Always the charmer, Jason Calacanis has announced plans to visit the press lounge at CES. His barking continues to amuse. But here’s something that’s no laughing matter: Why is the CEO of a search engine, a legitimate object of news coverage, allowed access to the private press lounge at CES?

Sure, Calacanis has a blog. But so does Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and I don’t think he’d be allowed in the press lounge, where he could overhear reporters’ confidential plans for coverage of his business rivals and partners. I trust my peers in attendance at CES will make their views known when Calacanis shows up — hopefully in Brooklyn language he might understand.

Source:Valleywag

Silicon Alley Insider’s Peter Kafka lavishes praise on Quincy Smith, CBS’s hyperactive interactive dealmaker. The ostensible reason? A well-executed deal between Digg and CBSNews.com, designed to avoid offending the fragile feelings of the social news site’s oversensitive communities. Forget all that. The real reason? Kafka has a massive mancrush on Smith — as does just about every other tech reporter I know. Smith is witty, adorable, and just geeky enough for us to relate. He’s also got an open pocketbook to buy Web properties, which makes him a font of story-generating deal rumors. But he’s mostly adorable. Oh, those eyebrows!

Despite Sears’s best efforts to slow things down with a faulty website, Black Friday this year saw $531 million in online retail spending. That’s up about 22 percent over last year. Here’s the chart from ComScore:

Source:Valleywag

Boing Boing’s video tracing the origins of Lolcats to a 1912 comic strip, The Laugh Out Loud Cats, is a parody. Or a satire. Or whatever it’s a joke OK? I would say I can’t believe people think this thing is for real, except they do and I believe that.

Source:Valleywag

Meet Ivan Morrison, a Canadian IT worker and moderator at Ivan’s Support Haus Forum. For his recent 31st birthday, he treated himself to a detailed, multicolor tattoo of the iGoogle logo on his right deltoid. Why did he give over his own fleshy real estate to the search engine’s customizable homepage? He tells Valleywag:

Well since Google came out, I have been so “into” the company, the technology they use, and the sheer global power this little “search engine” has grown to become that I knew that I would someday get the Google logo.

This man is not well. If the iGoogle tattoo doesn’t tell you that immediately, know this: He has a Windows XP logo tattooed on his left arm. Evidence after the jump.

So, Ivan, care to explain your original tattoo?

I got the XP tattoo as the Beta of XP was launching, I always wanted a tattoo and wanted to make something permanent and since MS has always been good to me, providing me the means to work really, being in computer support, I have always been a supporter of the MS line of products, I currently hold my MCP in various MS technologies. The XP tattoo was the first that I know of, I got it in March 2001, just before XP released. I have been in the IT industry for over 12 years, and am as into as I was back when I was 12 learning DOS and Amiga Workbench 1.1! oh those were the days

So for the past year, I have wanted to get a new tattoo. The one I have now is great, and since I won’t be upgrading the tattoo to a new Vista one [Ed. note: ha!], I figured I would go with something new, again Geek all the way, a heart or dragon just wouldn’t mean anything to me. so the Google logo was it, and when I saw the IGoogle logo, day in and day out on the only homepage I have, it really seemed to make sense. So last week on my 31st birthday I went to the local tattoo shop and found out what it was going to cost and time frame, [Ed. note: $65 and 30 minutes under the gun] but since I wasn’t planning on it, I went back this week, art work in hand and a desire to get some “ink”.

I think this photo speaks for itself. Pownce cofounder Leah Culver — no, I don’t know what Pownce does don’t tell me LA LA LA — has trampled the competition at Dig a Silicon Valley Girl. Rocketing women’s roles in the Valley 30 years backwards, the site proves all a gal needs to make it is a videoblog and/or an early-employee gig at Google. But special thanks to all the German Splunk admins who voted for a black-and-white headshot of my wife. You guys are dorks, but with class.

I think this photo speaks for itself. Pownce cofounder Leah Culver — no, I don’t know what Pownce does don’t tell me LA LA LA — has trampled the competition at Dig a Silicon Valley Girl. Rocketing women’s roles in the Valley 30 years backwards, the site proves all a gal needs to make it is a videoblog and/or an early-employee gig at Google. But special thanks to all the German Splunk admins who voted for a black-and-white headshot of my wife. You guys are dorks, but with class.

A fascinating tidbit buried in a story about Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin’s allegations of child prostitution on Craigslist: Susan MacTavish Best, Craigslist spokeswoman and girlfriend of CEO Jim Buckmaster, claims that Craig Newmark “is no longer is involved in the company’s daily affairs,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And indeed, Newmark, the company’s founder, though he was listed on the Craigslist management page a week ago, no longer appears there. Newmark has certainly made enough money, thanks to a 2004 stock purchase by eBay, to retire on. And his “team bio,” still online, notes that he’s “embarrassed” that the site is named after him. But for the geeks who still idolize him, the idea of a Craigslist without Craig would be hard to bear.

Source:Valleywag

Second Life hosted its first interactive job fair, organized by recruiting firm TMP Media, this week. “You get to know a candidate better,” says Polly Pearson, a VP at storage-hardware maker EMC. “You see what they chose to wear, you see what they laugh at or what they interact with.” This includes dressing as teddy bears and handing out beer. [NPR]

Source:Valleywag

Tim Armstrong, left, the Google sales chief ridden with conflicts of interest, is drawing unconflicted interest from junior staffers. Apparently the hunky executive is being tracked via Twitter, so ga-ga Googlers can maximize their eyefuls of Armstrong. Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget, whom we hadn’t previously thought as a connoisseur of manflesh, also recommends Google’s Tom Phillips, right, a cofounder of Spy, as a target for Twitter stalking. So, readers, any other denizens of Google’s Chelsea office handsome enough to deserve such excess SMS interest? Leave a comment or send in a tip, and we’ll run a poll later.

