High Five to AllThingsD.com — Happy Birthday to Us

No presents but your presence, dear readers.
All Things Digital-feature

We’re Expanding: All Things Digital Would Like You to Meet All Things Reviewed

Here’s our first and most important promise: We won’t bore you with technobabble.

Viral Video: Gimme That Old-Timey Journalism

The story: “Man Says It’s Too Hot to Fish.” And it is! Score one for mainstream media.

AOL’s HuffPost Enters Crowded Online Arena With HuffPost Celebrity Site

The Huffington Post Media Group, AOL’s fast-moving content unit, is launching a celebrity site called HuffPost Celebrity today, as well as another called HuffPost Culture. HuffPost Celebrity, which ate AOL’s former celeb-focused site Popeater, is in a very crowded arena online, with competitors such as Yahoo’s omg!, Time Warner’s People magazine Web site, as well as AOL-owned TMZ.com.

Exclusive: AOL Fires Moviefone Editor Who Offered Fired Freelancers the Chance to Work for, Um, Free

Yesterday, AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group got into hot water after the top editor at its Moviefone unit sent a memo to freelancers it was in the midst of firing, offering them an opportunity to “contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system.” Today, sources said that exec–Moviefone Editor-in-Chief Patricia Chui–was fired by the company, which is in the midst of drastically rejiggering its stable of writers.

AOL-HuffPo Deal Officially Closes Today–More Big Media Hires Signal New Content Direction Under Arianna

AOL will officially close its $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post today, sources said, only one month after it was struck. To celebrate, the now-official content head Arianna Huffington will be poaching another clutch of big journalists to add to AOL’s new Huffington Post Media Group unit.

Steve Jobs Asks for Privacy–and He Deserves It This Time

There had been rumors bubbling up last week in Silicon Valley that Apple CEO Steve Jobs might be sick again, due to a non-appearance at a big event. Jobs confirmed that this morning in an email to his employees, in which he asked everyone to respect his privacy. This time, in his third major health-related bout, we probably should give it to him.

Yahoo Layoffs of 650 to 700 Employees Set for Tomorrow

Yahoo’s layoffs are set for tomorrow morning, with 650 to 700 to be let go, largely from its U.S. products unit. It’ll be a sad day in Sunnyvale.

Welcome to NetworkEffect!

Hi there, I’m Liz Gannes. My beat at All Things D is All Things Social, and you’ll be able to find my stories under the heading NetworkEffect, named after the idea that a community of users makes a service valuable for everyone who joins.

Meet the Yahoo Board: Something Old, Something New–But Will They Do Something?

With all the noisy swirl around Yahoo of late–from its executive turmoil to its flat growth to its dashed partnerships in Asia to its brash CEO–its board has been unusually quiet of late. Comatose, some might say. But with private equity firms, media companies, Web rivals, big shareholders, Wall Street and others all machinating about trying to grab all or some of the Internet giant, it will be interesting to see if its directors will shake themselves out of their typical comfort zone of inactivity to actually do their job. Thus, time for their moment in the BoomTown spotlight!

Macworld ’09: iWork ’09, iWork.com