DISCUSSION: What is the future of alternative journalism? Find out tonight as experts Elizabeth Spiers, Jeff Koyen, Bob Cox and Roxanne Cooper tell you all about what they foresee. If you don't know who those people are, then you probably don't care about the future of alt media anyway. 6:30pm // New York City Center Studios [130 W 56th St] // $7 THEATER: In the Heights is a breezy new musical about the Latino experience......

VINYL SALE: If you're looking for some rare vinyl, you might want to check out this monthly event: Shakey's Record Fair. A meatpacking district locale seems...a little off, but as FreeNYC points out, if you're "looking for that super rare old school funktified 7"...Shakey's Record Fair is probably the only place you'll find it." 8pm // APT [419 W 13th St] // Free THEATER: Rules of the Universe is a new site-specific play performed in......

Perennial Gothamist favorite Elizabeth Spiers has returned to blogging for the second time with Dealbreaker, a Wall Street finance blog. Expectations are set very high-- after her work at Gawker and Mediabistro, people are expecting a home-run. Jason Calacanis, for one, is bullish: "Anway, if I could buy stock in a person I would buy EZSP..." and Blogebrity has pre-lubricated and suspended all publishing in preparation for the launch: "Years from now, you'll want......

After reading the review of Ana Marie Cox's new novel, Dog Days, in the Times yesterday (Cox got praise some of the satire, but the narrative itself was too formulaic), Gothamist wondered what about the other bloggers turned genuine, published (or about to be published) writers and their fates. Are a bunch of online fans enough to make a book successful? But what would be success? Critical praise or bestseller-dom? Link love from the blogosphere?......

Rachel Sklar, co-editor and writer of FishbowlNY...

Jessica Coen, Editor, Gawker.com...

Be warned, anyone who works in media or anyone who knows anyone who works in media or anyone who knows anyone who consumes media. Apparently, a line in the sand has been drawn between blogs that cover NY media - a line in the sand, people! Or at least that's what an article in the NY Times City section suggests. The facts: In one snarky corner, there's Gawker with snarky publisher Nick Denton and snarky......

Tonight @ Piano's check out the latest installment of Ritalin Readers taking part in Lindsay's Ritalin Reading Series: Sean T. Conrad Jessy Delfino Lynn Harris Will Leitch Elizabeth Spiers Tricia Sherrer Get there by 7pm or you might might miss one of their 4 minute vignettes. See if you can finish your beer before the reading is over! Short reads for right now: Several authors have posted short essays about their favorite songs over @......

The Daily News tries to explain what blogs are to their audience by introducing a number of New York area female bloggers (you know, 'cause are more approachable and if they can do it...). There's a cute picture of Lindsay Robertson online that quickly refutes the any ideas that girl bloggers are shut-ins and confirms their fondness for bars. Besides this site's XX factor, female bloggers featured are (in first name alphabetical) Amy Langfield, Blaise......

Maccers, Fembot...

Gawker notes that The Kicker is no more over at New York magazine's website, NYMetro.com. Instead when you click on The Kicker's URL, you are asked to rate restaurants, bars, and stores. Perhaps due to the new Era of Moss at New York, it's a sign that blogs, while useful and sometimes powerful, are maybe not as critical as once thought for traditional newspapers' and magazines' websites. Another issue was the fact that Elizabeth Spiers......

Elizabeth Spiers...

Astute readers may remember that our last essay on blogging (Gothamist Notes 1: What Not To Do When You Blog) generated a tidal wave of negative feedback not seen since the infamous Squawking 'Bout Gawker post of last fall. Chastened by the smack-down, we decided to go a less inflammatory route for our second thoughtpiece - predictions about things that will happen in our tiny, incestuous blogosphere in 2004. Feel free to add your own......

With about 40% of MTV's airtime devoted to commercials, Gothamist has no choice but to flip around when we're not watching, oh, Newlyweds or Rich Girls. So we only found out that Catherine Zeta Jones was doing a public service announcement for bulimia when we read the Times: "Sound familiar?" asks a voice with muted Welsh vowels. "If so, you may have bulimia. You cannot flush away your problems. It won't go away until you......

New York magazine threatens to go into Internet overload. Not only does Simon Dumenco mention six of the "most compelling" bloggers (Choire Sicha for Gawker, Maud Newton, Anil Dash, Nick Denton as blog impressario of the Gawker/Gizmodo/Fleshbot/Kinja empire, Jeff Jarvis, and Elizabeth Spiers for The Kicker; Dumenco says he expects "to be blogged to death" for his choices and the first shot comes from Gawker, which Gawker calls the piece a slobbery blowjob, though it......

The New York magazine blog, The Kicker, as written/edited by Elizabeth Spiers, has launched. In a beta form, at least. updated: The non-beta Kicker goes live. Gothamist's favorite kicks, as ever, are The Little Kicks. (Yes, we know what "The Kicker" is supposed to refer to...) See what we mean by seeing the clip.......

Media boo-boos: 1) The New York Times got the Motion Picture Association of America (the people who bring you stupid ratings for movies, headed by scary Jack Valenti) mixed up with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people who bring you the Oscars). The story about how studios are trying to curb piracy by not distributing "for your consideration" Oscar screener DVDS mistakenly called Jack Valenti the head of the "Motion Picture......

Squawking 'Bout Gawker
Elizabeth Spiers goes on another vacation and the blogosphere goes into a tizzy.
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Gothamist briefly stopped by the Puck Building where the NY Press was having its Summer Guide party. We were expecting a bevy of young, female, East Europeans immigrants to be surrounding a stumbling, incoherent Jeff Koyen, but we just saw extra-large t-shirts with Guinness emblazoned on them being handed out to bridge and tunnel types. We hope Elizabeth Spiers was there to learn Koyen some writing, but Gothamist was probably there too early (we wanted......

Thanks to what we must assume is the intervention of our friends Elizabeth Spiers and Nick Denton, Gothamist got a mention in an actual New York Times article, which hasn't happened since 1997: A New York State of Blog. Nick got quoted in the other blogging article that was running in the Times today. And somehow, Jonathan Van Gieson.com got mentioned in both articles, which makes me think that "Warren St. John" might be......

Nick Denton posted this call for Gizmodo and Gawker Interns. Gothamist provides some comments: "This is an advertisement for interns. [You're not getting any money, so forget about it, all of you still laid-off dot-commers.] Gawker and Gizmodo are niche media titles covering Manhattan culture and high-tech gadgets respectively [we're known by only hipsters and extreme geeks, respectively...make that would-be hipsters]. The interns would be working alongside Elizabeth Spiers at Gawker and Pete Rojas at......