Blogging may not destroy the culture after all, because the controllers of all trends—teenagers—are kinda over it: Only 14% of teens say they blog, down from 28% in 2006. Apparently they prefer newfangled activities like social-networking. [Pew]

FTC regulations on blogger payola and freebies went into effect today, and bloggers have gotten busy disclosing their "material connections" to the people and companies they write about. Most of what's been disclosed is small-time, slapdash or downright stress inducing.

Last week, the Huffington Post unveiled the editor of its new LA-local site, one Billy Silverman who came with an illustrious resume having previously served as producer Brian Grazer's cultural attaché. Today, Silverman revealed the site's new strategy.

This is the first meeting of the new Gawker Book Club. The author will be popping into the comments to answer questions. Up first: Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg.

Lovable crazy blogger Andrew Sullivan is not worried about our new digital-age medieval society. He thinks it is probably a good thing that no one is getting paid to write words, anymore. In fact, he would write for free!

Josh Ozersky, the meat-crazed Restaurants Editor for Citysearch and the proprietor of food blog The Feedbag, has contracted the "disease of kings." He's well aware that he brought this on himself and is unrepentant:

Kurt Andersen, who invented "snark" in 1986, is now "microblogging" at Twitter, the official web service of imagined pithiness.

The election was called early last night—but not so early that people weren't drunk off their asses, social-networking technology in hand. Many embarrassing and over-earnest prounouncements were Twittered and texted last night. Crying seemed to be a badge of pride for the melodramatic (don't want to see one more blog post about your tears of happiness), and everyone had Something to Say. (We'll admit that we did.) But now we have a snark-break hangover. Hackneyed revelations from the usual suspects were out in force:First off, our notoriously cold-hearted publisher Nick Denton just admitted that he cried last night. "And I'm not even a Democrat!" And there were a thousand different versions of this statement across the blogs: "I am so proud of all of you." Thanks, Mom. Here's another anonoblogging overshare:

Burnout: it happens to the best (and the worst!) of bloggers. Everyone's susceptible—even professional unpaid societyblogger-heiresses like Fifth Avenue Misfit Emily Brill. Her blog was down for like, days! (Everyone has those George Constanza moments where they storm out of work in a huff, only to return the next day pretending like they didn't quit.) We eulogized her and asked her to come back over the weekend, but only for our own snarky, selfish purposes. Now, the Brill is back, bitches ("I took things down for a bit of the timeout"), and she's ready to continue serving as our Ultimate Narrator:

As every magazine known to man begins to die, you, dear writers, may soon find yourselves without employ. Well you're in luck because that glowing thing that makes the word typies actually, with the help of your phone line, hosts a whole series of online "publications." Like this website or the new and improved Radar or! The website for crazy former supermodel Tyra Banks' talk show! Yes indeed, they are looking for both woman and man bloggers to "blog about their ideals" (curse you, candy commercial) and talk about dating and stuff. So not only do you get to work for a megalomaniac like Banks, but you also get to do it for free. But the really sad thing about this? A tipster tells us the listing was posted on a J-School jobs board. :( Read the posting after the jump, then apply!!

Luke Russert, son of the late Meet the Press moderator Tim, is now working as a correspondent for NBC News, attending political conventions and reporting and stuff. So, I guess, he's sorta famous now. Really, though, he's been in the public eye for like three years. And we helped put him there by posting his 'babes in a jacuzzi' Facebook profile picture. Haha, oops! Well he recently was interviewed by MediaBistro, and, when asked, had this to say of Gawker and the hottubbery:

What is the saddest thing about the death of Radar? Its current weird zombie TMZ state? The way they locked everyone out of their computers and kicked them out on the streets? Here is a sad and oh-so-poignant symbol of how basically we are all fucked, in this industry: Wonkette founding editor and terribly famous, talented, and successful blogger Ana Marie Cox, who is often on TV and who still writes for Time, has set up a personal fundraising drive whereby donors can pay for her to cover the end of the McCain campaign and receive, in exchange, AMC's AIM screen name and, for big spenders, a post-election dinner! This is, appropriately enough, a political fundraising method, where donors get special access and personal attention for their cash. All it is missing is cute names for each tier, like Bush's "Rangers" and Hillary Clinton's "Hillraisers." As a model for the future of professional journalism, it is perhaps worrying! But you know we're all "marketing" our "personal brands," right? Now we are microtargeting, too. And once we are finally out of work, when Nick Denton decamps to his secret underground fortress to ride out the End Times, we will gladly email you, personally, 200 words on why Rachel Maddow is so popular in exchange for a hamburger. But who will donate to the commenters? The system is unsustainable!

