Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

That’s not much of a surprise, given the relentless marketing campaign by the makers of “The Social Network,” which opened wide last Friday. It has garnered terrific critical acclaim.

Still, BoomTown was quite surprised to see a mention of the film on one of my favorite celebrity sites, TMZ.com.

Of course, because it is gossip-saturated, TMZ featured it as one of its naughty regular features called “Who’d You Rather?”

As in…well, you get the point.

This time they pitted Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg against the Winklevoss twins in a “Facebook Fight.”

“As part of the movie ‘The Social Network,’ twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss claim their Harvard [University] classmate Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea and created what is now this little website called Facebook,” TMZ wrote.

Also surprising, as you can see from the screenshot above, given what hunks of dudeness the Winklevii clearly are, is that Zuckerberg seems to be attracting one-third of the votes compared with their two-thirds.

And since there are two of them, the billionaire social networking wunderkind could be considered tied with the brothers!

Sweet justice after the slamming the Winklevii have been giving Zuckerberg in the media of late, even though they had signed a confidentiality agreement after their first $65 million settlement with him?

The Winklevii are trying to have that overturned and are inexplicably going for more, of course, which should keep the themes of the movie resonating for a while.

That will also be true if “The Social Network” garners some award nominations, especially the Oscar.

Also interesting will be to see if the movie will perform well this weekend or will drop off. It’s so far proved popular in the big cities on the coasts and in Silicon Valley, but now it has to go wide to make some real dough.

But, for sure, it will be on television eventually. Today, the FX cable network said it had bought the broadcast premiere rights to the movie.

That’s not the $242 million VirnetX sought when it first sued in 2007, but it’s a substantial sum–and it could increase. If Microsoft’s infringement is found to be willful, the damage award could be tripled.

Microsoft (MSFT), which views VirnetX’s patents as dross and the company itself as a patent troll, said it will challenge the court’s decision. “We respect others’ intellectual property, and we believe the evidence demonstrated that we do not infringe and the patents are invalid,” Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a statement. “We believe the award of damages is legally and factually unsupported, so we will ask the court to overturn the verdict.”

And the industry will no doubt be rooting for the software giant to succeed. Because if Microsoft is vulnerable to an action like this, then presumably, other companies using VPN technology are as well.

“Any time you can successfully enforce a patent against a behemoth like Microsoft, it opens the door for more lawsuits,” patent attorney Cole Stuart told Nick Eaton at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, which has been doing a great job covering the case. “It’s called ‘rolling up the industry.’ If it’s a technology Microsoft uses, it’s likely other companies use it.”

Last week, BoomTown translated an opinion piece written by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published in The Wall Street Journal that focused on defending the search giant from criticism that it was, well, killing journalism.

One of the louder critics, in fact, has been Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp. (NWS), who has been loaded for bear in regard to Google (GOOG), leveling a series of high-profile verbal attacks on the company.

Last week, Murdoch published his own piece in The Journal, which he owns (along with this Web site), on the topic of the wrenching changes in the news business and in which he never mentioned Google by name.

But the company was there anyway, so, in the interests of equal opportunity balloon-pricking, I must also render Murdoch’s post through my decoding machine, because it’s only sporting!

His op-ed, The Journal noted, “has been adapted from his Dec. 1 remarks before the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop on journalism and the Internet.”

What Murdoch wrote: Journalism and Freedom

By RUPERT MURDOCH

Translation: Crikey, as they say in Australia, I have been getting a little wobbly over Google’s growing power, but those bludgers in government will always make me go more troppo.

And, unlike Eric Schmidt, I didn’t need to be called Emperor Palpatine to scare people. Plain old “Rupe” works just fine to give most people the shakes.

What Murdoch wrote: We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame.

My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever–limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us.

Translation: Please try to ignore the salient fact that it was actually Rupert Murdoch–me!–who has been loudly clanging the bell of late about how Google is laying waste to journalism, much as Sean Hannity did to that poor Alan Colmes nightly for a dozen years.

Also, please ignore that I am saying my message is just the opposite, because–really–I hate government more than I hate Google, so this makes perfect sense if you really think about it.

But don’t think about it, mate!

Murdoch wrote: From the beginning, newspapers have prospered for one reason: The trust that comes from representing their readers’ interests and giving them the news that’s important to them. That means covering the communities where they live, exposing government or business corruption, and standing up to the rich and powerful.

Does this mean we are all going to succeed? Of course not. Some newspapers and news organizations will not adapt to the digital realities of our day–and they will fail. We should not blame technology for these failures. The future of journalism belongs to the bold, and the companies that prosper will be those that find new and better ways to meet the needs of their viewers, listeners, and readers.

