Another year, another round of nominees who paid up to $475 to be considered for a Webby have been awarded their publicity prizes. The long-running promotional gambit started by early Valley PR pro Tiffany Shlain, now under new management, does give awards to "special honorees" whom I presume don't have to pay. Those deemed "special" provide big names for media coverage and a draw for award winners to shell out for tickets to the awards gala. This year, Stephen Colbert is the biggest name, having won "Person of the Year" for his achievements in promoting himself online when he was unable to do so on air during the TV writers' strike. Michel Gondry got the nod for "Film and Video Person of the Year" for convincing YouTubers to promote his movie Be Kind, Rewind. And Will.i.am's treacly Yes We Can video garnered the musician "Artist of the Year." Who didn't win? Any of the engineers who, you know, build the Web. (Photo by AP/Matt Rourke)

Linx Dating, a Bay Area matchmaking service, isn't pimping anyone per se. They claim to connect San Francisco women with Silicon Valley guys. Why is this legal but being a madam of an outcall service isn't? Your explanations welcome in the comments. The pitch, below:

We've heard of in-house PR, but this is ridiculous. Susan MacTavish Best, who is both the girlfriend of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and his company's PR rep, is also a director of Glasshouse, a nonprofit which produces events meant to educate entrepreneurs. Educating entrepreneurs at an event tonight: Buckmaster. The fireside chat is meant to highlight U.K. Web entrepreneurs. Buckmaster's only plausible U.K. tie? His girlfriend, MacTavish Best, is British. All very cozy, and absurd. What we think really happened here: MacTavish Best couldn't come up with any other speakers, and Buckmaster filled in.

In its April 2008 issue, Entrepreneur caught the immodest-to-a-fault Gurbaksh Chahal in a self-promoting mood — not hard to do — when it asked him how he sold ad-targeting startup BlueLithium to Yahoo for $300 million. "G" — as Chalal calls himself — responded with a tale from the life of Oprah:

Facing possible fines and jail time, local gene sequencers Navigenics and 23andMe will have to get permits if they want to continue testing resident of New York state. Meanwhile, California is investigating 12 complaints against unnamed gene sequencing companies, with officials noting that "all genetic tests must be ordered by a licensed physician." Trying to distance themselves from health regulators, 23andMe spokesman Paul Kranholdt told Forbes that "23andMe's services are not medical ... they are educational." In other words, getting tested amounts to a $1,000 exercise in vanity. No wonder people in the Valley love it.

There you have it: Microsoft gets to produce an awesomely cheesy video to pump up the sales troops — but in a way that lets them pretend to be air-quotes cool, resistant to such straightforward come-ons. PR then strategically leaks it, lets the blogosphere react predictably, and finds a gullible square of a tech reporter to declare victory on Microsoft's behalf.

Sweater-bear editor Owen Thomas just sent the following email to staff here. It's so obviously designed to be leaked that my only reaction is: Owen, can you please not use the little asterisks for bullet points? Movable Type screws up the formatting when you blockquote them. MORE

What a coincidence: Sheryl Sandberg seized responsibility for PR when she left Google to join Facebook as COO last month. Like clockwork, there's an organized publicity campaign to buff the executive's image. Take this sycophantic utterance from Christopher Cox, Sandberg's head of human resources: "It was like Sheryl came and kicked everybody in the ass and said this is going to be hard. And then gave everybody a hug." That's what Cox told Fortune, at any rate. He privately confessed to colleagues that he "felt sick after saying that." Sheryl, you should give Cox a raise: An HR chief who's so ready to fib for you is golden.

BrewPR's snacky flack Brooke Hammerling penned a guest column for Silicon Alley Insider, arguing that the Web video industry needs to come up with a strict viewership metric. Though she doesn't mention it in the piece, New York-based online-video startup NextNewNetworks is a Brew client. (It's disclosed, in tiny type, at the end.) We could ask why Henry Blodget is giving a self-interested company rep a soapbox, or why they couldn't fix the red eye in Hammerling's photo. But the real question is why Hammerling suddenly cares about online video analytics.

Who is Jayant Madhavan? Google would just as soon you not know. The programmer featured prominently in a recent post on SearchEngineWatch about a troubling new Web-search routine: Madhavan's research would have Google's bots attempt to fill in Web-based forms meant for humans, in an attempt to discover more Web pages to index. Madhavan's picture appears on a Google bio page describing his research. SearchEngineWatch's editors reproduced it next to their post. Google's control-freaky PR reps demanded SearchEngineWatch take it down.

