Includes bibliographical references.

Blogs make the news -- How to turn nothing into something in three way-too easy steps -- Blogs as a business : a brief overview -- Tactic #1: bloggers are poor, help pay their bills -- Tactic #2: tell them what they want to hear -- Tactic #3: give them what spreads, not what's good -- Tactic # 4: help them trick their readers -- Tactic #5: sell them something they can sell (exploit the one off problem) -- Tactic #6: make it all about the headline -- Tactic #7: kill 'em with pageview kindness -- Tactic #8: use the technology against itself -- Tactic #9: just make stuff up (everyone else is doing it) -- The monster attacks : what blogs mean -- Irin carmon, the daily show, and me: the perfect storm of how toxic blogging can be -- There are others : the manipulator hall of fame -- Cute but evil : online entertainment tactics that drug you & i -- The link economy : the leveraged illusion of sourcing -- Extortion via the web : facing the online shakedown -- The iterative hustle : online journalism's bogus philosophy -- The myth of corrections -- Cheering on our own deception -- The dark side of snark : when internet humor attacks -- The 21st century degradation ceremony : blogs as machines of hatred and punishment -- Welcome to unreality -- How to read a blog : an update on account of all the lies -- Conclusion.

An influential media strategist reveals how blogs are controlling the news in the digital age and exposes the ways in which today's marketers are manufacturing news stories, affecting stock prices, and shaping elections.