Translation: Teri: Cue the speech about what journalism means for the little people! But also make sure we get in how News Corp. gets all this digital hoo-ha too and how we are not going to let those pointy-heads of Silicon Valley think we are not ready to rumble!

What Murdoch wrote: First, media companies need to give people the news they want. I can’t tell you how many papers I have visited where they have a wall of journalism prizes–and a rapidly declining circulation. This tells me the editors are producing news for themselves–instead of news that is relevant to their customers. A news organization’s most important asset is the trust it has with its readers, a bond that reflects the readers’ confidence that editors are looking out for their needs and interests.

Translation: There was a trophy cabinet and award wall just like that at The Wall Street Journal before I bought it. I ate it it for breakfast.

What Murdoch wrote: At News Corp., we have been working for two years on a project that would use a portion of our broadcast spectrum to bring our TV offerings–and maybe even our newspaper content–to mobile devices. Today’s news consumers do not want to be chained to a box in their homes or offices to get their favorite news and entertainment–and our plan includes the needs of the next wave of TV viewing by going mobile.

The same is true with newspapers. More and more, our readers are using different technologies to access our papers during different parts of the day. For example, they might read some of their Wall Street Journal on their BlackBerries while commuting into the office, read it on the computer when they arrive, and read it on a larger and clearer e-reader wherever they may be.

Translation: Teri: Tell Jon Miller to get on a plane stat and start chit-chatting with those Asian manufacturers asap. I am not going to let Amazon (AMZN) head Jeff Bezos guffaw me into oblivion with his Kindle or have “American Idol” get hijacked by Apple (AAPL) or have those Google (GOOG) twins shine me on, even as they are developing some magic mobile phone.

What Murdoch wrote: My second point follows from my first: Quality content is not free. In the future, good journalism will depend on the ability of a news organization to attract customers by providing news and information they are willing to pay for.

That’s not going to change, even in a boom. The reason is that the old model was founded on quasimonopolies, such as classified advertising, which has been decimated by new and cheaper competitors such as Craigslist, Monster.com, and so on.

Translation: My second point follows from the first: We can’t charge for milk when we have been giving away the cow for free.

And, frankly, the old media have been lending out Bessie to every Web site that comes looking for a gallon, free of charge, in abject fear that no one likes milk anymore.

In the good old days, when we were the only beverage around–I like to call it a “quasiMOOnopoly”–we could set any price we wanted.

Now, unfortunately, everybody’s got milk.

What Murdoch wrote: In the new business model, we will be charging consumers for the news we provide on our Internet sites. The critics say people won’t pay. I believe they will, but only if we give them something of good and useful value. Our customers are smart enough to know that you don’t get something for nothing.

Translation: People will pay, once we de-index our sites from Google and they can’t get their daily dose of the New York Post’s Page Six for free. Where else will they get the latest online tidbits on the Tiger Woods scandal, for example?

Okay, from everywhere. But Page Six names at least 46 percent more mistresses than TMZ, and that’s worth something.

What Murdoch wrote: That goes for some of our friends online too. And yet there are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production. Some rewrite, at times without attribution, the news stories of expensive and distinguished journalists who invested days, weeks or even months in their stories–all under the tattered veil of “fair use.”

Right now, content creators bear all the costs, while aggregators enjoy many of the benefits. In the long term, this is untenable. We are open to different pay models. But the principle is clear: To paraphrase a famous economist, there’s no such thing as a free news story, and we are going to ensure that we get a fair but modest price for the value we provide.

Translation: By “friends,” I mean “sworn enemies,” also known as “Google.” (Until it meets with me to do a deal and then it is “friends” again.)

By “tattered veil of ‘fair use,’” I mean “the law I am going to get gutted by my 1,473 lobbyists in Washington, D.C.”

By “to be impolite, it’s theft,” I mean “to be impolite, it’s theft by Larry and Sergey.” (Until they meet with me to do a deal and fork over the moolah, and then it will be a “business arrangement.”)

By “there’s no such thing as a free news story,” I mean “I hope to trick those Google-obsessed Bing boys at Microsoft (MSFT) into paying me that boatload of money they aren’t sending Carol Bartz of Yahoo (YHOO).”

What Murdoch wrote: Finally, a few words about government. In the last two or three decades, we have seen the emergence of new platforms and opportunities that no one could have predicted–from social networking sites and iPhones and BlackBerries, to Internet sites for newspapers, radio and television. And we are only at the beginning.

These developments mean increased competition, and that is good for consumers. But just as businesses are adapting to new realities, the government needs to adapt too. In this new and more globally competitive news world, restricting cross-ownership between television and newspapers makes as little sense as would banning newspapers from having Web sites.

