The anticipation for tonight’s Super Bowl commercials includes the lead up to the big screen premiere of Google’s Search Stories, released last year to flaunt the ease and accuracy of their search engine. In a minimalist, Apple-style ad a close-up of the ubiquitous search bar tells a story. Tonight’s spot will likely be in an identical style, though the subject may be new. But the beyond witty video team at Slate V had an idea of their own, and it breathes new life into Tiger Woods jokes.

New technology invariably brings, along with change, a torrent of anxiety about what that change will lookl ike. This anxiety can be more or less poetic. “Twitter is crack for media addicts,” wrote George Packer in a recent blogpost. The new anxiety – induced, primarily, by the new media – is the prosiest prose.

Last week, Mediaite asked you who was the top online editor of 2009. This time around, we’re recognizing sites which are too vast and ambitious in scope to describe in terms of the work of just one editor. You know the drill, loyal, smart, and attractive readers: below is a list of our nominees for the top site of 2009, including The Business Insider, Ars Technica, and Talking Points Memo. Vote for your favorite, or leave any deserving candidates you think we left out in the comments:

The year 2009 had many media bright spots, break-out stars, dominating networks and game-changing technologies. The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward. See the full list after the jump:

Verena von Pfetten is Air America’s Senior Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor, and the former Living Editor at the Huffington Post, which makes her my former colleague and great friend. (She is also Canadian, as well as the former Verena van der Woodsen to my Blair Sklardorf). Verena had the good fortune, or misfortune, depending on [...]

The Financial Times recently wrote about News Corp and MySpace, and describe a strange tactical decision regarding a social media program, saying “that News Corp. dragged its feet over implementing Ajax, a program that allows users to send a message, an e-mail or to post a comment on their friends’ pages without having to open a new browser window.” Yeah, no it isn’t.

Slate’s Jack Shafer explains what’s really behind the world’s fascination with the Tiger Woods‘ Sherman McCoy-like debacle. He also notes that the reason we can’t get enough of the Salahis is because “they do in maximum what we do in miniature every day.”

During tomorrow’s prime time address Barack Obama will announce his new strategy for Afghanistan. An event that, among other things, pretty much guarantees a change in the narrative. The narrative for the last little while has been what is Obama doing? Answer: not much. The narrative was so strong SNL even turned it into a skit. There are early signs however this may be about to change.

One of the very first things to be noted about Sarah Palin’s memoir Going Rogue was that, in very un-Beltway tradition, it did not have an index. While the move on Palin’s part was obviously an intentional one — whether to drive D.C. types crazy and force them to read the whole book, or merely further prove her status as an outsider, or both — the result has been that a number of news outlets have stepped up to fill in the blanks, with some very humorous results.

Slate’s Jack Shafer taps his contender for the ‘which President hated the press more’ parlor game that has been going on in media circles of late. If the goal of the White House was to white noise any other news reporting out of the news cycle with their ‘war’ on Fox than I think, at this point anyway, their decision must be considered an unmitigated success!

Before there was 30 Rock, there was Mean Girls, Tina Fey’s look at the vagaries of high school relationships – and Lindsey Lohan’s last competent performance. The above clip (produced by a much more energetic fan of the film than myself) isolates one of the most memorable lines: “Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! [...]

The online magazine Slate is known for its particular brand of counter-intuitive argument. Everything you thought you knew is wrong, and Slate’s often convincing stable of writers will show you the error of your ways, though sometimes, the knee-jerk contrarianism seems a bit predictable. Now, some of the site’s readers are using the Twitter tag #slatepitches to poke fun at the website’s editorial vision. And it’s hilarious.

With Fox News and the White House at each other’s throats, it’s tough to get a word in edgewise. Fox, with its typically boisterous hosts and collected anchors, seems to be guiding the conversation, but it’s the result of an echo chamber, according to Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek. “Respectable journalists” should stop appearing on the channel, he writes.

Slate.com chairman Jacob Weisberg’s thinks the biggest challenge Gawker’s now faces is to not morph “into the sort of journalism it often likes to ridicule.” However, we think the more likely scenario will be that the Times et al. are going to increasingly look (if not necessarily sound) like Gawker?

Slate’s Jack Shafer comparing the fate of Conde Nast to that of that other overreaching, reality-ignoring American powerhouse, General Motors. Next up: Graydon Carter and Anna Wintour fly to Washington in their private jets to beg for a bailout!

Imagine being a journalist and writing a piece about health care, in which you describe the plights of average Americans and their battles with insurance providers, only to have President Obama cite an anecdote you reported in a recent speech. Then imagine finding out that you were wrong, but only after the story had entered the national dialogue. Such is the story of Slate writer Timothy Noah.

Yesterday, the New York Observer took their turn in the age-old tradition of reporting on Matt Drudge‘s demise. Every so often some editor or reporter notices a new sliver of damning evidence, surely marking the end for the Drudge Report, and decides that this time it might just be enough to squash the seminal ring-wing news aggregator once and for all. But as a notable wordsmith once said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Slate’s Ben Sheffner read the “feel good story of the summer” in the New York Daily News — the tale of how ’90s rapper Roxanne Shanté got the slippery suits at Warner Music to pay for her $200,000 Ph.D. education — but he couldn’t just be happy about it. Instead, he had to pretend to be a journalist (he writes for a website!) and check out the facts, thereby disproving the entire article in the process.

A case of dog chases tail: Slate has refashioned it’s daily aggregation feature “Today’s Papers” because, well, newspapers have started delivering content at a faster, more consistent pace to keep up with their competition online. Woof. “One of the great conveniences and frustrations of the Web recently has been the rise of the news aggregator,” wrote Slate editor in chief David Plotz to eulogize his 14-year-old aggregation feature, now obsolete.

Slate’s put together another one of their video spoofs this time imaging how the moon landing might have been covered by today’s cablers. Answer: sounds a lot like how they covered Barack Obama‘s election. What doesn’t get mentioned, however, is how nicely “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” would fit into a Twitter.

The Washington Post salon scandal, first reported by Politico, has kicked off a response in the media chattering classes that just won’t die. Today’s installment comes from Ken Silverstein at Harper’s who points a finger right back at Politico, accusing the online powerhouse of being guilty of its own shady canoodling with politicians and the people with deep pockets who fund them! BREAKING: Reporters mingle with politicians and the people who pay the bills!

In a nod to Sally Struthers, the folks at Slate V have crafted a tongue-in-cheek commercial imploring viewers to sponsor poor newspaper journalists at “Buy One Anyway”