Hollywood media snack

♦ David Poland of Movie City News takes 1,400 words to explain why his column The Hot Button is going down to three days a week. It's all about the proliferation of competitive websites and blogs since he began writing about Hollywood online eight years ago. Sample:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming to have invented the internet, columns, daily columns, or news aggregation. God knows I didn't invent or encourage The Blog. The Hot Button, which I started pitched to Traditional Media five years before it came to exist online, was always meant to be a combination of Army Archerd, Jimmy Breslin, and the Wall Street Journal's money analysis. Movie City News started as "Drudge for movies" and has been a work-in-progress since Day One, as we learn our strengths and limitations.

But back to the bubble… it's driving me out of my fucking mind.

I don't mind competition. Sometimes it brings out my best. Sometimes it brings out my worst. But longevity, which really started kicking in around year five of THB and perhaps not coincidentally, with the launch of MCN, now allows me to look back at those who came to win the day and who left quietly. Their failures are filled with lessons. And the fantasy of the magical internet slingshot to deep pocket fortunes for honest people who do good work is one of the illusions that's been shattered. But still, MCN remains one of the successful true indies in the field.

♦ Nikki Finke says at Deadline Hollywood Daily that journalist John Connolly will team with Vanity Fair writer Bryan Burrough for an — quote — "explosive" Anthony Pellicano exposé in the magazine's June issue. Connolly also tells Finke he now has a publisher for his Pellicano biography The Sin Eater: Simon & Schuster's Atria imprint.

♦ Gossip blogger Mario Lavandeira, better known as Perez Hilton, was featured in a recent Los Angeles Times Social Climes column. He's going big-time.

He's like US Weekly, the Star, the Enquirer and Life & Style all rolled into one sweet yet snarky, sagacious yet salacious gay man...He still does his website for fun, but with about 600,000 hits daily, it is now his day job, and doubles as a party-invitation and swag magnet...Now he's on E! News, has a reality show in development called "Gossip Queen," a book deal and a regular stalker.