The Daily Loper – March 14, 2008

The Street and The Game Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Linden Lab CEO to step down
  Citing a need to spend more time with his avatar.
• Blogging and Newspapers, a Lesson in How Not to Brand and Market
  Mark Cuban goes all cranky on newspapers who don’t get that, well, they’re not innovating. And they’re not offering anything special to their readers.
• From the Friday Calendar: Bloggers and bloggers and blogs, oh my!
  Two lessons learned by our crack investigative team. One, press room is huge and doesn’t serve beer. The Bloghaus was small and served beer (also, massages).
• Press Taps MySpace For Photos Of Spitzer Call Girl
  And thereby violates, uh, copyright. See, if you’re gonna scream about protecting yours, then you have to be holier-than-thou about protecting everyone’s (note: this is what lead to Spitzer’s downfall, so the analogy is just delicious).
• MTV Green-Lights Paris Hilton Reality Show
  Need evidence of impending end of days? Got it right here.
• AOL Buying No. 3 Social Networking Site
  No, no, go about your business. Nothing to see here.
• How to Fly Without ID and Skip Lines
  Seriously, next time I fly I’m leaving my wallet at home.
• Britney Spears Having a ‘Blast’ on How I Met Your Mother
  Sigh. On one hand, anything that might increase the audience of the woefully underrated "How I Met Your Mother" is probably good. On the other hand, Britney Spears, and the Hate hate HATE we have for stuntcasting non-actors in shows we love. Same goes for Paris Hilton on "My Name is Earl." Unless, of course, she gets her ass kicked by Joy. For reals.
• Google could be superseded, says web inventor
  Oh, true. That’s the beauty of the Internet. Of course, investors are probably freaking out right now.
• The Wrens’ Charles Bissell Joins Okkervil River
  Which is fine and all, but we’d much rather have him work on a follow-up to one of 2003’s very very best records, "The Meadowlands."
• Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton E-mail Statement
  Twitter style, no less.
• Leading off for the Yankees … Billy Crystal
  Actually, he was traded to the Dodgers just moments before the opening pitch.
• CD pirates told to repay £400,000
  Someone was a very bad boy.
• Clay Shirky Celebrates Mob Rule
  Mob rule, good. Mob rule, bad. It all depends on the mob.
• He bit into some Nigerian spam – to fight it
  Who hasn’t wanted to scam the scammers?
• MPAA topper blasts Net neutrality
  Yeah, because, wow, making sure your product gets to your customers without interference is such a bad idea….