Is it just me, or do venture capitalists Stewart Alsop and Gilman Louie of Alsop Louie Partners, pictured here in matching leather jackets, remind anyone else of the leather-suit-buying wannabe rock stars Bret and Jemaine from HBO’s “Flight of the Conchords”?

Watch out, all you Second Life wannabe marketing types, CMP Technology, the big, bad technology trade publisher is on the scene. CMP is now a certified, card carrying Linden Lab content developer. This lets CMP stage virtual events — like its Life 2.0 nonconference — and build them for other brands. It’s like having a license to kill (brain cells, that is).

As John Jainschigg, CMP’s director of online technology, explains, CMP is preparing itself for the year 2011, at which point, some neophytes believe, 80 percent of the Internet will reside in the much-dreaded 3-D metaverse. Shocked that Life 2.0 could attract 1,000 attendees, companies are, according to Jainschigg, approaching CMP for custom builds of its faux-conference platform. Never mind the utter failures of brand marketers like Coca-Cola in Second Life; if you’ve ever been to a real-life tech tradeshow, you’ll know that the virtual version can only be an improvement.

Source:Valleywag
Sam Sethi, ex-TechCrunch UK blogger, had tried to keep things cordial with former boss Michael Arrington. The site he started, BlogNation, is the global equivalent of TechCrunch, but direct competition was avoided by not covering American startups. No longer. Sethi is taking the fight stateside with BlogNation USA. TechCrunch UK, meanwhile, remains defunct despite Arrington’s planned June 1st relaunch.

Source:Valleywag

FROM THE DESK OF MEGAN MCCARTHY — This weekend, the New York Times ran an article on how entrepreneurs really need to get their paperwork in order before hiring staff, using the Facebook-ConnectU lawsuit as an example. One person’s oral contract is another person’s “dorm room chit-chat,” as the judge in the case put it, and what have you. Or something along those lines. Whatever. I couldn’t really pay attention to the text. Did you see that picture? That was a bold move, Mr. Anonymous Times Photo Editor, illustrating the article with a gratuitous full-on crotch shot of one Mr. Tyler Winklevoss. One that I’d like to applaud, if I could stop staring at that image. Goodness.

I mean, seriously. The whole picture is framed to make Winklevoss’s shadowy loins — the same loins he claims birthed the very notion of a college social network — the focus of the image, from the composition to the fisheye lens. It’s directly in the center — the same exact spot Tyler claims ConnectU deserves in the pantheon of social networks! I’m sure there’s some wacko professor at Berkeley who will incorporate this picture into the curriculum and hold a joint symposium with her Gender Studies class and some Haas MBA students. As for me, all I can think is, “Yeah, I’d friend that.”

(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

With Facebook friends like these, who needs enemies? Noah Kagan, who left his job at the social network abruptly in mid-2006, now has a Facebook group in his honor: “Boycott Facebook until Noah Kagan is re-hired!” Valley prankster and Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams created the group. We pinged Kagan, who’s now working happily at online personal-finance startup Mint.com and blogging at Okdork.com. Kagan, when pinged on IM, was as bemused as we were to hear about the group, but had no idea why Abrams was starting it a year after his departure. The Facebook group, however, might not be telling the whole story about the Facebooker’s departure: A well-placed tipster says Kagan was fired for leaking company secrets to TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington.

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”facebook_1_gawker.flv”, 475, 376);
What is it about the women Facebook hires? I’m sure they’re all brilliant, but it needs to be said: The hot social network has equally hot personnel. Randi Jayne, sister of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, finally outs herself on video as a Facebook employee in this clip. But the video doesn’t do her justice — as you might have noticed in her “Dontcha” iPhone video, she’s distressingly cute. Her colleague, Meagan Marks, gives a sales pitch for working at Facebook that’s best appreciated with the mute button on. And spokesperson Brandee Barker? Alas, she’s not captured in this video, but you can check her out in this AllThingsD.com video. Or just take our word for it: Total babe.

If you’re young, straight, male, and in need of a reason other than pre-IPO shares to work at Facebook, consider checking out its fine, fine collection of genuine Valley foxes. And whoever’s in charge of recruiting at Facebook? I want to meet you. You fascinate me.

(VIdeo by Sarah Meyers and Enric for Valleywag)

Forget Facebook fatigue: The new symptom sweeping the Valley is Facebook addiction. A brief outage this morning made most Valley workers more productive — but left some, like strung-out addicts, completely unable to function. One particularly sad case expressed his relief that Facebook was back up. “I’ve already forgotten the cold panic, the unbearable neediness,” he wrote. Also left unable to function: Facebook’s PR apparatus, which promised a statement about the outage that has yet to materialize. Perhaps spokeswoman Brandee Barker was hoping to send it out through the Facebook group she normally favors, instead of boring old email, for press releases?

Source:Valleywag

Attention, Valley residents: Julia Allison, the Star editor-at-large, TV commentator, and notorious nobody from New York, is still in the area. Valleywag has learned — from Allison herself! — that she cancelled plans to fly back yesterday at the behest of imperious TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who ordered her to “fucking stay.” As startup entrepreneurs already know and Allison is learning, one disobeys Arrington at one’s peril. So strap down your menfolk and lock away your sysadmins, people: Allison and companion Meghan Asha are still on the prowl. They’re from the Big Apple, they’re way underdressed for the weather, and they’re not going to leave until they land a beau who can whip up a jazzy CSS file and upgrade them to Movable Type 4.0.