1. It turns out that Justin Timberlake now has a minor stake in MySpace thanks to that $35 million deal that went down yesterday. From his official statement: “Art is inspired by people and vice versa, so there’s a natural social component to entertainment. I’m excited to help revitalize Myspace by using its social media platform to bring artists and fans together in one community.” [via THR]
2. Diablo Cody will make her directing debut with Lamb of God, a comedy that’s based on a screenplay that she wrote about a conservative woman who loses her religion after a plane crash and decides to live the life of a sinner in Las Vegas, only to rediscover her faith. [via Deadline]
3. Remember Puck from The Real World? Of course you do, he was horrible! The LA Times reports that he remains in police custody after being arrested and charged in a domestic violence case earlier this week. Unfortunately, this is not the reality star’s first brush with the law; he has previously been charged with both battery and a DUI.
4. A new monthly comic book based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is due out in September from Bantam. The title will be illustrated by Tommy Patterson and scripted by Daniel Abraham (The Long Price Quartet). [via The Beat]
5. It now sounds like the long-awaited Jay-Z/Kanye West collaboration Watch the Throne won’t be released on July 4th, as had previously been rumored. Even though the album has been completed, a source reports that Kanye still needs to add “his last little pizazz.” [via Vulture]
Bonus link: Rock Stars and their Mustaches
Today at Flavorpill, we wanted to take a bite out of this incredibly tiny gay wedding cake by food artist Jessica Hlavac. We couldn’t believe the news that MySpace just sold for $35 million after News Corp. paid $580 million for the site back in 2005. We learned more details on Wilco’s forthcoming album, The Whole Love. We judged Lenny Kravitz and his cell phone. We were totally amused by this photo of the Pope using his iPad. We enjoyed watching The Fug Girls take on the Julia Roberts canon. We were impressed by James Brown’s performance of “Miso Up” in this ramen noodles commercial from the early ’90s. We saw two more images from the set of The Hobbit. And finally, we decided that we fully endorse the idea of pedal-powered school buses, as spotted in the Netherlands.
Ah, MySpace. It’s hard to believe that it was only five or six years ago when it was one of the most essential sites on the internet, a place to hear new bands and see some of the most headache-inducing layouts since the days of Geocities. With the news that Fleet Foxes are imploring MySpace to delete their page (they can’t log in and do it themselves, apparently), we got thinking about the early days of the site, when people were actually excited to join it, rather than desperate to get away from it. We had a look at the Wayback Machine and collected a few band sites from the early, innocent days of MySpace –- the good, the bad and the (very) ugly.
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A long, long time ago, way before the creation of copycats like MySpace or Facebook, there was Friendster, a social networking site launched by Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin nine years ago today. And while the website has become something of a joke in recent years (particularly in business school classrooms), at the time it was insanely popular, gaining three million users within the first few months, and subsequently, a $30 million buyout offer from Google, which was declined in the hope of eventual billions. There were even spin-off sites. Remember Dogster? Or Elfster?
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1. Christopher Nolan is looking to cast two major female roles in The Dark Knight Rises — a villain and a love interest. Among the actresses who are scheduled to test: Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, and Kate Mara. [via Heat Vision]
2. MySpace has officially begun the process of laying off around 500 people, but according to an anonymous tipster, the company worked them like dogs in recent weeks on a secret spin-off project called “Burn.” [via Gawker]
3. Sorry, AT&T. It’s not just the iPhone; Verizon will also get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network. Do you think Jon Stewart will be excited about that, too? [via BusinessWeek]
4. If you count the large number of people who DVR his show, Conan O’Brien is ruling late night TV among the under 50 set. Also interesting: The average age of Conan’s audience is 33, while Jon Stewart’s is 42, and Dave and Jay are 56.[via Vulture]
5. Just what the world needs: It’s the Kate Middleton and Prince William love story in comic book form, and it’s due out just in time for their wedding in April. [via Jezebel]
Bonus link: 22 Most Depressing Movie Couples
Today at Flavorpill, we smiled at this grandma-turned-super hero. We were shocked to find out that 200 students at the University of Central Florida had cheated on midterm. We took a tour of ultra-tiny, ultra-efficient house in Japan built on a 30-square-meter plot of land. We watched a clip about Staff Sgt. Salcatore Giunta, winner of the Medal of Honor. We dug these posters encouraging real social interaction. We got some more advice from another Princess, this time Snow White. We giggled along with the cast of Harry Potter as they showed off their American accents. We met Ashrita Furman, the proud holder of the record for most Guinness World Records. We pondered a new hourglass design for stoplights. We were reminded of Myspace’s existence just long enough to learn they’ve “surrendered” to Facebook. And finally we wondered what Doors frontman Jim Morrison would think about a posthumous pardon.
1. Watch last night’s opening sequence of The Simpsons, which was directed by Banksy. It’s more than a little dark. [via io9]
2. Disney will be screening a 23-minute preview of Tron: Legacy in movie theaters across the country at the end of the month. Tickets are free, and first come first serve. [via Den of Geek]
3. Not to be outdone by Snooki’s upcoming book, JWoww has signed a one-night deal to appear and perform on Spike TV’s TNA Impact wrestling show. [via TMZ]
4. Did you happen to see MySpace’s new logo? Probably not. Among other changes, the “My” is now in Helvetica instead of Arial and a fill-in-the-blank space to indicate the “space.” [via UnBeige]
5. Everything you ever wanted to know about HTML 5 but were afraid to ask. [via NYT]
Bonus link: See Lady Gaga’s Appearance on The Sopranos at Age 15
Today at Flavorpill, we debated what it means to be “so Brooklyn.” We compared the food in fast food ads with what you actually get on your plate. We laughed out loud over these photos of the dumbest T-shirts at Glenn Beck’s rally of crazies. We wanted to live in this pretty housing complex in the Netherlands that is made specially for musicians and features “parasitic music rooms and pyramid skylights” — even though we don’t play an instrument. We experienced The Bible as an 8-bit video game. We watched a decade’s worth of Ricky Gervais laughing. We were amused by the idea of hipster dinosaurs. We thought there was something kind of creepy about this underwater honeymoon suite in the Maldives. We wondered who still updates their MySpace page. And finally, we decided that if you need to hire someone to send you flowers and you-go-girl texts, then maybe you don’t deserve them in the first place.
If you’re like us, whenever you see the latest “Before They Were Famous” articles full of Brad Pitt and Miley Cyrus yearbook photos, you wish there were some Animal Collective or Neon Indian flashbacks as well. Drawing from this borderline stalker curiosity, we’ve compiled our own indie-version of the gossip magazine mainstay. Click through and learn how cool Beirut was as a kid, how Best Coast has an entrepreneurial spirit, and even how cute Julian Casablancas was as a baby! The things you can find on forgotten MySpace accounts…
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Tired of your online life? Want to see the actual sky again? Talk to real people using your words? Feeling lost in a sea of code? Just kill your(digital)self! Suicide Machine 2.0 will delete all of your online connections for you — Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn — while you watch on with glee. Supposedly, online death done this way is much cleaner than just deactivating your accounts — it’s more likely to deleted cached information as you defriend everyone you know one by one. And when it comes to suicide, the cleaner the better — but be careful. Once you click commit, there’s no going back. Check out the how-to video after the jump!
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