• No toil nor trouble at tonight's first Bubble Thursday in San Fran. While the crowd will be fun (Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale! Vlogger Irina Slutsky! The Technorati crew! Valleywag!) the tone won't be too bubbly — no open bar, much less chocolate fountains and corporate strippers. (Granted, if you give host Kevin Burton a twenty, he'll stuff it in his underwear. Honest.) [Upcoming, photo by Zach Stern]

During the New Media Revolution, old-school journalism has learned one thing about bloggers: They're incoherent. Rough drafts and an insidery feel render blog posts nearly unreadable. (Take, for example, half the content on ZDNet's tech blogs. Or the first four months of Valleywag.)

The San Jose Mercury News is shuttering its tech blog, SiliconBeat, which (along with Good Morning Silicon Valley) displayed the insight and cleverness that the Merc News itself is missing.

• Ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble may miss out on Burning Man, but he'll have fun visiting the Googleplex today with Googler Matt Cutts. Insert cruel "don't empty the snack room" line here, and send phonecam pics of Scoble to tips@valleywag.com. [Matt Cutts, photo by ~C4Chaos]

The founding editor of Search Engine Watch, the heavyweight in search blogging and the Wall Street Journal for the growing search-marketing set, says he's heading out this winter. Danny Sullivan announced his impending exit — from SEW and his Search Engine Strategies conferences — on his personal site, saying, "My contracts with their owners Incisive Media are expiring, and we've not been able to agree on new ones."

Takeaway: Several big tech bloggers recently launched job boards. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has the best board, but his competitors rejected his partnership offers, fearing he'd take over the partnership.

• 2500 astronomers from 75 countries decide Pluto isn't a planet, but a dwarf planet. Copernicus has no comment. [CNN]
• 250,000 women from 1 country decide Michael Noer isn't a dick, but a COLOSSAL dick. Everyone continues to comment. [The American Prospect]
• Do The Killers need to be taken down a peg? Two new songs to help you decide. [stereogum]
• Speaking of killers, we present MyDeathSpace. [via bestweekever]
• This girl's taking a killing, but a finance intern in London acting a little snootay? Shocking! [TimesUK]
• Eliot Spitzer seems slightly less jovial than Tom Suozzi. [NYDN]
• Publicists and fashion bloggers congregate together. Ewwww. Watch from a safe distance. [youtube]

Oh anonymous bloggers, how you rile up the PR world with your incog-vitriol. Ben Smith of The Daily Politics showcases the latest commenter casualty, Ronn [sic] Torossian, who is so inflamed about being called a "political amateur" (my god, such language!), that he has been forced to go all Capital One on your asses in stating,

• Save Josh Wolf by drinking! The San Fran videoblogger is in jail for refusing to hand over protest footage to the feds. The EFF won't help, no one wants to touch what looks like a losing case. Only you can help, by donating to Josh's legal defense fund. And then buy your own drinks, you open-bar freeloader. [Jackson West]

In 1996, when the tech boom was still ramping up, Wired Ventures already proved that content outlets would miss out on the money. The company dropped its IPO plans after investors backed off. Wired, unable to pay its bills, had to sell itself off piecemeal. Lesson learned: Content may be king, but only in the sense that the Queen rules the UK.

• In the first of our responses to calendar startup Kiko's death, reputable tech writer Paul Graham tries to convince everyone (mostly Web 2.0 investors though) to implement the "stop, drop, and roll" technique to battling that evil Google Empire. Then take out your bazookas and fire away. After all, it's for the good of all mankind. [Paul Graham's Blog]

TypePad gave marketer and blogger Seth Godin's latest creation a "Book of the Month" nod, which would explain why the blog service is shoving both blog and book down suscribers' throats, leaving us gagging like LiLo and Nicole Richie during a pre-Glamour-shoot purge.

• Web 2.0 start-up Kiko gets auctioned off for $50K. Kinda like that chick from "Family Matters" whose boyfriend pimped her out to porn. And both heed the disclaimer: Past traffic is no guarantee of future traffic. [Ebay]

Blogger Dave Winer was long known as an irritant — he's got some strong opinions, and he's managed to offend quite a lot of individuals. Now, his awkward phrasing might help him trade up to offending whole people groups at once. From Dave's blog:

Judging by popular blog aggregator Techmeme, everyone really cares about Microsoft's new desktop-based WYSIWYG blog writer, Windows Live Writer. Personally, it bores me to tears, but here's the reaction rundown:

Among the properly attributed posts on the new gadget blog from TechCrunch, CrunchGear, is one post written by "Alan Smithee." No word yet on whether editor John Biggs used the nom de plume, or if it was one of his writers. Whoever it was, the name is a sign that all's not well.

Tech blogs went wild when blogger Robert Scoble wrote:

• Pictured: Blog cartoonist Hugh Macleod, somehow able to make fun of all his colleagues deftly enough that they link to him when he does it, this time mocked blogger Dave Winer for gushing about the "chicks" at the recent BlogHer conference. [Gaping Void]

BusinessWeek's Kevin Rose cover story got a solid pounding in the online press today. The profile of Digg's founder earned these responses:

• A San Francisco blogger / journalist has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotape to a grand jury. Note to prosecutors: We will happily deliver our Hasselbeck clip at any time and place of your choosing. [SFC]
• They're refurbishing the White House briefing room, because God forbid the press corps should lob its softballs in decrepit surroundings. [NYT]
• Fox News surprisingly non-homophobic. Apparently they only harass the women over there. [Out]