Everywhere we turn we see another network news anchorwoman sporting the exact same long-layered take on the post-Rachel Green do. Does Fox News have only the one style consultant? If you looked at the cable network's anchors (from l-r) Lis Wiehl, Dagen McDowell and Cheryl Casone, you might think so. Alycia Lane may not have abided by the CBS code of conduct, but she certainly toed the coiffure line. CNN Headline News anchor Linda Stouffer and colleague Carol Costello flaunt the style, along with CBS News' Hannah Storm and MSNBC's Contessa Brewer. Longer hair can make you look younger (what woman in TV news couldn't get behind that concept) and both focus groups and the men in them tend to appreciate lengthy locks (Case-in-point: Felicity's post-shearage ratings nosedive. What? You know you watched it once.) Still, when we flip on the tube, it's getting harder and harder to shake the feeling that we're catching the tail end of a Central Perk coffee klatch.

Wallstrip host and sometimes actress Lindsay Campbell will soon leave the CBS Interactive online stock-talk podcast. This after CBS acquired the show in May 2007. But don't worry, fans, Campbell is headed for another CBS Web-video production straightaway. Something called Moblogic.tv.

Website College Humor redesigns TV channel logos to reflect the character of their audiences

No one expects the fannish inquisition. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg can breathe easy; he has nothing to fear from 60 Minutes after all. From the looks of the teaser CBS News is running for his upcoming interview, the hardest question Zuckerberg got asked was if he got in trouble at Harvard for launching Facemash, a predecessor of Facebook built from photos he hacked out of school servers. The venerable news organization even got his net worth wrong — he owns 27 percent of Facebook, making him worth $4 billion on paper, not $3 billion. So much for factchecking. Here are the questions we wish CBS's Lesley Stahl had asked — but doubt she bothered:

Reporter: "It sometimes seems like they're speaking a different language" Hip young canvasser: "He's got a killer, killer website." That's about all you need to know about this amazing CBS News video, "The 411 on Hipster Voters." Also: "No matter how a candidate delivers their political message, it better be off the hook." If anyone can turn a lamestain candidate into someone worth swingin with on the flippity-flop, it's CBS News. [CBS]

Now that a judge has allowed Dan Rather to dig through his CBS bosses' email, what will the embittered former anchor find? "Guys - I know it's in the shitter lately what with us firing Dan, canning the actually quite popular Bob Schieffer (the "Sheef" as we suits like to call him) and replacing him lovely news-pouf non-fembot Katie Couric... not to mention ratings in the toilet, a morning show to NOT die for and also sticking you all in a decrepit, aging brick building on the butt end of the Far West Side... but, cheer up! At least we know we won't have to deal with Dan Rather anymore!!! His White-House-defaming, non-story-factchecking ass is GONE!!! Along with his odd Southern quip-isms. Now, who wants to work Christmas and New Year's?" [Original comment]

Dan Rather's legal team will now get access to CBS execs' emails in the run-up to the network anchor's dismissal. A judge said Rather, sidelined from the evening news after a story on George Bush's service record, could get on with discovery.

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!

Today Comcast announced its bid to port its video-on-demand business to the Internet. The plan, audaciously named Project Infinity, can most immediately be seen at Fancast.com, a site for free streaming video. But what the move mostly highlights isn't Comcast's ambitions but the strategy of its partners — CBS and Hulu, the NBC/News Corp. joint venture. CBS has said it would rather distribute its video widely across the Web than labor to lure viewers to CBS.com. Hulu, likewise, is not really a destination site like Google's YouTube; its a video-syndication arm. Nothing illustrates this better than Comcast's Fancast, where every NBC and Fox video is Hulu-branded.

From The Wall Street Journal: "Microsoft said that NBC Universal Inc., Walt Disney Co., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Showtime Networks Inc. have agreed to contribute entertainment content to the software maker's Xbox Live and MSN online services. The deals were slated to be announced during a speech by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on the opening night of the Consumer Electronics Show."

