Morning DJs Fernando and Greg, who lost their previous gig in September when their station, Energy 92.7 (KNGY), changed ownership, are back on terrestrial radio. Starting Nov. 12, the duo can be heard on CBS affiliate Movin' 99.7 (KMVQ), weekdays from 5-9:30 a.m.

Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell had been the most recognizable voices on KNGY's gay-themed programming schedule since 2005. Last year they received the Fall Honors award from northern California chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and in 2007 they were named to OUT Magazine's Top 100 most influential people in gay culture.

TechCrunch took the time to point out Google's homepage today -- not because it's the third day in a row they're celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, but because there's a rare ad, front and center.

This is noteworthy because not only is Google's homepage spare -- there's a 28-word limit -- but they're continually fiddling with making it even emptier.

Apparently standards can be compromised when the tech world is talking about one of your own products. Google's advertising the new Droid phone from Motorola, which runs on its own Android software, and which was released today.

At least Google stuck to its guns in one regard -- even with the ad, the homepage checks in at 27 words.

Strip the concept of "quality journalism" down to its barest of bones, and you'll find something that informs readers and affects change. It's a pretty high bar that even the most entrenched and respected publications struggle to reach consistently.

Which is why TechCrunch deserves commendation.

Sure, it's just a blog. And sure, it's primarily built around items like comparing the iPhone to the Droid. But give founder Michael Arrington this much: when he sees something he doesn't like that falls under his sphere of influence, he goes after it.

We're referring specifically to the prevalence of advertising scams that prey on less-savvy users across social gaming networks on sites such as Facebook and MySpace. TechCrunch describes one scam as surreptitiously assigning costly monthly subscriptions to users who merely register to receive the results of an online IQ "test" they've taken. Another offers a free learning CD for a $10 shipping charge, then sends an entire set of CDs for which it charges $189.95, unless the set is returned (which, most often, it isn't, owing to the fact that users aren't aware of the extra fee).

Schemes like these lure users with offers of virtual currency in exchange for participation.

Social games are in TechCrunch's wheelhouse. Arrington -- a noted hothead who has himself been accused of questionable journalism practices -- was unequivocal about taking action. Instead of writing an editorial and leaving it at that, he went to the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco and challenged Offerpal founder CEO Anu Shukla (whose company is one of the leaders of this particular industry) on the concept, face to face, in a public forum. (See video of the exchange below.)

He wrote an article. He wrote another article. And another and another and another.

And, like the best journalism in any medium, it seems to be working.

Last week, Shukla was replaced; Offerpal's new CEO says that his company is shooting toward the straight and narrow.

Zynga CEO Mark Pinkus (whose company, wrote Arrington, is the "worst of the offenders") pledged to tamp down on such activity. To keep him honest, today TechCrunch posted a video clip from last year in which Pinkus admits to basing his company's business plan on scamming customers.

Best of all, Facebook itself -- which, said Arrington, while not active in the scams, enjoyed huge financial benefits from them and would have been hard-pressed to overlook their existence on its site -- has said it will step up enforcement of its anti-scam rules. MySpace made a similar statement.

While this sort of action deserves the highest degree of applause, there's one more barrier Arrington managed to cross with this particular crusade. He runs a blog. It's big and it's professional and it's well-respected, but in the landscape of American media, it's still "just" a blog, covering a fringe segment of society.

Today, based on Arrington's legwork, Time picked up the torch. Seems like people are paying attention.

Steve Jobs made the cover of FORTUNE as the "CEO of the Decade."

Ken Segall scored an interview with CultofMac.com.

Okay, Segall isn't quite as high-profile as Jobs, but, as an Apple employee, he was instrumental in some of the company's biggest decisions, the impact of which are still being felt years later.

For example, he wrote the "Think Different" campaign, which featured original thinkers through history (like Einstein, Gandhi and Bob Dylan) as the backdrop for Apple ads. The campaign ran for five years and won the first Emmy for a commercial.

He also named the iMac.

It was Apple's big follow up to the first "Think Different" push, and in the course of brainstorming what they'd call the new machine, Segall says he went back to Jobs three times with iMac -- the "i" ostensibly stood for "Internet," but could also register as "individual," "imaginative," and more, and could be used in front of any Apple product -- and was turned down twice before Jobs put it into production.

Perhaps Apple's devices would be exactly the same had Segall never worked there, but things like the iPod and iPhone would take on distinctly different characteristics were they named differently.

Read more from Segall at his blog.

William Shatner has already made his bones by offering dramatic renditions of Sarah Palin's tweets on the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" Recently, he turned his attention to one of Palin's biggest critics, former almost-son-in-law, Levi Johnston.

Johnston's tweeted response: "WELL DONE MY FRIEND...... WELL DONE !!!! I TIP MY HAT TO YOU, THE GREAT WILLIAM SHATNER, IF ANYONE, IM GLAD IT WAS YOU :) "

Problem was, the Twitter page from which the Tonight Show pulled Shatner's material was not, in fact, Johnston's, but that of an imposter. (Later in the day, the page's creator all but admitted that it was a hoax, and had been for some time -- despite the fact that Shatner's reading was just the latest in a long line of media attention it has received.)

O'Brien's response when he found out he'd been had: He brought Shatner back to read some of Johnston's legitimate posts.

