Corporate awards might seem silly, but for some entrepreneurs, they are among the few forms of recognition still within reach. And the Insider's Silicon Alley Awards, intended to "celebrate the resilience of New York's digital industry in the face of the global economic collapse," has its share of obsessives. One even wonders if the selection process has been tilted in favor of nominees with financial ties to the Insider.

Henry Blodget's publication yesterday released its final list of nominees. The nominees were selected by the Insider with input from an online poll.

As our tipster notes, the 25 finalists include Gilt Groupe, co-founded by the same team that started Silicon Alley Insider; Huffington Post, co-founded by Insider investor Ken Lerer; and Thrillist, started by Ken's son Ben Lerer.

It's hard to argue with, say, HuffPo's impact over the past year; it pioneered a particularly effective form of citizen journalism and grew both its traffic and profile by leaps and bounds. But, as with the other two nominees, its links to the Insider were not disclosed; maybe they should have been, as our tipster argues, if only to keep the awards above reproach.

Blodget, who says he "understand[s] the concern about disclosures," he since added a note to his nomination post outlining "every possible conflict I could think of." And while he conceded "there was definitely some subjectivity in the selection of the final nominees," he defended his process:

We explained up front that, while we would take the nominations and votes into account when picking the final 5 nominees, the votes would not determine our selections.

The reason we don't use straight votes in these things, by the way, is that we have learned from experience that they are too easy to game...

For what it's worth, we won't be involved in picking the winners [see explanation at bottom of this post].

For those still dissatisfied with the process, just remember: It's only an arbitrary prize. They're a dime a dozen. If you don't win SAI's, why not go for a Webby? They hand those out to practically anyone!

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Blodget explains why he voted for Spitzer in his run for governor of New York, even though he "disagreed" with the "conclusions" of Spitzer's investigation of the dotcom stock bubble. (Before he found fame as a call girl fan, Spitzer led a series of prosecutiuons against Wall Street abuses, which ended up with Blodget barred from working on Wall Street.) What Blodget said on TV:

The world needs people with that amount of chutzpah to come in and take on everybody. And so, I actually got to the point where I voted for him for Governor because I wanted to see what would happen when you took that personality and that force for change into Albany.

Blodget talks about his "respect" for Spitzer. Which is already a marked difference from what he wrote in his Silicon Alley Insider blog two weeks ago:

A year or so after the Martha Stewart trial, Eliot dropped by a Slate event before launching his run for governor. I met him in the buffet line.

ME (napkin roll in hand, flustered to suddenly find myself in the presence of my Destroyer): Hi, Eliot, Henry Blodget, good to meet you. You made my life a bit rough there for a while!

ELIOT: (3,000-watt smile): That's my job!

(Yes, he was charming. And I respected a lot of what he had done. I even voted for the bastard.)

So which is it, Henry? Do you respect Spitzer, like you told Bloomberg? Or is he your "Destroyer" and a "bastard"? Remember, Spitzer landed you in a heap of trouble the last time for just this kind of doubletalk.

The narrative arc of disgrace used to be a traditional three-parter: The fall, the repentance, the glorious return. But our fast-forward culture lacks the patience for that. We've forgotten about the Biblical years of wandering in the desert in favor of the three-day resurrection. So much easier to step right back into the spotlight. It's not a comeback — it's an encore.

If anything, Stewart's five-month stint in the big house after she was convicted of lying to prosecutors about a stock sale made the ice queen of entertaining vastly more approachable. Hey, Martha's a little bit gangster! Now lets make some badass cupcakes. I hear she got the frosting recipe from a cellmate.

Henry Blodget, a former Merrill Lynch analyst, became famous for predicting Amazon.com's soaring rise in stock price during the dotcom boom. But he was barred from the securities industry for life after lawsuits turned up emails showing him privately bashing the same stocks he was recommending. And yet he's still dispensing stock tips at his startup, Silicon Alley Insider. If anything, he has more credibility as a blogger than he ever did as a Wall Street analyst. (And how did he launch his comeback? Covering the Martha Stewart trial for Slate!)

And Eliot Spitzer went from governor of New York, a rising star of the Democratic Party, to Ashley Dupré's Client 9, brought down by an investigation into prostitution rings, to boring punchline — all within six months. He's still a schlub who shows up at Slate parties, god help him. (Now, he at least has the excuse of being a columnist for the online publication. Along with Blodget.)

What this means for the less-famous: Nothing's really a setback. Did your startup go under? Give speeches about how much you've learned about business. Went bankrupt? Raise money for a brand new hedge fund? Laid off? Glory in your life as a free agent (until you get another steady job). The only risk you take when you fail is not being epic.

The Greatest Depression has been marked by its swiftness and ubiquity; in a hyperglobalized economy, it struck everywhere at once. We're all disgraced now! Why would we ever hold a little thing like failure against someone?

(Photo of Blodget via BusinessWeek; Spitzer via Us Versus Them)

The latest stock jock to retake the field is Thom Calandra, the founding editor of MarketWatch, a financial-news site now owned by News Corp. He has launched a new investment newsletter, Ticker Trax, on Stockhouse.com. A gutsy move, considering that's exactly the vehicle which crashed his career at MarketWatch; an SEC investigation found that Calandra was buying shares of stocks he recommended before he wrote them up in a MarketWatch newsletter, and then selling them after publication. He surrendered $416,109.58 in illegal profits, and paid a $125,000 fine. As part of the settlement,

Calandra joins Henry Blodget, who was banned from the securities industry for privately trash-talking stocks, but now runs Silicon Alley Insider, a tech-stocks blog. He's been profiled in Wired and explaining Wall Street's woes in The Atlantic. CNBC shouter Jim Cramer draws higher ratings than ever for his populist on-air rants. As a money manager, he was investigated by the SEC and cleared, but later admitted to manipulating stocks. Nevertheless, he's now nominating himself as the SEC's next chairman.

So why are we taking advice from admitted crooks? I think we all cynically subscribe to the theory that it takes a thief to catch one. The mortgage meltdown revealed abuses at Wall Street firms that encompassed the entire business; it wasn't a matter of bad apples, but a rotten barrel. If the game is rigged, then who better to guide your play than the most expert of riggers?

Google didn't accept them before—presumably because someone at the company viewed the practice a moral or ethical compromise. Now that the stock's at $350 and UK revenue growth has slowed to 17%, however... Well, life's all about compromise.

Yahoo is now hastily revising its mass-firing plan, upping the number of employees who will be shown the door. The theory: eBay's mass-firing, which had been demanded by shareholders for months, was greeted with Bronx cheers because it didn't go far enough in light of the ongoing global economic crash. Now eBay will like be forced to break the cardinal rule of mass firings: death by an unending wave of cuts.

Fellow Tech Ticker talker Henry Blodget has steered his own Silicon Alley Insider website away from New York's Silicon Alley. Lacy seems to be taking it personally: "Judging from these eye-popping numbers, few of you aren't watching Tech Ticker. I'm glad I wasn't missed during my month on tour. Sniff."

(Photo by Randy Stewart)

If so, the peacemaking attempt failed. Lindzon has made no secret of his dislike for Calacanis, on his blog and on Twitter after Twitter after Twitter. In a post discussing the bailout, Lindzon gratuitously dissed Calacanis as someone who "started a bad business (Mahalo.ugh) at the top and now is scared and panicking to his e-mail list." Calacanis extended an olive branch:

Actually, we agree that value is built in the down market. There is less competition for talent, customers and market share in down markets, so it is the ideal time to start. However, many of the A/B round Web 2.0 companies are going to run out of cash before they get to the promised land, and my email newsletter was a to try and help those folks who are struggling.

Lindzon replied:

Actually, stay off my blog.

Does staying off Lindzon's blog include Silicon Alley Insider? No wonder Blodget, always eager to please, would just as soon stay out of this fight.

Awesome.

At present, the Business Sheet's headlines read like Rupert Murdoch had reassigned the editors of the New York Post to man the Wall Street Journal's copydesk. I trust Waxler, with whom I worked at a now-forgotten business magazine, will liven things up. Most recently, she attempted to bring a dash of celebrity to an overserious TheStreet.com. And besides working at VH1 on shows like Best Week Ever, she has comedy running in her veins: Joan Rivers is her aunt. If anyone can find the funny in a market meltdown, she can.

