A Brit got "pissed;" a Chicago Tribuner made it a double; and Mark Glaser stumbled over bums. The Twitterati were not finding sobriety.

So much for radical transparency. Microsoft's embrace of honest online criticism stopped at VentureBeat blogger Dean Takahashi's insanely long story about how the software giant launched its Xbox 360 game console despite production flaws. The story had one source brave enough to go on the record: Robert Delaware, a contract game tester, who talked about a bug he encountered during testing phases persisting as the Xbox went into production. Now he's out of a job and faces a civil suit from Microsoft for violating a nondisclosure agreement.“I don’t regret it,” he told VentureBeat in a phone call on Thursday. “I’ll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on." "This kind of witch-hunt mentality is wrongheaded," writes Takahashi. "When I was thinking about making a difference with our story this isn’t what I had in mind." We're just amazed that Microsoft's legal team made it through all six pages of Takahashi's story.

Team VentureBeat assembles for the obligatory group photo. The setting: a launch party for VentureBeat's DigitalMedia blog. Left to right: Well-paid tech-CEO transcriptionist Dean Takahashi; mopheaded cleantech writer Chris Morrison; skinflint business manager Jacob Mullins; Jimmy Olsen-lookalike and VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall; stylishly underdressed Anthony Ha; expert Techmeme gamer MG Siegler; and Eric Eldon, who's wearing his great-grandfather's three-piece suit. Yesterday's winner: Once again, WagCurious, for labeling Pete Cashmore "The face that launched a thousand ship-dates." (Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

VentureBeat owner Matt Marshall confirmed to me that he matched respected veteran Valley biz reporter Dean Takahashi's salary to lure Takahashi away from the San Jose Mercury News. How much is that? Unknown, Captain, but in the 1990s, Takahashi's rumored $125,000 annual pay at the original Red Herring had local journalists frothing over their beers. Wait'll they find out what the guys in IT make.

Dean Takahashi, a veteran tech reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, has quit the newspaper to join VentureBeat. [GameSpot]

"While [Facebook apps] may seem silly now," writes San Jose Mercury News reporter Dean Takahashi, "those applications could eventually become some of the most popular services on Facebook, and MySpace may have to follow." Takahashi explores the differences between the big three networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace) and fails to determine which is best. [San Jose Mercury News]