Remember when the New York Observer had a tech section? It feels like so long ago, before Betabeat was edited by a fraud who uses the site to sell copies of his audiobook. That was a nice time, while it lasted.

Ken Kurson, editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, confirmed to Valleywag that he has hired Ryan Holiday, author of the book Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, as the editor-at-large of its tech blog, Betabeat. In a statement, printed in full below, Holiday described the website as a "client."