The story of Bonnie Brown, a San Francisco-based masseuse, just blew my mind. Her life turn, for the better (oh!, way better), happened thanks to Google.

Get this:

Through happenstance, Mr. Brown answered an ad for an in-house masseuse part-time job at Google. That was in 1999, when the company had 40 employees. Fast-forward to 2007 and Brown is about to publish: “Giigle: How I got Lucky Massaging Google.”

Brown no longer rubs geeks’ backs. The shares she was offered when she joined the company making $450 weekly made her a multimillionaire. Now a world traveler who lives in a 3,000-sf house in Nevada, Brown is one of about 1,000 people who have each made more than $5 million worth of Google shares from stocks grants and options, according to The New York Times. (Last week the company stock hit its all-time high of $747.24.)

The reporter spoke to several Google employees, not identified by name, who gave her the whole Googley etiquette when it comes to skyrocketing stocks, cashing out and changes in life styles.

Here is what the reporter – Katie Hafner –  learnt:

“It isn’t considered ‘Googley’ to check the stock price.” So, wrote the reporter, the stock price does not matter (Oh! I see…).

“It’s very clear that people are taking nicer vacations,”…

“One of the guys … showed up at work in a really, really nice new car.”
Google’s 104  employees cashed out a couple of years ago. After selling all his stock, he became a venture capitalist, philanthropist and a documentary filmmaker, chronicling now (just guess…) homelessness in Santa Monica, Calif.

That’s Googley!

There is no doubt that Brazilian top-model Gisele Bundchen seamless proportion stir jealousy among women. Some Wall Street titans might share a similar feeling. (Keep in mind that she takes home $30 million a year). Now she is showing off her prowess in forex.

La Bunchen’s latest move signals a new take on investing. According to The Wall Street Journal, the beauty demanded that all her contracts be valued in euros instead of dollars (one euro is buying 1.4558 dollars today).

Back in August, Procter & Gamble’s Pantene had to rework its contract to have La Bundchen’s ringlets promote the brand. 

 Can’t afford a studio apartment in New York? Try shopping for a one-bedroom then.

Get this: Per some estimates, the square footage of studios in some Manhattan neighborhoods is more expensive than that of one-bedroom apartments.

Go figure.

Pulling data from Radar Logic, a real estate data analysis firm, The New York Times reported that studios in the financial district are selling for $1,012, compared with $948 a square foot for one-bedrooms.
“The studio market has been so strong that it sort of counters the underlying axiom of real estate in New York that there’s a premium placed on larger spaces and that one plus one equals two and a half,” Jonathan Miller an executive vice president and the director of research of Radar Logic told the Times.

Demand for studios is stronger and the offer, while slower to pick up, is more diverse, at least when size is considered. Luxury condos have propelled the size of studios that now appeal not only to home buyers, but also to investors, purchasing those pieds-a-terre. The $1million studio is not frowned upon time and again. It has become ordinary (How can I live in this city????). At the (new) Plaza a studio was sold by over $2 million just recently.
Still, there are not so many studios in the market, since buyers have bought neighboring apartments to expand their studios, converting them into bigger apartments.
Yet, in the uber volatile New York real estate market, studios remain a risky choice because “In a really hot market, they will be overvalued on a per-square-foot basis,” Adam Rosen, president of Rose Associates, which develops and manages apartment buildings across the city, told the Times. “But in a soft market, they’re worthless, because everyone who can afford it will shift to a one-bedroom.”

I wish I was somebody like Dae-Hoon Kim, a 29-year-old lawyer and also film student (l love the diverse interests) who just bought a 680-square-foot studio at the Plaza for $1.4 million to live for “just a couple of months,” and make money out of it afterward. It amazes me how buying power can make the same world look so different to from one person to another. “It’s the Plaza Hotel, and the price per square foot was a pretty decent deal, especially considering the name and the location.”