Ricky Van Veen, founder of sophomoric entertainment site CollegeHumor, was surprised to see one of his inventions pop up in a box of promotional schwag for the new Grand Theft Auto IV game from Take Two Interactive. No, it wasn't some nifty new electronic gadget, but a simple foam fan hand — in the shape of the "shocker." Yes, the savvy Van Veen actually patented the thing. But no, he won't be suing:

Ticketmaster, the event-ticket retailer whose monopolies on venues and exorbitant fees are legendarily evil, has somehow garnered nearly 157,000 fans on Facebook. And by "somehow" I mean "created thousands upon thousands of fake accounts." At least that's according to the East Village Idiot, who did some digging and turned up some obvious fakesters, like the hilariously misspelled "Stebe Jobs." Look for Stebe to accumulate thousands of fans of his own as desperate Apple fanboys friend the account to show their undying faith in the real Jobs's techno-cult.

Climate change superstar Al Gore banned the press from his appearance Friday at the tail end of the RSA Conference on information security in San Francisco. The move seemed like a joke: Surely, Valleywag's editors reasoned, the roomful of high-IQ IT professionals carrying wireless communications devices into Gore's presentation would blog, tweet and shoot the whole thing. Gore would be streamed live to Qik via multiple videophones. No need for a pro journalist to sneak into Gore's talk and liveblog it, as I used to do with Steve Jobs keynotes. Web 2.0 had it covered. So what really happened? The only on-time account of the event came from CNET reporter Robert Vamosi, who used his conference speaker badge to get past security. Vamosi posted a thorough report less than an hour after Gore began. Hey Robert, didn't you get the memo? You're supposed to be out of work by now.

In the Moscone Center, former vice president and current Valley privateer Al Gore will be speaking at the RSA Conference 2008 today at 2:15 p.m. — but there's no press allowed. There will, however, be hundreds of people with top-of-the-line technology and at least a passing familiarity with cryptography and the like. Hacks in the press room have been overheard discussing plans to sneak in. Valleywag encourages anyone with Wi-Fi, EVDO, a Twitter account with SMS enabled or, better yet, a videophone that can live stream to Qik or another service to let us know where you're posting smuggled coverage of the speech. (Photo by Dan Spisak)

Reportedly started by a pair of heavy Digg users who were tired of landing stories they promoted to the front page and not getting paid for it, BuzzTemple PR is looking to recruit heavy users of social services from Digg to Facebook, AIM to Second Life. While the site promises "We are not and will never be 'Pay Per Post,'" the jobs on offer basically amount to shilling for clients online, and words like "disclosure" don't appear on the site. But then Edelman flack Steve Rubel's job is shilling for clients online, and that firm has paid for coverage. So, yeah, sounds like yet another PR agency.

In a transparent appeal to old folks, YouTube is kicking off a new "Living Legends" monthly series. First up? The creaky rockers from the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who chimes in while sitting on the john, are taking questions from the audience — "especially the burning ones." So if you need advice on what brand of topical analgesic reduces hip-swagger-induced soreness, or the best hemorrhoid cream for transcontinental flights, now's your chance. Video after the jump.

"The next big thing in consumer gadgets will be the 'Internet in your pocket,'" according to Intel's announcement reported in the New York Times today. Where did I read that line nine years ago? Oh, right.

Google today joined in the celebration of Israel's "Earth Hour" campaign by turning its background from white to black. Unfortunately, on LCD monitors sized 22 inches or less, Google's new black actually consumes more energy than its usual white one. But don't let that stop you from appreciating Google's touching tribute, reproduced in all its energy-sapping glory, below.

Congratulations, bloggers! OfficeMax has granted all of you — each and every one of you — "exclusive access" to top marketer Bob Thacker! You can meet him next Friday, in fact! And by "meet," OfficeMax means "listen to him read part of a speech on a conference call." A thought for all you bloggers: If you want exclusive access to Thacker, why not look up the number for OfficeMax's headquarters in Naperville, Illinois and just call him? Heck, I'll save you the work: 630-438-7800. That seems easier.

Once a year, I have trouble falling asleep, I'm just so excited. I say my prayers to the developers of OpenOffice, slide under the covers and just lay there thinking about all the documents I'll get to open in the morning. There'll be text documents, and spreadsheets — maybe even presentation slides! Only after a few hours of listening for the pitter-patter of comma-separated reindeer do I finally fall asleep. Well, that day is here again this year — Document Freedom Day! Google's Zaheda Bhorat can hardly contain her glee: