Rupert Murdoch has revealed his secret plan for News Corp. to make money on the internet: Make News Corp. invisible, on the internet. Murdoch will leave The Google, rewrite copyright law, and teach you kids to stay off his lawn!

Larry Page is now the co-creator of something other than the most important internet site in the world: A tipster whispers the Google co-founder is the father of a baby boy, as of Thursday.

You might know Google owns YouTube, GMail, GChat, Google News, Google Docs and Google Reader, but the full privacy impact probably hasn't hit you until you look at the information from all those services condensed into one place, on this dashboard thing. Oh look, it's the last person you chatted with, the last person you emailed, the last video you watched, the last news search you ran, the last Google search, the last image search, the last video search, the last document you authored and maybe what you're buying your wife for Christmas.

Google is trying to break into the music business. But the squeaky-clean company is aiming at a very grungy market, as Oscar de la Renta-wearing VP Marissa Mayer discovered during a recent — ultimately contentious — radio appearance.

For a company with deep support from Google, 23andMe seems awfully beset by problems: Two layoff rounds in five months and the departure of a co-founder. So when we hear the company is "hemorrhaging cash," we're inclined to believe it.

• The Wall Street Journal has the Times in its sights. The paper is hiring a dozen reporters to cover local news and will launch a NYC edition next year. [NYT]
• As expected, a big round of layoffs at Time Inc. is underway. [Gawker, NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein may be looking to buy back the Miramax name from Disney now that it's being disbanded. That's the rumor anyway. [Wrap]
• Bloomberg plans to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier, and more international." Oh, and it may start charging for access to the BW site. [MW]
• The Oscars will have two hosts: Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. [LAT]

The town of Argleton, England doesn't exist, but you can search its white pages, look for nearby chiropractors and map a jog through town, because "Argleton" is on Google Maps. How'd the phantom town get there? Funny you should ask.

Auletta: Google feared buying the NYT would "sabotage their identity as a neutral search engine."

Google takes it all back, baby. The company now acknowledges it was wrong to begrudge programmer Jon Skeet a Microsoft MVP Award, just because it came from The Enemy. He can accept the prize. But no whispering sweet nothings.

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Who amputated Google? For one Gawker editor's laptop, running Firefox and Windows, the buttons for "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky" were amputated from Google.com. Instead, there's this taunting minimalist slogan:

Google strives to hire "the world's best engineers,"and has crafted an "interminable" interview process dotted with puzzles and brainteasers to do so. One little problem: the process tends to give the worst scores to the best future employees.

Yahoo finally shuttered Geocities today. Acquired in 1999, Geocities was one of the costliest dot-com duds of of all time: $3.5 billion for an ugly, cash-bleeding homepage hosting service. And to think Google's founders were simultaneously begging server funds.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a weird guy. A smart programmer whose ideas lifted humanity, but a weird guy nonetheless. A coder who dislikes coffee. An American who knows virtually nothing about baseball. And then there are his evening jollies.

"Marissa unintentionally encourages promiscuity," managing editor Robert Thomson said. Uh, really? Yes! Since the font used to attribute quotes on this Google News page is too small for Thomson's taste, search chief Mayer is encouraging "digital disloyalty" among readers who are the actual legal property of the Wall Street Journal.

It's been ten years since Microsoft decisively buried Netscape, and Silicon Valley is still frightened of the monster in Redmond, Washington. Even giant Google is paranoid; the company is increasingly said to be chasing Microsoft's tail lights.

It's so fun to see the media wars play out in actual tiffs between actual human beings in actual rooms together. Take this passive-aggressive clash between Google's Larry Page, programmer, and IAC's Barry Diller, onetime movie mogul.

• Both Google and Facebook are getting into the music biz, apparently. [NYT]
• ESPN's Steve Phillips has a pretty messy sex scandal on his hands. [NYP]
• Condé Nast's latest effort to branch out: It's starting discount travel site called Jetsetter in partnership with Gilt Groupe. Meanwhile, this week's Observer recaps Condé's recent problems and reflects on the good 'ol days. [NYT, NYO]
• People's decision to pay big bucks for exclusive pics of kidnapee Jaycee Dugard sure paid off. The issue sold 2 million copies last week. [WWD]
• Who will be the next editor of BusinessWeek? Jon Friedman thinks former Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman would be a "fine choice." And she may be, provided Bloomberg is looking to destroy what's left of the magazine. [MW]
• Michael Steele is now (officially) Us Weekly's editor-in-chief. [NYT]
• How many people despise cable news clown Glenn Beck? Enough that the network has hired a bodyguard to follow him everywhere he goes. [P6]
• Yet another book "by" Michael Jackson may be coming soon. Super! [Crain's]

We heard Eric Schmidt was done with girlfriend Kate Bohner around the time he was seen again with his ex Marcy Simon. But a tipster showed us how Schmidt has been funneling some cash in Bohner's general direction.

Not only does Google AdSense pay badly, it can wreck your unemployment benefits. The State of New York cut one woman's benefit checks and told her running the ads was "self employment." AdSense earned her $1.30 per day. [TechDirt] (Pic)