The blogosphere is abuzz this morning with the news that Elizabeth Spiers, the founding editrix of Gawker, has launched a new NYC gossip blog to compete directly against her alma doesn't mater. The new blog is called FishbowlNY because "it's like, you know, a fishbowl, 'cause you look at the fish in a fishbowl and, like, talk about them... like The Real World, you know?"

Spiers, who left Gawker amid expectation that she'd move on to great things, didn't. After penning a failed blog for The New York Times or Post or something, Spiers joined the team at Mediabistro -- a "new media company" that is, according to its website:

...Dedicated to anyone who creates or works with content, or who is a non-creative professional working in a content/creative industry.

For those dense, worthless few of you who don't "work with content" and for whom this dedication doesn't elucidate what the fuck this company is whatsoever, the description continues with Mediabistro's "greater goal":

...To revolutionize the way creative/content industry professionals relate. Call it the AvantGuild, a new guild for the new guard in media. Media professionals have so much in common, yet we work in our little cubicle worlds, rarely meeting, rarely sharing our collective experiences. We want to create a new version of the 14th-century guild system -- so that talented professionals in related industries can meet informally, mentor each other, work on projects together, and more. Go ahead, call us idealists. Call us medievalists even!

How about annoying fucking whores? Can we call you that?

Spiers' boss, Mediabistro's "Founder/Cyberhostess," is Laurel Toubey. Here's a bit about her, again, from the company's website:

Laurel started her career at Working Woman magazine, moved on to Business Week as a staff editor, and in 1993 began editing and writing a column on workplace issues for Glamour. She has covered everything from travel to business to breast cancer for a variety of publications, including New York, Travel & Leisure, Self, Redbook, McCall's, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Working Mother, and the New York Daily News. Born in Oahu, Hawaii, Laurel grew up in Miami (before South Beach existed) and graduated from Smith College with a degree in economics.

Well if she doesn't sound like a fun girl, I don't know who does. I mean, grew up the rich daughter of a... I'm going to say real estate developer, she always imagined herself to be "artsy" and "political" in that way rich ugly girls do. She learned after matriculating at Smith that she didn't have the taste for bush she'd like to have nor the talent to write any good poetry, if there is such a thing. So she settled on journalism, as her daddy "knew people," but has always craved the attention of real artists, hence the "avant guild." I don't know for sure that writing for Working Mother and taking it up the ass are mutually exclusive activities, but I strongly suspect it.

Hateful misogyny aside, the real non-story here is that the Spiers/Toubey "content" machine will be taking on the Coen/Denton "content" machine. It's a battle that will undoubtedly be watched carefully by literally tens of blog professionals as there are potentially hundreds of advertising dollars at stake. But in the end, only time will tell which duo will be declared Kings of Crap Mountain.

It all begs the question: Is there any medium too worthless for the Jews to battle for control over?

Analogcabin @ 9:10 AM
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