The big market for us is the trade media. Companies like Reed Elsevier, Nielsen, Incisive and Informa play in this market, not these blogs.

And Ali is putting forward this odd ambition even as Hollywood solons are looking at an industrywide downturn, and their spokesrag Variety is for sale by Reed Elsevier. To quote another So. Cal.-based journo who's made a name for herself chasing personal foibles on a blog, Nikki Finke, "[W]hat if someone buys Variety and turns it into a real news-gathering operation and not just an echo chamber for the powers-that-be that control showbiz?" Seems both Ali and Arrington are aiming for the weakest members of the herd.

The other new hire will be a senior sales manager, who previously worked in a similar position at Forbes according to a source familiar with the company. (Forbes sales contact Kevin Getzel is my wild guess.) Also, the board of directors will be adding a new member, "a well known name in entertainment and media." And what convinced Richardson to give up his good works in Africa? Death threats from armed rebels. Sounds to me like a smart move. (Photo by John Abbott)

For the record, Valleywag is seeking to raise $10 million. What? For an equity stake in this blog? Are you an idiot? Nick Denton doesn't toss around shares like that Craig Newmark twit. We're hoping someone will just give us the goddamn money and go away.

Although there's evidence of many fake press releases floating around the Internet, the scam first came to the attention of Silicon Alley Insider because one particular release mentioned Internet television, a must-cover topic on its beat. But "the world's first broadcast-quality Internet television service" raising an alleged $45 million, profitable and yet no one's heard of it? SAI managing editor Peter Kafka's eyebrows were raised.

Alas, no eyebrow raisings took place at VentureBeat or PEHub, which were suckered despite PaidContent's observation that the HD AmeriTV announcement was a ripoff of a Joost release.

The confusion was exacerbated when these bloggers contacted First Mutual Credit, the only real company listed as an investor for confirmation. Two separate sources initially confirmed First Mutual's investment, but the New Zealand company has since denied any involvement. (Maybe it was that strong Kiwi accent.)

Several other fake companies and fake press releases have been identified. But what is the scam in advertising a nonexistent company? Peter Kafka, who has been closely tracking the story for Silicon Alley Insider, is stumped, but we think he's already stumbled upon the answer: Fake press releases get picked up by a host of PR-aggregating sites that profit off of Google AdSense ads.

Fake blogs already remix existing blog posts to generate nonsensical pages that nonetheless turn up in Google search results and display Google-sold ads targeted to relevant keywords. Press releases filled with buzzwords make even more lucrative fodder for AdSense.

So who makes money here? Press release aggregators like PR Leap would never admit it, but their cash register rings whether or not their press releases are accurate. And the perpetrators of the HD AmeriTV press release? There's no proof, but we smell a search-engine optimization scam, where they get paid by clients to try to improve the ranking of websites by seeding the Web with fake pages.

There's a simple solution, of course: don't read press releases ... real or fake.