Gawker: valleywag, laurel touby

Blog Millionaire Finally Discovers Blogging is Hard

Ryan Tate — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:47:28 EDT

Laurel Touby found out just how tough her underlings have had it; David Lynch said something appropriately cryptic and JDate tested a cranky, fasting Jew's patience. The Twitterati got deeper into their grooves.

If you know what he was talking about, it wouldn't be David Lynch's Twitter stream.

Laurel Touby, blog millionaire, finally tried blogging, and found it difficult. Does anyone have a boa we might hang ourselves with? (Via @Choire)

Sasha Pasulka, gossip blogger and Jew, has had it with JDate's taunting. Over Yom Kippur, that is.

The Huffington Post's Jason Links just doesn't feel about The Pianist the way he did about the Naked Gun trilogy.

The Huffington Post's entertainment section, meanwhile, just so happens to have a Roman Polanski photo gallery scheduled to publish, according to the lead of the linked article.

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

The Twitterati Give Their Divorce Lawyer a Porn Name

Owen Thomas — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:33:27 EDT

The problem with Twitterati isn't so much oversharing as undercaring. Laurel Touby's apartment woes, Lockhart Steele's porn name, and Penelope Trunk's divorce bill are as good as the media elite's tweets get!

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.

The Twitterati Would Gay-Marry Blue Bottle Iced Coffee If It Were Legal

Owen Thomas — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:14:01 EDT

Barbara Walters sending Twitter messages as she gets her hair shampooed is a sign of the Apocalypse. Run for the hills, kids — but make sure to get a frosty caffeinated beverage before you do!

Barbara Walters gushed over View colleagues. (She loves Sherri, but not enough to know how her name is spelled!)

E! News anchorlady Giuliana Rancic got into a Twitterfight with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush over gay marriage.

Boa-laden media horror Laurel Touby interviewed a recruiter about her bus.

Former Engadget editor Ryan Block coped with San Francisco's hipster heatwave.

Wired editor Adam Rogers fed the hand that bit him.

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

Sad Web 2.0 Losers Ready for Web 3.0 (As Soon As They Figure Out What It Is)

Owen Thomas — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:40:31 EDT

Failed Internet mogul Alan Meckler is really excited about the Semantic Web, aka Web 3.0! And who can blame him, since he pretty much failed at versions 1.0 and 2.0? Meckler, who has run a passel of third-rate Internet websites since the early '90s, when he was best-known for trade titles like CD-ROM Librarian, now calls his company WebMediaBrands. Laurel Touby's Mediabistro.com is part of his collection. The boa-bedecked editrix reports breathlessly on Twitter that her boss has called the Semantic Web "the next stage of the Internet."

What is the Semantic Web? Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, came up with the notion in 2001 as a followup to his hypertext creation. After "Web 2.0" became synonymous with cool kids hanging out at Mission Wi-Fi cafes putting rounded corners on websites, people adopted "Web 3.0" as a name for the Semantic Web movement. Business 2.0 attempted an explanation a few years ago:

[The Web is] basically a compendium of billions of text documents designed to be read by humans. You can search it for keywords, but the results aren't much use until you sort through them to find the page that has the info you want.
To take the Web to the next level — to move from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 — the information in those documents will have to be turned into data that a machine can read and evaluate on its own. Only then will computers be able to take over tasks we now do by hand: find the nearest restaurant, book the best flight, buy the cheapest CD.

What does this have to do with Alan Meckler, you ask? Absolutely nothing! But we're sure he will come up with some cheaply produced website staffed by talentless hacks to write drivel about it.

(Video still via Beet.tv)

Laurel Touby Is a Middle-Class Millionaire

Sheila — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:47:16 EDT

Boa-wearing internet entrepreneur Laurel Touby shocked and awed the media world when she sold her freelancer-helping website MediaBistro for $23 mil, despite her famous inability to use e-mail. "I thought, 'O.K., a car and driver and a new apartment and a whole new life.' In fact, I can only afford two out of three," she told the Times last year. She must be on some sort of branding campaign, because she's still complaining about her millions. She is seriously and totally not that rich! she tells CNBC. For God's sake, she lives in a sixth-floor walkup! Click for the other indignities of being a middle-class millionaire.

