At times, there's nothing more amusing than watching a blogger in the middle of a meltdown. Barry Ritholz, the CEO of stock-research firm Fusion IQ, has apparently been seized by panic over an interesting, but unthreatening, development: Big media companies getting into the business of selling ads for blogs. They've already built up an expensive ad sales force, and often find it difficult to grow traffic on their websites faster than their salespeople can sell it. A natural solution: Approach blogs covering similar topics and offer to sell ads on their sites, sharing the revenue. The Washington Post was one of the first to do so, and now, apparently, Reuters is getting into the game. The part that has Ritholz alarmed, though, is a requirement that the blogs "assign" their traffic to the larger company for purposes of getting counted by Nielsen/NetRatings and ComScore Media Metrix, the two largest Web-traffic research firms. Why does Ritholz find this so alarming — and why is he utterly wrong?

Allfacebook.com is reporting a rumor that Facebook will take on Apple's dominant iTunes by introducing its own music store. Few details are provided, save that they are actively looking to hire someone to head the project and discussions with studios have been ongoing. Music applications such as iLike are popular on the social network, and digital music is a natural fit with the site's original college-kid demographic. But could Facebook really pull this off? At this point, we don't really know what a Facebook music store would be. We do know, however, what it's not.

Disclaimer: Someone could theoretically mashup the sex offender registry, Google Maps, and Club Penguin. And that, I'll grant, would be a worse social network than the ones below.

One could say many things about blog-tracker Technorati and its founder, David Sifry, but the worst charge, I think, to make, is that he helped popularize a delusion particularly congenial to the self-involved world of the Valley: That links to your website somehow matter more than traffic. A newly hired CEO may fix the business, but he's unlikely to repair the damage that idea has wrought. Now, Techmeme has launched a similar tracking service, the Techmeme Leaderboard, that will surely make things worse.

Techdirt, the ever-opinionated analysis blog, has weighed in and found Demo's lineup of startups and new products more compelling than last week's TechCrunch40. Why? Mike Masnick doesn't come out and say it, but his implication is clear: Unlike the parade of Web 2.0 one-note-Johnnies drummed up by TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, most of experienced Demo organizer Chris Shipley's picks were focused on useful improvements to existing technology, not gimmicky new ideas. Arrington and Calacanis launched TechCrunch40 because they felt that it was somehow wrong for conferences to charge startups to present. Nonsense, of course. I think that the fact that Demo charges presenters — reportedly $18,500 apiece — was actually what makes it a stronger event.

"What does the average person know about venture? Well, maybe a lot. Consider that [venture capitalists] have invested in such bad deals as Webvan and Pets.com." Venture capitalist Mark Modzelewski thus argues that because "experts" suck at picking good investees, we may as well throw it to the swine. Of course, this reasoning is bullshit meant to flatter the public that Mark hopes to interest in "You Be the VC," his new program in which regular people decide which startup deserves an investment. Oh yes, public elections are a perfect way to ensure smart decisions. Just ask Sanjaya Malakar or George Bush.

FANTASY M&A —The buzz is all about Microsoft, or possibly Google, taking a stake in Facebook, the popular social network, at a lofty valuation as high as $15 billion. But the logic of those deals is driven by advertising — the more targeted, the better. But what, exactly, are advertisers hoping to target, and why? Besides crude demographics and geographies, the most logical hooks for ads are Facebook users' expressed preferences — the books, music, and movies they're increasingly listing on their profiles. And who has the best data on what consumers will buy? Why, Amazon.com, of course. The logic of a combination — a merger of the two giant databases of consumer preferences is, at least on the surface, compelling.

Kitchen appliances:

"This microwave looks great. Does it have a popcorn setting?"

"A popcorn subscription, yes."

"Sorry?"

"There is a popcorn setting, but it's only good with this list of popcorn manufacturers. We were at least able to get Pop Secret and Orville Redenbacher to agree on a 99-cent price point for each use."

"Erm. How about this model? Is popcorn free on this?"

"Yes, but you can only use it three times."

"Oh."

"There is, however, a bonus: You can play five pre-loaded microwave games."

"On this little screen?"

"One of the games is 'Guess what I'm cooking.'"

Kids! Uncle Nick is gonna teach you about sex, the Internet, and the interplay of the dehumanizing modern simulacrum versus the physical expression of that most animal of human urges! Also, acrostics!

We hear that Marcy Simon, the PR consultant briefly installed in Google's New York office, is more than a mere mistress to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The rumors are resplendent: That Schmidt funded Simon's acrimonious divorce; that he is separating from his wife Wendy; that he is buying a $25 million Manhattan apartment in which to live with Simon. But why should anyone care about such tawdry personal details? If the latter two bits of hearsay have any truth to them, then shareholders should be extremely worried.

