The New York Times spent an epic 3,800 words on a truth known to everyone in Silicon Valley: Google is competing with Microsoft in email and productivity apps. Steve Lohr got lots of time with Google CEO Eric Schmidt — but attributes his failure to get any good quotes from Schmidt to Schmidt's caginess. Here's a version that skips the useless talking points from Microsoft and Google and just gets down to the scant few numbers Lohr managed to assemble. Bottom line: Microsoft doesn't have much to worry about. Yet. Lohr doesn't note this stat: 73 percent of consumers surveyed by NPD have noever even heard of Google Apps.

AOL CEO Randy Falco is a lot like Santa Claus, really. Why, he's downright jolly when laying people off, and he has an uncanny ability to fly whenever and whereever he wants. So who better to pen a year-end missive to rally the elves? Here's that letter, conveniently downsized to just 100 words.

From the Twitter company blog:

European TechCrunch competitor BlogNation imploded two weeks ago. Yesterday, its founder Sam Sethi wrote a long post to explain how it was all Michael Arrington's fault. Today, Arrington responded. Both are blowhards who love nothing more than to spew verbiage at each other. Logorrhea as a lethal weapon. How to get your dose of schadenfreude without getting bored to death? By reading these 100-word versions of each missive.

VC blogger Fred Wilson isn't pleased with his firm's position on VC ratings site TheFunded.com. Specifically, Wilson doesn't think Union Square Ventures should be ranked so high. "I am flattered by it to some degree," Wilson writes on his blog. "But it bothers me." Here's 100-word version of how Wilson would fix TheFunded.

Earlier I noted Jason Calacanis's recent gem from LeWeb3. At the Parisian conference, he told the crowd, "As Internet people we shouldn't bother with people who don't understand the Internet because they'll soon be dead." I also noted that Calacanis hung up on me when I called to confirm he actually said it. It's not as harsh as it sounds, at least according to Calacanis himself, who left a whopping 337-word comment on the post. Here's the 100-word version.

sparkly-crap mobile circuit-board garbage gizmo mass-produced by machines that stole jobs from nonunionized workers who stole jobs from the natives. I want a Nintendo Wii.
biosphere-destroying violent imagery consumer electronics death monster truly represents the future of technology Wii DJ Bluetooth just another thing with built-in obsolescence consigning it to an unknowable half-life as indigestible silicon shards. It sucks when great future innovations are doomed to become garbage. Donating to cool charities and supporting local artists is something you should be doing all year. capitalist juggernaut. Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd.

From the looks of things, pornographers are the only people who have really figured out how to advertise on Facebook. No worries, Inside Facebook's Justin Smith is on the case. He's written The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24 Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook. But, as you can tell from the title, conciseness is not Smith's strong point. Here are 100-word versions of its three sections.

When Inc. posted a 1,279-word "Field Guide to Your Tech Staff," I couldn't shake the suspicion the piece's real intent was hey Slashdotters! Everybody click here! For those of us unable to spend 10 minutes looking busy by reading the printer-friendly version, I've boiled it down to a PowerPoint stack of bullet points. Because they hate that.

Mom, make him stop! As hopefully the last 3,500 words on Gerstmanngate, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal ponders What It All Means. Look, if you want to spend a half hour revisiting The Godfather, Almost Famous, Wu-Tang Clan and George Bernard friggin Shaw in the post-Metacritic era all applied to some game reviewer getting fired, knock yourself out with Croal's meandering rumination on why GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was fired shortly after publishing a negative review of an advertiser's game. For the rest of us, I've trimmed the references to Faust.