends' content. If you know someone who can write for us, let us know asap. We still don't have enough writers.

8) Some pitches to pick up by or before Monday: 

30 Y Mortgages Hit 38Y Low
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/25/AR2009112504163.html

Why Dubai Matters To You
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/11/28/why-dubai-should-matter-to-you-u-s-real-estate-could-take-big/

For Athletes in Motion, Real Estate Can Be a Burden
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/sports/27homes.html

Bidding Starts at $5.9M for McCain's Home
http://blog.taragana.com/n/bidding-starts-at-59-million-for-former-mccain-home-in-phoenix-237084/

Also, get ready: It looks like Obama will mount a challenge to the mortgage industry Monday morning with a new campaign to pressure mortgage cos to reduce payments for many homeowners. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/business/economy/29modify.html
 
Have a great Sunday. Speak to you Monday.

Craig

(New AOL logo, top, via PaidContent)

AOL's dynamic vision of the future: Flood the web with content designed to pop up high in Google search results, with editorial ideas generated by an algorithm based on what stupid people are looking for, on the internet. In our business we call this "stealing post ideas from Google Trends." Getcher Tiger Woods Mistress Pictures here! Tell us, WSJ, how will AOL improve the life of me, an average Park Slope Parent?

AOL says its new system determined that the most popular topic on the Web last Tuesday was "crib recalls," following news of a massive recall by Stork Craft Manufacturing of Canada. AOL had only one story on its sites on the recall. But, if the new system had been live, editors would have geared up to supply stories on the subject from a number of angles, the company says.

So not only is AOL basing its entire dismal future on the most base sort of styrofoam traffic-whoring; it's not even whoring in a new way. Demand Media, for one, has long been doing the exact same thing, with an algorithm-plus-sweatshop editorial production line that makes Gawker Media look like Aristotle's School of Taking Your Sweet Time Thinking About Things.

Ah well. Neither useless crap on the internet nor AOL sucking is anything new.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (pictured) said in a memo to staff (below) that the company is looking to lose 2,500 workers, or a third of its total staff. He'll be forgoing his own 2009 bonus, and is offering executives up to nine months pay if they volunteer for buyouts, according to Business Insider. Interestingly, rank and filers are being offered a weaker deal than their recent colleagues over at Time Inc.; AOL will pay them three months severance, whereas Time Inc.-ers get that plus two weeks for every year of service. Apparently unions are nice things to have in situations like this.

As it prepares to offer shares to the public next month, AOL has been on a diet plan in other ways, too:

• After steady increases, ad revenue from a deal with Google started falling this year, according to Peter Kafka at All Things D. The deal provided $700 million in ad revenue last year, about one third of the total, but was off $42 million in the most recent quarter.
• AOL surrendered bustling celebrity-news site and cable network TMZ to Time Warner; Tim Armstrong said as recently as July that he hoped to "actively" discuss whether to retain TMZ with Time Warner and that "‘If the value of TMZ increases, it's a really good thing for us."
• AOL may sell MapQuest, according to Kara Swisher at All Things D.

Pic above by Yaniv Golan.

Armstrong's memo to staff:————-

AOLers –

"Employees First" is the way that we have run the company since April and that mantra is something I take very seriously because our company is a collection of people and our brands are the work of our teams. We started by working together to determine AOL's strategy, then the correct structure for the strategy, and, as we have discussed, we are now faced with making sure we have the correct cost structure for the strategy. You have seen daily and weekly updates on Project Everest and many of you have been involved in trying to align our resources to maximize AOL's opportunity.

AOL's cost structure is something we have worked on for the past four months, and we have spent hundreds of hours reviewing ways to fix the cost structure as well as the revenue growth engine. As we are coming to the conclusion of this work over the next few weeks, it is clear that we will need to have a significant reduction of costs at the company and across almost all functional areas and geographies. Headcount costs are going to be a majority of the cost reduction recommendations coming out of Project Everest.

