Jordan Reid, 27, is good evidence that fameballing remains attractive, albeit in a down economy. Mediaite's Rachel Sklar has Reid's top-shelf bio: Dalton, Harvard, an abortive LA acting career that took her to Law and Order (here) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, marriage to a Yalie indie rocker, then the law firm where protocelebrity pimp Allison, in the words of a NonSociety press release, "discovered" her. Now she'll be working for Allison's "lifecasting" startup NonSociety, blogging about "tips on home décor, style, cooking and restaurants, as well as advice for couples in committed relationships."

NonSociety made all of $60,000 last year and lost a shot at a Bravo reality show contract amid the Wall Street implosion. No surprise, then, that the last time we checked the company was trying to recruit a slew of new bloggers like Reid without pay or equity. Reid, in fact, is the prototypical NonSociety recruit — a company ad said it was looking for someone "like [a] 27-year-old Harvard grad housewife married to a rocker." So maybe she nailed down an actual salary. Allison declined to address pay in an interview, telling us only that Reid was under a "fairly standard management contract."

"Management" contract? That implies Reid will live off the revenue she brings into the company, presumably through sponsorship deals. Ouch: Allison has a decent gig endorsing Sony products and fortified water, but before that she had to pay her dues shilling for the likes of Sea World and Dunkin' Donuts. But maybe things will be easier for Reid. Allison insists this is a banner year for NonSociety. "We're making money and it's legit," she told us, before declining to provide hard numbers to back the hype.

NonSociety has enough money, at least, to fortify its executive suite, such as it is: Allison has named her first Gotham roommate Krystal Kahler as titular CEO. Megan Alagna is "Chief Operating Officer." Fancy.

If microcelebrity is making a comeback, then, it is thanks to some intensive care from NonSocieyt's increasingly fancy stable of advertisers. The monster will not be easily slain. And that's putting it optimistically.

(Reid's hire was first reported at Reblogging NonSociety. Lower pic via.)

Full press release:

NonSociety Announces Hiring of Newest Contributor Jordan Reid

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 13, 2009: NonSociety, an online social platform wherein the contributors share their opinions via their personalities with an interactive audience, announces the hiring of their newest contributor Jordan Reid. Joining current NS contributors and founders Julia Allison and Meghan Asha, Reid's focus will be "Domestic Bliss Done Differently," and will offer tips on home décor, style, cooking and restaurants, as well as advice for couples in committed relationships. The website goes live on September 14, 2009, and can be found at www.jordan.nonsociety.com.

The hiring of Reid marks the next step in the progression of NonSociety as an online venue for experts. Reid is the first of many new contributors to come, each in a different niche, who will share their expertise in their particular field while also giving readers a glimpse into their personal lives.

Lifecasting, as NonSociety calls it, helps readers develop a personal connection to their contributors. Readers get to know and trust contributors' opinions the way they do with their friends. "The synergy of professional expertise and personal divulgence is the backbone of the NonSociety online platform," NonSociety's Chief Operating Officer Megan Alagna says. "It establishes a reader/expert relationship in a way not currently seen in media, making NonSociety the go-to platform for professional branding – and personal journalism which informs, entertains and inspires."

Reid was discovered by Allison at a NYC party. 27 years old and married, with a Harvard degree and killer style, Reid was working at a law firm but longing to turn her hobby - DIY home projects – into a full time gig. Her search for wedded bliss in the city of career obsessed singles stood out to Allison, who immediately dubbed Reid "The Uncommon Newlywed" and convinced her to join the team at NonSociety.

Says Reid: "Am I a chef? No. An interior designer? Hardly. I consider myself a somewhat talented amateur in these arenas, and for me this lifecast is an exciting journey and an on-going learning process. I'm hoping my readers will benefit from seeing someone just like them who is unafraid to try...well, just about anything."

NonSociety founder Allison says, "Jordan is what would happen if a Harvard-educated, twenty-something Martha-Stewart-in-training married a rocker, rode a motorcycle, and refused to wear any skirt that hit below mid-thigh. We're beyond thrilled to have her on board!"

Aside from Reid, NonSociety has brought on young writer and girl-about-town Cary Randolph to cover fashion week. Reid and Randolph mark the first contributors to be hired by NonSociety since the departure of styleblogger Mary Rambin. Allison and Asha (along with Rambin) continue to co-host TMI Weekly, a Next New Networks production airing on NBC's lifestyle channel NY NonStop. NonSociety is expected to grow exponentially as on online media platform in the next few months, bringing on several new contributors in areas like entertainment, fashion and home décor by the end of the year.

Allison has confirmed to us that her "lifecasting" startup, NonSociety, is behind this audacious Craigslist ad. It's already been chewed up and spit out in the blogosphere for, among other things, asking the world for a "vibrant" personality, "ridiculously reliable" work ethic, maybe a Harvard degree and a glamorous spouse in return for no money and no equity. Or, as Allison puts it, "all of the support, the audience, the connections and the PR you need to launch your brand."

It doesn't help that the list of potential lifecasting roles outlined by Allison and her partners sounds like it was ripped from a catalog of stereotypes: "gay, style guy, teen, prom obsessed" ... "alternative lifestyle, interior/exterior design expert" ... "preppy" ... "rapper." As Just Another Brooklyn Blog put it:

Oh, so I can either have some quirky skill, or just enjoy man on man anal sex. In lieu of a resume, should I just send you a picture of me giving another man a reach-around.

If your life fits into a category that Allison and business partner Megan Asha consider brand-able, AND you clear their application process, you'll have the privilege of constantly broadcasting your life for NonSociety through "text, photographs, videos, perhaps music selection, quotes - and beyond." And beyond.

And, who knows, maybe after a few years you can graduate into a paying gig endorsing consumer electronics or "enhanced water." If that doesn't pay the bills, why not start a lifecasting platform of your own? After all, the internet fame game played by Allison and her protocelebrity cohorts might be a deflating bubble, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people still willing to buy into it. It's not like media and financial companies are hiring much these days.

(Pic: TMIWeekly)

Yes, it's red. And yes, Allison assures us, it's permanent. As permanent, at least, as her two-year stint as a Time Out New York dating columnist (the magazine now brags of its "Julia-free Sex & Dating section") or her overpaid gig as a Star "editor at large" ("an embarrassment" one editor later sneered).

The fameball is not without her assets; she retains her "lifecasting" Web startup, NonSociety, and a deal with NBC's obscure digital channel New York Nonstop, which gives Allison a toehold into the glamorous world of cable-news punditry (she was on MSNBC just this past Sunday).

But as Allison's fellow protocelebs can attest, fameballing in the midst or a recession and reality TV glut isn't what it used to be. And her business grossed just $60,000 last year, before things got really bad.

So while Allison might say (as she did in a recent instant message to us) "I feel like I haven't been on Gawker in eight weeks; it's making me feel happy / irrelevant" and ask if she's "blacklisted," her real problem isn't grabbing attention. It's making a living, and thus a life, out of it.

UPDATE: Regarding the hair, a tipster adds:

Julia was broadcasting for some really random network from a soccer event at Hudson Terrace last night. While she was still sporting that HIDEOUS one piece (it looked Aladdin-inspired) she's wearing in the pic on Gawker, her new 'do was covered by a huge headband. The reason? Apparently the dye turned BRIGHT RED near her scalp over the course of the day, leaving her with noticeably two-toned hair. It looked entirely heinous. In typical Julia Allison fashion, she was bitching very, very loudly about it. She obviously mentioned that it was Anne Hathaway's colorist that did the job so she "should have known better." Yeah, ok, Julia.

Another choice remark: "I was trying to look like Lindsay Lohan but it ended up like the fifth element!!!"

UPDATE 2: Allison wrote in to say her decision to part ways with Time Out was mutual and that she hadn't "lost" her job, as we had it, or "complained" about not being on Gawker.

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:

Times are tough, and Allison's startup NonSociety has not escaped the bad economy: It's already lost a reality-show deal (Bravo declined to proceed beyond a pilot) and one of its three co-founders. This perhaps helps explain why Allison has become a "featured blogger" for "Social Media Marketing" firm Izea.

Listed on the front page, Allison helps the company advance its mission to "provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for posting social media content about a product, service or website on their blog."

Izea, in other words, pays for posts. In cash. And Allison has started working hard for one of its featured clients, Sea World, which is inviting bloggers to a press junket this week. Today on her NonSociety blog, Allison gushed about her upcoming trip to the marine park with no fewer than five exclamation marks. On Twitter she was a bit more restrained, with just one "!" (the microblogging service limits users to 140 characters, after all).

