With all the phonies out there (as Holden would say), how can you ever make sure if the person you're talking to on the 'net is really who they claim to be? Sure, sure, that's why we have awesome shows like To Catch a Predator, and now video gchat (holla!), but when it comes to celebrities, it's best just to assume the worst: that your I_Am_Paris superfan on MySpace is actually a 45-year old guy named Norbert from Wisconsin.

But once in awhile you get a legit celebrity, trying to take back their good name on the blogosphere, will actually come out and confirm their identity with a phone call to a reporter.

Which is how we now know that Shaquille O'Neil is now an avid Twitter-er.

CONTINUED »

"Why bother?" says Paul Boutin of Valleywag, in response to anyone thinking of starting their own blog, "The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter."

Sort of reminiscent of Tracy Morgan on 30 Rock when he became a Republican and did a PSA discouraging African-Americans from going to the polls because "you could play two games of pool in the amount of time it takes to vote."

Because hey, the industry is tough right now, and Boutin would much rather the young generation spend their A.D.D. addled brainpower engaging in online activities that have no chance of ever competing in the Internet blog industry. When was the last time you heard anyone besides Mark Zuckerberg getting famous off of Facebook.

Gone are the days of Hunter S. Thompson tagging along on Nixon's press plane just for a goof while covering the election for Rolling Stone. Now, only the most affluent publications can afford to send their most reputable reporters into the sordid muck of the campaign trail, where expenses can run in the range of $10,000 per week per person. And even then, what you're paying for is the chance to rub elbows with top campaign aides that remain inaccessible from the regular press folks who don't have enough time to thumb-reply a BlackBerry response to other muckrakers. Well, there's also the flow of high-end booze.

But in the age of Twitters and newspaper profit decline, as Howard Kurtz points out, the only type of campaign coverage that might still be worth the cost is the outsider, Gonzo journalism of old:

CONTINUED »

"As Twitter has made the leap to the masses, a fundamental, quantitative question has started to percolate among technoscribes: How the hell is Twitter going to make money? Behind that query, though, is another that often goes unasked in today's Silicon Valley: Does Twitter even want to make money in the first place? Or is it all peer pressure?" [The Big Money]

Guess who's Twittering? "Sarah Palin is the new Annie Oakley . This is the essence of her appeal. The feisty, gun-slinging Western gal who can do anything a man can." [Twitter]

The half-life on zinging Twitter ran out about three days after the microblog's conception, yet the users of the site keep managing to find ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Last week there was The Rocky Mountain News giving minutia updates on the funeral of a child shooting victim, now it's Al Gore's Current TV trying to cash in on the zeitgeist by combining it with blogger's other favorite activity, armchair politicking.

During the debates, the indie network will broadcast viewer-created "tweets," in as close to real time as the monitor lags allow. Cute idea, and it certainly fits into the Blog the Vote phenomenon that engulfed the conventions this year. But while Current TV CEO Joel Hyatt "lamented the limiting nature of debate coverage, populated by experts with axes to grind and predictable partisan arguments to make," you end up wondering: Who does he think Al Gore's desperate network appeals to? Or Twitter's?

CONTINUED »

Contrary to popular opinion, there are right and wrong ways to blog. Livejournal, for instance, is the perfect platform to unleash all your tween angst. For political debates in the forums? Not so much. It just looks silly to post a lengthy discussion of the McCain camp's smear tactics next to a mood:aggravated icon.

So woe to the venerable institutions that can't tell the difference between appropriate and inappropriate blogging subjects, and who believe Twittering — the "microblogging" service much beloved by everyone at the conventions this year — works for every news-worthy event.

Most recent example? The Rocky Mountain News team that Twittered a little boy's funeral after the 3-year old was gunned down in an ice-cream store. (Ex: "Rabbi recites the main hebrew prayer of death / people again are sobbing. rabbi again asks god to give marten everlasting life/family members shovel earth into grave.") The still-online Twitter feed is here.

File under: Not okay. If you can't tell the difference on what is the appropriate amount of deference a subject should be given online in real-time, here is a handy guide on acceptable Twittering usage:

CONTINUED »

Web magazine of ridiculous rhetorical questions Slate is live-blogging the Olympics! Or rather, they're live-Twittering it, because that's cooler. This is in case you find yourself unable to find any of NBC's 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage or NBCOlympics.com. So what fun tidbits are stuffed inside Slate's Twitter feed of sport?

CONTINUED »

A whiny guy with a Twitter account who wasn't allowed to take a photo of a Google booth gets an apology from the search giant, and is dubbed a hero. BECAUSE HE WROTE ONE LINE OF TEXT ON THE INTERNET COMPLAINING. Are these the type of stories Forbes hopes to hunt down by hiring a new media reporter? [Forbes]

Is email the new telegraph? With the pre-pubescent set using twitter, IM and Facebook instead of email, the tech folks at Slate think the electronic letter is dying.

Of course, Slate’s deck head for technology articles is “The Future And What To Do About It,” which seems excessively foreboding.

The point is that teenagers, who mind you, are the future, don’t have the patience for e-mail.

CONTINUED »