As I mentioned in our last Project Everest update, the idea for a voluntary layoff was suggested and we agree that it is an option that gives people more choice and decision-making ability instead of waiting for the final cost recommendations and involuntary layoffs. Starting December 4th in the United States and ending a few days after we spin out from Time Warner, we will allow employees to choose a voluntary exit from AOL. Additionally, tomorrow we anticipate beginning the communication process for voluntary layoff programs in certain international locations. We will be looking for up to 2,500 volunteers. For context on the target volunteer number, over the next several months we will be looking to reduce approximately one-third of our overall workforce at the company. We will need to do an involuntary layoff if we do not reach the target numbers through the voluntary option.

The reduction in costs is aimed at making AOL competitive for the future of the Web and it will allow us to focus the company on growth in the non-access areas of the business. After the cost reductions, we will have a company that is aligned and structured to drive our strategy in a competitive way. The number of potential reductions isn't aimed at getting us through 2010; it is aimed at resetting AOL at the correct baseline for the future.

As a member of our team and the person who takes accountability for the results of the company, I am making the decision to forego my 2009 bonus. That decision is a personal one and is not a sign for the future payout of the overall bonus plan for employees. That plan is based on performance and overall company outcomes and it will be management's recommendation to the compensation committee of the Board to approve our performance-based bonus payouts for 2009. These are challenging times and today's news is difficult. But every day we are making changes and progress and we are on our way to re-engineering AOL for success. – TA

AOL is expected to complete mass layoffs after its spinoff from Time Warner is complete, supposedly by the end of this year. But it sounds like some cuts are too obvious to wait. One hundred firings is modest for a company of around 6,000 workers; AOL continues to work on "Project Everest" to plan the rest, our tipster said. If you know more, email us.

UPDATE: Kara Swisher at All Things D, who has written two books on AOL, was told by her sources that 100 or so layoffs are indeed coming down today. PaidContent later reported likewise.

Meanwhile Electronic Arts is laying off 17 percent of its workforce after the company saw net sales drop 12 percent from the prior year. Which, if you think about the state of the economy, is bizarre: Why aren't you unemployed people out there buying more videogames? Staying home is cheap.

(Image via Zazzle t-shirt/sticker)

In her job promoting YouTube to corporations, Kovner did get some camera time, like in the video attached to this post by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And the former Yale cheerleader was presumably able to spread some of her inner joy while attending various events around town. But Google did not afford Kovner any chance to indulge her longtime passion for singing — until now.

There's no word yet on whether the marketer/vocalist's new gig at AOL might allow for a few choice solos. But if not, Kristin, we have just one word for you: Broadway.

Kovner's goodbye video is above, and her goodbye email follows below.

Armstrong, the former Google advertising chief (pictured), jettisoned some top lieutenants from AOL, the internet conglomerate, last month. Beyond that, he's believed to be planning major job cuts as part of a sweeping reorganization of the company. "AOL is not going to change itself by incremental movements," Armstrong recently told PaidContent. Asked if this meant "large cuts," he talked about going "deep into the employee organization... to come up with ways to structure the company... I would expect announcements about that by early next year."

Early next year would mean just after the spinoff from Time Warner, assuming it goes forward as expected late this year. An AOLer who attended a recent internal "Town Hall" meeting on the restructuring, dubbed Project Everest, confirmed the layoffs are planned for post-spinoff.

One explanation we've heard for that timing is that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes didn't want layoffs taking place while AOL was part of his company. That makes some sense — layoffs typically carry a price tag, and Time Warner presumably doesn't want to take the hit for a move that will benefit another company over the long term. Time Warner isn't taking on debt as part of the transaction, our AOL tipster said, which jibes with the media conglomerate's statements that it is AOL that might load up on debt as part of the spinoff.