Neither of those posts included any disclosure of Allison's relationship to Izea or Sea World — even though such disclosure is required by Izea.

After a tipster pointed us evidence of Allison's shilling, we got in touch with her for comment. She's promised to get back to us.

But other bloggers, including all those laid off print journalists hoping to chase their dreams online, can draw a quick lesson: There is still money to be made in blogging, even independently. But you'll have to do some ethical soul-searching. And in the end, you'll have to disclose whatever innovative monetization techniques you settle on. Not eventually, either, but up front, right in that first post. Because if you don't, you'll get caught.

UPDATE: Yes, Allison got paid, but "THIS IS THE FIRST THING THEY HAVE EVER PAID ME FOR." The bastards! More:

Since her brother, Facebook's Aspergerian CEO, is incapable of normal interactions with people on camera (or off), Randi has taken on the role of the face of Facebook. So her people arranged a whirlwind tour of the nation's media capital: 30 Rock! CBS! Good Morning America! MTV! Colbert!

She capped the day off with a "private" dinner with Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem (of the Gloria Steinem Steinems). Private, that is, except for a certain notorious nobody who crashed the affair: Julia Allison, the vaguely employed former dating columnist, celebrity microblogger, and nontrepreneur. (Randi once popped in between her brother and Allison to prevent a shot of the two side by side from circulating on the Internet. Allison has since expertly employed guilt to worm her way into Randi's circle and extract professional favors from her employer.)

The two were all smiles during a photo op with Steinem. Oh, and then Allison "randomly" bumped into her at the MTV offices the next morning. One can't help thinking that the experience left Randi smarting. She seemed downright testy after an altercation with a bouncer at Manhattan nightclub Apothecary, even threatening to abuse the power of her position to erase the hotspot from the social graph:

(Photo by Julia Allison, naturally)

The ruckus has been stirred up by a sudden rise in the number of people who list themselves as fans of "Julia Allison" on Facebook. Allison has confessed to what happened: After Allison had a meeting with Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who is now actively promoting the site's celebrity pages, Facebook listed Allison's page on a list of suggested pages for new users.

That accounted for most of the jump. But Allison also admitted that she had Facebook "convert" 2,500 people who had requested her friendship on Facebook into fans. That's where she got herself in trouble.

Allison declared herself a "brilliant businesswoman" after her egoblogging startup, NonSociety, cleared five figures last year. She hopes to make more by accumulating a fan base and then shamelessly marketing products to them. In theory, she ought to be familiar with the strict laws around endorsements.

New York, California, and a number of other states have strict laws regulating what's called "commercial appropriation" — simply put, the right to control whether one's name and likeness is used in an advertisement to give the appearance of an endorsement.

Legal pundits have long been alarmed by the way Facebook skirts these rules. When users sign up to be fans of a product or celebrity on the site, the privacy argument goes, they didn't necessarily consent to broadcast that fact to all their friends in a way that's similar to an advertisement. Daniel Solove, a law professor has called this feature of Facebook a "privacy debacle" and argued that simply expressing appreciation for a product or person wasn't the same as signing up to appear in ads. But at least this involves users who willingly signed up to be fans. What of people who found themselves yoked into fandom without giving any kind of consent at all?

That's what happened to 2,500 users who aimed to be friends with Allison, but instead ended up in ads for her described as "fans." Facebook can't fall back on its old defense that they volunteered for the endorsement. They could well file a class-action lawsuit against Allison and Facebook. Nothing in Facebook's terms of service seems to cover such a conversion, which Allison now admits Facebook did as a favor for her.

There may be no separation in Allison's mind between friendship and a commercial relationship, no line between the self and the product. But there is a distinction in the law.

The back story on the friendship between Allison and Randi Zuckerberg: At the SXSW Interactive conference in 2007, Allison had posed next to Mark Zuckerberg at a party. Lest a photo of Allison and Mark start circulating, Randi dived into the shot, sticking out her tongue. When Allison and Randi met later, Randi apologized for judging Allison, and they became fast friends. Allison went to Randi's bachelorette party, they appeared in music videos together and threw a joint, bicoastal birthday party.

The lesson here: Sometimes first judgments are right. And sometimes guilt can be a dangerous thing.