Take 1

Take 2

At a panel on technology hosted by TIME today as part of its TIME 100 Roundable series, TechCrunch founder and editor (and past TIME 100 honoree) Michael Arrington said one of the technology trends that scares him the most these days is the amount of personal information that's being collected about people by private corporations.

Arrington: I'm worried about privacy issues. The companies out there gathering data on the stuff we do on Twitter, publicly scraping the stuff on Facebook, it's amazing how much data [they're collecting]. I'm worried it can be abused.... There are companies out there whose whole business is to gather as much information as possible, who our friends are, what we do....

Josh Quittner, TIME editor-at-large and panel moderator: So you'd like regulation around that?

Arrington: I like the way Europe does things, where the human being comes first, and they're very careful about how you store data.

The panel featured (from left) recent TIME 100 honorees Digg CEO Jay Adelson; Arrington; Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life; and Jeff Han, chief scientist and founder of Perceptive Pixel (and creator of the CNN Magic Wall). Quittner is at right.

Video of the panel will be posted to TIME.com.

The latest outfit to emerge with a YouTube channel: Will Farrel's comedy site Funny or Die, which, of course, already had its own channel, on its own Web site.

Transitioning to YouTube, of course, gives Funny or Die access to a much broader audience; as reported by Peter Kafka on Media Memo, it's keeping a measure of homepage exclusivity by premiering videos there first, before uploading them to YouTube.

What it also does is spur Ferrell to make an explanatory video (with some help, at the end, from Mark Wahlberg).

The judge overseeing the Google Books settlement has ruled that photographers and other visual artists may not join the suit as members of the plaintiff class due, in large part, to the fact that they filed too late.

The group, which includes the American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photographers Association, should have introduced their "motion to intervene" earlier, not when the suit is on the verge of being resolved, Judge Denny Chin said.

"The movants' request to intervene is untimely and the parties would be prejudiced if the movants were allowed to intervene now," Chin wrote. The case has been going on since 2005.

The decision also called attention to the implications if the artists were allowed to get involved now, when the parties are on the verge of nailing down the settlement.

"The parties to this litigation have been negotiating and renegotiating a complicated settlement agreement for several years," Chin wrote. "In the last two months, the parties have begun working with the Department of Justice to revise the agreement to attempt to avoid antitrust problems, and they are due to re-file their new settlement proposal on November 9, 2009.

"The proposed settlement... represents thousands of hours of discussion, compromise, and legal draftsmanship. Yet, the movants propose to intrude at the very end of this long process, and to add the question of millions of pictorial materials to the equation.

"Intervention could 'destroy [the parties'] settlement and send [] them bck to the drawing board,'" Chin wrote, citing a precendent.

Chin said that if the artists want to pursue grievances against Google, they can file their own suit.

McSweeney's has posted a preview online of its much anticipated newspaper demonstration project. The San Francisco Panorama, as they're calling it, is going will include a 112-page broadsheet, a 112-page magazine, a 116-page book section, a pocket-sized weekend guide, and three pull-out posters.

The newspaper, which goes on sale in San Francisco and around the country at the beginning of December, is a one-shot deal produced by the McSweeney's crew to demonstrate exactly what can be done in print.

"We think that the best chance for newspapers' survival is to do what the internet can't: namely, use and explore the large-paper format as thoroughly as possible," McSweeney's says on its Web site.

The paper will feature a piece by William Vollmann on gold-mining battles in Imperial County, a story from Afghanistan by J. Macolm Garcia about the recent elections, Jesse Nathan on the effects of unregulated marijuana farms in Mendocino County, as well as the Bay Bridge investigation produced in collaboration with the Public Press and Spot.us.

The 150 writers, artists, and photographers who contributed include both local luminaries and national bold-face names. Among them: Andrew Sean Greer, Nicholson Baker, Roddy Doyle, Art Spiegelman, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, James Franco, Stephen Elliott, Jon Mooallem, Junot Diaz, Peter Orner, and Michelle Tea.

More pix and the background to the project, after the jump.

All images: McSweeneys

continued...

It's not like Steve Jobs needed the ego boost, but FORTUNE has named him the "CEO of the decade" and placed him on the cover -- and all over the insides -- of its latest issue.

From the magazine:

The past decade in business belongs to Jobs. What makes that simple statement even more remarkable is that barely a year ago it seemed likely that any review of his accomplishments would be valedictory. But by deeds and accounts, Jobs is back ... [He] is once again commanding a 34,000-strong corporate army that is as powerful, awe-inspiring, creative, secretive, bullying, arrogant – and yes, profitable – as at any time since he and his chum Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976 ... In the past 10 years alone he has radically and lucratively reordered three markets – music, movies, and mobile telephones – and his impact on his original industry, computing, has only grown. Remaking any one business is a career-defining achievement for giants of any era.

FORTUNE's Web site offers a timeline of Jobs' hits and misses, as well as looks at how he "revolutionized" computing, music, movies and telecommunications.

There's also a photo gallery and a rundown of the top 10 moments in Jobs' career.

All in all, not a bad rendering for one of Silicon Valley's most iconoclastic leaders. (Especially considering that he beat out runners-up Larry Page and Sergey Brin for the honor.)