 (Oh Lord! Please forgive him)

It didn’t take long for Nick Denton to react to Grigoriadis’ “Everybody Sucks” cover feature at New York magazine Oct. 22. issue. For him, having his gossip blog profiled in “one of the last bastions of old-school journalism” is “something of a rite of passage.”
His tone hints annoyance at the announcement of his sexual inclinations in the piece in addition to the printing of information about writers having sex, “occasionally with each other,” and doing drugs. But what he got really mad about was the use of the word “bile” to qualify Gawker approach towards its subjects.
To get back at award-winning profile writer Grigoriadis, Denton dug into the piles of articles written about Gawker.com and sister site Wonkette, a D.C. gossip Web site. Ironically, he pointed out what Slate’s Jack Shafer wrote:

“Are these blogs a part of the better world we hope to leave to our sons and daughters? Well, yes, if we intend for our children to grow strong from sucking bile instead of milk.” [Slate, March 2004]

Acknowledging that the new journalism is indeed solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, Denton says that his creation is “a proxy for this harsh and competitive new world, because the gossip site covers the death agonies of Manhattan’s old-line media industry, without much respect for the club’s cosy rules.”

But he doesn’t want to take all the blame, so he invokes other kings of insult like Perez Hilton and TMZ.com for reassurance.
It is a fact that public acts of slur exert some sort of fascination over people. No wonder I am chattering about the Gregoriadis-versus-Denton brouhaha. But at some point enough is enough.

So, bloggers: Let’s  exercise some constraint with the power of the pen. There must be some other ways to be humorous and alternative outlets to exorcise our demons.

“Any publicity is good publicity” seems to be Nick Denton’s mantra.
If you haven’t heard of Denton, check www.gawker.com, a five-year old blog that is setting the tone in the blogosphere.

With nearly 20 call-outs filled with insults, borrowed from Gawker.com, New Yorkmagazine’s profiled the blog and the man behind it in its cover story. “Greasy, Self-absorbed hipster,” “that skeletor,” “loser,” and “bloated has-been,” are some of the mockery printed on Oct. 22 issue cover.

Writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, one of the many deprecated by Gawker, took matters on her on hands and set out to discover why Denton and his lieutenants are fuming. Grigoriadis was undeterred by the Briton’s declining her request for an interview. She spoke to Gawker former and present writers, and several disgraced subjects of the gossip blog.

“The moment that he told me that he would not conduct an official interview with me, and I said I’d continue reporting without him, was perhaps the only one where I’ve seen him express emotion. For a split second, he was furious. His eyes flicked back and forth over mine like a metronome, searching for some clue to what I was planning, what angle I might be playing, and he spat out his denial with the intensity of a losing tennis player,” Gregoriadis wrote in her cover piece.

But she did not escape what she called the “Culture of the Bile.” Here is what Gawker wrote about her:

“Grigoriadis writes for New York Magazine. Her last article was entitled, ‘You Too Can Be a Celebrity Journalist!’ With that kind of work and the newfound fame that comes with a Times wedding announcement, she’s on the fast track to teaching a class at The Learning Annex.”

 (Ouch!)

Getting back on Denton, not only on her behalf, but on behalf of hordes of disgruntled journalists – some dubbed “slutty and increasingly sundamaged” – Grigoriadis covered her basis and put together “Everybody Sucks,”a 6,000-plus-word profile of Gawker and Denton, the former Financial Timesjournalist who created it. Some traces of the picture Grigoriardis painted, without her main subject cooperation:

“the complicate owner of the blog network Gawker Media;”
“attractive, upper-class gay Jewish Britton;”
“occasional unpleasantness with employees;”
“polite, quiet, and relentlessly confident, an effective poised leader whose true nature is amoral reckless, an unrufflable libertarian and libertine.”
“like Tina Brown, with whom he was intrigued in the past, he’s always loved using his position to playcast a social network with himself at the center.”

Journalists, publishing people, media junkies and God knows who else have talked to exhaustion about the end of print. If a Gawker-like scenario is what the future holds for journalists, make this Gregoriadis riff your mantra:

“In an insult culture, shamelessness is a crucial attribute.”

 A journalist myself, I am perplexed. But I have to say that the fact that Gawker took over New York magazine cover is definitely a sign of the times.

Following British band Radiohead’s proclamation of independence from record labels, closing its affiliation with EMI Group, it is now Madonna who is giving the cold shoulder to its recoding company of 23 years Warner Music.

Radiohead decided to go solo, releasing its latest album Rainbows through its own Web site and let fans decided how much to pay for the songs. Madonna is about to sign a 10-year deal, worth of $120 million, with Live Nation. The deal involving cash and stock give the the concert promotion company three albums, still to be produced, and exclusive rights to promote the Material Girl’s concerts and market her merchandise.

Here are the general terms of the possible agreement: $17.5 million and advance payments for three albums of $50 million to $60 million and $50 million in cash and stock for the right to promote her concert tours.

