http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/thisjustin http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/thisjustin IAC and the Huffington Post brought fake news site 23/6 out of beta today. It only took them two years to come up with this? The site features political satire and targets people in the news with articles, videos and photos. If this sounds familiar, it's possibly because HBO and AOL already tried the same concept out with This Just In, to which the Wall Street Journal compares 23/6. The Journal does not note that This Just In shuttered in September. Another reason for pessimism? The site hasn't sold out its inventory for launch. It's currently running ads for BustedTees, another IAC company. Seriously, what kind of crappy blog displays ads from its parent company's network?

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=320920&view=rss&microfeed=true The Mercury News features an article by Scott Kirsner with an extremely obvious premise but is still worth a read: everyday users (whether they are bloggers, MySpace users, or YouTube posters) are obsessed with audience analytics: page views, referrers, downloads, number of friends. Whether for commercial gain or personal satisfaction, popularity is motivating... and being unpopular is... sad. [Image Credit: Sitemeter.]]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=264259&view=rss&microfeed=true