• The Post names the "9 Hottest Celebs on the Web." These include Amanda Congdon, Tila Tequila, and Brooke Parkhurst. [NYP]
  

Guess what? The New York Times is super proud of TimesSelect, that whopping success for which 218,000 (hey, that's .0007% of the U.S. population! Uh, if our math is good!) have signed up. We know this because they're trotting out Editorial Page Editor Andy Rosenthal to do a dog and pony show in today's Observer. Andy is beaming about the assload of contributors he's signed up to offer web-only content (Stanley Fish, Will Leitch, the dude who played guitar for former Bad Company lead singer Paul Rodgers during the recent Queen reunion tour). And blogs? They've got TONS of blogs! They've got blogs about blogs!

Looks like that tainted pet food thing went further than we thought—a straight shot to the heart of The New Journalism.

TheU.com is hiring for a N.Y.U. gossip blog. According to one applicant, it'll be "edgy" and "gawker.com meets P*r*z Hilton." Some of their post ideas were the 100 hottest NYU students ("but in an edgy, sarcastic way!"), who's the biggest Adderall user on campus, and "crazy shit we're sure happens at NYU!" Like dorm pervs, maybe? Helpfully, they also provided a couple of sample posts. Wow! Really, wow. Click to enlarge.

The once-murky implications of the Tribune deal are becoming visible, and Tribune employees are starting to make sense of the brave new world to come. Take the Orlando Sentinel's Mike Thomas. While the potential for layoffs under the Zell regime causes Mike some concern, there's a terrible specter looming on the horizon that frightens him even more. Guess what? It involves the Internet!

"The hardest thing is coming up with something to say every day ... Although a couple of my posts are about things that I have done, the purpose is to talk about things in their life. I don't want to talk about what I had for dinner." That's new-minted Seventeen EIC Ann Shoket on the challenges of blogging daily. Pain: felt. So if dinner's out, what does Ann discuss with her tribe? Well ... lunch.

Say hello to Racked, a new blog about shopping and retail from the folks who brought you Curbed and Eater. One of those folks happens to be Lockhart Steele, managing editor of Gawker Media! Feel the non-synergy! We're not sure how to navigate the massive maze of conflicts this one presents, but it's not like we begrudge Lock the action: Given Nick Denton's mercurial temperament it's probably a good idea to have something to fall back on when he suddenly decides to let you go. Those Balthazar brunch bills don't pay themselves!

Salon's lefty gadfly Glenn Greenwald has gotten all riled up about newish politics site Politico. They publish political gossip, and—horror of horrors!—Politico is somehow just as mean and gossipy and wrong-headed as Matt Drudge, and that is a very, very, very bad thing, and must be stopped. Oh, and also, Drudge and Politico are in some sort of vast right-wing conspiracy cahoots: "It is really amazing, and quite significant, just how frequently Drudge and The Politico end up being linked in so many ways," he sniffs. Also: "Maybe the Politico is designed to be a gossip rag — like Drudge or right-wing blogs — not an actual news organization." You know what, Glenn? How about you get off that high horse you've placed yourself on so delicately, and come down and mingle with the rest of us? The air's refreshing down here. As for Politico, we're thrilled to be able at last to jump up and down and yell, "One of us! One of us!" Yay!

Act II and the curtain rises again on Colin Beavan, 43, the man gently shat on by a lengthy NYT H&H profile yesterday—you remember, the guy who doesn't use toilet paper in hopes of landing a book deal. Not content to have his exploits splashed across the newsprint carcasses of dead trees (plus he did NPR!), Beavan also has a blog to chronicle the gradual dissolution of his marriage and answer the "million" pressing questions readers are struggling to comprehend. These range in scope from, "Does your wife use tampons?" to "Was making the choice to leave academia easy or difficult?" [Answers: "Disposable culture is a problem" and "What a random and fun question," respectively.] Strangely, the germaneliest question went unanswered: If dude's so concerned about no impact living and disposable culture, why is he trying to write a book that hundreds will buy and in the process, kill thousands of acres of the rain forest. Or something.

Dear Blogger,

NBC's Bravo division swallowed independent TV criticism site Television Without Pity, proving the networks are just like everybody else: fascinated by strangers' comments about them on web pages. The Peacock Channel had already returned the web site's snarky attention with a shout-out in an episode of NBC's My Name is Earl, and in a story in NBC's West Wing. Now they can keep the mutual backscratching, and backstabbing, where it ought to be: within the same cosy corporate family.