A press release brings at least a glimmer of end-of-year good news to the otherwise moribund state of writers strike affairs: Worldwide Pants, which sought to reach an independent deal with the WGA that would allow both their late night talk shows to return to the airwaves with a full roster of Guild-approved Top Ten lists, Know Your Current Events questions, and whatever it is they do on The Late Late Show, has successfully negotiated an agreement with their writers' union:

· Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch emerge from their jacuzzi-bound tete-a-tete with a new deal in place that allows iTunes users to "rent" Fox movies. [Variety]
· The stock prices of major media conglomerates have "barely budged" in the eight weeks since the writers strike started, but investment experts warn that Howie Mandel getting so much as a splinter would result in dramatic fluctuations. [Variety]
· The WGA hired Democratic strategists Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata. Carrick "oversaw the campaign of former Los Angeles mayor James Hahn against current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the gubernatorial campaign of Treasurer Phil Angelides against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger." Um... [Variety]
· Meanwhile, networks who formerly seemed destined to never get along are mending fences like never before: For the first time in history, NBC and CBS will both be airing the same Patriots season finale game. [THR]
· The Kingdom director Peter Berg is in talks to join Edwin A. Salt, a movie about a CIA officer "fingered as a Russian sleeper spy." Tom Cruise is attached to play the fingered Russian. [THR]

Yahoo's hopes to compete with Google and Microsoft in search and online advertising may be a fantasy, but the Internet company is a market leader when it comes to fantasy. Fantasy sports, that is. For those of you who haven't joined the rotisserie leagues, the object is to rack up scores based on the individual stats of imaginary teams made of real players. Not only does Yahoo have a much larger share of fantasy traffic than traditional sports properties ESPN and CBS, but, according to Compete, its lead grew this year with the opening of the 2007 NFL season (football is by far the most popular fantasy sport).

We still haven't fully recovered from the emotional devastation of watching helplessly as the kids' primetime community failed, but this video, alleging to show scenes of a Nation reunion, does makes us feel a bit better; even though we're well aware that there were no survivors after the network detonated a small atomic bomb in the town square in an effort to erase their God-playing mistakes, we're nonetheless touched that CBS bothered to pre-shoot such a happy epilogue to the tragic series in case things didn't go as planned, allowing us to pretend—however briefly—that the Great Candy Riot of 2007 never happened.

The Second Life bubble may be popping. Electric Sheep, the marketing firm which helped CSI's a virtual Gary Sinise parade through Linden Lab's online world, is "rightsizing" the company — or shearing off 30 percent of its staff. A vice president explains that while Electric Sheep has seen tremendous growth and isn't in any financial trouble, it decided to lay off 22 employees — mostly Second Life specialists. With its freshly trimmed staff, Electric Sheep will branch out to other virtual worlds platforms — ones advertisers haven't already identified as unfruitful terrain.

At least seven NBC News and CNBC producers and other assorted editorial staff are getting an extra-long holiday vacation. It 'tis the season after all. At least NBC is showing some sense cutting back on its television production staff — CBS Interactive is letting go about 20 CBSNews.com staffers. Apparently the Tiffany network hasn't heard that Web video is the new hotness.

Annnnd now they just laid off the guy at CBS Interactive who runs Katie Couric's blog. Yikes!

The layoffs at CBS are at "CBS Interactive," which is essentially CBSNews.com—and they were unexpected, even though there'd been a hiring freeze in effect for some time. The layoffs seem to be across the whole staff, including producers, designers, a homepage editor. Ten have already been laid-off—according to one source, about 20 are expected in all today. Hmm. Is this whole internet thing not taking off? Seems weird to us, coming just a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Today's a big day for T.V. layoffs. There are a few at NBC and MSNBC—and just now we hear that more than 20 people have been laid off at CBS. Atmosphere described as like a "morgue." Youch. More to come shortly—your reports welcome, anonymity guaranteed.