But a delayed deep restructuring means uncertainty for investors considering what to do with AOL shares in the earliest days of tradubg, which in turn means a potentially depressed price. A weak re-debut for AOL shares would not bode well for a company that has already had more than its share of struggles. Then again, if anyone can sell uncertainty, it's a consummate salesman like Armstrong.

UPDATE: 3:38 pm ET: Post updated with comments from an AOLer.

By selling her a vision of online media moguldom, in which Elisabeth Murdoch (pictured) would conquer the one medium that still thwarts her father's ambitions, the internet. Under the arrangement, Elisabeth's media company Shine will invest in Shields' content startup, Kara Swisher of All Things D reports, helping launch a new player in the hot online video space. Murdoch, to her credit, conceived the idea to import The Office and Pop Idol to America. But she's also a sucker for charmers: Her "close friend" and sometime yacht guest Ben Silverman unloaded his production company, Reveille, onto Shine for a cool $125 million. The Australia-born mogul-in-the-making should hope her new partner does not similarly boomerang.

That deal seemed smart when Silverman was an NBC honcho in a position to steer business Elisabeth Murdoch's way, but now he's been ousted — and is all set to compete with Murdoch with the online video startup he's building for Barry Diller's IAC.

Armstrong, the former golden boy of Google's advertising side, was hired just this past spring and has long been expected to initiate a massive restructuring. In his memo, he discusses a strategy session that nailed down where, exactly, the company is going. He also confirms his first two firings, reported previously by Business Insider: longtime company execs Kim Partoll, the COO, and Local, Mapping and Search boss John Kannapell. Both were hired shortly after AOL's disastrous merger with Time Warner.



He also mentions a "Project Everest:"

We have a strong strategy and we need to be laser focused on execution. We are planning another video update next week with a progress report on Project Everest, and I look forward to seeing you all then.

We look forward to that video, too! Full memo:

Amid his company's spinoff from Time Warner, CEO Tim Armstrong has been focusing AOL more on online content — blogs, videos, that sort of thing. One of his first announcements: a deal to distribute "purpose-driven" Web videos featuring "animated versions of Warren Buffett, Martha Stewart at age 10, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and the late Carl Sagan," PaidContent reports.

In Secret Millionaire's Club, Buffet will mentor a group of kids on how to blow 31 percent of market value and a AAA credit rating in one year using derivatives and writing risky catastrophic insurance policies. In Little Martha, meanwhile, Martha Stewart will run an event-planning company from a treehouse, seeded with profits from insider trading. Sounds like fun for the whole family!

• Leading news websites saw traffic surge to 4.2 million visitors per minute from around 2.75 million visitors per minute, according to Akamai.
  
• CNN's traffic grew fivefold in one hour and the site clocked 20 million pageviews.
• Twitter had its biggest spike in traffic, to 5,000 tweets per second, since Barack Obama's election as president, according to co-founder Biz Stone.
  
• Facebook status updates tripled.
  
• AOL Instant Messenger went down for 40 minutes.
  
• TMZ, which broke the news of Jackson's death, crashed several times amid a surge of traffic.
  
• The LA Times, which got early confirmation of the death, went down, as well.
• For about half an hour, Michael Jackson queries weren't working on Google News.
  
• Wikipedia froze amid an edit war on Jackson's page.

Consider, first, that AOL is buying Armstrong out of what sounds like a dud company — the sort of startup that can devour an investor's equity entirely.

Armstrong's Patch is a "hyperlocal" news website, mixing reporting from its own journalists with contributions from volunteers. Though it's had precious few successes, citizen journalism remains notoriously tricky from an editorial standpoint, to say nothing of profitability. And Patch has been ambushed with some formidable competition: The New York Times rolled out its own local blogging effort in the exact three communities where Patch debuted.

For this, AOL paid around $10 million, helping Armstrong recoup his otherwise imperiled seed investment?