Blogblogblog. Blaaaaaaaahhhhg. The sound of it is just so terribly d class ! No wonder Anna Wintour "refuses to call anything on her site a blog and has charged her staff with coming up with a new word that isn't as garish-sounding. She wants it ASAP—in time for launch." Let's get right on it, then!

• Do you like blogging? The wisdom of crowds? The hive mind? Do you want to earn five dollars? Can you explain to us what Jay Rosen's new... interweb thing is? [Assignment Zero]
  

So yes, the Vlog Hot poll was hacked and scrapped in the semifinals, but we respect the need for closure. Therefore, after the jump, you can peruse the "final" vote tallies, such as they were. In related news, the fine acrylic statuette is back on! The gentlefolk at Zazzle offer these same excellent keepsakes without requiring a trip to some seedy mall studio à la Glamour Shots. So any contestants who made it to the finals — send a high-res photo of your desired subject, your preferred shipping address, and your preferred photo-imprinted farewell gift (deck of cards, pillowcase, or statuette) to tips@valleywag.com.

"Sport spirit does not have this number here anyhow no more." So true, those words, as written by Katrin Bauerfeind fan "codemonk" and badly if poignantly translated from the German by Babelfish. This refers to a Bauerfeind partisan (commenter "votekatrin") in our Vlog Hot poll who was so determined to see his gal win that he wrote a script to hack the totals, auto-submitting multiple votes per day by gaming the IP address. He/she even offered the script for download to interested parties. Thus our amusement-only poll is rendered even more superfluous than it might have been otherwise, if such can be imagined. The only fair thing to do, of course, is to suspend the poll and declare no winner, since all the heats are suspect at this point. And by nobody wins, we mean everybody wins!

It's hardly cricket to negate all the vlogger vote-stumping and sincere viewer appreciation, despite the corruption introduced by a bad apple or two. Therefore, everyone who made it to the semifinals gets to "win." Unfortunately, it turns out that lovely acrylic statuette requires an actual visit to the mall-based hell of Glamour Shots, so we can't make good on that prize. So just for simplicity's sake, anyone who made it into the semifinal rounds (all 16 of you) can choose from having the photo of your choice (you, your cat, your pet cactus, whatever) imprinted on either a deck of playing cards or a pillowcase, which are the two cheesiest gift options offered by the Kodak Easyshare Gallery. If you're one of the semifinalists, email the high-resolution photo of your choice, plus your preferred shipping address for your lovely parting gift, to tips@valleywag.com. Sorry this exercise in the democratic process ultimately broke down, but that's the Internet for you. Due congratulations and thanks to all our fine contestants.

And for today's final semifinal in the Vlog Hot reader poll, here's your last serving of man-meat. Voting will run through this week and conclude at noon Eastern time on Sunday, March 11. You can vote in all heats once per day by clearing browser cookies from polls.gawkerarchives.com. In this installment, your choices are Ron Richards, Pedro Andrade, Chad Ruble, and Eric Rey. After the jump, crown your prince.

If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.

Wrapping up the fair-sex semifinal side of our Vlog Hot reader poll, here are the last four females. Voting will run through this week and conclude at noon Eastern time on Sunday, March 11. You can vote in all heats once per day by clearing browser cookies from polls.gawkerarchives.com. This course of the menu includes Aida Mollenkamp, Kristin Reilly, Veronica Belmont, and Maria Sansone. Choose your future spouse after the jump.

If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.

Continuing the semifinals in our Vlog Hot reader poll, here's the first log cabin full of hearty male specimens. Voting will run through this week and conclude at noon Eastern time on Sunday, March 11. You can vote in all heats once per day by clearing browser cookies from polls.gawkerarchives.com. In this heat, enjoy Kevin Nalts, Gary Vaynerchuk, Josh Shipp, and Jonathan London. Vote for your bestie after the jump.

If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.

The first 16 heats of the Vlog Hot reader poll have concluded, so it's time for the semifinals — four heats of the top vote-getters (two heats of ladies, two heats of gents). Voting will run through this week and conclude at noon Eastern time on Sunday, March 11. You can vote in all heats once per day by clearing browser cookies from polls.gawkerarchives.com. The four semifinal heats will be announced throughout today. In this first heat of womens, we have Katrin Bauerfeind, Christine Gambito, Joanne Colan, and Adriana Gascoigne. Hit it after the jump.

If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.