Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

The Weinsteins Part Ways With aSmallWorld | Struggling movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob are selling off their controlling stake in the struggling social network aSmallWorld, according to the LA Times. (The buyer is Patrick Liotard-Vogt, an heir to the family that founded Nestle.) Clearly the site and Weinstein boys have both seen better days, and with the Weinstein Co. now focused on getting out from under a mountain of debt, presumably even a hundred-dollar bill for a site that hasn't been relevant in half a decade is better than nothing. But the saddest footnote to the story? In the three years that Harv owned part of the social networking site, he never found time to set up a profile, it seems:More

Cityfile: "So now that your sales are up—27 percent in the first quarter, you report—does this mean you'll be saving struggling media companies by buying airtime and running this commercial on cable?"
Nick Denton: "Funny what happens when a blog company tries to tell its own story. What does it use? Not the blog post, but video."

The myriad horrors that keep young, beautiful socialites awake at night? Chief among them may be that Evite just isn't exclusive enough. Thankfully, and just in time for the utter collapse of the American economic system, two gorgeous children of privilege have gifted the world with Paperless Post, a new web-based service which offers a chic alternative to the vulgar, populist electronic invitations already available online. Even better? It's members only, in order that it "grow organically through people who actually know each other." Chic, and sustainable! More

Twitter Craze: 2009-2009 | If you haven't signed up for Twitter yet, you may already be too late. According to data compiled by Nielsen Online, 60 percent of Twitter users abandon the service after the first month. [Nielsen]

Salma Hayek, Victim | Ever wish you could read through Salma Hayek's email? You can. Some hackers gained access to her account—her email address was shayek@mac.com—and saved screenshots of what they found. Enjoy. Or don't, and chalk it up to further evidence the Internet is rapidly destroying civilization as we know it. [Gawker]

Disability Seat Hall of Shame | If you see a man get on the subway with his foot in a cast and a crutches under his arms, and you happen to be sitting in a seat reserved for the disabled, get up and move. He might just take your picture and post it to his incredibly easy-to-remember blog. Unless, that is, you're elderly, "visibly pregnant," or you look like you have a disability, too, in which case you're safe. For now. [via Buzzfeed]

Matt Lauer Has Nothing on Diane Von Furstenberg | "While everyone and Matt Lauer has recently jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, did you know that Inside DVF has been twitting for quite some time?" We didn't, actually, but we were wondering what on earth gave Lauer the idea to start tweeting, and it's nice to finally have an answer. [DVF]

You didn't expect Russell Simmons to be counseling Ashley Dupre out of the kindness of his heart, did you? The pieces are beginning to come together: Dupre's heartfelt account of her new mentor and yoga master today just so happens to have coincided with Dupre's debut as a blogger on Simmons' news aggregation website GlobalGrind.com. And it's not just Ashley sharing her story on the site. Russell is now blogging about meeting Dupre for the first time, too—his piece is entitled "Meeting Miss Ashley"—and both articles are currently the featured stories on the site's homepage. For the past year, Hollywood studios, record labels, fashion brands, and adult movie companies have been running around in circles looking for ways to cash in on Dupre's infamy. But it looks like Russell is going to walk away with the PR victory.More

ASmallWorld Finds Its Niche | We're not sure what purpose ASmallWorld serves given the Euro-heavy social network was eclipsed by sites like Facebook years ago, but we finally understand the value of this ASW "magazine" that the faded site introduced a few months back: It's a fantastic vehicle for self promotion! The "mag" checked in with a handful of people to ask them what they'd recommend buying in honor of Valentine's Day. Any what do you know? Most of them proposed items that they produce themselves.  A few examples appear below. In the meantime, we eagerly await the upcoming food issue and Mario Batali's humble suggestion that we eat at Babbo every night.More

Arianna Snags Carl | Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown are locked in a bitter battle to line up high-profile contributors for their respective websites/blog networks, but it looks like Arianna will emerge as this week's winner: She's convinced cranky billionaire Carl Icahn to not only blog on his own site, but also post the same pieces on the Huffington Post. Now you can not read Icahn's boring missives on two sites instead of one!

Web Threatens Extinction of Human Race | According to a new study, 48 percent of women and 30 percent of men said they prefer the Internet to sex. (The 2,000 people questioned were asked which one they'd rather give up for a two week period.) You might want to take the findings with a grain of salt: The research was commissioned by Intel. [NYDN]

Stereohell, which made a splash recently for its phony ad campaign for American Apparel, is at it again: The subversive design collective's latest work is a proposal to turn investment banks into casinos on the Las Vegas strip. ("The banks didn't 'invest' but gambled... Everything looked under control and glamorous, like under the Las Vegas glittering neon.") The group's ambitious set of drawings and diagrams can be found here.  [Stereohell via AnimalNY]

More Cash for HuffPo? | So much for doom-mongering and talk of post-election crashes: The Huffington Post, founded by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, has supposedly landed $15 million in financing from Oak Investment Partners. Or maybe not! [PaidContent]

The secretive team behind the late, great SocialiteRank.com (backstory here) has returned to the Web. Or least that's what the founders of Astrocrack.com tell us. (And we're inclined to believe it, if only because the site is as wickedly funny as Socialite Rank once was and full of the same colorful collages.) It's an astrology site and promises to explain such mysteries as "why Leo ladies collect tens of thousands pounds worth of beauty products" and "why Virgo men bald faster than any other human beings." The email announcement is after the jump. More

Diane von Furstenberg, Blogger | Diane von Furstenberg is blogging—sort of. In the most recent entry on the DVF website, she welcomes the Standard Hotel to the meatpacking district (which, in case you haven't heard, is a "new luxe hotel" that's "minimalist chic but with a downtown NYC twist.") We're going to go ahead and place the blame on her assistant, though, for referring to the hotel's owner as "Andre Balaz." [DVF.com]