Then there's the question of AOL's real interest. It's far more likely the company bought Patch to nail down Armstrong than out of some sudden resurgence of interest in local news (as Kara Swisher of All Things D notes, AOL had already been down this road with Digital City and CityGuide).

AOL wanted to hire Armstrong from Google just a couple of months before AOL detached from Time Warner. There would have been negotiations. And what better time for savvy salesman Armstrong to mention his growing interest in Patch than when AOL hoped to focus his attention elsewhere? "Distracted by Patch? We'll take it off your hands for you."

That sort of arrangement wouldn't be particularly transparent for AOL shareholders, who should know where compensation ends and strategic investments begin. But presumably Armstrong can lead them to the same conclusion as his former bosses: That he's worth every penny.

Business Insider hears Coleman netted $3 million severance for his 10 weeks work for the company. That's about $60,000 per workday, assuming he didn't come in on weekends.

Maybe that sounds like yet another example of outrageous executive compensation. But we don't begrudge Coleman his money: He fell victim to a similar palace coup at Yahoo when yet another of his bosses was replaced. Kudos to Coleman for being smart enough to hedge his bets this time around with a severance deal, which he presumably insisted on up front.

As George W. Bush famously said, "Fool me once... shame on... shame on you... Fool me — You can't get fooled again."

The Wall Street Journal's Matthew Karnitschnig imagines the company, including the still-proud journalists at Time Inc., as the pet of Rupert Murdoch, or perhaps of some dreary cable television provider like Comcast or DirecTV.

Maybe. As troubled as the AOL division was, it at least hypothetically had growth potential Time Warner's remaining divisions don't offer. But it's safe to say Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (pictured) isn't going to sell to Murdoch without some ironclad protection against getting shanked by Murdoch's MySpace CEO Jon Miller, who Bewkes has repeatedly screwed over.

In retrospect, AOL's deal to acquire — and then be run by — Time Warner marked the end of a century when old media conglomerates were at their peak. The merger, valued at $182 billion when it was announced, was the largest in U.S. history. It is also arguably the most disastrous in history. The combined value of the two companies — both inflated by the dot-com bubble — was $350 billion. Today, before the spin-off goes through, the whole shebang sports a market cap of just under $28 billion.

Now that the struggling old media company is parting ways with its fast-shrinking internet toy, the media's hand-wringing over the deal nine years ago looks absurdly hubristic in retrospect.

Here are some quotes from early 2000, after the deal was announced (and about a year before it was consummated):

• New York Times: A "merger of tree-snapping behemoths... the Godzilla of the Internet... wed the King Kong of content. It is a natural time for the other denizens of the jungle to wonder what the future will hold for the colossal couple and the world they inhabit."
  
• USA Today: "It's one of those rare events that seems to change the world overnight... We're shocked... "
  
• Newsweek: "AOL Time Warner will be unchallenged in its online customer base and hold vast cable-television assets."
• Regional telco SBC Communications, as quoted in CBS Marketwatch: "The merger will establish, through a web of equity and contractual interests, one interlocking conglomerate with control over both the high-speed pipes consumers use to connect to the Internet and the content they access once they're online."
• Salon, April Fool's Day: "AOL Time Warner announced Friday that it had acquired France."

There were some pessimists; a columnist named Paul Krugman wrote that only time would tell about the wisdom of the deal, and that it's possible " some big businessmen have just made a very big mistake."

Instead of fearsome tentacles everywhere, Time Warner is now left with the old-line business it was in before the 2000 deal. Except those assets — cable networks, a movie studio, magazines — now face more obstacles to growth than they did eight years ago.

AOL chief Tim Armstrong, the former Google sales chief, finally has his own company to run; it remains to be seen whether he can reverse AOL's steadily declining advertising revenues. But it's Time Warner that's left with the tougher job: Proving media conglomerates can still post impressive growth amid the rise of online media consumption.

