Flickr, the site where it's okay to occasionally just take everything offline without notice, swapped out its old "Flickr is having a massage" error message for a newer, altogether weirder message. Those circles are supposed to represent the business end of some tubes (a reference to the The Internet is a Series of Tubes joke) the Flickr logo, but they look more like...well...something else.

Nerrrrrrrrdfight! Shelley Powers (a blogger who's usually getting offended) offends the staff at photo sharing site Zooomr with a hilarious targeted entry, "How to Rollout a Web 2.0 Product." The entry says stuff like:

Photo sharing site Flickr Zooomr was supposed to host a party last Friday, at which it would launch its new awesome version. Well, it didn't.

One can certainly appreciate the dedication involved in assembling this collection of CNN anchorperson publicity photos. (And yes, there's this.) But why are so many of the females tensed up in these crossed-armed poses? And how come Christi Paul is the only one showing a little leg?

• Apple's iPod maker says the sweatshop story isn't true, and they've vaguely threatened a lawsuit over the claim, made by the UK's Daily Mail. Can we resolve this peacefully so the slaves can crank out more toys? [Apple Insider]

• A guide to Unix becomes the new summer beach read for a topless sunbather in Greece. [NSFW: Flickr]

Online boutique Etsy — think of it as a hipper eBay for handmades — would be just another dot-com, except for the familiarity of its funders. VC Fred Wilson names the Etsy angel investors:

Science mag Nature.com says,

Did everyone miss this detail in the Flickr blog? The photo sharing company is moving to Yahoo's San Francisco office. Meanwhile, Flickr looks to hire eight more professionals for its already ballooned post-acquisition staff, and founder Stewart Butterfield ostensibly posted the job listing himself.

Clarification: These are not for me to do. These are for you to do.

If only there were photo-sharing sites on the web — wouldn't that be pretty cool?

Damn, did someone grab a screencap? [See below.] Yesterday, TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington wrote in "The Flickr gunners" that photo sharing site SmugMug wasn't "Web 2.0" like competitors Flickr and BubbleShare. But he snipped that remark from his post after SmugMug's Don MacAskill noticed. The SmugMug CEO schooled Mike in a blog post, listing SmugMug's Web 2.0-ish qualities. Sez Don,

Yahoo's FUSE party (which, by the way, was up in Santa Clara in their Mission College office) was well-photographed, if confusing:

Flickr's renting space at Adaptive Path's San Francisco office (pictured with taco truck). A close source says the deal's been made but no one's moved in yet, as Yahoo establishes an outpost inside the slick SoMA office.

This rockstar shot from Flickr community wrangler Heather Champ shows Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield doin' the bored camgirl look — or the look that says: "Oh, Caterina and me on Newsweek? That's nothing. I wanna see my smiling face on the cover of a Rolling Stone."

"How geeky are you," asks Newsweek, ruining a perfectly good cover story with an awkward quiz. Bad enough that half of it is desert-island questions; even worse that the "desert-island book" options don't include the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Flickr's Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, king and queen of the digital photo, take Polaroids. Caterina: "What is this primitive paper-making box you handed me?"

About this Newsweek cover story — can we all share a moment of glee? Newsweek really gets the new web! Writers Steven Levy and Brad Stone score major points for:

Everyone knows that Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield were made for pretty photos. Flickr's founding couple does a great job sexing up the cover of the latest Newsweek as the poster children for the new feel of the Net. In case you missed the last three years of what Newsweek calls "the Living Web," here's an intro to the cast.

¬ The Official Google Blog hiccuped today when Google deleted it. [via Om Malik]
¬ Better news for the Plex: Google Base now shows up in certain job-related searches. And it's not just for techies. [Good Morning SV]
¬ The Yahoo Media Group reaches that young, hip online crowd with...60 Minutes. Playing a clip about golf. Again, why is Lloyd Braun still working there? [SEW]
¬ Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield get on the Daily Show — only coincidentally. Don't worry, they'll be at Jon Stewart's table any day now. [Ben Brown on Flickr]
¬ One week left before the Stirr Mixer, a social gathering for social startups. To hold one almost feels like admitting defeat. [Stirr]