The stock market seems inexplicable. In June, when Engadget posted a memo, later proved fake, about delays in the iPhone launch that later proved false, Apple shares sank but instantly recovered. Yesterday, when TheStreet.com ran a story based on a supposed Wall Street report on iPhone production cutbacks, shares dropped 7 percent — and dropped further today, despite a thorough debunking by CNBC's Jim Goldman and Business 2.0's Phil Elmer-DeWitt. Why the difference?

Still on deathwatch, Red Herring, the once-storied tech publication, is displaying its straitened circumstances even in its copy. The few articles on its website that aren't Reuters wire stories seem to be written by a skeleton crew, with equally skeletal thought behind them. Take, for example, Cassimir Medford's puff piece on Ooma, the also-doomed VOIP startup. Medford, ostensibly Red Herring's "telecom and wireless reporter," includes this doozy:

Yesterday, during Yahoo's second-quarter earnings call, Sue Decker cited Yahoo's newspaper deal as an example of "how our commitment to being the industry's partner of choice is gaining traction." Her proof? The consortium teaming up with Yahoo now included 17 companies publishing "nearly 400 daily newspapers." Putting together a coalition is one thing; actually making money is quite another altogether. Today, Google announced they are expanding their effort to broker newspaper print ads to more than 225 papers. So is Decker, Yahoo's no. 2 executive, right in touting the number of papers it partners with a a sign of "traction"? It's not that simple. Yahoo doesn't do simple.

Nielsen/NetRatings (motto: "Awkward name, slightly-less-sketchy results") is reportedly dropping pageviews as their top metric, replacing this standard measure of web traffic with "total time spent" on a site. The upshot? Google.com and YouTube.com could swap places on the list of most popular sites. This is actually a big deal and a good move, for several simple reasons.

The man CNET called the "most hated blogger" is suing his detractors and allegedly hiding in Australia, according to CNET's new report. Who is this real estate blogger, why's he so hated, and why do I recognize the bitter taste in my mouth?

In wake of the early Tuesday execution of Crips founder Tookie Williams, Slate explores a question we're sure has been deeply troubling its overeducated bobo lefty readers: How exactly does one go about starting a gang?