Look, there's an incredibly lengthy new seven-part survey of journalists who blog, exploring how blogs have affected their journalism, and how journalism has affected their blogs, and what they think about blogs and journalism and the effects that they have upon one another, and also upon the journalists who sit astride these two dynamic fields—blogging and journalism. We haven't read it yet, because we already know (from personal experience!) the five-part process that all blogging journalists use: 1. Look at a blog in your beat (Romenesko for media, Deadspin for sports, Andrew Sullivan for politics, etc.). Find something there that looks interesting. 2. Chew pen for a few minutes. 3. Rewrite the item you stole, taking a slightly different angle than the original blogger. 4. Send what you wrote back to the original blogger, in search of a link. 5. Celebrate newfound internet fame. [Optional sixth step: fill out lengthy survey. Pic via CJR.]

I am coming to you live from a bus bound for Boston, Taxachussetts. It is staffed by non-menacing robots and cost only 18 space credits. Hopefully my head will stay firmly attached to my neck.

Celebrity power blogger David Hasselhoff could barely step away from his laptop at breakfast this morning. In between bites of strawberries and toast, Hasselhoff said, "Nobody takes a minute off on the internet. You have to be there every minute of the day looking and hunting for the next big story. So, you have to make it work for you and here I am with my laptop and my wireless card looking to break more stories before I finish my breakfast than Perez does in a week." The Hoff appeared to be unconcerned about the syrup he spilled on his laptop since it's still under warranty at the Apple store.

What one blogger could give both Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan a massive, unrepentant for former support of the Bush administration hard-on? No, not Wil Wheaton—George Orwell! Orwell's son and some other guy are going to reprint Orwell's diaries, on the internet. In daily installments. Like a blog. Starting tomorrow. OMG! "The first entry, from Aug. 9, 1938, will appear online Saturday, exactly 70 years after Orwell wrote it." Wow. Can we leave comments? "First! (English socialist to have misgivings about Stalin!)" (See what we did there?) Finally America will learn Orwell's top ten all-time most awesome rules for effective English writing ever! (Never use one superlative where three will do.) [NPR]

Lee Stranahan's post about lefty blogs ignoring the John Edwards affair was apparently the most highly trafficked story on the Huffington Post for at least two days. But when he crossposted the item to his "diary" on Daily Kos, it was suddenly not so popular! Go figure. The "liberal" militants there excoriated Stanahan in the comments, with one well-rated response declaring, "you are violating site standards referencing the Enquirer [and its Edwards coverage], a bannable offense." That's funny, because just a few years ago multiple Kos diarists trumpeted an unflattering Enquirer story about Bush, including one who said, "Sometimes the National Enquirer reports things better than the Washington Post." That person is still active on the site, but Stranahan is not so lucky!

"I read your post on how some of the AOL/Weblogs bloggers are blogging for free. I don't know who the bloggers are or which blogs within the portfolio this applies to either. I was recently hired (signed a contract) to write for one of the blogs. Last week, the blog I'm with sent out a note to all the members of the team that everyone except for lead bloggers and paid staff should refrain from posting until August because of a budget shortfall. On the blog I was hired to write for, we receive just $X [redacted] per post, features (slideshows and such) are paid at a higher rate. I think some bloggers continue because they feel a sense of mission and duty and are really into it. [Emphasis added] I will not write for free."

This is getting ridiculous. Today, Alley Insider reported that some bloggers at AOL have chosen to keep posting for free after cutbacks that would only pay them for five posts per day. It's assumed that at least some people are indeed donating some of their blog posts. And don't even get me started on the Huffington Post, that repository of crackpot rants built by an army of many free-bloggers writing in the name of "exposure." (CEO Betsey Morgan said in a recent interview that paying the HuffPo's bloggers might possibly be part of the picture someday; in the meantime, "It feels very 1993 to say, ‘Hey, it's all about the check that I get at the end of the month.'") After the jump: Econ 2.0, or why bloggers should stop writing for free.

Weinstein Company head Harvey Weinstein is blogging away at Portfolio in a perfect storm of terrible news that we are required to cover. He is mad at you for going to Batman instead of some bullshit pretend indie he released to no acclaim. IT WON FOUR BAFTAS. The problem is the lying, biased media. "So, you see, its not that I'm not focusing on great independent films, it's just that no one is paying attention to them." So go see some weepie pretend indie and help Harvey Take Back the Multiplex! [Portfolio via NYO]