We're really proud of Weblogs Inc. co-founder Jason Calacanis. He stopped videocasting from his flights just long enough to sit down and sell his company (a blog network of 80 sites with advertising) to AOL for a reported $25 million. Not too shabby! And God bless him for it — after he held on to his Silicon Alley Reporter publishing venture a bit too long and consequently got bit in the ass when the 90's bubble burst, we'd genuinely shed tears if Calacanis made the same mistake again. But our faith in the dorkier side of mankind is thus restored as, for now, no one is that stupid (knock on wood). Lesson learned; sell yourself while you can!

The Daily News has an interesting (if not utterly depressing) roundup of the latest trend in online dating: exclusivity. Sites like eHarmony, BeautifulPeople, and GorgeousNetworks allow membership based on screenings or members' criticism of an applicant's picture and profile, whereas most other sites (even niche ones like JDate) have generally open membership.

To be fair, there really hasn't been any news in the past week.

We know this is a bit out of sorts for us, but we simply must take a moment to fellate Gawker Media's new sports site, Deadspin. (We'd call him our jocky little brother, but that would make the fellating part more gross than it already is.) Deadspin is a pick of the day over at the venerable Yahoo, and editor Will Leitch won't stop pissing himself until we give him the props he deserves. A cure for that which ails sports journalism as we know it, Deadspin "provides more than just limp links, with an offering of reasoned reviews and informed opinions on the world of sports." Being a Gawker Media site, there's naturally a "healthy dash of rumor and innuendo" in the mix.

It's a particularly bad day to be a stalker. Out of seemingly nowhere, old-school online network Friendster (which, much to our delight, still exists for those of us feeling too "old" for the hip kids on MySpace) has added a feature which allows members to see who has viewed their profile in the past month. So if you've looked up that hot chick in accounting, she's going to know it as soon as she logs on.

From the frighteningly real Williamsboard, a precious new message board for the slack-jawed denizens of Williamsburg, our favorite subject threads:

We reported yesterday on media-business news site PaidContent.org, which threw a little (admittedly justified) tantrum that The Wall Street Journal had repeated a scoop it broke without duly crediting the site. So we must point out today that the Journal has corrected its coverage. Reports PaidContent:

Media business-y blog Paid Content writes:

A 12-step program for coming to terms with TimesSelect.

Day 1 of the Times TimesSelect premium service, and they've been effectively reduced to the Post's level of fuckitude.

Good morning, world! Today marks the birth of the Times new premium service, TimesSelect, which will keep the riffraff away from "valuable" content by charging $49.95/year (that's under $50!) for access to the regional features, sports coverage, and the OpEd orgy. And what might today's TimesSelect include? Why, the Meet Paul Krugman VIDEO, of course. If you can pony up the cash, it just gets better: Tomorrow's video is cult classic Meet Maureen Dowd's Biological Clock.

At TS-4 days (that is, four days till TimesSelect), Editor & Publisher technoguru Steve Outing talks to some Timesmen and weighs in on the premium program. First, based on his conversation with Martin Nisenholtz, who runs digital operations for the Times Co., Outing scares the shit out of us:

We know we're supposed to be all technologically cutting-edge, being that we're bloggers and all, but we have a confession to make: We have never, ever listened to a podcast. (We've long suspected that the real phenomenon is the media's excitement for writing about podcasts, rather than anyone's actual excitement for using them.) A Newsday report today, however, suggests we might need to change our tune:

Actually, we didn't know the Associated Press was just for old people — we've been prematurely curmudgeonly since at least our early teens, so we're maybe not the best example — but apparently it is. How else to explain the need for a new, additional AP service geared toward young readers?

Wait... No. No, it simply cannot be — or can it? After close to three years spent in darkness, breathing in only the stale air of our own filth, Gawker might actually get to go outside?

Have you been keeping track of how much you really like Maureen Dowd? Turned to Paul Krugman for an economic analysis of the utility of his columns? They warned us about this months ago, and now the day is nearly here: NYTimes.com editor-in-chief Len Apcar shows up with a note on the site's homepage today reminding us that TimesSelect kicks in on Monday, and you'll no longer be able to read the op-ed columnists for free online.

We find most newfangled warning labels ridiculous — yes, a plastic bag is not a toy; no, you shouldn't use the hairdryer in the bathtub; TV-MA-VSL means, well, what? But here's a warning trend we can get behind: Obnoxious, gratuitous emailers pre-announcing their incoherent rants.

Hachette Filipacchi Media, the devish Franco-publishers behind Elle, Woman's Day, Premiere, Car & Driver and a slew of others, has pioneered itself into a spanking-new corporate partnership with Zinio Systems, some techie company that plans to get all 18 of HF's titles online by early 2006. No more lugging around 3 pounds of Elle just to get some monthly sense slapped into you by E. Jean.

You have to hand it to those little troopers at CBS News. After a year filled with what we'll delicately call, uh, crap, they're doing their best to make a precious little bounce back towards respectibility. How, you might ask, can CBS win back its audience? Why, with the internet, of course.

From the MSN homepage right now: