Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers took over as editor of the New York Obsever in February of 2011, bringing a measure of stability to what had been a decidedly up-and-(mostly) down enterprise under parsimonious wunderkind owner Jared Kushner. Now, Spiers is leaving.

Last night Gawker founder Nick Denton hosted a little soiree at his Soho pad to welcome the American staff of the Guardian who recently moved their office to the neighborhood. And what is a party without a photo booth and a few boldfaced media names? We didn't save you any tea sandwiches, but you can at least enjoy the pictures.

In your hot wet Friday media column: Keith Olbermann vs. the NYO, Instapaper vs. Business Insider, everyone in America hates the media, Pinch Sulzberger's birthday party, and Time International's new editor.

Pouty fathead Donald Trump is a tailor-made character for the New York Observer, which purports to monitor Manhattan's smug oligarchy with a gimlet-eyed detachment. And his semi-coherent presidential grumblings, which count as news just about everywhere else, make ideal grist for the Observer's mill. Too bad he's the owner's father-in-law.

Surprise: Gawker's founding editor Elizabeth Spiers has just been named editor of the (somewhat floundering) New York Observer, replacing Kyle Pope, who's apparently been canned after 15 months on the job. Know more? Email me. [NYO]

The earliest available photos of me were taken when I was five months old, just after I was adopted. I have dark hair and freakishly large eyes that seem far too big for my face, like a Japanese anime character. In fact, they're so big and dark that the rest of my facial features seem almost invisible. All you see are eyes.

Since this is my last weekend on the site until I return, begging for a job as James Del's assistant, I've invited some friends along. Elizabeth Spiers is the founding editor of Gawker. Mallory Keaton doesn't like her.

As if the journalism job landscape weren't terrifying enough, now you've got to think about learning to code. It's yet another new media skill you'll need to stay ahead of competitors. And make no mistake: they're stockpiling O'Reilly books.

Page Six gossip Paula Froelich's first novel is concerned with a certain set of New York ladies in crisis, Mercury in Retrograde (she may be among them, as a "composite"). So surely other "composites" were in attendance at her book party last night.

A staff writer at Michael Wolff's Newser, Victoria Floethe, is rumored to be having an affair with her boss. Who knew there were any media jobs still worth sleeping your way into?

Just because you use Twitter doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Starring Sarah Lacy, Elizabeth Spiers, and more!

Elizabeth Spiers is doing a new thing! Spiers, the Gawker founding editor-turned-media mini-mogul and closely watched savant of the blog business, is already talking about her next project, which doesn't have financial backers yet. It's going to be an "online magazine" (translation: blog) aimed at women. Uh oh, does that mean she's taking on our sister Jezebel?

The distinguishing characteristic of a meme—even the fragile idea that there's an Alabama school of writers such as Howell Raines, Warren St John and Elizabeth Spiers—is that it's self-perpetuating. Which is the only explanation for the precocious literary ambition of 17-year-old Alex Niedenthal from Birmingham.

Wonkette founding editor Ana Marie Cox is a permalancer! She broke the news on Facebook and Twitter, natch. She's not leaving Time, where she's currently the Washington Editor for Time.com, but she's now a contractor instead of a staffer. She'll still blog it up for them at Swampland, as most Gawker Media alums are generally forced to do, but she now has "more freedom to write in other print outlets," according to Time. AMC says the change was her suggestion. Oh, and Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is now a contributor to Fortune. This news was broken properly, in a newspaper column, and not on an Internet thingy. (Spiers has a column in this week's Fortune about inflation and the price of steak. It's probably good and smart but we didn't understand any of it except the steak bit.)

Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is a demanding critic—not even Evelyn Waugh's brilliant The Loved One impressed her enough to receive that fifth star in her Facebook book ratings—so her three-out-of-five stars to travel writer Lawrence Osborne's The Naked Tourist are no surprise. Except that travel writer Lawrence Osborne is her boyfriend. Maybe Spiers just knocked off those two stars as punishment for Osborne taking her to Brazil on the world's worst airline? (And They All Die in the End, Spiers' first novel, is due this summer.) UPDATE/CORRECTION: Spiers comments, below.

Things we don't understand: Why would Slate start a separate website to cover business? (Besides the ad dollars? Or is there a "besides"?) And: Slate has a video site called SlateV? ("Did you mean to search for: Schteve?" asks Google.) And why did former Dealbreaker founder and Gawker original editor Elizabeth Spiers turn down the new site's top job? I mean, clearly, she'll work anywhere. [NYO]

I don't know about you but when I search Facebook for "Neal Pollack," I get two Neal Pollacks, neither of whom are the Neal Pollack that I want to find. (I'm looking for the Alternadad writer and blogger Neal Pollack who writes about his son so much!) But when I search from my friend's account, I get three Neal Pollacks, the last of whom is the Neal Pollack I want to find. How could we tell? Though we couldn't view his profile, we could view his friends. They include Timedouche columnist Joel Stein and his lovely wife, Cassandra Barry; Biblically-living author AJ Jacobs; Defamer editor Mark Lisanti; Gawker's once-upon-a-time editor Elizabeth Spiers; and Sloane Crosley, the indefatigable publicist. Come on, Neal! We want to poke you so hard!

In a trenchant piece of geosocial commentary, not-a-she Alex Williams tackles some big questions: "What if Brooklyn's recent cachet as the locus for what's next is little more than a thin and fragile crust of chic, hiding the insecurity of people who constantly measure the social currency of their ZIP code by Manhattan standards?" Gee, what if!

Today on the New Republic website, retired blogger Elizabeth Spiers reviews the second issue of Portfolio. Spiers finds the title pretentious and lacking in substance. Her suggestion? Replace editor Joanne Lipman with former New Yorker head Tina Brown, who will bring both flash and purpose to the title. Surely Tina, who is currently sitting on her ass awaiting royalty checks from that Princess Diana book, would go for it. But what would happen to poor Joanne? We've come up with a plan that requires a little editorial shuffling throughout the media world, but ends up with everybody comfortably ensconced in positions for which they might be better suited!

We just received a copy of the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men, which is pretty much what you'd expect. We were thumbing through the contents, wondering about what its contributors might have to offer (Does Ayelet Waldman love her fag more than her kids?) when we noticed an essay by Gawker founding editor and current layabout Elizabeth Spiers! Who was the gay who showed her the way? It's someone we all know and fear here at the office.