Yang deserves to celebrate his victory over Icahn, but he should be more cautious. Wall Street didn't like it much when the New York Times reported he started a round of high-fives after Microsoft first withdrew its last $33 dollar per share offer to buy the entire company, and if tie-wearing, side-part-combing Silicon Alley Insider editor Henry Blodget is a fair stand-in, Wall Street wants Yang to act his age, not his ZIP code. Blodget's response to Yang's memo: "Hi, guys?' That's the address to 10,000-plus global Yahoos? Man, Silicon Valley really IS a different universe." The full transcript, below.

Hi guys.

In addition to the recent emails you’ve been getting from me, I wanted to update you on everything that we’ve been doing to fight this proxy battle on multiple fronts.

The Board, the senior leadership team, and I have been visiting with stockholders and financial industry analysts to articulate the continuing efforts to maximize the value of Yahoo!.

You’ve also probably seen the letters we’ve sent to our stockholders outlining why we believe our current Board can best represent the interests of all stockholders, and that the Icahn/Microsoft agenda threatens to destroy stockholder value.

We’ve also increasingly seen stories in the media that reflect an understanding of our position.

Today, I’m excited to tell you that we’re launching an advertising campaign online on our homepage as a way to continue to make our case to stockholders.

With one of the largest audiences on the Internet, we’re taking full advantage of the power of our network to remind our stockholders why voting for Carl Icahn’s board of directors is a bad choice.

I hope you’ll take a minute to check it out.

With all of this is going on, I know all of you have been working very hard to support our strategic objectives.

I’m incredibly proud of the unwavering focus that I’ve witnessed from so many of you in the face of the onslaught of opinions directed at our company.

In this and many other ways, I’m inspired by Yahoo! on a daily basis as you look for ways to make the experience for our users, advertisers, partners, and developers even better.

We’ll continue to keep you updated. And I look forward to talking with all of you next Wednesday at our All-Hands Meeting.

Thanks for all you’re doing for Yahoo!.

Those sites seem inspired by the best ideas to come out of Silicon Alley Insider, Blodget's first blog effort. But they also seem a nod to Blodget's failed ambitions. Originally conceiving of Silicon Alley Insider as a look at New York's supposedly burgeoning technology scene, Blodget and his New York-based editors quickly realized there was no there there. They shifted gears to start covering large, publicly traded technology companies — most of which were based a continent away in California. (They even hired a Silicon Valley correspondent.) A wise move, but one that left their flagship publication with puzzling branding.

No matter. We do not hope Alley Insider fails, since we find the site a must-read, odd name and all. But if it does, or ends up merely a middling success, Blodget will have other publications to rely on. That talent for shapeshifting is one rarely seen in the entrepreneur-hostile realm of Manhattan.

(Photos by NewYorkInsider and NYFoundersClub)

Those insiders made lots and lots of money, and you won't be seeing any mea culpas from them like disgraced analyst-turned-Web publisher Henry Blodget's. It was your average American investor on the outside who took the hit on their retirement nest egg when InfoSpace went belly-up — not those who profited from flipping shares back and forth along the way.

We never touch our PC screen, and we hate it when other people touch our PC screens.... We're not particularly anal, and we polish up our Blackberry every thirty seconds or so.... So excuse us if we don't jump up and down in excitement at the thought that people are going to feel better about jabbing their fat, greasy fingers into our PC screens.

The fact that they're at the table — regardless of what they were telling themselves got them to the table — it's much more likely that they say "enough with the four foot high stack of paper outlining the details of the deal. Just merge."

Could it possibly be because she's not happy with the numbers that ComScore is reporting for her client — or, worse, the numbers NextNewNetworks is asking her to pitch? I'd like to point out the Association for Downloadable Media is giving a presentation on video advertising standards tomorrow at Ad:tech. Maybe Hammerling should give them her support instead of taking passive-aggressive stabs at companies working in the space. That seems easier.