(Photo via Guest of a Guest)

She called up a Gawker Media employee, who shall go unnamed, to complain about unspecified errors in Owen Thomas' recent coverage. But not from anger (or an overdose of Blueprint Cleanse) but out of love. See, Gawker's going downhill, she claims, and she'll buy a "round of drinks" if her will is done. Thankfully, I'm not taking orders from Rambin.

Owen's cranky streak is one of the reasons we love him. (Other reasons: he's a talented writer who knows the tech beat inside and out.) Around here, unsolicited and unhinged rants are worn as a badge of honor. The only reason, as far as we can tell, that she thinks Gawker is falling apart is that we're not covering her every move. Such is the double-edged nature of fameballing. And, Mary, if you have a problem with one of my writers, rather than calling the ad staff, you should get in touch with me directly.

NonSociety, a group blog detailing Allison's, Rambin's, and Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha's daily misadventures, has always promised to be more than just a stream of the trio's daily trivia. "It's just the three of us... but not for long! We're bringing on other contributors," the site has promised since it launched last year. Only now, with Rambin's exit, is Allison looking seriously for more people. The site was never about the three of them, Allison now argues. Well, of course, it was never about anything at all.

Allison, in a drunken moment at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, admitted to Rambin's impending departure from the lifestreaming venture, in which Allison, Rambin, and Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha Parikh posted constant blog entries, photos, and videos from their empty lives.

Rambin was the least prolific blogger of the three. And yet she contributed so much to NonSociety in contributing so little. True, her "speach" often lacked "coherance" (two actual recent typos). But there's nothing as entertaining as watching a rich girl who recently spent a month on a yacht opine about what it takes to make money. (Which, apparently, she needs.)

Here's Rambin's ramble about the future of Web video:

Here's my answer: I think the key to web video is creating all different formats that can exist together. Create a show with a relatively high production value with approachable characters or personas. Have these people or actors make their own unedited videos so the audience gets to know and love them. Concurrently, short, edited videos should be shot with experts and celebs to show a different perspective in an entertaining way. Approach major brands with sponsorship packages that supplement their current traditional campaign (so they don't get their panties in a bunch). Pitch brand awareness and your distribution channels (which should be any website that will have you). License the show to a major network to increase your eyeballs and the show's value and revenue.

She seems to be talking about TMIweekly, a Web-video show which recently got picked up by NBC's most obscure TV channel. Rambin, Allison said, is sticking with the show even as she's dropping NonSociety. Can you blame her? It's the only part of Allison's laughable startup which is showing even a glimmer of commercial promise. It almost makes you feel sorry for Rambin, when her best prospect for making money consists of unwatchable video on a channel no one watches.

Appropriate, because New York Nonstop is as close as one can get to the Internet in obscurity, and yet still claim to be on television, making it an appropriate home for the contentless musings of Allison, an inappropriately well-known dating columnist Time Out New York, and her two friends, Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha Parikh and vapid handbag designer Mary Rambin. (Or perhaps just Rambin: Rumors are spreading that Parikh may have quit, though Allison denies this.)

Episodes of TMIweekly, a videoblog, have featured the three talking about uninteresting aspects of their lives. (Imagine Twitter, but videotaped.) It's part of a pseudo-business called NonSociety. Allison recently informed me that NonSociety had taken in $60,000 in revenues in all of 2008. Using the advanced business metric known as earnings before expenses, that would give NonSociety's three foundresses a living slightly above minimum wage. Parikh's family fortune must surely throw off more interest than that in a month.

The 24-hour news channel broadcasts in Manhattan, sort of, on digital channel 4.2, and Time Warner Cable carries it on channel 161. So if you avoid triple-digit cable channels and haven't upgraded to a digital converter — since the government has pushed back the deadline for the digital transition, you probably haven't — you can remain blissfully Allison-free. New York NonStop claims a theoretical reach of 5.7 million, though, so it's possible someone, somewhere, in the New York area might accidentally be exposed to her work.

Whatever NBC is paying Allison for this 24x7 filler, it's surely too much. As NBC officials themselves seem to realize! Meredith McGinn, senior manager of special products for NBC4, explained to the New York Daily News:

You'll get your meat — your news, weather and headlines — every 15 minutes. In between those 15 minutes, you may have a two-minute segment, a two-minute pod, a five-minute pod. So the shows we're looking at are in little bits, not your traditional half-hour newscasts.

So the news is the meat, which makes TMIweekly, what, exactly? Shredded lettuce? Mayo? Anything, surely, except relish.