I still remember the day I called you up and tried to recruit you to Valleywag — only to learn that that sneaky rapscallion Nick Denton had beaten me to the punch by one whole day in offering you the night shift at Gawker. It all worked out in the end — and perhaps better than I could have imagined back in 2007. But the main lesson I take away from that is that you can get Denton to do pretty much whatever you want if you're patient enough.

Denton, who has a weakness for idle truisms, likes to say that gossip is a young man's game. But you're old enough to remember the first dotcom bubble, and how it popped. That's going to be key in the next few years. We may escape a depression, but Silicon Valley is facing a reckoning nonetheless. Too much venture capital chased too few idea for far too long — and a buoyant economy can no longer hide the startup factory's mistakes.

The biggest mistake you can make is getting too close to your Valley sources and fall for their groupthink in order to ingratiate yourself. (You know how I've scolded you for gullibly buying the hype that Twitter is an amazing source of real-time news. Okay, perhaps it was — for five seconds, before the blowhards, spammers, and self-promoters found it.) At least your schooling will help you remain an outsider: As a Berkeley grad, you'll have an instinctive dislike for the Valley's Stanford in-crowd.

At the same time, don't forget that your years living, studying, and working in the Bay Area give you a better understanding of your beat than anyone can have from 3,000 miles away. Gabriel and Nick, though well-intentioned, have the Manhattan media habit of confusing proximity with relevance. Gawker is much more than New York now — and Valleywag's unique place therein must be firmly grounded in northern California's shaky soil.

Remember: Love is far more powerful than hate. Keep a clear-eyed passion for the Valley. Most tech reporters here secretly loathe their subjects, but try to disguise it with a supine gladhandery as they beg for scoops about new startup website features. They hate themselves and the people they write about. Sad, right? By loving the Valley, you can write about it more honestly than any of them. Just prepare to have your heart broken again, and again, and again. To truly love something, you must love it with all its failings.

For example, the Valley's Alice-in-Wonderland economics — why is Twitter worth more than most startups precisely because it has no revenues to speak of? But the thing you must love most about Silicon Valley — the part of the story the local press corps always skips over in favor of buzzwords, punditry, and lazy analysis — is its people.

The Valley's story is not one of chips and code. It is not a tale of technology. It is the always-running tragicomedy of the people who make technology.

Here are a few characters to watch. I hope it helps — but I can't wait to see who you add to the list.

Marissa Mayer Valleywag's first story remains its best. The public face of Google, Mayer also runs search, the only business that matters there. The cupcake frosting of her girly image — one she assiduously advances at every opportunity — may humanize the otherwise robotic computer scientist. But it is a distraction. The real question to ask about Mayer: Does her spreadsheet-ridden management style scale to new problems beyond search? Are her strengths now turning into limitations?

Mark Zuckerberg Ignore the nerd façade. Facebook's 25-year-old CEO is headstrong and ruthless. Here's the grand irony of Zuckerberg's revolutionary venture: He claims to be all about openness and sharing. But his imperious, my-way-or-the-highway management style has created a fractious culture of dishonesty, delusion, and disillusionment at the social network. His underlings either learn to say things they don't believe, or they move on. This is why Sheryl Sandberg is exactly the wrong COO for Zuckerberg. The veteran of the Clinton Administration has forgotten her Google training and reverted to Washington-player form, where staying on message is all that counts. Facebook's best hope is that Zuckerberg learns from his mistakes — but first he has to recognize them as mistakes.

Carol Bartz Yahoo's CEO swears like a sailor. At last, a boss who has found the right language to describe Yahoo's plight! Bartz brings a refreshing frankness to Yahoo. But the already demoralized troops she inherited will need to start seeing results. Otherwise, Valleywag will continue to be a steady recipient of leaks from Sunnyvale.

Elon Musk The CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX is living the geek high life, playing with fast cars, rocket ships, and other people's money. It's wonderful that Musk has realized even a small part of his childhood fantasies. But he risks destroying his dreams by refusing to reconcile them with reality. Factcheck everything Musk says. For example, was he actually running either Zip2 or PayPal, the previous dotcom successes he likes to cite in his bio, when they were sold?

