America’s favorite philandering Austrian Governator swung by Reddit today to do an “Ask Me Anything” session. As of the writing of this post he was still going. So go ask him something if you’re so inclined.

Thus far, not a whole lot to life lessons have been imparted to the girly men boys of Reddit. We did, however, learn that Arnold knows to write in cursive–even if he isn’t particularly good at it. We also learned that Twins 2 is apparently a go, with Danny Devito and Eddie Murphy.

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Los Angeles users of the social networking/link-sharing site Reddit are planning a mass meetup this coming weekend in Griffith Park in honor of Global Reddit Meet-up Day. Given Reddit users’ notorious lack of real world social skills, the event promises lots of “awkward mingling” and “avoiding eye contact.” Your humble Fishie is going to be out of town this weekend, but if someone could please send us pics of the gathering we’d appreciate it. We would be fascinated to see who shows up at this thing, and if any of them are actually of the female persuasion.

Social aggregating site Reddit finished 2011 with some monster numbers. According to a post on the site’s blog, internal analytics show Reddit had more than two billion pageviews in the month of December alone. Here are the numbers to be exact.

1. 2,065,237,338 pageviews
2. 34,879,881 unique visitors
3. 12.97 pages / visit
4. 16 minutes average time on site
5. Over 100 million monthly pageviews per employee

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One of the most interesting things about Bill Bratton going to London to advise the British government on policing their post-riot societal strife, is that the former LAPD chief now has a huge international media contingent hanging on his every word. He’s now known around the world as the “US Supercop.” Yesterday, he used his Supercop powers for the forces of good. Bratton advised his new international following that shutting down social media in crisis situations is not justifiable–arguing it could hurt “good people.”

From Reuters:

“You have the potential to throw the whole community into even more critical shock,” he told a British parliamentary committee, referring to his own experiences of trying to contact family in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

He said social networking also helped the authorities warn people about where disturbances were occurring, while the police themselves often relied on the likes of Blackberry.

“There’s no denying in policing … that we are attempting to play catch up with (technology’s) impact,” he said.

We would have preferred Bratton to take a more principled stand on social media shutdowns, rather than a pragmatic one. But with the Occupy Wall Street movement spreading, we’re just glad to see America’s preeminent police figure tell the world that Hosni Mubarak-style crackdowns are not an acceptable form of policing.

The LA Times has a story today about Specific Media’s attempts to lauch a Myspace comeback tour–by using part-owner Justin Timerlake‘s cache to rebrand the site as a music destination.

Good luck with that.

As it happens, the girlfriend and I were trolling Myspace yesterday, laughing at how several of our exes were still in our “top friends.” We both decided that since our profiles were still public, we should probably fix that. It turns out, that was impossible. The function to change your top friends either doesn’t exist, or is so needlessly convoluted we couldn’t find it. We’re both stuck with our exes online for all eternity. The various News Corp. redesigns are terrible and unnavigable. For instance there doesn’t appear to be a button to bring you from a friend’s page back to your own home page.

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Greetings loyal Fishbowl readers. We have a pair of tickets to give away for the Oct. 7 showing of Theresa Rebeck‘s Poor Behavior at the Mark Taper Forum. The show starts at 8 and stars Johanna Day, Sharon Lawrence, Reg Rogers and Christopher Evan Welch.

The first person to email us with the subject header “Poor Behavior” gets the tickets. We’ll make sure they’re waiting for you at will call. All you aspiring theater critics out there, this one is especially for you. So email us right away. For FishbowlLA readers who want to check out the show but aren’t quick enough to win the giveaway, you can get discounted tickets here.

More info on the show here. Read the always reliable Steven Leigh Morris‘ take on the show in the LA Weekly here. Legal mumbo jumbo after the jump:

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Southern California newsrooms have been hit with yet more brutal cuts in recent months. But as editorial job vacancies shrink, social media gigs are on the rise, reports the LA Times.

No one knows exactly how many social media jobs exist, but a quick scan of online recruitment sites shows a bounty of businesses looking to hire.

“On any given week, we may see hundreds of new social media jobs posted,” said Kathy O’Reilly, director of social media relations for job recruitment site Monster.

The number of social media-related jobs on Monster has surged 75% over the last year, O’Reilly said. About 155 positions are available a month, up from an average of 88 a month a year ago.

As the Times notes, Facebook has 800 million users. Twitter has 200 million. That’s where the eyeballs are these days. Which means that’s where the jobs are going. It pains us to say this, but it looks like all you laid-off journos better put your social media hats on if you ever want health insurance again.

Slake has yet to throw a big bash for the release of its third issue “War and Peace”–we’re told that won’t happen until late August. But we got a sneak peek at the issue over the weekend at Slake‘s contributor party at their new office in Atwater Crossing. And we have to say, it looks really good–despite the fact your humble Fishie wasn’t in this one. And despite the fact he only has one eye to check it out right now. (Don’t ask, the answer is unpleasant.)

Haven’t read through the whole issue yet, but so far Hillel Aron‘s piece “The Last Freeway,” about the history of the 105, is the real standout. We also enjoyed Natasha Vargas-Cooper‘s dispatch from the Wisconsin labor war.

Looking forward to reading through the rest…when I get both eyes back.

Drive made its much-hyped debut over the weekend at the LA Film Festival and this Fishie was on site to check out premiere. (Unfortunately, he’s not much of a photographer, so the above LA Times interview will have to suffice for visual imagery in lieu of his horrible, poorly lit photos.) Interesting factoid: Ron Pearlman‘s head is as big in person as you might expect. And so are his teeth. Another pleasant surprise: Christina Hendricks‘ widely publicized “full figure” is not mere media hyperbole. It is, in fact, the real deal.

Aside from gawking at celebrities, this Fishie managed to glean a small bit of advice from Drive’s Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn: “If you want to make the kind of films I make in Hollywood, the trick is to stay quiet, smile and nod a lot.”

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Despite losing $165 million in the most recent quarter, Myspace apparently has some suitors. The Wall Street Journal reports that an anonymous “investor group” has taken the lead in negotiations to buy the company. Myspace’s current owner News Corp. is looking to maintain a 20% stake in the company as part of the proposed deal. Which is interesting, because it means News Corp. still believes in Myspace’s potential, just not in their own ability to run the company.

More on Myspace’s potential fate from the WSJ:

Some other suitors who have remained interested in recent weeks include private-equity firm Criterion Capital Partners LLC and social networks Tagged Inc. and myYearbook, according to other people familiar with the matter. Former Myspace chief executive Chris DeWolfe and music-video site Vevo, a joint venture between major record labels, had also been in the mix, some other people familiar with the matter said. Talks with Vevo have been stalled for several weeks, though a deal between the two was long considered unlikely, in part because the companies were discussing a complicated arrangement that could have entailed Vevo collaborating with Fox’s television arm to create new programming, these people said.

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