Rather than force you to watch TMIweekly, we will show you Gawker videographer Richard Blakeley's much funnier parody, "NomSociety":

Welcome To NomSociety from Richard Blakeley on Vimeo.

Karp decided to ban five blogs, including two which primarily mocked Tumblr posts by Allison, a dating columnist turned Internet microcelebrity, on Monday — and then announced a new anti-"harassment" policy supporting his decision on Tuesday. Today, he revoked that policy, and reversed the ban. "This policy had nothing to do with any personal relationships," he wrote in his Tumblr. Bold and italics, so you know he really meant it!

Instead, he introduced a blocking feature users have long asked for. Here's why they want it: When someone "reblogs" a Tumblr post, a link to his or her blog appears on the reblogged post. Some Tumblr users, Allison included, find this annoying, especially when the Tumblr blogger does not agree completely with their worldview. This may have something to do with most Tumblr users having an emotional age similar to the chronological age of Tumblr's CEO. Tumblr's new "block" feature allows them to blithely ignore people who read and comment on things they publish on the Internet.

The "block" feature has a salutary bonus for Tumblr as a business: It avoids the need for Karp to get involved in his friends' hysterical fits over people reading and commenting on things they publish on the Internet. Instead, he can figure out how to make money for his investors.

He had previously hinted about announcing some kind of money-making scheme on Monday. (He sold some electronic valentines. So cute!) Instead of crowing about that, he was tied up figuring out a policy to protect the Julia Allisons of the world. His backers must be pleased he's finally rolled out a feature to block his friends' personal problems from his agenda.

(Photo via Flickr)

Allison, the archetype of internet fameballdom, spends her time "lifestreaming" her every move for NonSociety, the Web startup she formed with friends Meghan Asha and Mary Rambin. Cable network Bravo has a longstanding option, valid through the end of this month, to launch a reality show involving the trio, thus exposing their lives even more completely. (NonSociety had a deal for a pilot, presumably now complete. Pilots are only sometimes made into full series.)

Given her aggressive self-exposure, one might think Allison would anticipate and tolerate critics, even those as uncommonly prolific in criticizing her life as she herself is in broadcasting it. But no; she sees the attacks as dehumanizing, and is glad her ex-boyfriend's pretend boyfriend, Tumblr founder David Karp, was man enough to stand up for her, and all other victims of internet critics. As she told us in an email:

I haven't asked David to take down any sites in a long time, so I don't know where the impetus for this particular purge came from, but I'm thrilled that he has. I am absolutely in favor of ridding the Tumblr community - and the internet in general - of what one of my readers once called "mind cancer." That sort of nastiness is insidious and it will rot communities unless someone says, "This simply isn't an acceptable way to treat other human beings."


There is no reason the internet should remain in its current Hobbesian state of nature. Someone needs to begin the long process of setting basic standards of decency online, and I'm proud of David - as a businessman, but also as a friend - that he and his company have the balls to do so."

Of course, if the internet were less wild and "Hobbesian," and if people and companies got to set the standards by which their critics were judged, the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Scientology and even Time might have shut down blogs like Gawker long ago. And it's hard to imagine Allison — or another Allison — rocketing to fame in such a tame environment. (We'll let you know when we figure out if that's a good or a bad thing.)

(Picture via NonSociety)

David Karp, the 22-year-old founder and CEO of Tumblr, has explained his company's deletion Monday of Reblogging Julia and other Tumblr blogs devoted to critiquing Allison. The rationale: "internal discussions" about a change to Tumblr's policies, which he only made public today, to include "harassment" as a reason to delete a blog.

In other words, Karp decided to implement selectively a policy before it was announced, rendering his policies laughable. Should users go by what's actually published on Tumblr, or should they try to read Karp's mind? The latter seems like quite a challenge, since the young man running Tumblr seems quite mixed up himself. He finishes the explanation:

I'm really sorry for the confusion. Your content and freedom of expression are the reasons we're building Tumblr.

Actually, given that Tumblr has recently raised a second round of financing, making his venture capitalists slightly richer should be the reason why Karp is building Tumblr. And that's where Allison fits in! Her NonSociety blog is meant to be a testbed for a new kind of group Tumblr, for which Karp's company will charge money.