Translation: Oh, I do not like Silicon Valley, but I dislike government even more!

And now that Google is its bogeyman instead of me, I really hope to finally be able to gut all those annoying cross-ownership rules that prevented me from owning the entire media landscape of every major city in America.

This must be done immediately, because those icons on people’s cellphones–especially that dangerous iFart app–are poised for attack!

What Murdoch wrote: In my view, the growing drumbeat for government assistance for newspapers is as alarming as overregulation. One idea gaining in popularity is providing taxpayer funds for journalists. Or giving newspapers “nonprofit” status–in exchange, of course, for papers giving up their right to endorse political candidates. The most damning problem with government “help” is what we saw with the bailout of the U.S. auto industry: Help props up those who are producing things that customers do not want.

The prospect of the U.S. government becoming directly involved in commercial journalism ought to be chilling for anyone who cares about freedom of speech. The Founding Fathers knew that the key to independence was to allow enterprises to prosper and serve as a counterweight to government power. It is precisely because newspapers make profits and do not depend on the government for their livelihood that they have the resources and wherewithal to hold the government accountable.

Translation: You bailin’ out me? You bailin’ out me? You bailin’ out me? Then who the hell else are you bailin’ out? You bailin’ out me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the %*#! do you think you’re bailin’ out?”

What Murdoch wrote: When the representatives of 13 former British colonies established a new order for the ages, they built it on a sturdy foundation: a free and informed citizenry. They understood that an informed citizenry requires news that is independent from government. That is one reason they put the First Amendment first.

Translation: Teri: Please insert the clarion cry of the First Amendment here, as it always stirs the heartstrings.

What Murdoch wrote: Our modern world is faster moving and far more complex than theirs. But the basic truth remains: To make informed decisions, free men and women require honest and reliable news about events affecting their countries and their lives. Whether the newspaper of the future is delivered with electrons or dead trees is ultimately not that important. What is most important is that the news industry remains free, independent–and competitive.

Translation: Believe me, if we could push a button and get rid of the whole Internet, News Corp. and Time Warner (TWX) and Viacom (VIA) and CBS (CBS) and the whole lot of us old media players would.

Barring that, whether the newspaper of the future is delivered with electrons or dead trees is ultimately not that important.

What is most important is that the news industry shake down big piles of dough from those Silicon Valley moneybags–whether they be Google or that Mark Zuckerberg kid, whenever Facebook goes public, or those Twitter dudes (if they figure out a way to make any money outside of fund raising)–in order to remain free, independent–and competitive.

It is, after all, the American way.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Despite the little-movie-that-could, “Slumdog Millionaire,” sweeping the Oscars on Sunday night, it was well-nigh impossible to find a really good online video of the amazing Bollywood-style dance routine done during the closing credits to the also award-winning song, “Jai Ho!”

(Even the Pussycat Dolls have covered the song, which loosely translates to “Victory.”)

Unfortunately, the A.R. Rahman tune (two well-deserved Oscars for him!) in the catchy song-and-dance number seemed to be subject to takedowns all over the Web just when it probably was a good time to put it out and generate even more box office buzz for “Slumdog.”

Why? Well, as you can see below from the video mashup on Dailymotion that I finally found, it perfectly communicates the infectious mood of the movie:

The increasingly entertaining online content site, The Daily Beast, edited by Tina Brown, is getting very good at putting together juicy collections.

Besides one on “Seven Great Talk-Show Trainwrecks” recently, it has cued up a nice group of videos of past Oscar speeches in anticipation of the 81st annual awards show this weekend, analyzing what works and what does not.

The piece, by Dale Hrabi, includes a range of stars in action and inaction, with some good tips for those who are about to receive the hallowed little golden naked man.

It boils down to: Shut up and show some humility (neither of which is a Hollywood character trait).

Here are my two faves, one a do (Audrey Hepburn in 1954 with a classy and short thank you for Best Actress in “Roman Holiday”) and, of course, a big don’t (“Sacheen Littlefeather,” actually named Maria Cruz, not accepting the Oscar in 1973 for Marlon Brando for Best Actor in “The Godfather”).

Audrey Hepburn:

Sacheen Littlefeather:

Last night, I was the master of ceremonies, as I have been for several years, at the laudable annual Astia Awards Dinner, which celebrated venture capital firms that support women-led companies.

And VC Tim Draper really went above and beyond in showing–quite literally–his support for his female entrepreneurs.

The San Francisco-based nonprofit does work to accelerate funding and growth of early-stage women-led businesses in life sciences, high technology and clean technology, with chapters in Silicon Valley, London and New York.