Wired celebrates 15 years of turning a cult into a culture (and back again)

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:40:00 EDT

MIDTOWN WEST — "You're a normal person," Wired editor Chris Anderson asked me at Wired's 15th anniversary party last night in New York. "What do you make of all this?" He nodded his head toward the four corners of the roof top, crowded with the Wired set. In response, I said something about the thick-rimmed black frames and all the scarves. But for reading-comprehension points, I should have said I felt like I was in the midst of a cult. Because that's what Conde Nast's Wired is all about, Anderson and Wired cofounder Louis Rossetto told us in their speeches: turning the cult of technology into a culture, but keeping it as fervent as a cult. That and covers of a nude Jenna Fischer and LonelyGirl15 in bed, of course. Below, photos of the faithful.

(Photos by Nicholas Carlson)

Founders Club, MC Hammer take over SNL studios

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:00:18 EST

Digital media types here in New York are always looking for a reason to celebrate their own achievements. A couple of months ago, a few of them began calling themselves the Founders Club and decided to start holding mixers around town. Last night, NBC hosted the latest in the series on the set of Saturday Night Live. Who showed? Mostly wantrepreneurs looking for a VC teat to suckle, of course. But I also ran into Digg CEO Jay Adelson, pictured above; a definitely not-pictured angel Ron Conway, who dodged my camera; a Facebook "founder"; and MC Hammer.

Probably the biggest surprise last night was that despite Facebook's busy day announcing new features to allow users to spam each other, one of the company's Harvard connections still showed at last night's Founders Club party here in New York. Which one? ConnectU founder and litigious claimant to the Facebook throne, Divya Narendra, of course.

What, you were expecting Adidas? I asked Narendra what he really thinks of Zuckerberg, but he wouldn't. Didn't want to piss off his lawyers. Narendra was happy to dish on fellow wannabe Facebook founder Aaron Greenspan, however.

"I have no idea how he got that New York Times article," Narendra told me. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

Bitches just jealous.

New York angel investor Ron Conway also turned up last night. I'd have snapped a photo of him, but for a big fella, the man pulls a mean pirouette at the sight of a camera. And did you really want to see a photo of his backside? Silicon Alley wantrepreneurs are not allowed to answer that.

One thing I didn't know about Adelson: Apparently he lives in Dutchess County, north of New York, and commutes to San Francisco to run Digg. Does this mean we can claim him for Silicon Alley? (Ed.'s note: No.)

CollegeHumor's Zach Klein and Ricky Van Veen also showed, dragging down the whole affair with their ironic style and funny-looking glasses. They only cost $7 dollars on eBay. Father figures Josh Mohrer of BustedTees and Vimeo's Jonathan Marcus mostly managed to keep the boys in line, though dress code violations (sneakers) barred the entire crew from the Rainbow Room afterparty. Nobody said beauty was easy, fellas.

Mediabistro sells to Jupitermedia

Nick Douglas — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:08:26 EDT

Jupitermedia (owners of photo provider Jupiterimages and a fleet of websites) just bought Mediabistro, a site for media professionals that includes specialized job ads, articles, and insider media news, for $23 million. Mediabistro's a small service — ~~exceedingly small, with some 50,000 unique visitors a month~~ I can't even remember why I made this obvious error; Mediabistro gets six million pageviews a month. — but one well known in the journalist scene. And it's apparently more familiar to those at the Gray Lady than new parent company Jupitermedia. Contrary to the New York Times report, the company hasn't owned JupiterResearch for years. A more ironic divestiture, given the purchase of Mediabistro: Having sold tech jobs board Dice.com in 2005 for $200 million, Jupitermedia is now buying its way back into the recruiting business, adding Mediabistro's media-job listings to its JustTechJobs website.

The NYT leads with: "Laurel Touby turned her popular cocktail parties into a high-traffic Web site for job-seeking media and creative professionals. Yesterday, she sold Mediabistro.com, the company that sprang from those mixers, for $23 million." Which sounds a lot like how entrepreneur Nick Denton made the millions he later used to build blog network Gawker Media (publisher of Valleywag). Denton co-founded First Tuesday, a series of social gatherings that became a social network in the 90s. I'll let him analyze the meaning of history repeating. Later today: Reactions from the one person I know who used to work for Mediabistro; and how company founder Laurel Touby just made millions from her parties while dot-com columnist Courtney Pulitzer failed to do the same with her "Cocktails with Courtney" events.