Reported first on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site yesterday, the deal signals how tides are shifting in the music industry. Tanking CD sales alone no longer cut in the music industry. Recording labels and concert promoters are now striving for deals that include everything that can bear the artist’s brand – from albums, to publishing to merchandising to endorsement fees.

Following to The Wall Street Journal breaking the news, major publications followed the story, which was rumored first over the summer.

Now, others music artits are following suit, putting record labels, already hurting, in an even more dangerous zone. According to The New York Times, the band Eagles is selling its new album directly to Wal-Mart stores. And the Telegraph reported that band Jamiroquai and Oasis are considering doing the same. Last month, Warner’s stock fell as low as $9.41 –– almost 66 percent bellow its high mark of $27.24 in November 2006.

Meanwhile, Life Nation, a spin off from Clear Channel Communications, is trying to morph into a full service music company since getting just 10 percent of ticket revenues will make ticket sales alone a hard bet to generate return on the investment, even considering that Madonna makes more money on her tours than on her albums (her 2006 “Confessions” tour grossed $194 million).

Wait and see a horde of Madonna branded products might be the way to make it out for the investment. Get ready for a batch of ringtones, fragrances, concert video downloads, features on wireless carries, etc…

Undeniably, though, there is no shortage of optimism around the music industry, and why not mention, aging-effect reversing techniques. Keep in mind that when that marriage between the protein blonde and Life Nation ends, she will be pushing 60!

Branding is sacred, and The Ten Commandments seem to be in need of a marketing push. Members of a Christian group, dismayed by the results of a survey of 1,000 Americans, are speaking up.

“Knowing and loving the Ten Commandments empowers people and feeds their souls, while knowing the contents of a famous hamburger, at most, only feeds the stomach,” said Dr. Ron Wexler, president of the Ten Commandments Commission, in a press release.

Got it? Yes, marketers promoting an animation movie of The Ten Commandments took theirs and other people’s time to establish a correlation between The Ten Commandments and the ingredients of a Big Mac. The random survey showed that respondents could recall both the Big Mac ingredients and the members of the fictional TV series Brady Bunch family more easily than they could name the Ten Commandments.

Those craving for more, take this:

The vast majority of those surveyed could easily name the primary ingredients in a Big Mac: Two all beef patties (80%), lettuce (76%), sesame seed bun (75%), special sauce (66%), pickles (62%) and cheese (60%).

Even those who attend a place of worship at least once a week had a bit of trouble naming all ten. “Thou shalt not kill” (70%) and “Thou shalt not steal” (69%) are still less top-of-mind with this group than the top two ingredients in a Big Mac – two all beef patties and lettuce. (Oh! Lord).

The Ten Commandments (the movie) will be the first film in the “Epic Stories of the Bible,” produced by Promenade Pictures and Motive Entertainment.

The general assumption surrounding the so-called housing
bubble is that it will burst. This may be accurate in as much as it denotes a
nationwide decline in property prices. The rate of decline is manifesting
itself already and perhaps a more accurate description would be a cooling
rather than a burst. By many estimates, the total decline will total 20%, which
would match market prices of two years ago.

A 20% overall decline in market value of real estate will
still represent a net gain for non-investor homebuyers who purchased properties
more than 2 years ago. In fact, it is this group that will keep the price drop
from exceeding the 20% mark. After all, people will still need a place to live.
The market will still exist. The question is will, real estate continue to be a
safe bet as an investment.

Real estate investment however, is not a single-track
business venture and therefore cannot be condemned as categorically
unprofitable. According to Lavoisier, in every losing proposition, someone has
to win. Who wins in the real estate game when homeowners lose? The players are
pre-construction builders, rental landlords, large landowners, and flippers.

Experienced investors will try to pick up properties at 70%
below market value in order to turn a profit. According to projections then,
real estate is probably no longer the safest investment option. Now, the three
causes of the housing bubble are low mortgage rates, loose lending practices,
and speculative investment. Supposing the investment originated as mortgage
salvage, the equation changes.

Pre-construction builders are struggling to find new
investors with the rise of materials. Perhaps the only remaining segment of the
real estate market that still manages to survive is the pre-foreclosure
investment market. Reputable pre-foreclosure investment courses like those sold
by Lance Young and other online gurus continue to sell very well and
testimonials pour in.

Of course, this investment alternative remains viable only
to those willing to take the time to learn the ropes and take the risk. For the
rest of us, the wisest real estate investment remains buying the house you plan
on living in for a long time.