That emergency Friday-night meeting at Red Herring, the once-storied tech publisher we've had on deathwatch for what seems like endless months? The agenda was to discuss, an informant tells us, an eviction notice, giving the greatly diminished Herring three days to pay rent or vacate its Belmont, Calif. premises. All employees packed up their personal belongings — presumably out of a fear that, come Monday, they wouldn't be able to get back in to fetch them. And where was owner Alex Vieux? In meetings, most of the day, with Herring editor Joel Dreyfuss — who, we imagine, like most of the staff, is curious when he'll next be paid. Or if.

We now hear that the remaining sales and finance employees of Red Herring are locked in a meeting in the company's Belmont, Calif. headquarters. A meeting, one should note, that only got started at 5:30 p.m. On a week that most of the Valley took as a holiday. Well, that should boost the spirits of workers at the troubled publication. Also, we understand that Adecco, a staffing company, has pulled out all of its contractors working at the Herring. Could that have anything to do with Alex Vieux's reputation as a tardy payer?

Red Herring, the print magazine, no longer publishes. RedHerring.com, the website, is on its last legs, running Reuters wire copy and the occasional blog post. Red Herring's conference business, too, is in disarray, with cut-rate tickets being issued for last month's Red Herring East to fill seats, and the host hotel cancelling next month's Red Herring Japan. So what does owner Alex Vieux do? Why, launch a social network, of course. (Even that idea's not original: The old Herring had ambitions, pre-bubble, for a similar site called Herringtown.) Valleywag has an exclusive screenshot of the not-ready-for-primetime site, called RH27, after the jump.

Outside its Belmont, Calif. headquarters, the Red Herring's standard flaps stolidly in the breeze. All seems quiet. There's no sign of the fireworks that went off Thursday afternoon in the dying publication's offices. That's when a salesman, realizing he'd been stiffed on his commission, nearly got into fisticuffs with Alex Vieux, the diminutive owner of a diminishing media empire. The inside story, from an informant, after the jump.Four Herring salespeople, including the one who was quitting that day, met with Vieux at 4 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the unpaid commissions. Vieux told them he couldn't pay the commissions then, but he promised to pay them personally. When? "Soon," said Vieux — but he wouldn't commit to a date. The departing salesman demanded a check that day. He and Vieux started shouting, Vieux asked him to leave, and then pushed aside an employee to get face to face with his antagonist. "I'll kick your ass if you don't get the hell out of my office," he told him. The salesman, sizing up his opponent, mercifully withdrew. Vieux is well known for demanding that his male employees wear ties. In a gesture of defiance, the salesman took off his tie and wrapped it around his forehead as he gathered his things. Vieux walked by later and said, "It's 5 o'clock, get the hell out." The employee asked, "Do you have a paycheck for me?" Vieux had no answer. The salesman's parting shot: "Goodbye, everyone ... good luck getting your paychecks." That prompted Vieux to rant that his ex-employee was "fucking unprofessional" and that he was "going to kick [his] ass." Reporters in the newsroom cheered the salesman as he left. Witnessed any other messy scenes from the Herring's flameout? Do tell.

For most folks, Friday is payday. Not so at the Red Herring. Last week, we're told, the swiftly sinking tech publisher barely made payroll. Alex Vieux, the publication's owner, has a long history of paying vendors late, or never. But now he's resorted to shorting his management team, too. No surprise: Since it's no longer bothering to print an actual magazine, labor is the only major cost left for Vieux to cut. But Vieux's minions, for once, are in revolt over the move.Last Friday, a tipster reports, Herring editor Joel Dreyfuss got paid nothing, and other top managers only got paid half their usual amount. As a result, we're told, the VP of biz dev, chief marketing officer, and chief financial officer quit. With top execs getting stiffed, how long before the rank and file also start missing paychecks — and walking out? More on this later today.

Oh, you people are too good to me. I got a tip about Alex Vieux, publisher of Red Herring and founder and CEO of DASAR. Not one, but two tidbits — one for the home, one for the office.