Jon Stewart squares off against Mike Wallace. It gets heated.

Jennifer Preston assembles the evidence that one or more users faked identities on Twitter to make Rep. Anthony Weiner look bad. To what end? It is still unclear, but if they bore him ill will, they are probably pretty happy at the moment:

At least three months before the revelation that former Representative Anthony D. Weiner was sending lewd messages and photos to women online, a small group of self-described conservatives was monitoring his exchanges with women on Twitter. Now there is evidence that one or more people created two false identities on Twitter in order to collect information to use against him.

Mildly related: I really appreciated Dan Savage’s epic rant about the hypocrisy surrounding the Anthony Weiner story on this week’s episode of “Savage Love.” Here’s a direct link to the audio file. The rant is right at the beginning.

The New York Times has a rare look at Amanda Hocking, the 26-year old literary phenomenon who’s already made millions by self-publishing her books on Amazon.

[Side note: I’m usually a fan of the work of photographer Ben Innes, but that is not a flattering photo of Hocking.]

Read this awhile back, but loved it. James Surowiecki explains why the internet action has lost its excitement:

Why did auctions, in a matter of years, go from world-shaking innovation to seeming curio? To begin with, the experience of auctions changed over time, generally in ways that made them less appealing to both buyers and sellers. Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, which consults for ecommerce companies, points to the advent of sniping—the practice of placing winning bids at the last second—as something that has alienated ordinary shoppers. “New bidders don’t understand or expect sniping, so when it happens, you see people leave in frustration,” he says. It’s not that sniping is illicit—depending on the kind of auction, bidding as late as possible often makes sense. But sniping has stripped auctions of much of their entertainment value. What fun is it to wait for seven days, only to be outbid at the last second, with no chance of competing?

When iTunes Match was first announced as part of Apple’s iCloud initiative, many thought that the benefit to consumers would be obvious. But Rob Sevier, co-owner of indie label Numero Group, doesn’t see it that way:

The company also prides itself on making “cultural artifacts,” replete with extensive liner notes, lyrics, album art, and more. For Numero in particular, iCloud doesn’t offer any tangible benefits. “We’d rather the CD, or better yet the LP, be the backup, not iCloud,” he said.

But, there are bigger issues that could have serious repercussions for artists and labels, especially independent ones. “We could have quietly opted out and not said anything,” Sevier said. “We don’t think most of the people that read our blog really care much about the finer details of copyrights. But we know a number of other people in the industry who might go for this without thinking though all these other issues.”