While in Los Angeles today at the AlwaysOn OnHollywood conference, BoomTown ran smack into blogging empress Arianna Huffington.

She was there to give a speech called “Video Killed the Radio Star…But Can the Web Actually Save Journalism?”

Her answer was a decided yes, especially with great journalists working online, such as the new managing editor of the Huffington Post the mega-blog has just hired.

That would be former CNET Networks Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh, who quit the company last year after a dozen-year run.

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Yesterday, in response to Associated Press board Chairman and MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton’s diatribe against those who shoplift news and his pledge to “protect news content from misappropriation,” Google posted a response on its public policy blog. Of course, that has nothing to do with the fact that most people think the Singleton speech was aimed at the search giant and its burgeoning power over the distribution of media, although Google was not named by him. Still, it’s always nice to make nice. Sort of.

So, it was hard to resist translating this Google blog by one of its lawyers.

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Don’t miss this weekend’s New York Times piece about the online love match made by a well-known law professor blogger, Ann Althouse, and a longtime commenter on her blog, Laurence Meade, who was smitten by her bon mots

After reading the rest of the story about how they met in digital comments and their relationship slowly moved to analog, it’s hard to imagine that people are going to hook up any other way but online in the future.

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The hubbub that was created around a rumor that was floated that Twitter was in “late-stage” negotiation to be acquired by Google last week–which BoomTown reported was premature–definitely resulted in one certainty.

Every business development exec in media and tech rushed to lob in a we’re-interested-too communication to its founders, creating an email tsunami directed at the hot microblogging service.

While it cannot stop the suitors from asking for its hand, Twitter’s leaders have to decide if the microblogging service wants to marry now and forever hold its peace or get back to work and ignore all of its urgent swains.

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While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

More importantly, said another source about the idea of an imminent acquisition or serious acquisition or even early talks: “Seriously, no negotiations, no deal, nada.”

So for all those Twitterers madly typing 140 characters and caught up in the grand idea of Twoogle, we return you to your regularly scheduled tweeting.

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The national PR tour of Twitter co-founder How-To-Succeed-in-Biz-Without-Really-Trying Stone continues tonight with a television appearance that is sure to be tasty.

Stone–who has clearly become the chatty spokesmodel for the hot microblogging service at public events all over the place of late–is set to be a guest on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

I have no doubt it will be snarktastic–video to be posted later, but here is a video of Stephen Colbert on the Internet and Jon Stewart of the “The Daily Show” on Twittermania.

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Facebook cried uncle this afternoon–but just a teeny, tiny, little bit–by announcing in a company blog that it had made tweaks to its recent redesign in response to massive user unhappiness over the changes.

We’re talking very tweaky, though, and not back-to-the-future stuff. As in, the new look is here to stay.

Nonetheless, the social-networking site also said it would give users more control via better filtering tools of the stream of information that Facebook has focused on making more prominent–and which some say makes the service look too much like a morbidly obese version of the hot microblogging site, Twitter.

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Self-described Teletubby, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sure knows how to make things dramatic.

For the second time, after a foot fracture, his continued appearance on the ABC celebrity show “Dancing With the Stars” appears in jeopardy, due to an apparent hamstring injury he suffered at practice on Friday.

Curiously, a picture of Woz on a stretcher and an update of his injured status were taken off his Woz.org blog sometime over the weekend (I saw the picture on Saturday night on my iPhone, but it is impossible to find now).

Also previously 86ed was a letter he had posted and then unposted about his contention that some vote-rigging was taking place on the show.

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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz declared reorg today on the company’s corporate blog, Yodel Anecdotal.
Here is her entire memo:
Getting our house in order
Posted February 26th, 2009 at 9:16 am by Carol Bartz, CEO
A month and a half in the saddle and today I have the perfect excuse to get blogging.
I’ve been on a whirlwind tour for [...]

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A few weeks ago, BoomTown got a rather compelling email from Marion Vermazen, who once worked at Sun Microsystems with new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz–and where Bartz actually fired Vermazen.

Her take on the experience?

“Amazing,” said Vermazen, given how Bartz handled it herself–driving 30 minutes to Vermazen’s office–in a very straightforward way.

In other words, a kinder, classier Donald Trump “Apprentice” style, but without the cameras and bad hair.

It’s instructive now, given that Bartz is likely to have to give several big Yahoo execs the heave-ho in the days ahead as she unveils her new management structure soon.

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Well-known pundit and entrepreneur John Furrier has a new blog called siliconANGLE, which went live yesterday and which he said will be a “collaboration blog for friends and colleagues.”

The site will cover the social Web and also tech trends, but Furrier said it will try for “deeper” analysis of the news.

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Recently, BoomTown had a lovely lunch with PBS new media blogger Mark Glaser.

Glaser is a longtime free-lance journalist whom I first noticed when he wrote a weekly column for the USC Annenberg School of Communication’s Online Journalism Review, post-Web 1.0 bubble, as well as for the most excellent “Media Grok” daily email newsletter for the now-defunct Industry Standard back in the midst of the froth.

He was always able to cut through that with a clear-headed tone–while maintaining a respect for what was good about traditional journalism, as well as an excitement about the possibilities of new media. Here’s a video interview I did with Glaser about where new media is today.

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Under cover of darkness last night, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on the social-networking site’s blog that it would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Oh, this is just too good to resist. Therefore, BoomTown shall not tarry in our ongoing job of busting the chops of the young Facebook leader, whose minions have actually–and I am not joking here–given him the nickname: The Wizard.

Well, the Wizard obviously had to pull back the curtain last night and show some serious mea culpa to the people, before they got out the pitchforks.

Here’s a translation of Zuckerberg’s message.

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Late tonight, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a blog entry, saying the popular social-networking site would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Facebook has been embroiled in a controversy this week about its Terms of Service–essentially, a Web site’s rules that users must abide by while using its online service–after changes gave it more sweeping rights over customers’ content and privacy.

Now, in full backtrack mode, Zuckerberg said a new “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” was on the way and asked for user input.

Viva La Revolución! I vote for no more SuperPoking!

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With a new administration coming into power, it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to launch its new “Microsoft on the Issues” blog this week.

But, so far, with only two posts and few comments, it’s a tad dry–and, by that, I actually mean dull–and in desperate need of some spicy sauce to jazz up the joint.

Here are some modest BoomTown suggestions for livelier posts (including a Ballmer “BOMB-er” blog).

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