(elitedaily.com)

NASDAQ cops to "arrogance" and "overconfidence" in the lead-up to the Facebook IPO. [Wall Street Journal]

When will people learn that you can't sue Google for linking to something embarrassing? Otherwise the search engine would be worthless. [TechDirt]

Teens lie about what they do on the Internet. In other news, the sun rose in the east this morning. [TG Daily]

Conde Nast mags including Wired and The New Yorker are cooling on Flipboard, just as the Times ramps up its relationship. [AdAge]

A team of scientists managed to hack RSA's supposedly ultra-safe SecurID 800 security device, which we assume means more than a few Wall Street IT pros are being pulled into emergency planning meetings right this minute. [Ars Technica]

Microsoft buys Yammer, to the surprise of absolutely no one. [Microsoft Blog]

(Photo: Salon)

How does one properly convey just how miffed you are by a newspaper's attempt to make money? By starting a blog post thusly, "Fuckers I am so sick of reporting on incremental tech news for fucking two years now."

So began TechCrunch blogger Alexia Tsotsis' invective-laced late-night rant about the New York Times decision to bring its paywall over to Flipboard, written, if Ms. Tsotsis is to be believed, "in between the downing of tonight’s two bottles of wine." 

But yeah, The New York Times took a step towards the future this blasted Sunday night and all of us tech press are expected to cover it like lemmings. Fine. Sure. It’s a big deal, in a business that is slowly dying, to show an understanding of 21st century distribution mechanisms. Kudos NYT. You’re still worth less than Instagram. Hahahahhaha, lol (drink).

Bottoms up because there's more where that came from:

But still you, The New York Times, are way more important than I am, because you convinced Flipboard CEO Mike McCue to work with you early on, which by the timing of this post you could probably figure out that I couldn’t do (in time). Fail. But we’re still covering it because this is the first time Flipboard has offered a paywall option, and it shows a promising alternative revenue stream for both parties involved  … Welcome to the future, old media assholes.

Lest the reader forget just how personally put out she is by all this, Ms. Tsotsis also ends her post with a Kelis-inspired taunt.

If both Flipboard and The New York Times were public companies and you asked me to convert my invaluable Aol stock into either right now, one and a half bottles of wine deep, I’d instinctively go with Flipboard. Suck it, old media. And please die more slowly from now on, because I (clearly) hate you.

It's hard to pin down the source of Ms. Tsotsis' ire here. Is she upset that the New York Times is experimenting with a new way to finance its (actually invaluable) non-lemming news operation? Does she resent the tech blog as press release regurgitation model? Or does AOL have some swag quota TechCrunch has to fill by the end of the month?

Considering the post came so soon after Jeff Daniel's debut as HBO's own Howard Beale, however, we have to wonder if this isn't some kind of cross-promotional stunt with The Newsroom. Look, it's going viral: Everyone's smug-as-hell-and-leveraging-it-for-their-corporate-owners!

Zeen's splash page. (Photo: Zeen)

Having already succeeded in building two of the most spectacularly successful Internet companies of the modern age--PayPal and YouTube--what on earth do you do next? We'd be inclined to buy an island and never touch a computer again, but that's not the plan for Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who just announced that their digital magazine building platform, Zeen, will roll out next week.

Zeen is a part of AVOS, an Internet company helmed by the duo that acquired bookmarking tool De.licious last year. Precious little info is known about the mysterious Zeen. "Discover and create beautiful magazines," reads the sparse splash page.

Perhaps the biggest hints about Zeen's ethos come from its Facebook page, where avid fans have been posting about beta testing and wanting more information since April.

"Throw us a bone! :)," wrote one user a few weeks ago. Judging from other user comments, it seems as if Zeen has been beta testing with a few choice users, including one named Anna Looper who is planning on launching an heirloom flea market.

"I got my Zeen thank you note and tshirt today. The thank you note is signed by the cool Zeen team. They will be ultra famous soon so I'm keeping the letter in a protected spot," she wrote. "Happy to be in the beta testing for 10 garden bloggers chosen for the sample magazines. I have two sites with them. Flowergardengirl and the other Flea Market Gardens where I'll be showcasing heirloom and vintage style. Not going to be anything ya'll have ever seen or dreamed up."

Ms. Looper seems to see Zeen as an alternative to blogging, which hints at the platform's offerings--perhaps a lightweight, easily-editable text and design editor, like a user-controlled Flipboard?--but still doesn't tell us much.

What we do know is that Zeen's founders have been apparently seduced by the dream of old media. Who can blame them? Magazines are so much prettier and glossier than blogs.

Betabeat obtained what appear to be screenshots from The Fancy for Flipboard, which has not been released. Flipboard allegedly commissioned the app in January, according to a source, and would have been The Fancy's first API customer. The source speculated that Flipboard prioritized its Pinterest integration first. (Pinterest is a The Fancy competitor.)

Flipboard may still be planning to introduce The Fancy integration. We've reached out to Fancy and Flipboard for comment and will update if we hear back. (UPDATE: Joe Einhorn of The Fancy declined to comment on Flipboard, but he said The Fancy does have an API and is working with partners. Said Flipboard: "We think the Fancy is doing great work and hope to work with them at some time. We are heads down right now with several new  additions to Flipboard.") In the meantime, check out what The Fancy on Flipboard would have, or will eventually, look like.

UPDATE: The FTC said, via Twitter, that it does not plan to investigate Mr. Kutcher.

With the scintillating cover line "Forget Hollywood: Ashton Kutcher is Silicon Valley's Secret Weapon," the latest issue of Details tries to make the case that @aplusk is an investor first and an actor second. No surprise here, after all Mr. Kutcher recently described the kind of mentorship he offers start-ups in his portfolio, telling TechCrunch:

"There are certain people in the media world that can be really, really influential to a company. And I can kind of get a return phone call from most people that I place a call to. That level of introduction for people when they’re first starting out a company can become extremely valuable.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Kutcher his "extremely valuable" skill may end up running him afoul of the feds, reports Bits blog's Nick Bilton.

Along with the cover, you see, Details handed Mr. Kutcher the role of guest-editor for "The Social Issue." The special online-only edition, available via Details Facebook page (that's one way of making "friends"!), touts a number of hot tech start-ups, including Airbnb, Flipboard, and New York native Foursquare. But it fails to mention that Mr. Kutcher is an investor, beyond the throw-away line in the intro that he “puts his money where his mouth is, backing many of the companies he champions here.”

In fact, earlier this week, Gawker counted eight investments and two "business entanglements" among the 12 products recommended in the issue.

Now, after talking to the FTC and legal experts, Bits reports that Mr. Kutcher could be up for investigation for his failure to disclose those relationships. If any of those start-ups were planning to raise money through an initial stock offering, for example, Mr. Kutcher should have been in an SEC-mandated "quiet period." SEC rules governing trading of private shares on the secondary market also apply.

Earlier New York Times coverage of the mutually beneficial relationship between Details and Mr. Kutcher (they look like they understand the internet, he gets to hawk his companies to consumers) glossed over the editorial indiscretion. But disclosure rules have gotten stricter since a 2009 law requiring bloggers and social media types to disclose ties to companies and products they write about. Richard Cleland, assistant director of the division of advertising practices at the Federal Trade Commission told Bits:

“If you’re out there promoting individual products that you have a specific investment in, it needs to be disclosed. If you have a significant economic investment that is not otherwise apparent, that may potentially affect the credibility of your endorsement, and I see that as a potential problem.”

However, Mr. Cleland did mention that he was speaking about endorsements in an editorial context. Guess that means @mrskutcher, whose tweets have been known to put her husband's start-ups on the map, is in the clear.