Owen Van Natta Everyone is going to give MySpace's new CEO a pass, because the so-called "social portal" is so clearly troubled. If the former Facebook executive succeeds in a turnaround, it will be viewed as an astonishing achievement; if he fails, people will say no one could save MySpace. That's not fair. Hold his feet to the fire, and judge this disturbingly tan rock-star boss like anyone else on the list.

Peter Thiel Thiel, the PayPal cofounder, likes to brag about how he recruits only the best brains from the best schools to work at Clarium Capital, his hedge fund. Oh, really? Take a look at their résumés on LinkedIn. Like so many of this outspokenly harebrained libertarian's theses, the claim sounds good on paper but doesn't stand up to inspection. Valleywag, alone in Silicon Valley, can take a keen look at Thiel's rhetoric without being dazzled by his inflated wealth.

Tim Armstrong Like Van Natta at MySpace, Armstrong, a Google golden boy now charged with running AOL, will be enjoying a honeymoon. Don't worry: There are plenty of disgruntled AOLers who will gladly help you break up the lovefest.

Jimmy Wales Remind me: What does Wikipedia's founder actually do to earn his keep, besides give speeches? In all this time, I was never able to figure that out. Maybe you can!

Eric Schmidt When did Google's CEO turn into such a raging egomaniac? When the blogosphere was the only corner of the Internet that criticized him, he dismissed it as a "cesspool." But now everyone from Hollywood to the New York Times to the Federal Trade Commission is looking askance at his online empire's practices. "Don't be evil" has turned into "don't get caught." He will, though. Be ready when he does.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google's wonder twins have achieved geek nirvana, creating a cloistered campus with free food, lava lamps, and exercise balls to spare. They have a fleet of jets to transport them to rocket launches or rendezvous with Richard Branson and Bono. They've even managed to get married and reproduce. Just one question: Are they still sane? Were they ever?

There are many people who will help you — many of the same people who helped me so much, I hope. They include:

• Nick Denton, for putting up with three years of playing hard to get — and then putting up with much more besides.
• Brian Lam, Choire Sicha, Noah Robischon and Lockhart Steele, for tag-teaming me into taking the job.
• Gabriel Snyder, for expertly steering Valleywag into Gawker's welcoming arms.
• All the Valleywaggers: Paul Boutin, Nick Douglas, Megan McCarthy, Tim Faulkner, Mary Jane Irwin, Jordan Golson, Nicholas Carlson, Jackson West, Melissa Gira Grant, and Tim Woolery. You guys, we've been through so much together!
• Richard Blakeley: We made sweet Photoshop magic together.
• Everyone at Gawker Media: How much do I love you? Far more than just five milligrams.
• Sarah Lacy, Kara Swisher, and Peter Kafka: My peers and fellow purveyors of Valley gossip, you constantly inspired me.
• Countless sources, tipsters, and fellow scribes: Please understand that I esteem you none the less for not naming you here. In fact, your continued anonymity is the best sign of my abiding affection.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Good luck, Ryan. I'll be reading eagerly.

Don't screw it up.

Yours,

Owen
The Valleywag

(Photos by Brian Solis and Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

Armstrong's first day is April 7, but according to our source, he's had his eye on the startup for a while: "He's apparently loved it ever since Google, and it would make AOL instantly cool again, since we don't have anything good except for TMZ."

It's not clear if there are any talks, just rumors of Armstrong's desire to get his hands on Twitter. He shares that apparent interest with his former colleagues at Google, who are in the process of getting collectively shamed into some kind of Twitter partnership or acquisition by Silicon Valley's Twitter-happy punditocracy. In that field, though, Armstrong has an advantage: When it comes to buying things merely for their perceived coolness, AOL is absolutely shameless.