The NVCA member firms honored at the show, which is sponsored by Deloitte and Fenwick & West, by Astia for making the most investments in companies with a woman CEO were Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest Partners, Prolog Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.

In addition, Allan Will, founding managing director of Split Rock Partners, received the Deloitte Leadership in Mentoring Award for encouraging female CEOs in technology-based fields.

Other award winners this year included: Anu Acharya, founder and CEO of Ocimum Biosolutions, who got the Life Science Innovator Award; Diane Greene, founder of VMware, who was awarded the Technology Innovator Award; and Pam Marrone, founder and CEO of Marrone Organic Innovations, who received the Clean Tech Innovator Award.

But it was Draper who stole the show, held at the de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

He could not attend, but made his presence known by doing a video in which Draper sings very badly, but with incredible enthusiasm.

But before he starts crooning, Draper takes off an article of clothing for every woman-led company he funded.

Let’s just say, while he should be proud of his investments in women CEOs, it would have gotten very dicey if DFJ had done just one more.

But see for yourself–or, more correctly, see a lot of Tim Draper, in this video:

One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6).

So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.

A gadget freak, as well as an entertainment mogul, Sonnenfeld was very entertaining and insightful about Hollywood’s uncomfortable relationship with technology in his interview with Walt Mossberg in 2006 at D4 (and which you can find here in photos and video).

Backstage at the Emmy Award show, which annually fetes the television industry, Sonnenfeld–who always tries to get Walt and me to ask outrageous questions of speakers at the conference in exchange for walk-ons on his shows and movies (so far, we have not bitten, although he has gotten off some good ones as an audience member in the Q&A part of the interviews)–gave a typically saucy interview to the press about his win.

And, no surprise, Sonnenfeld did manage to deliver one perfect geeky quip, as the music cue started to cut off his speech on Sunday night, which I doubt the glam crowd there got, but was not lost on me:

“Love TV and fear the Internet.”

While it is not yet clear exactly what kind of business case study Facebook will turn out to be in the end–a raging success or a raging something else entirely–that has not stopped Harvard from feting the hot and hyped social-networking site.

That would be the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California, which will bestow upon Facebook its 30th Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award on June 17 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport.

Apparently, the glamour never stops for CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg, who will be at the event, leading the crowd “through Facebook’s remarkable journey.”

Well, that’s all BoomTown needed to hear, immediately ponying up the $225 for a seat for non-members (although we briefly contemplated the $10,000 “Centennial” table for six, which includes a private reception and preferred seating).

While neither Zuckerberg nor I have the fancy degrees–he dropped out of Harvard as an undergrad and I did not have a prayer of getting in in the first place–Facebook’s leadership is chock full of Harvard graduates.

(Much to the chagrin, I might add, of some of Facebook’s less collegiately endowed types, who sometimes grumble to me about the tony school’s influence there, much in the same way some at Google complain about MIT and Stanford.)

In any case, COO Sheryl Sandberg must have scored 800s on her SATs (BoomTown: a decent 720 in English and a less-impressive 640 in math, as near as I can remember)!

According to Facebook’s Web site, she “holds a master’s degree in business administration with highest distinction from the Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in economics from Harvard University.”

Meanwhile, new PR honcho Elliot Schrage “has been a contributor to the Harvard Business Review…holds a bachelors degree from Harvard College, a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.”

And let’s not leave out CFO Gideon Yu, who “holds a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School,” while VP of Product Management Matt Cohler’s “writings on the start-up economy have been published in Harvard Business Review.”

Here’s hoping some of this Harvard brain power rubs off on me over dinner!

And, using any excuse to post two video highlight reels from our recent sixth D: All Things Digital conference, here’s Zuckerberg and Sandberg in action, somehow withstanding my withering questions last week:

Part One

Part Two

The judgment is believed to be the largest anti-spam award to date. Not that it really matters, because MySpace (NWS) is unlikely to collect it. Wallace–who was by some estimates responsible for 80% of the spam on the Net back in his heyday–has rarely paid the judgments against him. Moreover, he has a bad habit of disappearing at the first sign of legal trouble.

And that appears to be exactly what he’s done here. Because the $230 million award given MySpace in this case is a default judgment meted out after Wallace failed to appear in court. “It is … a defendant’s responsibility to respond to discovery, obey court orders and avoid dilatory tactics,” the court wrote in its order. “Taking all of the above factors into account, a default is appropriate. The court finds that Wallace’s noncompliance is due to willfulness, fault or bad faith. … Wallace has had every opportunity to avoid the sanction of default. (He) has never provided any explanation for his behavior to the court.”