Microfame expert Rex Sorgatz asks: "The second local version of HuffPo, NYC, launched last week. Will anyone read it?" I can say from personal experience: no. In other news, Gothamist is still very servicey. And pays their writers. [Fimoculous]

Wait, this can't be right.

The Huffington Post came up with a great gimmick to get its blogger called on at today's press conference. And the White House came up with a great gimmick to look responsive to the people of Iran. Everybody wins.

Desperate for online advertising, newspapers have learned to aggressively optimize their content for Google. The result: more traffic. Junky traffic.

• David Letterman's ratings have gone up thanks to his very public spat with Sarah Palin. So don't be the least bit surprised if it continues. [NYT]
• Ann Moore signed a new contract with Time Inc. that will keep her around through 2012; John Squires, meanwhile, has a new gig at the company. [NYP]
• Newsweek is cutting out an issue this summer. You can guess why. [WSJ]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's latest project? That would be something called "Martha University," which sounds horrifying, frankly. [PC]
• Michael Gross's new book isn't available at the New York Public Library and chances are Annette de la Renta had something to do with it. [NYO]
• Negotiations continue between the Boston Globe and union reps. "People briefed on the talks say a deal is close." Don't hold your breath. [NYT]

It's official: Betsy Morgan says she was indeed pushed out as the ineffectual CEO of the Huffington Post. But to what end? The new regime is downplaying profitability in favor of revenue growth — the ideal ramp for a sale.

It's a bold new future at the Huffington Post: investors have installed their own CEO; a CBS producer will launch a Gotham edition next month. Nevertheless, insiders are murmuring about belt-tightening, starting at the top.

As the Huffington Post bulks up, the company is apparently changing management: CEO Betsy Morgan is on her way out, replaced by Eric Hippeau of investor SoftBank Capital, PaidContent reports.

• The curse of Gisele: Both Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar put supermodel Gisele Bundchen on the covers of their mags this year, and both have turned out to be their worst-selling issues thus far in 2009. [NYO]
• Can Forbes survive the downturn? The Forbes family thinks so. [NYT]
• Jared Kushner's New York Observer has acquired Very Short List, the struggling email newsletter owned by Barry Diller's IAC. [Gawker, NYP]
• The Huffington Post has a new CEO, ex-Ziff-Davis CEO Eric Hippeau. [PC]
• BusinessWeek is the latest mag to test a paid online subscriptions. [MW]
• Barack Obama's half-brother landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. [AP]
• The Hangover and Up were the top-grossing films this past weekend. [LAT]
• The Boston Globe is up for sale—and a handful of people appear to be interested—although just how much they'll pay is anybody's guess. [NYT]
• ABC's Lost is the most watched TV show on the Internet. [Variety]

In what might be the most painfully funny Daily Show skit ever produced, Jason Jones visited the New York Times building in Midtown and interviewed some of the paper's staff, quite uncomfortably.

Iran, India, what's the difference? Sure, there's language, dominant religion, political system, history, yadda yadda. But if you're a Huffington Post photo editor, the countries are effectively interchangeable.

The Huffington Post has been taking flack for not paying writers, but it's not so simple. Most bloggers aren't paid, but some are. On staff, there are paid interns, unpaid interns, and paying interns. It's all very complicated, but luckily we made you a chart.

Syracuse University's journalism school will next week honor Arianna Huffington, and already alarm bells are going off inside traditional media: Why honor a woman who doesn't pay most of her writers, undermining the school's own graduates?

Though she's been depicted strangling newspapers and stealing their content, Arianna Huffington was just warmly praised by the Washington Post's publisher. There are several reasons for this, starting with her comment about "very weird porn."

For all her success, Arianna Huffington is a notoriously difficult boss. Turnover at her Huffington Post has been high; it's mainly the young and hardy who last. So HuffPo's two new seasoned pros should produce either a surprising turnaround — or an all-too-predictable trainwreck.

Last week we identified Luisa from Rio as the probable lucky future journalist who's the $13,000 high bidder on a (priceless) Huffington Post internship in a charity auction. Then she emailed us! Meet her:

Yesterday we learned that an entry in Maureen Dowd's Sunday Times column appeared to be lifted straight from a blog post by TPM's Josh Marshall on Thursday. Last night, Dowd admitted to plagiarizing Marshall.

Who in the world would bid $13,000 for the right to be an unpaid Huffington Post intern? This lady from Brazil, we think:

Would you like to pay $13,000 for the privilege of doing free work for a website for a couple months? Too bad, kid, because the next minimum bid on the HuffPo internship is $15,500.

Did you know Arianna Huffington's godson is so afraid of Gawker, he can't say its name aloud on Twitter? Or that Ruth Reichl can be bought? The things one learns from the media's Twitter addicts: