Tech giants have long sought more work visas, saying they enrich immigrants. But a reported Justice Department investigation raises the possibility Google, Apple and Yahoo, among others, colluded to hold down wages.

Speaking at Google's developer's conference in San Francisco today, Sergey Brin launched some fresh nomenclature into the jargony culture of computer programmers: "Page's Law." He was trying to make a point about the speed of Google's Web apps; instead he's done co-founder Larry Page a huge favor.

How distorted is Twitter's view of the world? That question is neatly answered by Topsy, a new search engine that's like Google, except sorted by the attention-deficit-disorder sufferers who live on Twitter.

• American Idol's finale scored its lowest ratings ever for the 18-49 demo. Not that there's a chance Ryan Seacrest will be disappearing anytime soon. [THR]
• The CW has unveiled its fall lineup. As expected, the Gossip Girl spin-off isn't happening. A social media-centric ad campaign, however, is. [Variety, NYT]
• New York magazine is raising subscription rates. [Folio]
• Google is reorganizing its ad sales team and cutting a few jobs. [WSJ]
• Thanks to the $75K speaking fee Tom Friedman accepted (and returned), Times staffers have been reminded about the paper's ethics guidelines. [LAT]
• Paste Magazine hopes to survive by asking readers for donations. [Gawker]
• Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wasn't permitted to appear on NBC's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, so his wife will do it instead. [THR]

Eric Schmidt now says Google thought about buying a newspaper but rejected the idea as "crossing the line" between technology and content. The real message for newspaper hacks: You're just not profitable. Compared with, say, TV and movies.

Being a startup is way more fun than being a business. Which is why we see Twitter and Facebook in seeming economic denial this morning. Who wants to confront financial reality, like Google?

British physicist Stephen Wolfram today officially launched his new, massively-hyped search engine, Wolfram Alpha. Now for the inevitable letdown; and for the hard questions more journalists should have been asking weeks ago.

In flusher times, Google geeks set the agenda for company sales executives; distracting sidelines were encouraged. The recession — assisted by a new sales chief who apparently doesn't mind his diabolical reputation — foreclosed on such coddling.

Dear Ryan:

As I head to NBC to run its Bay Area site, I'm leaving you one Silicon Valley gossip blog, used but in good condition. A few thoughts on how to keep it that way.

Give the newspaper bosses this much: In their desperation to fix their dying businesses, they are going after logical targets. Google's rise has exactly nothing to do with their fall — but Google has money.

An hour-long outage of some Google services this morning has turned into a full-fledged Twitter storm. What this really shows is a failure of Twitter to be meaningful and relevant to anything but Twitter.

Hello, Pink Lady! David Geffen, the wealthy friend of Dorothy, wants to buy the New York Times. Fantastic news for the paper's gay mafia.

The New York Times and Washington Post are in informal talks about the online news business. The obvious subtext: The newspapers want Google to pay for their headlines. They're going about it all wrong.

• Star Trek reeled in $76 million at the box office this weekend. [WSJ]
• Metro is selling off its collection of free (and money-losing) newspapers to Seabay Media, a company controlled by Metro's former CEO. [WaPo]
• Playboy says it's planning to make "radical changes" to the mag, and may raise prices as well as reduce the number of issues it prints every year. [Folio]
• Jon Stewart is creating a two-hour special for the History Channel. [B&C]
• Lit agent Larry Kirshbaum is shopping a memoir by Rafael Nadal. [Crain's]
• More speculation the Sulzbergers will be forced to give up the Times. [NYP]
• Speaking of the Times, a San Francisco organization paid columnist Tom Friedman $75,000 for a speech he's given before (and which is online). [SFC]
• Brit chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest are working on a new reality show for ABC that will "give healthy makeovers to an entire city." Be afraid. [THR]

Everyone has misunderstood why Google, from CEO Eric Schmidt on down, is cozying up to Barack Obama. It's not out of some likeminded geekiness. It's out of desperation and fear.

Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it's Apple that's closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million.

Google's G1 is the biggest enemy of Apple's iPhone. And Apple is making a big push into the Web. So it's totally hunky-dory that Google and Apple share board members, right? Wrong, say antitrust cops.

Google is reportedly flooded with Yahoo résumés. We'd recommend an overtly modest approach to anyone who scores an interview: Google has lately been brutal in handling presumptuous, entitled transplants.

A source at Google tells us YouTube has seen a rush of résumés from engineers at Yahoo's rival video site, after a wave of layoffs last week that devastated the team. Is Yahoo Video done?

Yahoo has started its latest round of layoffs, which hit its pixel-cute photo-sharing site Flickr, a formerly sacrosanct fiefdom. We hear Google has its eyes on some of the Flickr employees Yahoo let slip.