The online classifieds Web site is shutting down its “Erotic Services” section under pressure from state and local officials from around the country. In its place, Craigslist will open an “adult” category. It promises to keep said area cleaner by having employees sweep it periodically for ads that are obviously soliciting prostitution, etc. It won’t keep Craigslist free of bad stuff, but it may make it harder to find.

Read More »

The newspaper industry wants help from Washington. But it’s not going to get it anytime soon. That’s the takeaway from a Congressional hearing yesterday, where some industry executives pleaded their case–specifically, that they need a change in antitrust law to survive. But if they were thinking that the Obama administration would be receptive to that sort of thing, they got a swift rebuke.

Read More »

That was quick. Time Warner Cable is shelving plans to charge its Internet customers based on usage. For now, that is.

The cable giant had planned on charging customers in four locations on a “consumption” plan in which they’d pay between $15 to $150 a month based on the amount of data they hoovered via the Web. But noisy opposition to the plan surfaced immediately and has been getting louder over the past few weeks.

Read More »

More drum-beating from Eric Massa, the Democratic congressman who has decided to make an enemy/example out of Time Warner Cable, which wants to charge its broadband customers based on their Web usage. The New York rep says he’ll introduce a bill that will prevent Time Warner and other pipe providers from “capping” their broadband offerings.

Read More »

A New York congressman has a message for cable companies that want drop their all-you-can-eat broadband Internet plans: Don’t even think about it. That instruction comes from Rep. Eric Massa, a Democrat who represents the Rochester area, and it’s aimed specifically at Time Warner Cable, which is starting to experiment with broadband “caps” in Massa’s hometown. But any of the big Internet pipe players contemplating charging their users on a per-use basis–and most of them are–can expect to get similar blowback from lawmakers.

Read More »

I’m sure the notion of George Stephanopoulos interviewing the former presidential candidate using some newfangled technology sounded like a great idea at first blush. But if anyone had thought it through, they’d realize that Twitter is great for a lot of things — but one-on-one chats isn’t one of them.

Read More »

The AP fires back at Shepard Fairey, the artist whose iconic Obama poster riffs off (or rips off, depending on your perspective) one of its photos. Click through for the court filing, and a handy picture gallery.

Read More »

The Huffington Post, the liberal response to Matt Drudge, has had an amazing ride in the last 12 months. Has it capped it off by raising another $15 million? Depends on who you ask. Also unknown–how the site will fare when there’s no George W. Bush to kick around.

Read More »

This won’t erase the sting of this month’s election, but at this point, every win must feel nice: John McCain’s eldest daughter Sid just got a promotion at EMI Music Group, the big label where she’s worked for many years. She’s now VP of Label Services, which, best as I can tell, means she’ll work with the indie bands that work with EMI’s Caroline arm.

Read More »

Remember last week? When, in the aftermath of a historic presidential election, things were so giddy it seemed that even newspapers might be valuable again–at least as collector’s items? Well, that’s over.

Read More »

Who says newspapers are dead? New York has three dailies, and it’s impossible to buy any of them at newsstands today, according to an informal channel check conducted by … me. Capitalism/speculation to the rescue: An eBay seller is asking a mere $19.99 plus $3.99 shipping costs for a copy of today’s edition of The New York Times. Any takers?

Read More »

Two early winners in today’s voting: Mark Zuckerberg’s social network and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream–both of which are going to get plenty of exposure tonight and in the days to come.

Read More »

That was fast.

The recent resurgence of “Saturday Night Live,” spurred by Republican VP candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her comic doppelgänger, Tina Fey, may already be over.

How do I know? Well, there’s the gut check–I watched most of Saturday’s show, which didn’t feature Palin or Fey, and it was a snoozer (the absence of new mom Amy Poehler probably didn’t help either).

But we can also gauge the reaction of Internet users, thanks to the good folks at TubeMogul, a small start-up that specializes in tracking Web video views.

And the results are not so good.

Read More »