Mediaite Managing Editor Colby Hall joined Shepard Smith on Studio B to discuss the ongoing intrigue surrounding Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks story. What fascinated Shep was that this story did not break along traditional party lines, and Hall agreed, noting that since the extremes of both sides of the political spectrum were ultimately in favor of transparency, it is hard to determine whether Assange will ultimately be viewed as a hero or a villain.

I’ll be honest—each month, as we see record numbers at our young sites, I worry. I fear that the next month can’t possibly rival the previous one, that it will be nearly impossible to beat those numbers in the near future. After all, our staffs are about as lean as they get (some sites have just 2 employees), we don’t have a corporate entity or venture capital firm behind us, and we have already vastly exceeded any and all expectations. Yet here we are again.

I am thrilled to announce that Mark Joyella, a five-time Emmy winning reporter joins Mediaite today as the new TV Editor. Mark has worked as a reporter and anchor at television stations across the country including Miami and New York and has been honored by the Associated Press, and the Radio-Television News Directors’ Association.

Mediaite Managing Editor Colby Hall joined Vinnie Politan‘s nightly panel on Headline News’ Prime News this week for a rapidfire round of pop culture scrutiny. On the menu was the future of both Brett Favre and Lindsay Lohan, the wisdom of getting a tattoo, and crime caught on tape.

Today on Studio B, Mediaite’s own Colby Hall stopped by to discuss some of the biggest media stories of the week; namely President Obama’s appearance on The Daily Show and Joy Behar’s choice words for Sharron Angle. The two men seemed to agree on a number of subjects, never moreso than at the end of the segment, where they both felt that everyone is benefitting Behar’s comments, be it Angle, The View, or even Fox News and our little site here.

Mediaite managing editor Colby Hall joined New York’s WPIX 11 News reporter Jodi Applegate to give his take on the Juan Williams/NPR firing-turned-media-war yesterday. While the controversy has stirred many emotions, if it can get Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly to agree on something, Hall suggests, maybe it isn’t all bad.

This week marks the one year anniversary of the launch of Mediaite, and what a year it has been. As Dan Abrams notes, predictions of Mediaite’s doom were greatly exaggerated, and as Mediaite columnist and White House reporter from Day One, I have viewed the site’s successful first year from a unique perch. When Rachel Sklar pitched the site to me, I have to confess I was a little bit skeptical, but it didn’t take long for me to see that she and Dan were on to something.

It is hard to believe it’s been a full year since our newbie website with the awkward-sounding name was welcomed to the blogosphere with accolades such as “sounds…like something you’d give to a toddler suffering diarrhea,” or “no one really cares about the business and personalities behind the media,” or my personal favorite, “Mediaite feels a bit doomed.” Ah, yes — that honeymoon period was so sweet. We all love to curl up with the scrapbook and reminisce about the early days.

On Thursday night, Jon Stewart tried to cover every single major news story of the week and got derailed by CNN’s Roland Martin and his amazing ascot ties. He isn’t the first to become enthralled by the commentator’s posh style, but Martin put together a nice compilation of his public ascot appearances for Stewart to drool over, anyway, and now we know why: Martin is in talks to design his own line of ascots for public consumption.

No, you are not seeing things. The Mediaite homepage now features a slightly different — and we feel, greatly improved — layout and design. It has been nine months since we launched, and in keeping in spirit with that annual rite of passage known as spring cleaning, we thought the time was right for a little bit of tidying. Join me, won’t you, as we walk through some of the changes.

Today’s results of Keith Olbermann‘s “Worst Person in the World” competition saw his arch-rival Bill O’Reilly take home the gold, again, for his reprimand of Senator Tom Coburn, where he argued that no one on Fox News ever said that under Obamacare not having insurance could lead to jail time. Except all the evidence Olbermann presented was from last fall, when jail time actually was considered as a potential punishment.

Oh what a month of March we had! And no, we aren’t talking about that March Madness nor how we finally remembered the proper order of the lamb and lion weather metaphor. Nope, March was great for us because again Mediaite had record breaking traffic.

Finally, an objective resource to solve life’s greatest debates on who are the most hyped, underrated or legendary teams, players and executives of all time. Hello, SportsGrid! Mediaite founder Dan Abrams will be launching his sports-themed website in late April. The site takes Mediaite’s Power Grid and applies it to the world of sports, covering professional leagues, collegiate sports, and sports media using a bulked-up version of Mediaite’s proprietary algorithm.

At 3pmET Mediaite’s own Managing Editor Colby Hall will be appearing with intrepid Washington, D.C. reporter Tommy Christopher on The Ed Morrissey Show with the noted Hot Air blogger. We will discuss the Mediaite Top 50, as well as talk about the top stories of the year, and the innovative first year of Mediaite.

Since the mid-90s, I have used the same exact email address domain — aught.com. It’s turned out to be a better conversation starter than I could have ever imagined (or wished for.) But through countless jobs (and career turns), my little domain has been more consistent than nearly any other part of my professional life. Here’s how I ended up with aught.com…

Over at Webdesigner Depot, Angela West has put together an excellent list of 30 of the most controversial magazine covers of all time. A) we wish we had thought of it first, and B) we urge our readers to check it out.

Keith Olbermann awarded the gold last night during his “Worst Persons” segment to Glenn Beck, again, the silver to Republican Sen. John Cornyn and the bronze to Mediaite.

But there’s much more to the story. Here’s how we got to this point.

Welcome to the fun-filled world of a start-up! For the past four weeks, we’ve taken to comparing the site to a baby: Don’t leave it alone, don’t expect much sleep, you never know what it’ll burp up. (Wordpress! How you bedevil us!). Though it’s certainly forced us to stretch in ways we weren’t expecting, we’ve enjoyed the past month — enough to look forward to sticking around for a while (sorry, Brain Trust).

Welcome to Mediaite – the place for news and opinion on TV, print, and online media. Why did I launch this site and what is my role? Good questions! Indulge me…