There seems to be a hitch in development, though. Karp had previously hinted that Tumblr would announce a new revenue-generating feature on Monday. Monday came and went with no announcement, unless Karp had in mind a one-off send-a-valentine tool Tumblr debuted for Valentine's Day, which hardly seems like a sustainable revenue stream. For now, Allison is the best advertisement Karp has for the revenue potential of his service. And that just makes Tumblr's situation seem all the sadder.

(Photo by Julia Allison)

Google's ads pick up on keywords in NonSociety, a collection of egoblogs maintained by Allison and two friends, vapid handbag designer Mary Rambin and insecure Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha Parikh. The search engine's ad-placing algorithms are mercilessly insightful. The current selection:

Davos, debt, and digestion. Pretty much sums up the threesome, doesn't it?

The other day, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson opined about Google on the Charlie Rose Show:

But one of the — Google — I mean, the harsh way of just defining it, Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.

As much as we hate to disagree with Thomson, we think Google has made an excellent qualitative judgment on NonSociety.

Because Quantcast places both Julia's personal site and her startup, NonSociety, at "fewer than 2,000 U.S. monthly people." Either way, Julia wisely lets her dinner guest publish the claim, giving her plausible deniability. That's part of Julia's cover-of-Wired appeal — she doesn't need a website. (Photo by Nick Noyes.

Did you catch it? Asha claims that her network — presumably run by the Linksys router — is called "Geeking Out." But the shot of her Apple laptop shows that she's connected to a computer-to-computer network — most likely a wireless link to Asha's iMac, which can easily be configured to broadcast its Internet connnection via Wi-Fi.

Much easier than configuring a Linksys router, and a great ad for Apple technology — so easy, even a trust-funder can use it! As a promotion for Cisco, Asha's video utterly fails. We won't even get into her claim to have "wireless speakers," when the wire housings on the wall are obviously visible.

Remind us, what's the point of a celebrity endorsement? Ah yes — to have some of the endorser's qualities rub off on the product. If Cisco wants to be known for a glossy surface hiding technical ineptitude, it's found its star in Asha.

After the initial pleasantries were exchanged (Julia: "I thought I was off your radar. It was quite peaceful." Sheila: "It was peaceful for me, too."), Julia denied that Bravo, the network said to be producing a reality show starring the Nonsociety girls, was financing the space. But were they looking for a space that is... filmable, let's say?

"Let's put it this way," Julia said. " We need office space that is ... unique. Cameras are a part of our everyday lives, and we anticipate significant filming. I will also be living in the space. Mary may be. Meghan owns a place already so she'll simply be working there."

But what about the money? "If you look at it logically, most businesses pay about 5-6k for office space for 5-6 people, which is what we have. Add that to what I already pay for my rent ($2,500/month — Ed) and you have a financially sound decision."

So, is Nonsociety—meaning the website's investors—footing half the bill? "Yeah, but it's money we've made, not investors." But how does the website even generate revenue? It's sort of impossible. We'd go so far as to say there is no revenue yet.

Well, whatever—genius! They are about to score a sweet live-work pad (tax write-off!) and we're not. Fine, JA—you win this round.

I remember when he swanned into the offices of eCompany Now, a long-gone tech-business magazine I worked at, in 2000, camera crew in tow. They were working on a documentary about a "startup" that never materialized. There you go: Even that part of Julia Allison's business plan isn't original.

Before Allison started NonSociety, she actually sold product placements on her personal blog to Dunkin Donuts. She told us plans to bring a similar model to her new venture. "In the future, we absolutely intend to have authentic product placements," Allison said, mentioning Canon, Victoria's Secret, Sephora, American Express, and Cisco as brands she hopes will buy in. "We only want to plug products we genuinely believe in," Allison said. "We think that is the future of marketing — genuine product recommendations, no bullshit."

Uncomfortably, we're on the same page as Allison when it comes to the market potential of product placements in online media. One of the more successful publishing startups over that past few years has been EQAL, the team behind Lonelygirl15 and KateModern, which actually earned solid revenues stuffing shows with as many Neutrogena and Hershey products as any episode of America's Next Top Model. That company's cofounders, Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett, just landed $5 million in funding.

Allison has higher goals. "12 months from now," she tells us, "you will no longer refer to me as a nontrepreneur." True. Product placement requires some level of trust from the audience. If even Allison's non-product-placement endorsements continue to be so gushily nongenuine, we likely won't have to refer to her at all.