Gothamist's Jake Dobkin apparently thought better of asking liquor companies for free product, as he's deleted the tweet in question. But you still know where to send the bottles, flacks.

Actress Busy Philipps was forced to admit that she does look a bit like Perez Hilton in drag. It was not a happy process.

Try to digitally flash Gizmodo's Rosa Golijan, and she will remember your distinguishing marks.

London-born MIT Technology Review editor Jason Pontin asked Economist veteran Chris Anderson, now of Wired, to agree that Americans generally have terrible design taste. It must be nice to edit for such an undiscerning audience.

Tech writer Milo Yiannopoulos's conversation partner probably didn't see it coming.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Salon.com's Mike Madden found out, via voter-registration-loving ACORN, that his ballot box was not secure.

Glenn Fleischman, the tech journalist, outed a snarling flack.

Monica Guzman was baffled by a newspaper cancellation request, probably because her publication, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is now a free website.

Vanity Fair's Hamish Robertson invented the killer app for a product that officially doesn't even exist yet.

Jason Pontin, of MIT Technology Review, suggested misery as a reverse proxy for awesomeness.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Tech writer Milo Yiannopoulos tweeted his medical collapse, until the mean old ambulance man insisted he stop. Compassion is truly dead.

Former Tesla exec Darryl Siry waited until after his medical crisis had passed to microblog it.

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein was treated with basic human decency by one of his subjects. Very sneaky, that.

NBC's Dan Abrams, whose new company pays journalists for advice, wants to see our ponies. No. (Not without a consulting fee, at least.)

Jason Pontin of MIT Technology Review couldn't find a press contact at Google. If only the operating system company would develop some sort of effective internet finding-things technology for this kind of problem!

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Boa-bedecked media horror Laurel Touby was stymied in her real-estate quest by husband Jon Fine's raging metrosexuality.

Bicoastal tech execuwrangler Brooke Hammerling outed Gawker alumnus Lockhart Steele as a non-porn star.


TechPresident blog blowhard Micah Sifry waxed Foucauldian.

Brazen divorcist Penelope Trunk contemplated barter.

Technology Review Twitterer-in-chief Jason Pontin thought about the poor, but only for 140 characters.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

SF Appeal editrix Eve Batey triumphed over musical shame.

Fox Chicago anchor Nancy Loo conducted consumer food-safety research.

Vain, pompous, self-aggrandizing Technology Review editor Jason Pontin couldn't choose just one adjective.

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean had an insight about the likes of Pontin.

By mid-afternoon, Air America radio hostess Ana Marie Cox had once again turned her thoughts to booze.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Bicoastal tech PR maven Brooke Hammerling broke up with her BlackBerry.

Technology Review Twitterer-in-chief Jason Pontin let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Blogger Penelope Trunk abbreviated her relationship.

Former Condé Nast dealmaker Kourosh Karimkhany had an encounter with celebrity San Francisco crazy dude Frank Chu.

Chris Lehmann, better known as Mr. Ana Marie Cox, confused Elizabeth Edwards with Maureen Dowd.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

50 Cent, né Curtis Jackson III, has hired a Web ghostwriter, Chris Romero, also known as Broadway, to post updates on the message-broadcasting service for him, the New York Times reports.

What we have here is a rapper with a stage name who relies on another guy with an extra moniker to represent his real, authentic self to fans. Is your head spinning yet?

Last week, Keith Olbermann ranted to thousands of MSNBC viewers that Twitter was the "worst person in the world" for allowing an unknown person to "perpetuate a fraud" by impersonating him on the service as "@keitholbermann." (On Twitter, users address each other with the "@" sign.)

The only problem: It turns out that an MSNBC employee had registered the account on Olbermann's behalf. Before the account's owner went private and deleted all of its updates, the @keitholbermann account seemed to be sending updates similar to the official Twitter feed for Olbermann's show, Countdown. Here's Olbermann's rant:

Then there's the curious case of Twitter's Christopher Walken, whose fake account has been disavowed by the actor — and yet is as real as it gets. The fakester's work is reminiscent of Dan Lyons's Fake Steve Jobs in its zany yet realistic insights into the inner life of a famous person. The clever impersonator, as yet anonymous, recently granted an interview to The Wrap. His explanation of his work as @cwalken:

I simply enjoy writing for voices other than my own. When I post a "cwalken" update I am hoping to write something as I would imagine it spoken by Christoper Walken. The politics, tastes and observations are my own. That is — I am not trying to speak for Christopher Walken. I am simply borrowing his voice and reworking my words in his cadence.

Some people crochet, I do this.

For some, pretending to be a celebrity on Twitter is a hobby. But for others, it's a business — like the small army of people Britney Spears employs. Until recently, Joseph Nejman was one of them. He's now dismissive of the practice:

"It's O.K. to tweet for a brand," he said, remarking how common it is for companies to have Twitter accounts, "but not O.K. for a celebrity. But the truth is, they are a brand. What they are to the public is not always what they are behind the curtain. If the manager knows that better than the star, then they should do it."

