Valleywag has intercepted the following transmission from John Hodgman. It bodes of an event which promises to be the biggest Apple event in San Francisco history. Or at least the biggest one since, well, yesterday.

Google Maps performed flawlessly for Apple CEO Steve Jobs in today's Macworld keynote. Yahoo's Flickr? Utter fail. In a demo of Flickr photos appearing on Apple TV, Flickr was a technical no-show. To those inside the company, this may not have come as a surprise. "

I took this picture of Valleywag cub reporter Jordan Golson because I think the kid has potential. But Jordan, watch and learn: See the guy typing away behind you? Forbes senior editor Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs. And the man with the early migraine? PC World editor in chief Harry McCracken. Look at them: Work, work, work. With the dual exception of Engadget and Gizmodo, the Web 2.0 kids fell way behind the old guard in reporting this morning. Oh, and whoever decided Valleywag would report the whole thing via Twitter? You win the prize. Go back and read Uncov until you know the difference between "scale" and "fail."

Stock traders weren't blown away by Steve Jobs's Macworld announcements, sending Apple shares down 5 percent. Rivals faired even worse, however. From the numbers, they expect Apple's movie-rental service with support from all of the major studios to pummel brick-and-mortar competitor Blockbuster, and to a lesser extent Netflix. Blockbuster is trading down more than 15 percent in after hours while Netflix is down 3 percent.

Toshiba is insisting that its HD-DVD disc format is doing well, despite Warner's defection to the Blu-ray side. Citing strong fourth-quarter sales of HD-DVD players, Toshiba's going ahead with the fight. Which has to give Steve Jobs a chuckle. The continuing war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD just redounds to his advantage, as he preps a laptop without any optical drive at all and a retooled Apple TV to deliver movies to the living room.

"Does it remind you of the Foleo?" Palm's never-released "smartphone companion" laptop, killed on the eve of its introduction last September, does look a bit like Apple's new MacBook Air, though the latter is thinner yet and far more powerful. Under the casings, there's little comparison. Which raises a question: Did Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who's now Palm's executive chairman, get some inkling that Apple would be coming out with the MacBook Air?

A tipster writes in after seeing the MacBook Air advertisement with the uber-thin notebook removed from a manila envelope:

Macworld does something to the most jaded observer. Longtime Apple stock analyst Charlie Wolf welcomed Fake Steve Jobs blogger Dan Lyons to the show with a kiss. For Lyons, who does an uncanny impersonation of Jobs in his blog, it was the first time he actually saw the Apple CEO in the flesh. The keynote itself? Underwhelming was the verdict from most. But it still managed to draw together a tech press corps scattered across the globe. That as much as anything makes the event a must-attend. Here's a gallery of what reporter Jordan Golson and I saw from our seats, sandwiched between Lyons and the Gizmodo crew.

· Steve Jobs announced at Macworld that every major studio would now offer movies for rental on iTunes. $3.99 per new release gives you 30 days to start it, then 24 hours to finish it, and a virtually limitless amount of time to bitch about how you just blew $3.99 of beer money on Norbit. [THR]
· At last, Oprah Winfrey gets her OWN network: The Oprah Winfrey Network. (Get it? OWN?) When it debuts in 2009, look for her to select it as the Channel of the Month for her newly formed Oprah's TV Club, ensuring boffo launch ratings. [THR]
· With the one-two foam-baton punch of Deal or No Deal and American Gladiators, NBC easily swept up in the ratings last night, a victory they have a few hours to savor before Fox unleashes a rampaging, 70-foot Abdulosaur upon the TV landscape. [THR]

How does Steve Jobs's Macworld gadgetfest rank among other annual, can't-miss events? You decide in our poll. (Photo by acaben)

Yeah, yeah. The MacBook Air looks beautiful. And so does this ad. But it's missing something more than an optical drive, if you ask me. Until I get me some John Hodgman, I'm not sold.

Jordan Golson and I blogged live, but briefly, via Twitter from the Macworld 2008 expo at Moscone West in San Francisco. Read on for the full report:

Coming to every cafe frequented by aspiring writers, the MacBook Air, the skinniest laptop Apple has ever made. Ownership will distinguish the kids with trust funds, and those who sacrificed their rent money on this incredibly desirable toy. Harsh truth: it won't make anyone write better. Details at Gizmodo.

What are you doing here? You should be on Gizmodo, or Engadget, at a stretch, to see whether Apple's Steve Jobs will really unveil the 'Air'.

Just confirmed at Macworld: all six major studios are onboard for iTunes movie rentals. That's Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal.Variety thought Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. were unlikely to sign on for "various competitive reasons." Maybe there's hope for the flailing Apple TV yet. Why? It's all you need to access the films. No computer required. (Photo by Boereck)

A big-league reporter emailed us to imply that he (or was that she? I forget) has inside info on today's Macworld product announcements, and that my hunch that there's a MacBook with AT&T wireless built in is totally wrong. Of course, the real point of the email was nyah nyah I'm special. But thanks for the tip.

This morning is Superbowl Day for the web. The Apple Macworld Keynote starts at 9 Pacific, and already tech blogs like Gawker Media's Gizmodo are clocking pageviews like mad as everyone refreshes for news of Apple's latest announcement (this year the guess is an ultralight Mac laptop). It's a scheduled event with a guaranteed boost; last year Gizmodo and competitor Engadget earned four times their normal visitors (and ten times the pageviews), with Engadget breaking 10 million page views thanks to a boost from AOL. I thought ad money would be rolling in for these promised pageviews, but publisher Nick Denton explains why ad sales don't jump today:

For the gadget blogs, Macworld Expo is the Olympics. Liveblogging, as Macworld veteran Paul Boutin explained to me recently, is all about speed and precision. A bit like a relay-race baton-toss. Mechanical, uncomplicated — and yet people crowd stadiums to watch those. As significant as the event is to Apple — it's a vital showcase for the only consumer-electronics company that seems to matter anymore — Macworld is even more important to the online tech press, which has turned real-time blog coverage into an art, and Macworld into a stage on which it shows off the power of the Web as a medium. As a business story, the latter aspect is what fascinates me.

What's the biggest frustration we have with our computers? Right: You can never get online when you need to. I stuck my neck out and told local talk radio host Jon Bristow to watch for an AT&T-equipped MacBook tomorrow. Not just because I want one, but because it has the potential to steal an entirely new market for Apple.

A tipster sent us this alternate version of the Apple teaser ad currently up on Apple.com. According to our tipster, Steve Jobs spent hours meditating to choose between "air" and "water" themes for Macworld. What could "There's something in the water" mean? We can only speculate, but our best guess is a waterproof ultrathin notebook called the MacBook Water. The MacBook Water was to be specifically designed for scuba divers and other water-sports enthusiasts. (Ahem.) Have any more information? Leave a comment.