• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, June 16, 2010

Is Vanity Fair -- host of the hottest Oscar night party -- really just an event planning business with a publishing business on the side? So suggests Rachelle Hruska, Founder and Editor in Chief of local party and event guide GuestOfAGuest.com -- though she actually credited the thought to someone else. Still, the question hits at the financial troubles facing so many publishers, today.

Lockhart Steele, Founder of local blog publisher Curbed.com, admitted that he recently scored a sponsorship deal with Patron tequila thanks to his ability to bolster the deal with a physical event. Not happy with the implications, Michael Wolff said: “There’s a different between being in the party business and being in the publishing business." The founder of Newser -- and longtime Vanity Fair contributor -- would most likely define the glossy as a publisher.

In other news, Richard Gingras, CEO of Salon Media, insists that Twitter shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentense as Facebook when it comes to generating social buzz, today. In effect, he said the microblogging service doesn't drive traffic or engagement, by his own measurement.