What Nejman does not mention: Spears's management operation fired him for incompetence in January, after the Harvard grad posted a clumsy help-wanted ad looking for a ghost Twitterer on his alma mater's alumni website. (In a major no-no for celebrity help-seekers, Nejman actually named Spears as the client in the ad, a move which Hollywood veterans scoffed at as likely to attract deranged fans instead of real talent.) Now that he's no longer being paid to pimp out Britney Spears on Twitter, Nejman doesn't think anyone should!

But in posing as a social-media expert instead of a fired hack, Nejman isn't doing anything worse than most people on Twitter, celebrity or not. A few are honest about their fakeness, like Technology Review editor-in-chief Jason Pontin, who wrote last August of his growing Twitter fixation:

But I will never use social technologies quite as the young use them, because I do not thrill to continuous attention and I value my privacy. Thus, the Jason Pontin who occupies the social space is a constructed persona, designed to be unchallengingly personable, humorous, and thoughtful. I am none of those things very often. The preoccupations of that Jason Pontin are professional: he thinks about emerging technologies all the time. And I never broadcast the substance of my inner life, because I know it would become insubstantial the moment I did.

Wall Street Journal editor Julia Angwin likewise recently figured out the point of Twitter: It is not about living your life with friends in real time. It is about promoting your work to gullible strangers.

That's the grand irony of Twitter: Even the real people on the service are fake. They are their own simulacra. No one actually lives their life 140 characters at a time. What we do is turn ourselves into works of fiction. Who's real? Who's not? Who cares?

Ann Curry of the Today Show accused Matt Lauer of being on drugs.

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean had a drink.

Technology Review fauxmosexual-in-chief Jason Pontin kept up the appearance of working.

Gawker alumnus Alex Balk learned something new.

AllThingsD blogger Peter Kafka tried to keep the music industry afloat.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Brazen Careerist blogger Penelope Trunk thought about sex and clean boxes.

Fortune contributor Caroline Waxler, formerly an editor at Henry Blodget's Business Insider, contemplated downward mobility.


Wired's Danny Dumas saved a Washington Post reporter the trouble of finding an actual source.

Freelance editor Todd Lappin crowdsourced his geek inquiries.

Technology Review editor Jason Pontin tried to fill up a lonely letters page.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Faux-British Technology Review editor-in-chief Jason Pontin contemplated his surroundings.

Yahoo Tech Ticker anchor Aaron Task consulted with the ladies.

NBC-employed Los Angeles fameball Shira Lazar fondled her Shift key.

Former Spy editor Kurt Andersen was haunted by his past.

Online-video talent agent George Ruiz was excited about his afternoon meetings today.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us more Twitter usernames, please.

• Boston — A literate city, where Technology Review editor Jason Pontin would make an excellent host.
• Chicago — Local entrepreneur Dick Costolo has a lot of time on his hands after Google acquired FeedBurner.
• Montreal — Oh, Canada? Why not! Austin Hill of Akoha is the go-to guy for startups north of the border.
• Raleigh, N.C. — Likewise a college town. ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo is plugged into the local tech scene.
• San Antonio — After South By Southwest, Lacy's had enough of Austin, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. But why not San Antonio, headquarters of AT&T, where they're just starting to hear about this "Web 2.0" thing? Brad Mays, AT&T's blogger-wooing PR guy, can organize it.
• Seattle — No sense in skipping this town if Lacy's going to Portland.
• Washington, D.C. — Or more properly, northern Virginia, the cluster of technology companies sprawling between the Beltway and Dulles Airport. Brian Loew, CEO of health startup Inspire, is a good local contact.

Pontin writes, in a posting on Facebook:

What have I done?

Last week, when I asked my Facebook friends which startups I should write about, marketing and public relations professionals I donot know began befriending me and inundating me with pitches. I value Facebook as a private network, one where I can talk to my real friends, colleagues, and peers. Therefore, if you work in PR or marketing, and I don't have a prior relationship with you, I shan't be accepting your friendings and I shan't be reading your messages. I don't mean to be rude—but there it is.

The trick to using Facebook as a tool for self-promotion is to treat it as strictly one-way. Accept all friend invitations, and then relentlessly spam your fans with examples of your latest work, to drum up traffic. Ignore any messages you receive; you can always plead "Facebook bankruptcy," as Calacanis did.

Even Pontin is beginning to understand that Facebook is not, in the end, about real relationships. Immediately after posting his diatribe against opportunistic faux frienders on Facebook, he turned around and added a Facebook spokesperson as a "friend." Why? Not because Pontin and the PR rep are actual friends in real life. His rationale? She "might conceivably be useful to me and [Technology Review]," he explains. The other PR reps who tried to friend Pontin? Not useful, apparently.

Useful versus not useful, of course, has the benefit of being a clearer distinction than the squishy category of "friend." Facebook, through the tireless efforts of Scoble and Calacanis, is transforming from a social network to a utilitarian broadcast network. Its users, increasingly, are divided into those looking for an audience, and those willing to provide same — as well as the usual Silicon Valley scrum of favor-trading and wheeling and dealing. Just ask yourself: What have your "friends" done for you lately?