What does Yahoo have in common with Spock, Gleamd, and 43 People? Like these lesser-known sites, Yahoo now lets members make profiles for non-members. And that's how I got creeped out this weekend.

Search and ye shall find — steady employment in advertising, that is. That's the lesson I'm taking from Mike Kelly's abrupt ouster, announced today, as head of AOL's ad sales. How abrupt? Mediaweek just named him one of the 50 most influential people in advertising. If you haven't heard of Kelly, here's his resumé at a glance: A Time Inc. ad sales guy who rose to become publisher of Entertainment Weekly, Kelly was sent down by Time Warner to fix AOL's relationships with advertisers. He largely succeeded in that, and also spearheaded the acquisition of Advertising.com, an online ad network that places ads on third-party sites. Advertising.com has provided much of AOL's recent growth in ad revenues. But elsewhere, AOL's ad sales have stalled. Especially in search. And Kelly, fairly or unfairly, is getting the blame.

I would do plenty of things for you. I'd drive you to the airport. I'd be the gunner while you drive the Warthog on Halo. I'd pretend you really can play the guitar. But I won't vote for your lame story on Digg.

Auren Hoffman, networker extraordinaire, hardly flies under the Silicon Valley radar. But his latest venture, Rapleaf, backed by Facebook investor Peter Thiel and launched more than a year ago, has managed to do so. Until recently. So what is Rapleaf, exactly, and why are people buzzing about it now? Hard to say — no, really. Launched as a "trust meter," a way to quantify people's business ethics — like eBay's buyer and seller ratings, but independent of any one site — Rapleaf's value proposition and stated goals have taken several perplexing twists and turns. And as with Hoffman's party patter, Rapleaf's premise is initially alluring, but leaves you feeling slightly nauseated.

Oh neat oh neat oh HOLY CRAP! Wait, really? I didn't expect that. The iPod touch looks pretty sweet, but won't I just feel stupid when I have to pull out my other phone? I'm all "whee, I'm surfing the Internet in a cafe on my iPod," or I'm all listening to music, and then ring, there's my phone, just like always, only this time I also have a big-ass minicomputer in my pocket. And there's no camera. Actually this looks like a raw deal. Okay, how about the iPhone? What's new there? Hrm. Not much, I guess.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. I'm not sure if Euripides, the Greek playwright, had Google's management team in mind when he wrote that, but it sure fits. Google, despite the occasional lost deal, billion-dollar lawsuit, and PR black eye, continues to succeed spectacularly as a business. "Somehow they continue shitting more money than you or i could realistically comprehend," writes one Valleywag reader. Indeed. And that money is driving the people who run Google insane. CEO Eric Schmidt's cosseting of girlfriend Marcy Simon with a plum PR job is just the latest, most blatant sign of that madness.

Paul Addis, the man accused of setting torch to The Man, the wooden totem at the heart of the Burning Man festival, has drawn his share of fans and detractors. Chris Radcliffe, who's tangled with the organizers of Burning Man over various issues, even paid thousands of dollars in bail money to spring Addis from jail. But aside from a statement sent to blogger Scott Beale of Laughing Squid, he hasn't spoken to defend his actions. Until now. In an exclusive interview, Addis, who's been charged with the felony of arson, spoke to Valleywag as a friend drove him from Fernley, Nevada, back to his home in San Francisco. The full interview follows.

BLACK ROCK CITY — The foofaraw surrounding the Great Burning Man Arson Escapade — the attempted torching by prankster Paul Addis of The Man, the giant wooden centerpiece of the Burning Man festival here in Nevada — has started to die down. And at last, we can get back to the subject at hand, which is, of course, Wackyland here in real life. You remember Wackyland of course — that fanciful place Porky Pig visited while hunting for the elusive dodo in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. Burning Man, that festive bastion of self-expression and artistic endeavor, simply bleeds art and creativity into the hard-packed desert floor of Black Rock City. And, yes, wackiness. Some examples follow.

The Internet is boring. Even the most interested/interesting man I know, artist and dandy Jonathan Grubb, is bored with it in eight ways. (Granted, he's also super-excited; the man equivocates like he's running for president.) Grubb's insidery analysis speaks to those embedded in the dot-com industry, but here's a wider view of why the Internet is boring, starting with the pinnacle of mediocrity called LOLCats.

Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft evangelist and die-hard PodTech videoblogger, has ended his brief departure from the Web. Clearly he thinks he's "adding value" with his bold theory that "Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google's butt in four years." You won't be able to read his theory, of course, since he has, tiresomely, recorded it on video. But you can see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his voice, and watch him pull out the whiteboard and three, count 'em: three, colored markers! In truth, he's just revealing what he has always been: a confused evangelist who doesn't understand the underlying technology, doesn't have his facts straight, and can't keep his story consistent. But, boy, is he enthusiastic about it! Why? I think he's lobbying for his next job.